[Editors] MIT Research Digest, December 2008

[Elizabeth Thomson]

======================================
MIT Research Digest, December 2008
======================================

For Immediate Release
THURSDAY, DEC. 4, 2008



Contact: Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office
E: thomson at mit.edu, T: 617-258-5402

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

IN THIS ISSUE: Roboclam * Backpacks For Cells * Setting The Pace *  
Efficient Solar Cells * Cutting Greenhouse Emissions * Cells &  
Vaccination * Making Coal Cleaner * Greenhouse Gas Storage *  
Asteroids: Early Warning * Tiny Steps * Songbirds & Timing * Important  
New Catalysts * Stem Cell Challenges * Remodeling Brain Cells * Dna’s  
Packing Material * Genetic Insights

ROBOCLAM
The simple razor clam has inspired a new MIT robot that could lead to  
a “smart” anchor that burrows through the ocean floor to reposition  
itself and could even reverse, making it easier to recover. The  
RoboClam is being developed to explore the performance capabilities of  
clam-inspired digging, as well as to shed light on the behavior of the  
real animal. “Our original goal was to develop a lightweight anchor  
that you could set then easily unset, something that’s not possible  
with conventional devices,” said Anette “Peko” Hosoi, an associate  
professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering whose  
collaborators on the work are Amos Winter, a graduate student in her  
lab, and engineers at Bluefin Robotics Corp. Such devices could be  
useful, for example, as tethers for small robotic submarines that are  
routinely repositioned to monitor variables like currents and  
temperature. Further, a device that can burrow into the seabed and be  
directed to a specific location could also be useful as a detonator  
for buried underwater mines. Winter presented the team’s latest  
results at a meeting of the American Physical Society. This work was  
sponsored by Bluefin, Battelle, and Chevron.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/roboclam-1125.html
PHOTO AND VIDEO AVAILABLE

BACKPACKS FOR CELLS
MIT engineers have outfitted cells with tiny “backpacks” that could  
allow them to deliver chemotherapy agents, diagnose tumors or become  
building blocks for tissue engineering. Michael Rubner, director of  
MIT’s Center for Materials Science and Engineering and senior author  
of a paper on the work that appeared online in Nano Letters, said he  
believes this is the first time anyone has attached such a synthetic  
patch to a cell. The polymer backpacks allow researchers to use cells  
to ferry tiny cargoes and manipulate their movements using magnetic  
fields. Since each patch covers only a small portion of the cell  
surface, it does not interfere with the cell’s normal functions or  
prevent it from interacting with the external environment. “The goal  
is to perturb the cell as little as possible,” said Robert Cohen, the  
St. Laurent Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and an author of  
the paper. The researchers worked with B and T cells, two types of  
immune cells that can home to various tissues in the body, including  
tumors, infection sites, and lymphoid tissues — a trait that could be  
exploited to achieve targeted drug or vaccine delivery. “The idea is  
that we use cells as vectors to carry materials to tumors, infection  
sites or other tissue sites,” said Darrell Irvine, an author of the  
paper and associate professor of materials science and engineering and  
biological engineering. Cellular backpacks carrying chemotherapy  
agents could target tumor cells, while cells equipped with patches  
carrying imaging agents could help identify tumors by binding to  
protein markers expressed by cancer cells. The research was funded by  
the NSF.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/cellbackpack-1106.html
PHOTO AND VIDEO AVAILABLE

SETTING THE PACE
Two pacemakers in the brain work together in harmony to ensure that  
breathing occurs in a regular rhythm, according to MIT scientists.  
That cooperation provides critical backup during respiratory stress,  
from the early trauma of birth to intense exercise and oxygen  
shortages, said Chi-Sang Poon, principal research scientist at the  
Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. “The two- 
pacemaker system provides robustness and redundancy that protects us  
against a number of challenges from childhood to adulthood,” said  
Poon, senior author of a paper on the work appearing in the  
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Abnormities of the  
two pacemakers may be related to some cases of “crib death” in babies  
and some forms of central sleep apnea, which can affect premature  
infants and the elderly, Poon said. Other authors of the paper are  
from MIT and the University of Toronto. The research was funded by the  
NIH.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/respiration-1103.html
PHOTO AVAILABLE

EFFICIENT SOLAR CELLS
New ways of squeezing out greater efficiency from solar photovoltaic  
cells are emerging from computer simulations and lab tests conducted  
by a team of physicists and engineers at MIT. Using computer modeling  
and a variety of advanced chip-manufacturing techniques, they have  
applied an antireflection coating to the front, and a novel  
combination of multi-layered reflective coatings and a tightly spaced  
array of lines — called a diffraction grating — to the backs of  
ultrathin silicon films to boost the cells’ output by as much as 50  
percent. The carefully designed layers deposited on the back of the  
cell cause the light to bounce around longer inside the thin silicon  
layer, giving it time to deposit its energy and produce an electric  
current. Without these coatings, light would just be reflected back  
out into the surrounding air, said Peter Bermel, a postdoctoral  
researcher in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics who has been  
working on the project. “It’s critical to ensure that any light that  
enters the layer travels through a long path in the silicon,” Bermel  
said. “The issue is how far does light have to travel [in the silicon]  
before there’s a high probability of being absorbed” and knocking  
loose electrons to produce an electric current. The team reported the  
first reduction to practice of their findings on Dec. 2 at the  
Materials Research Society’s annual meeting. A paper on their findings  
has been accepted for publication in Applied Physics Letters. Funding  
was provided by the Thomas Lord Chair in Materials Science and  
Engineering, the MIT-MIST Initiative, the Materials Research Science  
and Engineering Center Program of the NSF and the Army Research Office  
through the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/solar-efficiency-1126.html
PHOTO AVAILABLE

CUTTING GREENHOUSE EMISSIONS
Researchers at MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy  
Research have produced a report concerning key design issues of  
proposed “cap-and-trade” programs that are under consideration in the  
United States as a way of curbing greenhouse gas emissions. The first  
contribution of the three-part study found that, based on an  
examination of the European Union’s system and of similar U.S.  
programs for other emissions, such a program can indeed be effective  
in reducing emissions without having a significant economic impact.  
“The European experience confirms much of what has been learned from  
similar U.S. systems for other emissions, namely, that cap-and-trade  
systems can be constructed, that markets emerge to facilitate trading,  
that emissions are reduced efficiently, and that the effects on  
affected industries are less than predicted,” said A. Denny Ellerman,  
the study’s lead author and a senior lecturer in the MIT Sloan School  
of Management. The study found that the most controversial aspect of  
the European program was how to allocate the permitted emissions  
levels to different producers. Initial free allocation of allowances,  
they found, was the necessary price for gaining political acceptance,  
as it has been in U.S. systems. Over time, the clearly established  
trend in the E.U. is to phase out the free allocation of permits in  
favor of auctioning them. The study was funded by the Doris Duke  
Charitable Foundation.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/capandtrade-1113.html
PHOTO AVAILABLE

CELLS & VACCINATION
MIT engineers have painted the most detailed portrait yet of how  
single cells from the immune system respond to vaccination. The work,  
reported in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National  
Academy of Sciences, could help researchers develop and test new  
vaccines for diseases including HIV, fungal infections and antibiotic- 
resistant bacterial infections. “We’re building a toolkit which we can  
use to look at how an immune response develops successfully. Then we  
aim to use that information for reverse engineering vaccines that  
would invoke that same type of response,” said J. Christopher Love,  
assistant professor of chemical engineering and senior author of the  
paper. Coauthors of the paper are from MIT, Gordon College, and the  
Whitehead Institute. The research was funded by the Broad Institute of  
MIT and Harvard, the NIH, and the National Academies Keck Futures  
Initiative.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/vaccination-1103.html
PHOTO AVAILABLE

MAKING COAL CLEANER
Construction of new coal-fired power plants in the United States is in  
danger of coming to a standstill, partly due to the high cost of the  
requirement — whether existing or anticipated — to capture all  
emissions of carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas. But an MIT  
analysis suggests an intermediate step that could get construction  
moving again, allowing the nation to fend off growing electricity  
shortages using our most-abundant, least-expensive fuel while also  
reducing emissions. Instead of capturing all of its CO2 emissions,  
plants could capture a significant fraction of those emissions with  
less costly changes in plant design and operation, the MIT analysis  
shows. “Our approach — ‘partial capture’ — can get CO2 emissions from  
coal-burning plants down to emissions levels of natural gas power  
plants,” said Ashleigh Hildebrand, a graduate student in chemical  
engineering and the Technology and Policy Program. “Policies such as  
California’s Emissions Performance Standards could be met by coal  
plants using partial capture rather than having to rely solely on  
natural gas, which is increasingly imported and subject to high and  
volatile prices.” Hildebrand presented her findings at the 9th  
International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies  
(GHGT-9). Her co-author is Howard J. Herzog, principal research  
engineer at the MIT Energy Initiative.The GHGT-9 conference was  
organized by MIT in collaboration with the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D  
Programme, with sponsorship from the DOE.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/ecofriendly-coal-1117.html
PHOTO AVAILABLE

GREENHOUSE GAS STORAGE
To prevent global warming, researchers and policymakers are exploring  
a variety of options to significantly cut the amount of carbon dioxide  
that reaches the atmosphere. One possible approach involves capturing  
greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide at the source — an electric  
power plant, for example — and then injecting them underground. While  
theoretically promising, the technique has never been tested in a full- 
scale industrial operation. But now MIT engineers have come up with a  
new software tool to determine how much CO2 can be sequestered safely  
in geological formations. The work was reported at the 9th  
International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies  
(GHGT-9). This research was supported by the McClelland Fund,  
administered by the MIT Energy Initiative, and by the Reed Research  
Fund. The GHGT-9 conference was organized by MIT in collaboration with  
the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme, with sponsorship from the DOE.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/bury-greenhouse-1117.html
PHOTO AND GRAPHIC AVAILABLE

ASTEROIDS: EARLY WARNING
Silicon chips developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory are at the heart of  
a new survey telescope that will soon provide a more than fivefold  
improvement in scientists’ ability to detect asteroids and comets that  
could someday pose a threat to the planet. The prototype telescope  
installed on Haleakala mountain, Maui, will begin operation this  
month. It will feature the world’s largest and most advanced digital  
camera, using the Lincoln Laboratory silicon chips. This telescope is  
the first of four that will be housed together in one dome. The  
system, called Pan-STARRS (for Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid  
Response System), is being developed at the University of Hawaii’s  
Institute for Astronomy. The project was funded by the Air Force  
Research Laboratory.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/panstarrs-1118.html
PHOTO AVAILABLE

TINY STEPS
MIT researchers have shown how a cell motor protein exerts the force  
to move, enabling functions such as cell division. Kinesin, a motor  
protein that also carries neurotransmitters, “walks” along cellular  
beams known as microtubules. For the first time, the MIT team has  
shown at a molecular level how kinesin generates the force needed to  
step along the microtubules. The researchers, led by Matthew Lang,  
associate professor of biological and mechanical engineering, report  
their findings in an online early issue of the Proceedings of the  
National Academy of Sciences. Because kinesin is involved in  
organizing the machinery of cell division, understanding how it works  
could one day be useful in developing therapies for diseases involving  
out-of-control cell division, such as cancer. This work is a close  
collaboration with researchers at Harvard and Texas A&M. The research  
was funded by the NIH and the Army Research Office Institute of  
Collaborative Biotechnologies.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/cell-motor-1124.html
GRAPHIC AVAILABLE

SONGBIRDS & TIMING
As anyone who watched the Olympics can appreciate, timing matters when  
it comes to complex sequential actions. It can make a difference  
between a perfect handspring and a fall, for instance. But what  
controls that timing? MIT scientists are closing in on the brain  
regions responsible, thanks to some technical advances and some help  
from songbirds. “All our movements, from talking and walking to  
acrobatics or piano playing, are sequential behaviors,” explained  
Michale Fee, an investigator in the McGovern Institute for Brain  
Research at MIT and an associate professor in MIT’s Department of  
Brain and Cognitive Sciences. “But we haven’t had the necessary tools  
to understand how timing is generated within the brain.” Now Fee and  
colleagues report in Nature a new method for altering the speed of  
brain activity. And using that technique, “we think we have found the  
clock that controls the timing of the bird’s song,” Fee said. This  
study was funded by the NIH and the Human Frontiers Science Project.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/brain-timing-1112.html
PHOTO AND GRAPHIC AVAILABLE

IMPORTANT NEW CATALYSTS
A new class of exceptionally effective chemical catalysts that promote  
the powerful olefin metathesis reaction has been discovered by a team  
of Boston College and MIT scientists, opening up a vast new scientific  
platform to researchers in medicine, biology and materials. The new  
catalysts can be easily prepared and possess unique features never  
before utilized by chemists, according to findings from a team led by  
professors Amir Hoveyda of BC and Richard Schrock of MIT. The team's  
findings are reported in the journal Nature. "In order for chemists to  
gain access to molecules that can enhance the quality of human life,  
we need reliable, highly efficient, selective and environmentally  
friendly chemical reactions," said Hoveyda. "Discovering catalysts  
that promote these transformations is one of the great challenges of  
modern chemistry." Catalytic olefin metathesis transforms simple  
molecules into complex ones. But a chief challenge has been developing  
catalysts to this organic chemical reaction that are practical and  
offer exceptional selectivity for a significantly broader range of  
reactions. Schrock, a professor of chemistry at MIT who won the 2005  
Nobel Prize in chemistry, said the unprecedented level of control the  
new class of catalysts provides will advance research across multiple  
fields. The work was sponsored by the NIH.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/catalyst-1116.html
PHOTO AVAILABLE

STEM CELL CHALLENGES
Using adult stem cells to replace neurons lost because of brain damage  
and disease could be more difficult than previously thought, according  
to MIT researchers, because newly formed brain cells receive messages  
before they are capable of sending them. The work, published in the  
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has implications on  
the treatment of conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.  
Scientists have long speculated that replacing neurons damaged by  
neurological disease, brain injury or spinal-cord trauma would be an  
efficient way to reverse the negative effects of those conditions. But  
Carlos E. Lois, of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory,  
found that adding new neurons to existing circuits would be akin to  
trying to integrate a new memory card into a running computer. "Most  
likely, the computer software will crash because of the sudden  
addition of a new part to the hardware," said Lois, who is also an  
assistant professor of neuroscience in the departments of brain and  
cognitive sciences and biology. While new parts can be added to an off- 
line computer, the brain can never be completely shut down. "The  
addition and elimination of connections of new neurons would be  
disruptive to the existing brain circuit," he said. This work is  
supported by the David and Lucille Packard Foundation.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/neurons-1121.html
PHOTO AND GRAPHIC AVAILABLE

REMODELING BRAIN CELLS
Overturning a century of prevailing thought, scientists are finding  
that neurons in the adult brain can remodel their connections. In work  
reported in an online edition of the Proceedings of the National  
Academy of Sciences, Elly Nedivi, associate professor of neurobiology  
at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and colleagues found  
that a type of neuron implicated in autism spectrum disorders remodels  
itself in a strip of brain tissue only as thick as four sheets of  
tissue paper at the upper border of cortical layer 2. “This work is  
particularly exciting because it sheds new light on the potential  
flexibility of cerebral cortex circuitry and architecture in higher- 
level brain regions that contribute to perception and cognition,” said  
Nedivi, who is also affiliated with MIT’s departments of brain and  
cognitive sciences and biology. “Our goal is to extract clues  
regarding the contribution of structural remodeling to long-term adult  
brain plasticity — the brain’s ability to change in response to input  
from the environment — and what allows or limits this plasticity.” A  
researcher from Ben-Gurion University in Israel was also involved in  
this work, which is supported by the National Eye Institute.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/brain-remodel-1124.html

DNA’S PACKING MATERIAL
MIT biologists have discovered that the organization of DNA’s packing  
material plays a critical role in directing stem cells to become  
different types of adult cells. The work, published in the journal  
Cell, could also shed light on the possible role of DNA packaging in  
cancer development. Led by Laurie Boyer, assistant professor of  
biology at MIT, the researchers examined the role of chromatin — the  
structure that forms when DNA is wound around a core of proteins  
called histones. “We’re particularly interested in how chromatin  
structure influences gene expression and ultimately cell fate,” Boyer  
said. “We hope the studies we are doing can lead to better  
understanding of development as well as certain diseases.” Boyer’s  
coauthors are from MIT and the Whitehead Institute. The research was  
funded by the Dutch Cancer Foundation, the Helen Hay Whitney  
Foundation, the NIH and Genzyme Corp.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/stemcell-1106.html

GENETIC INSIGHTS
Scientists have long known that it’s possible for one gene to produce  
slightly different forms of the same protein by skipping or including  
certain sequences from the messenger RNA. Now, an MIT team has shown  
that this phenomenon, known as alternative splicing, is both far more  
prevalent and varies more between tissues than was previously  
believed. Nearly all human genes, about 94 percent, generate more than  
one form of their protein products, the team reports in an online  
edition of Nature. Scientists’ previous estimates ranged from a few  
percent 10 years ago to 50-plus percent more recently. “A decade ago,  
alternative splicing of a gene was considered unusual, exotic … but it  
turns out that’s not true at all — it’s a nearly universal feature of  
human genes,” said Christopher Burge, senior author of the paper and  
the Whitehead Career Development Associate Professor of Biology and  
Biological Engineering at MIT. Burge and his colleagues also found  
that in most cases the mRNA produced depends on the tissue where the  
gene is expressed. The work paves the way for future studies into the  
role of alternative proteins in specific tissues, including cancer  
cells.Other authors are from the Whitehead Institute, the National  
Center for Genome Resources, and Illumina. The research was funded by  
the NIH, the Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation, and the Swedish  
Foundation for Strategic Research.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/splice-1102.html
--END--


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/editors/attachments/20081204/334d75a6/attachment.htm