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Now,
the University of Florida is building a state-of-the art bioprocessing
facility to help fight these chronic diseases. With a $10 million
state grant, the UF Center of Excellence in Regenerative Health
Biotechnology (CERHB) will become a national hub for regenerative
health technologies. Regenerative technologies use advances in gene
therapy and adult stem cell therapy to develop treatment and cures
for chronic diseases. Among
the greatest challenges remaining to widespread implementation of
these therapies is the understanding of and ability to control gene
expression, or “epigenetics.” Also, product development
resulting from accelerated research in epigenetics is slowed by
two major obstacles — an international shortage of bioprocessing
facilities and a shortage of trained personnel to operate these
facilities. CERHB
will address these problems by creating a home for both basic and
applied biotech research. The facility will provide academic researchers
and biotechnology companies a steady supply of the gene therapy
microbes and adult stem cells they need for their work. The
University of Florida Research Foundation has committed $3.6 million
to purchase an existing building in the university’s research
park for the facility, which will be fully operational within 18
months of the purchase. The
state grant, provided through the Florida Technology Development
Act passed last year by the legislature, will fund renovation and
equipment. The facility will employ nearly 150 people, and a workforce
training program will produce about 25 employees per year for the
biotech industry. Numerous regional biotech companies have committed
to using this facility, ensuring sufficient revenue to support its
ongoing operation and future development. The
university already has world-class programs in adult stem cell biology
and gene therapy, with faculty in these areas receiving more than
$75 million in grants. To enhance this strength, the university
has also committed $6.7 million over the next five years to establish
three new faculty research positions in epigenetics and two more
senior faculty positions in bioprocess engineering. Sheldon
Schuster, schuster@biotech.ufl.edu by
Joseph Kays UF
geology Professor Michael Perfit boarding the By
examining volcanic rocks retrieved from deep in the ocean, scientists
have found they can estimate the carbon dioxide stored beneath much
of the Earth’s surface — a development that could enhance
understanding of how volcanoes affect climate. The
research by University of Florida scientists and others was reported
in the journal Nature. Scientists examined chunks of basalt, a type
of volcanic rock formed when lava cools, from 12,000 feet below
the Pacific Ocean along a massive geographical formation called
the mid-ocean ridge. The scientists discovered in these basalts
traces of carbon dioxide and other compounds that originated deep
within the Earth’s mantle, the source of most volcanic activity.
Because compounds from this inaccessible region had never been found
so well preserved, the rocks gave scientists a rare peek at what
the mantle consists of — and what it might spew into the atmosphere
through volcanoes. “Most
lava erupts at the surface and has lost its gases. From a geochemist’s
point of view, you need to know what the composition of the mantle
really is,” said Mike Perfit, a UF geology professor and co-author
of the Nature paper. “This kind of data might be
useful in talking about the contribution of the mantle to the atmosphere
and hydrosphere and how those concentrations might affect the climate.” Carbon
dioxide is the leading “greenhouse gas” that traps heat
and contributes to warming of the Earth. Scientists have long speculated
volcanic eruptions can spew enough of this and other gases into
the atmosphere to cause significant warming trends — changes
so massive they may even spur mass extinctions. By giving scientists
an idea of how much carbon dioxide lies under the Earth, the basalt
may help answer this question, Perfit said. When
magma rises to the Earth’s surface and erupts as lava flows,
Perfit said, it typically “de-gasses.” As the Earth’s
pressure on the lava declines, the amount of volatile compounds
that become gases at the surface rapidly decreases, a bit like popping
open a soft drink and releasing the carbon dioxide bubbles. As a
result, carbon dioxide, water, sulfur dioxide, helium, chlorine
and other “volatiles” are barely present in most basalt,
making it difficult for geologists to figure out the amounts and
proportions of these compounds in the mantle. The
deep ocean, however, is a unique environment. There, the water is
so cold and the pressure so intense that it may keep the volatiles
confined in the lava, known as magma, when it first erupts and hardens.
As a result, geologists have seen deep-sea geological formations
such as so-called “pillow flows” as one of their best
hopes for investigating the mantle question. Perfit
and colleague Dan Fornari of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
were among the scientists who dived in the manned deep-water submersible
“Alvin” to probe a site a few hundred miles west of
the Mexican coast. The area, a deep part of the mid-ocean ridge
known as the Siqueiros Transform fault, was known to experience
underwater eruptions, which is why the scientists chose it for their
investigation. Perfit returned with a small load of golf ball- to
basketball-sized pieces of basalt from the sea floor, where the
water pressure was 350 times greater than at the surface. This
basalt was not only bubble-free, indicating that the volatile compounds
remained in the lava but it also was very recently formed, making
it an ideal study candidate. Scientists discovered that small crystals
in the rock called olivines contained tiny bits of pure magma. Using
newly developed technology that can analyze very small areas, researchers
measured the volatiles in this magma. If
the basalts Alvin returned to the surface are typical of other mid-ocean
ridge basalts, they could help determine the rate at which Earth’s
belowground carbon dioxide is supplied to the atmosphere through
volcanoes. Mike
Perfit, perfit@geology.ufl.edu Aaron
Hoover Faced
with ever-increasing pressure to boost state-mandated test scores,
some school districts may be seeking an advantage by pumping up
their pupils with extra calories from junk food, a study conducted
at the University of Florida suggests.
The study, published in the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
online working paper series, found that on test days many districts
fed students high-energy foods with low nutritional value because
the empty calories give students a short-term mental lift much like
carbohydrate loading energizes athletes, said “We
find significant evidence that school districts, particularly those
threatened with at least one failing or sanctioned school, respond
by giving students more empty calories on testing days,” said
Figlio, who also is a faculty research fellow for the National Bureau
of Economic Research. “These are calories found by nutritionists
to have substantial very short-term cognitive effects, but no long-term
benefits.” Studies
have shown that students perform better at academic tasks in the
several hours following a large dose of glucose or empty calories,
which improves knowledge or cognitive ability in addition to Figlio
and Joshua Winicki, an economist with the American Institutes for
Research, did a detailed study of elementary school lunch menus
from 23 randomly selected school districts in Virginia during the
1999-2000 school year, comparing nutritional content on days of
state-mandated tests with that of non-test dates. The study was
funded by the National Science Foundation. In
districts with at least one school in danger of facing sanctions,
school lunches averaged 863 calories during the testing period,
compared with 761 calories before and 745 calories after, Figlio
said. Despite
the calorie boost, however, the nutritional content of the food
was lower on test days, he said. Vitamin C averaged 34 milligrams
during the testing period as opposed to 37 milligrams before and
44 milligrams after the test. Vitamin A averaged 531 retinol equivalents,
or RE, during testing, but 615 RE before and 672 RE afterward. The
dietary changes were subtle but may include corn dogs instead of
hot dogs or different types of pizza, he said. The
empty-calorie approach seems to work in improving test scores —
at least in the short run. Among schools threatened with sanctions,
those that increased calories the most during test days saw the
largest gains in student achievement, he said. Figlio
said he doubts that schools increase calorie content because they
want to reward students with their favorite foods for the stress
they endure on test days. According
to one school district in the sample, elementary students’
favorite meals, as measured by sales, are pizza, cheeseburgers and
tacos. Yet schools in the sample served these items on only 35 percent
of testing days, compared with 34 percent of non-testing days, he
said. David
Figlio, figliodn@notes.cba.ufl.edu Cathy
Keen So
says a group of University of Florida engineers who have recreated
part of a unique bone in the horse’s leg with an eye toward
lighter, stronger materials for planes and spacecraft.
The third metacarpus bone in the horse’s leg supports much
of the force conveyed as the animal moves. One side of the cucumber-sized
bone has a pea-sized hole where blood vessels enter the bone. Holes
naturally weaken structures, causing them to break more easily than
solid structures when pressure is applied. Yet while the third metacarpus
does fracture, particularly in racehorses, it doesn’t break
near the hole — not even when the bone is subjected to laboratory
stress tests. UF
engineering researchers think they’ve figured out why —
and they’ve built and are testing a plate that mimics the
bone’s uncanny strength in a form potentially useful for airplanes
and spacecraft. “Holes
are a classic source of failure in engineered structures, but nature
has found a way around that in this bone,” said Andrew Rapoff,
an assistant professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering and
the lead researcher on the project. “We’re mimicking
nature’s solution.” The
engineers analyzed the structure of the horse bone around its hole
— or foramen — with microscopy and microradiography,
techniques that render the details of its microscopic composition.
The
upshot of their analyses: The bone was configured in such a way
that it pushed the highest stresses away from the foramen into a
region of higher strength. The
engineers used their analyses and computer models to create a “biomimetic
plate,” with a hole surrounded by several different grades
of polyur- ethane foam to mimic the compositional structure of the
bone near the foramen. The
researchers tested the plate by placing it across two upright pillars
and weighing it down, comparing the results with those from an identical
test of a plate with a drilled hole without the foam stabilizer.
It took twice the weight to break the biomimetic plate. Moreover,
when it did finally break, the fracture did not go through the hole
as occurred with the plate with the drilled hole. Andrew
Rapoff, rapoff@ufl.edu Aaron
Hoover Scientists
have discovered superconductivity in a most unlikely place: the
highly radioactive element used to make nuclear weapons. In
an article in the journal Nature, a group of researchers,
including a University of Florida physicist, report discovering
a plutonium-based electrical superconductor. The finding is significant
because plutonium, the active ingredient in atomic bombs, has physical
properties that should prevent it from behaving as a superconductor
– suggesting current theories about this phenomenon may not
apply to this element. “This
is anomalous superconductivity, which is fascinating,” said
Gregory Stewart, a UF physics professor and contributing author
of the paper. Superconductors
conduct electricity without any resistance. Discovered in the early
20th century, the first ones functioned only at extremely cold temperatures
of a few degrees Kelvin, or about 450 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
Stewart
said John Sarrao, the lead author on the Nature paper,
and his colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico discovered the plutonium compound superconducted while they
were measuring the magnetic behavior. To their surprise, a probe
of the material’s magnetic properties revealed diamagnetic,
or “anti-magnetic” behavior, a telltale indicator of
superconductivity, he said. That was unexpected because plutonium
very often forms compounds that are highly magnetic; never before
had a compound containing plutonium been found to be superconducting. “It
would be like finding an excellent material for building skyscrapers
from a new recipe for Jell-O,” Stewart said. “You just
wouldn’t expect it.” More
surprising still, the plutonium did not begin superconducting at
1 or 2 degrees Kelvin, which one might expect for a material that
was not very superconductive. Instead, it began superconducting
at 18 Kelvin, or about minus 427 degrees Fahrenheit. Gregory
Stewart, stewart@phys.ufl.edu Aaron
Hoover Microbiology
and cell science Professors Lonnie Ingram (left) and Bill
Gurley demonstrate how genetically modified bacteria and plants
sprayed on contaminated sites can produce fluorescent pigments
that show the presence of TNT and other types of pollution To
detect toxic explosive residues in the soil —including unexploded
artillery shells and other weapons — University of Florida
researchers are using genetic engineering to modify microbes and
plants that can be used as “biosensors.” The
three-year research project, supported by a $2.3 million contract
from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects
Agency, will help clean up thousands of acres of land that have
been used for military training in the United States and abroad. “Many
of these areas are far too vast for current remediation technologies,
and new methods must be found to accurately identify localized areas
of contamination for a more focused cleanup effort,” said
Lonnie Ingram, a professor of microbiology and cell science with
UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. He leads
a five-member faculty team working on the defense contract. “Most
of these military training areas are contaminated with toxic explosive
residues and unexploded ordnance,” Ingram said. “Before
they can be cleaned up and returned to public use, methods must
be developed to map or identify the problem areas for cleaning.” Of
equal importance, he said, the research will identify clean regions
that do not contain explosive residues or materials. Clearly identifying
areas that pose no danger to people, animals, plants or the environment
will greatly reduce costs. Ingram
said different microbial and plant biosensors also could be developed
for use in monitoring other types of environmental pollution, such
as pesticide or chemical contamination. “Bacteria
and plants will be genetically engineered to produce visible responses
to the presence of TNT and their degradation products in the soil,”
Ingram said. “For
example, we are developing sentinel bacteria that can be sprayed
on contaminated sites and will produce fluorescent pigments —
painting the soil surface with colors that show the presence of
explosive chemicals,” he said. “Contaminated areas could
then be mapped and quantified by aerial surveillance or satellite.” Similarly,
the UF team will genetically modify plants so they will change in
pigmentation as a response to soil contamination. The response system
in plants will incorporate sensors initially developed in bacteria. “Unlike
bacteria that respond primarily to surface contamination, plant
roots penetrating the soil should provide a more-sensitive measure
of buried materials,” Ingram said. “Together, the sentinel
bacteria and plant systems should provide effective new tools to
help remediate military lands.” Lonnie
Ingram, ingram@ufl.edu Chuck
Woods The
University of Florida has received a $3 million gift aimed at making
it an international leader in the study of biodiversity and the
environment, a field that will play an increasingly important role
in agriculture and other areas as Earth becomes more crowded and
people continue to deplete its natural resources. The
gift, from the Minnesota-based William W. McGuire and Nadine M.
McGuire Family Foundation, will establish a new program to be named
the McGuire Institute for Biodiversity and the Environment. Located
within the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, the
first-of-its-kind institute will focus on the ecological importance
of biodiversity and keeping use of the natural environment in balance
with human needs by establishing an endowment to support this field
of study. “Biodiversity,
the extraordinary array of plant and animal species that keeps every
part of our world functioning, is being recognized as an extremely
important issue through this gift,” said Thomas C. Emmel,
a professor of zoology and director of UF’s Division of Lepidoptera
Research who also directs the McGuire Center in which the institute
will be located. “This new institute will marshal incredible
resources and talents at UF to help lead us toward a more sustainable
future regarding ecology and the environment, and help us solve
some of the world’s most pressing problems before it is too
late.” Tom
Emmel, tcemmel@ufl.edu Paul
Ramey Fuel-Cell
Buses Quiet Compared with Diesels Reduced
air pollution and increased energy independence may not be the only
advantages of the experimental fuel cells the federal government
hopes will replace internal combustion engines. Unlike
their roaring diesel counterparts, fuel cell-powered buses also
are remarkably quiet, according to research findings by University
of Florida engineers published in the Journal of Sound and Vibration. A
team of UF mechanical engineering faculty and students compared
the noise produced by conventional diesel buses to the noise generated
by an experimental fuel-cell bus owned by the university. The result:
The fuel-cell bus was at least nine decibels quieter than the quietest
diesel bus — akin to the difference between a conversation
and a busy machine shop, as one researcher put it. “Really,
the only noise comes from the fans and pumps and blowers and things
that are part of the fuel-cell system or part of the bus, like the
air conditioning compressor,” said Vernon Roan, a professor
of mechanical engineering and member of the team. “All of
that noise combined is still pretty quiet compared to a diesel engine.” Roan
said there are close to 75,000 municipal transit diesel buses nationwide.
Replacing them would result not only in less air pollution, but
also less noise pollution, something many pedestrians and bus riders
alike would find welcome, he said. Fuel
cells typically combine hydrogen and oxygen in a nearly pollution-free
chemical reaction that produces energy. With some types of fuel
cells, the only emissions are water and heat. The
team measured noise levels at several locations inside and outside
the bus and compared the results to similar measurements from three
diesel buses. The fuel-cell bus was consistently and significantly
quieter. For example, from a distance of 2.5 meters, or about 8
feet, it produced 73 decibels compared to 82, 84 and 87 decibels
for the diesel buses. A
50-decibel noise is just audible, while 90 decibels is considered
very loud. So the gap between 73 and 82 decibels is “huge,”
Roan said. Vernon
Roan, vproan@juno.com Aaron
Hoover The
rapid flow of blood through the body is a major roadblock to the
use of gene therapy to cure diseases. When injected into the blood,
vector viruses — which carry corrective genes — tend
to be carried past the target organ or tissue rather than sticking
to it, like grains of sand moving past stones in a fast-flowing
river. Now,
University of Florida gene therapy and biomedical engineering researchers
have demonstrated a novel approach to the problem. In an article
in the journal Molecular Therapy, they report attaching
the adeno-associated virus, a widely used gene carrier, to the surface
of tiny manufactured balls known as microspheres, each containing
a miniscule particle of iron oxide. Using
a magnet placed under culture dishes, the researchers were able
to coax large amounts of the microspheres to target areas of the
cultures. In related experiments in mice, the researchers showed
the microspheres clung to cells or organs longer than the virus
alone did. The
procedure could someday evolve into a treatment that would enable
doctors to guide corrective gene-containing microspheres injected
into a patient with magnets placed outside the skin. “By
packaging the virus with the microsphere, we both guided it to the
targeted area and got it to stick there,” said Barry Byrne,
the lead researcher and a pediatric cardiologist with the UF College
of Medicine who is affiliated with the UF Genetics Institute. Byrne
and Cathryn Mah, an assistant research professor in the department
of pediatrics, collaborated on the project with UF colleagues in
pharmaceutics, genetics, and materials science and engineering.
The effort, partially funded by the Whitaker Foundation, is part
of UF’s growing biomedical engineering initiative involving
a wide range of medical and engineering researchers. Barry
Byrne, bbyrne@ufl.edu Aaron
Hoover The
University of Florida will lead a group of more than 20 universities
in a new research institute whose aim will be to improve the safety
and lower the costs of launching spacecraft. The
Spaceport Research and Technology Institute is being created as
part of a broader NASA effort to develop advanced spaceport technologies
and systems. The space agency awarded a $220 million contract to
Maryland-based ASRC Aerospace Corp. to develop the systems for manned
and unmanned spacecraft in conjunction with UF and its academic
partners. The venture was selected from seven applicants to the
NASA research program, which was in the works before the Columbia
tragedy. The
institute’s research activities will be based at Kennedy Space
Center, where it will join a previously established UF center devoted
to developing next-generation onboard life-support systems. “This
institute cements UF’s permanent presence at Kennedy,”
said Win Phillips, UF vice president for research and dean of the
Graduate School. “Our work there will help NASA address some
of its most critical challenges, while providing exciting and important
applied research opportunities for university scientists, engineers
and graduate students.” The
institute’s research will focus on developing more efficient,
more economical and safer launch technologies, said Peggy Evanich,
UF’s director of space research programs. Evanich will serve
as interim director while a search for a permanent director is conducted.
For the immediate future, scientists will emphasize improving shuttle
and unmanned rocket launch operations at Kennedy and may work with
other U.S. spaceports. “This
covers all the areas related to operating a spaceport — whether
on Earth or the moon or even Mars,” Evanich said. “For
example, for a base on Mars, we’d like to know how to use
the Martian environment to generate oxygen for the trip back to
Earth.” The
research will focus broadly on improving components such as rocket
fuel systems, creating better structures and materials, and better
command and control systems. It also will seek to improve the safety
and efficiency of launches. The
institute, which is anticipated to include at least 24 universities
nationwide, is expected to receive funding annually from NASA’s
contract with ASRC Aerospace. The other institutions involved include
Florida State University, the University of Central Florida, the
University of Miami, the University of Wisconsin, the University
of Michigan and Johns Hopkins University. NASA’s contract
with the company extends though 2008 and may be renewed annually
for an additional five years, for a total of $600 million possible
toward the effort. Mike
O’Neal, manager of university research and development at
Kennedy’s Strategic Technology Formulation Office, said NASA
hopes to find ways to improve numerous methods and techniques currently
used during vehicle processing, launch and landing. Prior
to each space shuttle launch, for example, the space agency pumps
liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel into the shuttle through vacuum-insulated
ground pipes to minimize propellant boil-off, he said. These “vacuum
jackets” are expensive to build and maintain, and NASA would
like to find a cheaper but equally effective alternative insulation,
he said. Also,
O’Neal said, the shuttle and the fleet of expendable rockets
create a tremendous amount of vibration and acoustic shock at launch.
To avoid any possibility of resulting structural failure, engineers
have added extra reinforcement to their designs. If researchers
could accurately measure and model the vibration and acoustic shock
forces, they might be able to engineer lighter and less expensive
vehicle designs to launch, he said. “The
amount of weight you have to put into orbit is really key to the
cost,” he said. “So, modeling of that environment is
critical.” O’Neal
said he expects the universities participating in the project to
focus on applying ideas and technologies from their own labs as
well as from their national counterparts — for example, the
Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories. “We’d
like assistance with how we can leverage that research for good
technologies that we can use in the spaceport,” he said. The
other UF research program at Kennedy is the Center for Space Agriculture
and Biotechnology Research and Education, launched last year. Directed
by Robert Ferl, a professor of horticultural sciences, the program
seeks to develop plant-based techniques to create regenerative life-support
systems in space. Peggy
Evanich, pevanich@ufl.edu Aaron
Hoover University
of Florida researchers have developed soft contact lenses that contain
tiny drug-filled particles capable of releasing medications slowly
and steadily into the eye. Such lenses would have significant advantages
over eye drops, which convey only a small portion of their drugs
to the eye while allowing the rest to enter the bloodstream and
other tissues where they can cause harmful side effects, said Anuj
Chauhan, a UF assistant professor of chemical engineering. Chauhan
and UF chemical engineering doctoral student Derya Gulsen presented
their findings at the American Chemical Society’s national
meeting. “As
soon as you apply eye drops, they quickly mix with tears and a significant
portion drains into the nasal cavity and eventually gets absorbed
into the bloodstream,” Chauhan said. “There clearly
is a need for drug-delivery systems that can solve this problem,
and we believe our system provides one potential solution.” Millions
of Americans suffer from cataracts, glaucoma and other eye diseases.
Although surgery is a possibility in some cases, these diseases
often are treated with drops packed with powerful drugs. Some of
this medication reaches its target, but the majority winds up in
the body, Chauhan said. Chauhan
and Gulsen developed a technique to encapsulate a test drug in tiny
“nanoparticles” — each measuring 50 nanometers,
or 50 billionths of a meter. They mixed these oil-based particles
into the same material used to make commercial contact lenses and
fashioned large prototype lenses with characteristics similar to
manufactured ones. The
drug particles are so small they don’t scatter light, so they
don’t cloud the finished lenses, Chauhan said. And because
the lenses would be suspended in the moist environment of the eye,
the drug would in theory seep out slowly. The
drug-laden nanoparticles not only provide slow release, but they
also distribute the drug into the thin area sandwiched between the
eye and the contact lens. Chauhan predicted this would mean far
less drug would escape into the tears, down through the nasal cavity
and into the body, Chauhan said. Chauhan
said in theory the lenses would be disposable, with patients changing
them for new lenses every couple of weeks, as is currently done
with disposable lenses. The drug-infused lenses are made of the
same material as regular contact lenses, so he does not expect their
cost to be prohibitive. The next step in his research, he said,
is to learn more about how to vary the rate or timing of drug delivery,
which could be done through changing the size or concentration of
the nanoparticles. Anuj
Chauhan, (352) 392-2592, chauhan@che.ufl.edu Aaron
Hoover |
Thanks to advances in
health care over the last half century, people today are less likely
to die suddenly from an acute condition, like a massive heart attack,
than they are from chronic diseases that hang around the body for
years, like diabetes, cancer or congestive heart disease.
The
average person’s heart pumps about a gallon of blood per minute,
a rate that can easily triple or quadruple during exercise.
People suffering from glaucoma or other eye diseases could one day
replace eye drops with drug-laden contact lenses that deliver medication
precisely when and where it is needed.
