[Editors] MIT Research Digest, February 2007
Elizabeth Thomson
thomson at MIT.EDU
Thu Feb 1 13:23:58 EST 2007
MIT News Office
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
Phone: 617-253-2700
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www
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MIT Research Digest, February 2007
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For Immediate Release
THURSDAY, FEB. 1, 2007
Contact: Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office
Phone: 617-258-5402
Email: thomson at mit.edu
A monthly tip-sheet for journalists of recent research advances
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Latest research news: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/research.html
RSS -- research feed: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/mitresearch-rss.xml
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IN THIS ISSUE: Inspiration: Spider Silk * RNA History * RNA Today
Ethanol Analysis * Nanoengineered Concrete * Detecting Land Mines
Target: Breast Cancer * Toward Shrinking Tumors * Hot Rocks
Nanoparticles on a Mission * Autoimmune Disease * Wrinkled Skins
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INSPIRATION: SPIDER SILK
Creating artificial substances that are both stretchy and strong has
long been an elusive engineering goal. Inspired by spider silk, a
naturally occurring strong and stretchy substance, MIT researchers
have now devised a way to produce a material that begins to mimic
this combination of desirable properties. Such materials, known as
polymeric nanocomposites, could be used to strengthen and toughen
packaging materials and develop tear-resistant fabrics or biomedical
devices. Professor Gareth McKinley of the Department of Mechanical
Engineering and colleagues worked at MIT's Institute for Soldier
Nanotechnologies to develop a new method for effectively preparing
these materials. The research appears in the January issue of Nature
Materials. It was funded by the U.S. Army and by the NSF.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/nanocomposite.html
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
RNA HISTORY
Profound doubts were the frequent response when MIT biophysicist
Alexander Rich announced that two single-strand ribonucleic acid
(RNA) molecules could spontaneously align themselves to form a double
helix, just like those of their famous cousin, DNA. Many biologists
thought it impossible; the rest considered it unlikely. Today, 50
years later, it is abundantly clear that Rich--who made the discovery
with David R. Davies while both were working at the National
Institute of Mental Health--was onto something big. In fact, it
generated a paradigm shift in the science of biology. The discovery
changed how research is done at the molecular level and helped spawn
what has become the global biotechnology revolution. To mark the
anniversary, Rich was invited to write an article about the work in
the December 2006 issue of The Scientist. Likewise, Professor
Alexander Varshavsky of Caltech wrote an article for Cell that
appeared in the Dec. 29 issue.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/rna-history.html
PHOTO AVAILABLE
RNA TODAY
The last few years have been very good to ribonucleic acid (RNA).
Decades after DNA took biology by storm, RNA was considered little
more than a link in a chain--no doubt a necessary link, but one that,
by itself, had little to offer. But with the discoveries of RNA
interference and microRNAs, this meager molecule has been catapulted
to stardom as a major player in genomic activity. Now, a team of
scientists led by David Bartel, a professor in MIT's Department of
Biology, has discovered an entirely new class of RNA molecules.
Reporting in the journal Cell, the team describes identifying more
than 5,000 of these new molecules, termed 21U-RNAs, in the C. elegans
worm. These new RNAs are named after their distinctive features: Each
molecule contains 21 chemical building blocks (or nucleotides), and
each begins with the chemical uridine, represented by the letter U
(the only RNA nucleotide not also found on DNA). In addition, each of
the 5,000 different 21U-RNA molecules comes from one of two
chromosomal regions. Further, "we can predict where additional
21U-RNA genes might reside," says Bartel, who is also a member of the
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and a Howard Hughes
Medical Institute investigator. This research was supported by the
Prix Louis D from the Institut de France and the NIH.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/rna-whitehead.html
ETHANOL ANALYSIS
Controversy over the benefits of using corn-based ethanol in vehicles
has been fueled by studies showing that converting corn into ethanol
may use more fossil energy than the energy contained in the ethanol
produced. Now a new MIT analysis shows that the energy balance is
actually so close that several factors can easily change whether
ethanol ends up a net energy winner or loser. Regardless of the
energy balance, replacing gasoline with corn-based ethanol does
significantly reduce oil consumption because the biomass production
and conversion process requires little petroleum. And further MIT
analyses show that making ethanol from cellulosic sources such as
switchgrass has far greater potential to reduce fossil energy use and
greenhouse gas emissions. The study was conducted by Tiffany Groode,
a graduate student in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering,
supervised by John Heywood, a professor in the department.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/ethanol.html
NANOENGINEERED CONCRETE
While government leaders argue about the practicality of reducing
world emissions of carbon dioxide, scientists and engineers are
seeking ways to make it happen. One group of engineers at MIT decided
to focus its work on the nanostructure of concrete, the world's most
widely used material. The production of cement, the primary component
of concrete, accounts for 5 to 10 percent of the world's total carbon
dioxide emissions; the process is an important contributor to global
warming. In the January issue of the Journal of the Mechanics and
Physics of Solids, the team reports that the source of concrete's
strength and durability lies in the organization of its
nanoparticles. The discovery could one day lead to a major reduction
in carbon dioxide emissions during manufacturing. "If everything
depends on the organizational structure of the nanoparticles that
make up concrete, rather than on the material itself, we can
conceivably replace it with a material that has concrete's other
characteristics but does not release so much CO2 into the atmosphere
during manufacture," said Franz-Josef Ulm, a professor of civil and
environmental engineering. The research was funded in part by the
Lafarge Group.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/concrete.html
PHOTO AVAILABLE
DETECTING LAND MINES
Researchers at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory are developing a highly
pinpointed sound beam that can detect buried land mines from a safe
distance. The new beam will use sound to seek out land mines like a
bat uses sonar to hunt its prey. The researchers built a prototype
detector and tested it at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering
Laboratory Army Corps of Engineers land-mine facility in New
Hampshire. They were able to detect both metal and plastic mines but
said that the system will have to get a major boost in acoustic power
before minefield searchers can use it safely. Robert Haupt, a
technical staff member at Lincoln Lab, explores innovative ways to
find and reduce the large number of land mines abandoned in war-torn
countries. An estimated 26,000 people are killed or maimed every year
by 60 to 70 million undetected land mines in 70 countries. This work
is supported by Lincoln Laboratory's Line Funding and the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/land-mines-1220.html
PHOTO AVAILABLE
TARGET: BREAST CANCER
A breast cancer treatment based on MIT research originally intended
for detecting missiles is documented in a new book by Alan Fenn, an
MIT researcher and inventor of the technique. The book, "Breast
Cancer Treatment by Focused Microwave Thermotherapy" (Jones and
Bartlett Publishers, 2007), includes a discussion of promising
results from the latest clinical trials of the therapy. Treating
cancer with heat is not a new idea, but "researchers were having
trouble using it to treat tumors deep within the body," said Fenn.
Further, it's difficult to deliver the heat only to cancer cells
without overheating normal tissue. The microwaves in the new
technique heat--and kill--cells containing high amounts of water and
ions, or electrically charged atoms. Cancer cells typically have a
high content of both, while healthy breast tissue contains much less.
The outpatient procedure uses a single tiny needle probe to sense and
measure parameters during treatment. Side effects appear to be
minimal. The Air Force funded Fenn's original radar research at MIT
Lincoln Laboratory.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/breastcancer-book.html
DIAGRAM AVAILABLE
TOWARD SHRINKING TUMORS
Many cancers arise due to defects in genes that normally suppress
tumor growth. Now, for the first time, MIT researchers have shown
that re-activating one of those genes in mice can cause tumors to
shrink or disappear. The study offers evidence that the tumor
suppressor gene p53 is a promising target for human cancer drugs. "If
we can find drugs that restore p53 function in human tumors in which
this pathway is blocked, they may be effective cancer treatments,"
said David Kirsch of MIT's Center for Cancer Research (CCR) and
Harvard Medical School, one of the lead co-authors of the paper. The
study was published in the Jan. 24 online edition of Nature. It was
conducted in the laboratory of Tyler Jacks, director of the CCR, an
MIT professor of biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)
investigator. This research was funded by HHMI, the National Cancer
Institute, the American Italian Cancer Research Foundation and the
Leaf Fund.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/jacks.html
PHOTO AVAILABLE
HOT ROCKS
A comprehensive new MIT-led study of the potential for geothermal
energy within the United States has found that mining the huge
amounts of heat that reside as stored thermal energy in the Earth's
hard rock crust could supply a substantial portion of the electricity
the United States will need in the future, probably at competitive
prices and with minimal environmental impact. An 18-member panel led
by MIT prepared the 400-plus page study, titled "The Future of
Geothermal Energy." Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, it is
the first study in some 30 years to take a new look at geothermal, an
energy resource that has been largely ignored. Although geothermal
energy is produced commercially today and the United States is the
world's biggest producer, existing U.S. plants have focused on the
high-grade geothermal systems primarily located in isolated regions
of the west. This new study takes a more ambitious look at this
resource and evaluates its potential for much larger-scale
deployment. "We've determined that heat mining can be economical in
the short term, based on a global analysis of existing geothermal
systems, an assessment of the total U.S. resource and continuing
improvements in deep-drilling and reservoir stimulation technology,"
said panel head Jefferson Tester, an MIT professor of chemical
engineering.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/geothermal.html
PHOTO AVAILABLE
NANOPARTICLES ON A MISSION
On a quest to modernize cancer treatment and diagnosis, an MIT
professor and her colleagues have created new nanoparticles that
mimic blood platelets. The team wants to use these new
multifunctional particles to carry out different medical missions
inside the body, from imaging to drug delivery. After years of
research, "we still treat cancer with surgery, radiation and
chemotherapy," said Sangeeta Bhatia, an associate professor in MIT's
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the
Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. "People are
now starting to think more in terms of 'Fantastic Voyage,' that
sci-fi movie where they miniaturized a surgical team and injected it
into someone." In the current work, described in the Jan. 16 issue of
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Bhatia and
colleagues from the University of California at San Diego, the
University of California at Santa Barbara, and AntiCancer, Inc.,
report a novel "homing" nanoparticle that mimics blood platelets.
Platelets flow freely in the blood and act only when needed, by
keying in on injured blood vessels and accumulating there to form
clots. Similarly, these new nanoparticles key in on a unique feature
of tumor blood vessels. The research was supported by the NCI and the
NIH.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/bhatia.html
AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE
Autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes, lupus and rheumatoid
arthritis occur when the immune system fails to regulate itself. But
researchers have not known precisely where the molecular breakdowns
responsible for such failures occur. Now, scientists from MIT, the
Whitehead Institute and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have
identified a key set of genes that lie at the core of autoimmune
disease, findings that may help scientists develop new methods for
manipulating immune system activity. "This may shorten the path to
new therapies for autoimmune disease," said Whitehead member and MIT
professor of biology Richard Young, senior author on a paper that
appeared Jan. 21 online in Nature. "With this new list of genes, we
can now look for possible therapies with far greater precision." This
work was supported by a donation from E. Radutsky and by the Whitaker
Foundation and the NIH.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/immune.html
WRINKLED SKINS
Scientists, including one affiliated with MIT, have demonstrated a
new method for developing wrinkled hard skins on polymers using a
focused ion beam. The technique has potential use for biological
sensors and microfluidic devices, and it may offer new ways to build
custom-made cell templates for tissue engineering. The work, a
collaboration among researchers at Harvard University, Seoul National
University and MIT, was published in a recent issue of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers have
also filed for a U.S. patent covering the discovery. By controlling
the direction and intensity of the ion beam, the researchers
literally sculpted patterns on flat areas of polydimethylsiloxane, a
silicon-based organic polymer more commonly known as the primary
ingredient in Silly Putty. "This technique is a one-step process for
creating wrinkled skins," said Ashkan Vaziri, a research affiliate in
MIT's Biological Engineering Division and a lecturer and research
associate at Harvard. "The method is more robust compared with
traditional techniques. The patterns can be generated along desired
paths by simply controlling the relative movement of the ion beam and
polymeric substrate. It's almost like using an airbrush on fabric."
The research was supported in part by the Korea Research Foundation,
the Center for Advanced Materials Processing of the 21st Century
Frontier R&D Program, the ONR and Harvard Engineering and Applied
Sciences.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/wrinkles.html
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Elizabeth A. Thomson
Senior Science and Engineering Editor
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
News Office, Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
617-258-5402 (ph); 617-258-8762 (fax)
<thomson at mit.edu>
<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www>
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