[Editors] MIT Research Digest, October 2007

Fri Oct 12 12:12:05 EDT 2007

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MIT Research Digest, October 2007
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For Immediate Release
FRIDAY, OCT. 12, 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: Solar House * Neural Prosthetics * Airline Data 
Gene Delivery * Artificial Respiration * The Brain's Messengers
Martian Ice * Binocular Vision * Drug Effectiveness
Genetic Therapy *Space Tether * Genetics & Economics
Stars' Death-Dance * Cancer Prompt * Genetics & Height
Wheels of Evolution * Bone's Strength
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SOLAR HOUSE
A team of MIT students, faculty and volunteers has taken on the challenge of designing and building a house that relies entirely on solar energy to meet the electricity needs of a typical American family, from drying towels to cooking dinner. Being from MIT, they also took on the challenge of being the best: For the first time, MIT has an entry in the Department of Energy's annual Solar Decathlon--a village of 20 off-grid solar homes built by college students that is open to the public on the National Mall in Washington from Oct. 12 to Oct. 20. MIT's off-grid home is known as Solar7.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/solar7-tt1003.html

NEURAL PROSTHETICS
MIT researchers have developed a new algorithm to help create prosthetic devices that convert brain signals into action in patients who have been paralyzed or had limbs amputated. The technique, described in a paper published as the cover article in the October edition of the Journal of Neurophysiology, unifies seemingly disparate approaches taken by experimental groups that prototype these neural prosthetic devices in animals or humans. "The work represents an important advance in our understanding of how to construct algorithms in neural prosthetic devices for people who cannot move to act or speak," said Lakshminarayan "Ram" Srinivasan, lead author of the paper, a medical student in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and a postdoctoral researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital. This work was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/prosthetics-1002.html

AIRLINE DATA
MIT's Global Airline Industry Program and the International Center for Air Transportation launched the Airline Data Project (ADP) Oct. 1 featuring an online databank that provides a comprehensive collection and analysis of airline data since 1995. The ADP's online databank, www.airlinedataproject.mit.edu, gives comparisons of the largest U.S. carriers on scores of different cost, revenue and productivity measures. The resource will let users compare 15 U.S. airlines on a wide variety of measures, including fleet utilization, labor costs, cash flow and profitability. The project allows researchers to confirm--and in some cases dispel--conventional wisdom about the airline industry by presenting information within a historical landscape. "The Airline Data Project will serve as an excellent data source for research and analysis not only for MIT students and faculty, but for airline executives, analysts, labor leaders and industry observers," said Peter P. Belobaba, program manager for the Global Airline Industry Program. MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/aviation-1001.html

GENE DELIVERY
In work that could lead to safe and effective techniques for gene therapy, MIT researchers have found a way to fine-tune the ability of biodegradable polymers to deliver genes. Gene therapy, which involves inserting new genes into patients' cells to fight diseases like cancer, holds great promise but has yet to realize its full potential, in part because of safety concerns over the conventional technique of using viruses to carry the genes. The new MIT work, published in Advanced Materials, focuses on creating gene carriers from synthetic, non-viral materials. The team is led by Daniel Anderson, research associate in MIT's Center for Cancer Research. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation.
PHOTO, IMAGE AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/gene-delivery-0907.html

ARTIFICIAL RESPIRATION
MIT researchers have found that the body's innate ability to adapt to recurring stimuli could be leveraged to design more effective and less costly artificial respirators. The new approach could minimize the need for the induced sedation or paralysis currently necessary for some patients on mechanical ventilation. Nonassociative learning, or our innate ability to adapt to recurring stimuli, is the focus of work described in PLoS ONE, the online, open-access journal from the Public Library of Science. Specifically, Chi-Sang Poon, a research scientist at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, and colleagues examined rats under mechanical ventilation to see how they applied different forms of nonassociative learning to adapt to the rhythm imposed by the respirator. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health. 
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MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/respiration-0911.html

THE BRAIN'S MESSENGERS
MIT researchers report that tiny, spontaneous releases of the brain's primary chemical messengers could be regulated, potentially giving scientists unprecedented control over how the brain is wired. The work, published in Nature Neuroscience, could lead to a better understanding of neurological diseases like schizophrenia. Sputtering electrical activity--like a firecracker's leftover sparks after a big bang--was long considered inconsequential background noise compared with the main cell-to-cell interactions underlying thought and memory. Now J. Troy Littleton, a professor in the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, and colleagues report that the miniscule events that follow a burst of electrical and chemical activity among neurons are far more important than previously thought. A breakdown in this molecular mechanism could be behind schizophrenia and other neurological diseases, the authors say. This work is supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Packard Foundation for Science and Engineering.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/brainwire-0916.html

MARTIAN ICE
An MIT-led team of planetary scientists has found that the southern pole of Mars contains the largest deposit of frozen water in the inner solar system, outside of Earth. The new results show that water, not carbon dioxide, is the predominant frozen liquid found in the southern polar region of Mars, said Maria Zuber, professor of geophysics and head of MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences. Zuber said scientists have suspected that the southern polar cap of Mars is comprised of a thin veneer of carbon dioxide that rests atop a layer of dust and ice. However, scientists have also observed a surrounding area much larger than the polar cap that is dark and smooth, and it was uncertain whether that region was also composed of dust or ice--or both. The research was funded by the NASA Mars Program.
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MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/mars-0921.html

BINOCULAR VISION
In work that could lead to new treatments for sensory disorders in which people experience the strange phenomena of seeing better with one eye covered, MIT researchers report that they have identified the gene responsible for binocular vision. Unlike horses and eagles, whose eyes on the sides of their heads provide two different scenes, humans see a single, in-depth view. Now researchers from the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT have identified the gene responsible for melding images from two eyes into one useful picture in the brain. The work, which appeared in the Public Library of Science (PloS) Biology and in the journal Cerebral Cortex, shows that a novel gene is necessary for binocular vision. "There are other instances in the brain where two different inputs have to be properly aligned and matched, such as auditory and visual projections to the midbrain that enable us to orient to sound," said lead author Mriganka Sur, Sherman Fairchild Professor of Neuroscience at the Picower Institute and head of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. "This is the first study to pinpoint a gene with this kind of job." This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Simons Foundation and Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/sightgene-0913.html

DRUG EFFECTIVENESS
MIT researchers have developed a computer modeling approach that could improve a class of drugs based on antibodies, molecules key to the immune system. The model can predict structural changes in an antibody that will improve its effectiveness. The team has already used the model to create a new version of cetuximab, a drug commonly used to treat colorectal cancer, that binds to its target with 10 times greater affinity than the original molecule. The work, which appeared in an advance publication of Nature Biotechnology, results from a collaboration using both laboratory experiments and computer simulations between MIT Professors Dane Wittrup and Bruce Tidor.  "New and better methods for improving antibody development represent critical technologies for medicine and biotechnology," says Wittrup, who holds appointments in MIT's Department of Biological Engineering and Department of Chemical Engineering. Tidor holds appointments in Biological Engineering and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. 
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MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/antibody-0923.html

GENETIC THERAPY
Researchers from MIT, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and other institutions have demonstrated the safety of a promising type of genetic therapy that could lead to treatments for a wide range of diseases such as cancer. The work, reported in Nature, describes a new approach to conducting the therapy. A paper in Nature last year reported that another commonly used approach caused fatalities in mice. The research focuses on RNA interference, or RNAi, a key part of the body's genetic machinery. RNAi works by using short strands of RNA to block the expression of specific genes. "RNAi has huge potential as a therapeutic agent," said Daniel Anderson, a research associate at MIT's Center for Cancer Research and one of the authors of the new paper. The work at MIT was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/rnai-0926.html

SPACE TETHER
Using a tether system devised by MIT researchers, astronauts could one day stroll across the surface of small asteroids, collecting samples and otherwise exploring these rocks in space without floating away. The ability to visit asteroids could also be invaluable for testing equipment for a mission to Mars by humans. Further, knowing how to tether an asteroid could be helpful if one needs to be towed away from a potential collision course with Earth, says Christopher Carr, a postdoctoral associate in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. Carr and Ian Garrick-Bethell, a graduate student in the department, describe their system in an upcoming issue of the journal Acta Astronautica.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/asteroid-tt0926.html

GENETICS & ECONOMICS
An international team of researchers including an MIT graduate student has demonstrated for the first time that genes exert influence on people's behavior in a very common experimental economic game. Traditionally, social scientists have been quite hesitant to acknowledge a role for genes in explaining economic behavior. But a study by David Cesarini, a Ph.D. student in MIT's Department of Economics, and colleagues in Sweden indicates that there is a genetic component to people's perception of what is fair and what is unfair. The paper, published in the Oct. 1 online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at the ultimatum game, in which a proposer makes an offer to a responder on how to divide a sum of money. This offer is an ultimatum; if the responder rejects it, both parties receive nothing. Because rejections in the game entail a zero payoff for both parties, theories of narrow self-interest predict that any positive amount will be accepted by a responder. The intriguing finding in the laboratory is that responders routinely reject free money, presumably in order to punish proposers for offers perceived as unfair. The research was funded by the Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Foundation and the Swedish Research Council.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/ultimatum-1001.html

STARS' DEATH-DANCE
MIT astronomers played a key role in discovering what NASA calls one of the most bizarre objects in space: a star "skeleton" of very low mass that is orbiting and being slowly consumed by a pulsar, or remains of a second massive star, that is itself spinning faster than a kitchen blender. A NASA team led by Hans Krimm and Craig Markwardt at Goddard Space Flight Center and an MIT team led by Deepto Chakrabarty, an associate professor of physics in MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, described the overall system (known by its abbreviation SWIFT J1756.9) in an article accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
"While we already know of several cases of pulsars that have consumed or vaporized most of the mass in their companion star, SWIFT J1756.9 is possibly the most extreme example," said Chakrabarty.
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MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/pulsar-0913.html

CANCER PROMPT
MIT scientists have proved that microRNAs, tiny molecules that fine-tune protein production and play a powerful role in biological processes, can prompt otherwise sedentary cancer cells to move and invade other tissues. Labs have been probing the relationship between aberrant microRNA levels and cancer for several years. They've shown that some microRNAs cause normal cells to divide rapidly and form tumors, but they've never demonstrated that microRNAs subsequently cause cancer cells to metastasize, or spread. Now, working in the lab of MIT Biology Professor and Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research Member Robert Weinberg, Postdoctoral Fellow Li Ma has coaxed cancer cells to break away from a tumor and colonize distant tissues in mice by simply increasing the level of one microRNA. The work appears in an advance online edition of Nature. "Li has shown that a specific microRNA is able to cause profound changes in the behavior of cancer cells, which is striking considering that 10 years ago no one suspected microRNAs were involved in any biological process," says Weinberg. This research is funded by the Life Sciences Research Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Ludwig Center for Molecular Oncology at MIT.
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MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/cancer-link-0927.html

GENETICS & HEIGHT
It became clear nearly a century ago that many genes likely influence how tall a person grows, though little progress, if any, has followed in defining the myriad genes. Now an international research team brings light to this age-old question by pinpointing a genetic variant associated with human height -- the first consistent genetic link to be reported. The findings, published in Nature Genetics, stem from a large-scale effort led by scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Children's Hospital Boston, the University of Oxford and Peninsula Medical School, Exeter.
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MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/height-0910.html

WHEELS OF EVOLUTION
The wheels of evolution turn on genetic innovation -- new genes with new functions appear, allowing organisms to grow and adapt in new ways. But deciphering the history of how and when various genes appeared, for any organism, has been a difficult and largely intractable task. Now a team led by scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has broken new ground by developing a method, described in Nature that can reveal the ancestry of all genes across many different genomes. The approach has unearthed some surprising clues about why new genes pop up in the first place and the biological nips and tucks that bolster their survival. "Having the ability to trace the history of genes on a genomic scale opens the doors to a vast array of interesting and largely unexplored scientific questions," said senior author Aviv Regev, an assistant professor of biology at MIT and a core member of the Broad Institute. The study was supported by grants from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
IMAGE AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/gene-history-0910.html

BONE'S STRENGTH
New research at MIT has revealed for the first time the role of bone's atomistic structure in a toughening mechanism that incorporates two theories previously proposed by researchers eager to understand the secret behind the material's lightweight strength. Past experimental studies have revealed a number of different mechanisms at different scales of focus, rather than a single theory. The combination mechanism uncovered by the MIT researchers allows for the sacrifice of a small piece of the bone in order to save the whole, helps explain why bone tolerates small cracks, and seems to be adapted specifically to accommodate bone's need for continuous rebuilding from the inside out. "The newly discovered molecular mechanism unifies controversial attempts of explaining sources of the toughness of bone, because it illustrates that two of the earlier explanations play key roles at the atomistic scale," said Professor Markus Buehler of MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. This work was funded by a National Science Foundation and the Army Research Office.
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MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/bone-0906.html

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