UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

New hydrogen purification method created

EVANSTON, Ill., Feb. 17 (UPI) -- U.S. chemists say they've developed a class of new porous materials that are very effective at purifying hydrogen by separating it from complex gas mixtures.

Northwestern University Professor Mercouri Kanatzidis and postdoctoral researcher Gerasimos Armatas said their new materials exhibit excellent selectivity in separating hydrogen from carbon dioxide and methane.

"A more selective process means fewer cycles to produce pure hydrogen, increasing efficiency," said Kanatzidis. "Our materials could be used very effectively as membranes for gas separation. We have demonstrated their superior performance."

Kanatzidis and Armatas said their new materials don't rely on size for separation but on polarization -- the interaction of the gas molecules with the walls of the material as the molecules move through the membrane.

The research is detailed in the online edition of the journal Nature Materials.

Gene therapy may fight cystic fibrosis

BERKELEY, Calif., Feb. 17 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have turned a relatively benign virus into an infectious form that, in its first gene therapy test, cured cystic fibrosis tissue in culture.

Researchers from the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Iowa said their achievement with the benign adeno-associated virus overcomes a major problem of earlier virus-based gene therapy for cystic fibrosis, setting the stage for tests in advanced animal models of the disease.

"I think it is worthwhile thinking about clinical therapy at the levels of infection we are achieving," said UC-Berkeley Professor David Schaffer.

He said a new pig model of cystic fibrosis developed last year by pulmonologist Professor Joseph Zabner at the University of Iowa will provide a key test of the virus as a carrier of a gene to replace the mutated gene responsible for the disease.

"If we are able to show that efficient gene transfer can result in gene therapy, if we can cure the lung disease of pigs that have been genetically engineered to have cystic fibrosis lung disease, we should have a real chance of curing cystic fibrosis in humans," Zabner said.

The research appears in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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In science, discovery equal to instruction

KALAMAZOO, Mich., Feb. 17 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say they've found young science students learn nearly equally as well whether through experimentation or direct instruction.

The Western Michigan University researchers said they determined neither teaching approach provides a significant advantage for middle school science students.

Three of the university's faculty members -- William Cobern, David Schuster and Renee Schwartz -- note the science community overwhelmingly teaches science though inquiry and experimentation. However, in some states there is political pressure for a return to direct instruction in science and math for K-12 students.

The educators studied middle school instruction during two-week summer programs for several years. In comparing the two methods of instruction, they found there actually was no significant difference in learning by students.

"The data, while marginally favoring inquiry, really show that as long as the instruction is good either way, the two approaches lead to no significant difference -- at least as far as science content understanding is concerned," said Cobern.

The researchers presented their findings this week in Chicago during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Early pancreatic cancer detection possible

EVANSTON, Ill., Feb. 17 (UPI) -- U.S. medical scientists say they have developed a technology that is capable of detecting never-before-seen signs of early-stage pancreatic cancer.

A team of researchers led by Northwestern University biomedical engineering Professor Vadim Backman said although the new technique has not yet proven effective in double-blind clinical trials, it might one day help diagnose cancers of the pancreas and, potentially, other organs at their earliest and most treatable stages.

The researchers, including a team from the NorthShore University HealthSystem, said the new technique -- called partial wave spectroscopic microscopy -- allows them to examine cell samples taken from people who have undergone screening for pancreatic cancer to detect signs of the disease.

Pancreatic cancer is typically diagnosed by hospital pathologists who look for telltale changes to the morphology of pancreatic cells when they examine cell biopsies under the microscope, the scientists said. The problem is many early-stage cancer cells appear normal.

The new technique measures nanoscopic changes to the interior architecture of cells -- changes that may signal signs of cancer even in cells that look normal under the microscope.

The research that included graduate students Yang Liu and Hariharan Subramanian and postdoctoral fellow Prabhakar Pradhan appears in the online edition of the journal Optics Letters.