UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

NASA tech might be used for Web gaming

WASHINGTON, April 21 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says educators soon might soon be able to use computer-simulation games that employ space age technologies.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration sponsored a Monday workshop to present its concept of delivering NASA content through a Massively Multi-player Online, or MMO, educational game to interested development partners.

Designed to enhance learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, the game would be designed to draw players into a synthetic environment that can serve as a powerful "hands-on" tool for teaching a range of complex subjects, officials said.

"NASA will continue to pursue innovative strategies to encourage students to improve their interest and performance in STEM and related careers," said Joyce Winterton, NASA's assistant administrator for education. "The use of online educational games can capture student interest in NASA's missions and science."

The space agency said it expects the game to appeal mainly to teenagers and college students.

Potential cancer drug does well in study

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., April 21 (UPI) -- A U.S. university study suggests the drug triphendiol causes tumor cell death in pancreatic and bile duct cancer, as well as slowing tumor growth.

The study by University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers led by Assistant Professor Ewan Tytler showed the drug also sensitizes tumors to chemotherapy treatments.

Tytler and his colleagues assessed the potential of triphendiol as a treatment for pancreatic adenocarcinoma using three representative cell lines. Triphendiol induced cell death in all three cell lines and pretreating the cell lines with triphendiol increased the effectiveness of chemotherapy.

Animal model studies showed triphendiol in combination with chemotherapy inhibited tumor growth even more effectively than each drug alone.

"In our laboratory studies, triphendiol is more potent at inducing cell death in pancreatic and bile duct cancer cells compared to the chemotherapy drug gemcitabine alone at up to 10-fold lower concentrations," Tytler said. "Of course, there is still much work to be done before this could become a treatment protocol for cancer patients, but our findings are promising and validate the continued development of triphendiol as a possible pancreatic cancer therapy."

Triphendiol is being developed by Marshall Edwards Inc., which funded Tytler's research.

The study that included Dr. Xiaohong Wang and Professor J. Anthony Thompson was presented last week in San Diego, during the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Twin space probe design phase begins

LAUREL, Md., April 21 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency said design has started on its radiation storm probes -- twin spacecraft that will be launched into the Earth's radiation belts.

Researchers said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration spacecraft are being designed to provide insight into the physical dynamics of near-Earth space, where violent space weather can affect astronauts, satellites and even ground-based technologies.

Researchers and engineers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., will build and operate the twin probes, which are scheduled for a 2011 launch and a primary mission of two years.

The radiation belts are two doughnut-shaped regions encircling Earth, where high-energy particles are trapped by the planet's magnetic field, scientists said. Most Earth-orbiting spacecraft pass through the belts, which can affect both astronauts and spacecraft.

Scientists hope the space mission will resolve decades-old scientific mysteries of how such particles become energized to such high levels and how the radiation belts vary so dramatically with changing conditions on the sun.

The instruments will be provided by teams managed by Boston University, the University of Iowa, the University of Minnesota, the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the National Reconnaissance Office.

Synthetic gene therapy material is created

PHILADELPHIA, April 21 (UPI) -- U.S. cardiology researchers report creating a versatile synthetic material that can bind to a variety of gene therapy vectors.

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia scientists said their delivery technology can be custom designed for controlled local release of therapeutic genes at a disease site.

The researchers used their new synthetic formulation to bind adenoviruses to bare metal stents placed in the carotid arteries of research rats. Adenoviruses served as a gene therapy vector to carry genes for an enzyme that significantly reduced restenosis -- the hazardous narrowing of a blood vessel that often occurs despite the presence of a stent designed to hold it open. The eventual goal is to use the technique to treat human artery disease.

"We developed a synthetic gene delivery system that can be used for any gene therapy vector, not just adenoviruses," said study leader Dr. Robert Levy. "Furthermore, this new formulation allows us to increase the dosage of gene therapy vectors delivered, and we can tune the materials for sustained release over a longer time period."

The study is reported in the online edition of the journal Circulation.