ACS News Service Weekly PressPac: September 17, 2008

• New hope for tapping vast domestic reserves of oil shale
• Calorie-free natural sweetener moves one step closer to use in the U. S.
• Toward a fast, life-saving test for identifying the purity of heroin
• Key proteins identified in the quest for male contraceptive
• Toward more effective drugs, vaccines for fighting HIV

Researchers in Canada and Turkey report discovery of a new process for economically tapping vast resources of crude oil in the United States, Canada, and other countries now locked away in rocky deposits called oil shale. The process could boost worldwide oil supplies in the future and lead to lower prices for gasoline, diesel, and home heating oil, the researchers suggest. Their study is scheduled for the November 19 issue of ACS’ Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly journal.

In the study, Tayfun Babadagli and colleagues point out that oil trapped in the world’s oil shale deposits exceeds the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. An estimated one trillion barrels of oil, for instance, are in the so-called Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. However, existing technology for recovering that oil, termed pyrolysis, is uneconomical because it requires high temperatures (about 900 degrees F.) and large energy inputs, but yields little usable oil.

The scientists describe laboratory scale experiments in which addition of inexpensive iron powder to oil shale, combined with heating with electric heating coils, substantially increased oil production — by more than 100 percent for some shales. “The experimental and numerical results show that field-scale oil recovery from oil shales by electrical heating could be technically and economically viable,” the report concludes. — MTS

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Scientists in Spain are reporting an advance toward a new method for determining the purity of heroin that could save lives by allowing investigators to quickly identify impure and toxic forms of the drug being sold on the street. Unlike conventional tests, it does not destroy the original drug sample, according to their report. It is scheduled for the Oct. 1 issue of ACS’ Analytical Chemistry, a semi-monthly journal.

In the new study, Salvador Garrigues and colleagues point out that the purity of heroin can vary widely, since pushers often mix it with chalk, flour, or other “cutting agents.” Because heroin users do not know the exact purity of the drug, they are at risk for overdose and even death. Conventional tests for determining the purity of street heroin involve destructive and time-consuming sample preparation, the scientists say.

They studied 31 illicit drug samples from Spain that contained 6 percent - 34 percent heroin. The scientists tested the samples using the new analytical method, called Diffuse Reflectance Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (DR-NIR). It involves shooting a beam of infrared light into a sample to determine its chemical composition based on the wavelength of light emitted. The method quickly and accurately determined the chemical content of the samples without any prior sample preparation, the scientists say. — MTS

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Researchers are reporting progress toward a wave of new drugs and vaccines that could significantly improve the health and lifespan of millions infected with or at risk for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to an article scheduled for the Sept. 22 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS’ weekly newsmagazine. The findings offer hope for the estimated 33 million people worldwide who are currently infected with the virus.

In the C&EN cover story, Senior Correspondent Ann Thayer notes that when HIV was first identified almost 25 years ago, the life expectancy of an infected person was only about one year. Today, with more than 20 so-called antiretroviral drugs now available to treat the disease, an infected person can expect to live many years, at least in developed countries. With new insights into how the virus works in the body, pharmaceutical companies are now attempting to develop even more effective drugs that are safer and easier to use.

While there’s still no cure for the disease, Thayer notes in a companion article in C&EN, researchers are working hard to develop an effective HIV vaccine, considered the ultimate way to prevent infection. But there’s still a lot to learn about the virus itself and the human body’s response, as setbacks in recent clinical trials have shown, according to the article. “Failure is the norm in product development, particularly for something as difficult as HIV,” notes one researcher.

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• Press releases, chat room sessions, and more from ACS' 236th National Meeting

It's never too late to explore a treasure trove of news sources, background material and story ideas available from the ACS' latest National Meeting, which was held in Philadelphia from August 17-21, 2008. Reporters can view press releases, search an archive with abstracts of more than 9,000 scientific presentations and hundreds of non-technical summaries of those presentations, and access other resources at: www.eurekalert.org/acsmeet.php.

The ACS Office of Public Affairs also offers recorded video versions of its national meeting "chat room" briefings and accompanying chat transcripts by going to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/acslive. To use this site, you must first register with Ustream.tv by going to http://ustream.tv/sign-up-step-1. It's free and only takes a minute or two to sign up. To view the archived chat room sessions, proceed by clicking the "Login" button at the top right of the Ustream window and then selecting "Past Clips." Please note that Ustream requires the latest version of Adobe Flash, which can be downloaded without charge at http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer.

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