ACS News Service Weekly PressPac: Oct 4, 2006

• Marijuana’s active ingredient may slow progression of Alzheimer's disease
• Devoting more research to “webicillin”
• New insights into healthful compounds in Native American diets
• New wound dressing may lead to maggot therapy without the maggots
• Champagne helps unlock the secrets of bubble formation
• A Nobel Prize 10 years ago sparked one of today’s hottest scientific fields

• Audio of ACS Press Conferences

Could a dose of webicillin beat that stubborn infection? Could a cobweb bandage help soldiers and accident victims with bleeding wounds? Is a wrapping of spider silk the key to preventing the body from rejecting implants?

A review of research on spider silk concludes that scientists have largely overlooked such possible medical applications of this extraordinary natural material, which is stronger than steel. In a report in the current (Sept. 13) issue of the ACS monthly journal Chemical Reviews, Randolph V. Lewis, of the University of Wyoming, describes other scientific research on spider silk during the last 15 years.

“Very few studies of biological testing of spider silk have been done in a rigorous manner,” Lewis states. “There is a large body of folklore concerning the antibiotic, wound-healing, and clot-inducing activity of spider silk. However, much of that lore has not been seriously tested.” The lore dates to the first century A.D. when spider webs were prized as wound dressings. They even found a place in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream: “I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good master cobweb,” the character “Bottom” said. “If I cut my finger, I shall make bold of you.”

The scanty scientific evidence is tantalizing, Lewis notes. He cites, for instance, animal studies concluding that spider silks do not induce an immune response — which causes rejection of implants.

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Scientists in the United Kingdom have developed a new wound dressing that could bring the benefits of maggot therapy to patients without putting live Greenbottle fly (blowfly) larvae into non-healing wounds. The joint research project of Stephen Britland from Bradford University and David Pritchard of Nottingham University included colleagues from the Bradford-based biotechnology company AGT Sciences Ltd. It describes development and preliminary testing in laboratory cell cultures of the new hydrogel dressing in a report scheduled for publication in the Oct. 6 issue of the ACS bimonthly journal Biotechnology Progress.

The researchers note resurgence in medical use of larval biotherapy — intentionally introducing blowfly maggots into non-healing wounds to clean away dead tissue. Medical use of the technique led to observations suggesting that maggots' excretions and secretions (ESs) also may encourage regeneration of tissue and wound healing. Realizing that the ESs would have to be delivered in a controlled fashion, Britland's group developed the hydrogel dressing, which slowly releases maggot ESs.

"The present prototype hydrogel wound dressing could potentially be deployed as a device to deliver insect-derived active products to skin wounds in vivo to encourage tissue regeneration."

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“With the latest batch of Nobel Prize winners still basking in the limelight, an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) explores how one Nobel laureate used his new-found influence to lay the foundations for a whole new field of science that quickly grew into one of science’s hottest disciplines.

The scientist was the late Richard E. Smalley, who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry ten years ago today (October 9). The new discipline was nanotechnology. In the article, Bethany Halford, an associate editor of C&EN — the American Chemical Society’s weekly newsmagazine — describes how Smalley used the prize’s prestige to garner funding and other support for nanotechnology research.

“As 2006’s newly minted Laureates will soon discover, the same opportunity is granted to all Nobel Prize winners,” the article notes. “A few squander it. Many further their own enterprise with it. Some follow their passions and try to change the world with it. Few use it as deftly as Smalley did.”

With Nobel Prize in hand, Halford explains, Smalley began knocking on doors at the highest levels of government, explaining the potential of nanotechnology and urging increased funding. Since then, the Federal Government has poured more than $6.5 billion into nanoscience research.

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Audio of ACS Press Conferences
These audio files of key press conferences at the ACS National Meeting (Sept. 10-14) in Chicago can be a valuable source for quotations and background.

• Progress on fighting bacterial infections; biohazards | Conference Date: Sept. 11, 2006
• Nanotubes show help with range of illnesses | Conference Date: Sept. 11, 2006
• Low cost, super-efficient solar cells developed | Conference Date: Sept. 12, 2006
• Promising therapies with adult stem cells | Conference Date: Sept. 13, 2006
• ACS News Service Weblog | Science, September & San Francisco
  

Visit the ACS News Service’s newest weblog for reports from scientific sessions and other events at the ACS National Meeting in San Francisco.

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