ACS News Service Weekly PressPac: August 8, 2007

• Toward prevention of a common complication of cataract surgery
• Easing concerns about a promising new medical imaging agent
• Explosive discovery on genetically engineered tobacco plant
• Fast, accurate sensor to detect food spoilage
• Toward real-world Star Trek tricoder devices

A newly developed method for coating the intraocular lenses (IOLs) used in millions of cataract surgery procedures may prevent a common complication of cataract surgery, according to a report scheduled for the Aug. 13 issue of ACS’ Biomacromolecules, a monthly journal. Such surgery corrects the vision loss that occurs when the lens of the eye becomes clouded.

Christine JÉrÔme and colleagues report development of a method for applying a polyethylene glycol coating to IOLs. In laboratory experiments, researchers showed that the coating reduced accumulation of the protein film and adhesion of cells responsible for formation of secondary cataracts. The coating did not affect the optical properties of the lens. It also could be applied to certain other surfaces in order to discourage undesirable protein accumulation and adhesion of cells, the report states.

During the operation, a small incision in the front of the lens capsular bag is used to remove the clouded crystalline lens. The IOL is inserted into the empty capsular bag. Researchers noted that IOL replacement surgery is a safe and well-established procedure to correct the vision loss from a cataract. In about 25 percent of cases, however, the back portion of the capsule eventually becomes clouded with a “secondary” cataract. JÉrÔme notes that treatment is available for secondary cataracts, but describes it as risky

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Tobacco may be bad for human health, but a new study reports that a genetically engineered tobacco plant may be very good for the environment. It shows promise for cleaning up soil contaminated with TNT, a widely used military explosive. The study is scheduled for the Aug. 15 issue of ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.

Neil C. Bruce and colleagues noted that TNT contamination is a major environmental problem at many World War II sites, military training areas, and explosive manufacturing sites. In addition to being explosive, TNT is toxic and a human health threat. Researchers knew that certain soil bacteria could metabolize and change trinitrotoluene (TNT) into nontoxic compounds. But those natural bacteria exist at levels too low to detoxify TNT.

In the new study, researchers inserted a gene for a TNT-transforming bacterial enzyme into a tobacco plant. Then they tested the plant’s effect on TNT-contaminated soil in comparison to regular tobacco plants grown in the same soil for several weeks. The genetically modified plants significantly reduced the toxicity of the TNT-contaminated soil.

“This is the first report to demonstrate that transgenic plants engineered for the phytoremediation of organic pollutants can increase the functional and genetic diversity of the bacterial community in acutely polluted soil compared to wild type plants,” the report states. “Our findings have important implications, not only for use of genetically engineered plants for TNT remediation, but for cleaning up other sources of contamination as well.”

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So you drop by the store tonight and buy the latest model of a Star Trek tricoder-type device — a handheld instrument for scanning alien environments — and use it to check your home air for indoor pollutants. As farfetched as that idea may seem, such devices are inching closer to reality, according to an article scheduled for the August 13 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS’s weekly newsmagazine.

The article, by C&EN Senior Correspondent Marc Reisch, explains that scientific instrument makers are in the midst of an effort to expand their traditional markets, moving instruments like mass spectrometers and infrared photometers out of the lab and into the hands of the average consumer. In a world that fears terrorists, contaminated food, and airborne pollutants, instrument companies are working to design portable, inexpensive, user-friendly devices that can do the work of those laboratory mainstays, Reisch writes. An executive of one major instrument maker, quoted in the article, predicts that such instruments will be available to consumers, including Star Trek-like devices that serve as personal environmental scanners.

“Given the proliferation of instruments alongside manufacturing lines and in battle zones, office buildings, and refineries, it just might be feasible for a consumer to walk into Home Depot someday and buy a device that today only a scientist or quality control expert would want to have,” the article concludes..

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• Special PressPac Editions for ACS National Meeting
  PressPacs for August 15 and August 22 will be devoted to breaking news from the ACS 234th national meeting in Boston.
• New ACS Annual Report
  The 2006 ACS annual report, A New Vision at Work, can be a valuable resource for journalists trying to keep pace with chemistry and the multiple fields of science that involve chemistry. The report features a series of commentaries by chemists, including Nobel Laureate Robert H. Grubbs, on chemistry’s role in working toward better medications, more nutritious food, sources of renewable energy, and other innovations.
• General Chemistry Glossary
  An online resource that can help you to find definitions to common—and uncommon—chemical terms.
  
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234th ACS National Meeting, August 19-23, Boston, MA
News media registration is now open for the 234th ACS national meeting, which will be held in Boston, Mass., on August 19-23, 2007, at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center and more than a dozen hotels across the city. More than 15,000 scientists and others are expected to attend this scientific extravaganza. There will be more than 9,500 presentations on new discoveries in chemistry, health, medicine, energy, environment, food, and other fields. The theme: “Biotechnology for Health and Wellness.”

• Science Elements: New ACS Podcast
  The ACS Office of Communications is podcasting PressPac contents in order to make cutting-edge scientific discoveries from ACS journals available to a broad public audience at no charge.
  
  Science Elements includes selected content from ACS’s prestigious suite of 35 peer-reviewed scientific journals and Chemical & Engineering News, ACS’s weekly news magazine. Those journals, published by the world’s largest scientific society, contain about 30,000 scientific reports from scientists around the world each year.
  
  The reports include discoveries in medicine, health, nutrition, energy, the environment and other fields that span science’s horizons from astronomy to zoology. Podcaster for Science Elements is Steve Showalter, Ph.D., a chemist at the U. S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and ACS member.
• YouTube - It’s Alive!!!
• YouTube - Scientists Invade Boston