The Malaysian Insider :: Features

In lab, drug-on-the-cob fights rare disease

Posted: 22 Sep 2012 03:01 AM PDT

PARIS, Sept 22 – Biologists in Canada have made a medical enzyme using genetically-engineered corn, a feat that could one day slash the cost of treating a life-threatening inherited disease, a journal reported recently.

Inserting a section of DNA code into maize seed caused them to make alpha-L-iduronidase in the endosperm, a nutritive tissue in the corn kernel.

Alpha-L-iduronidase breaks down sugar molecules and is deficient in people with mucopolysaccheridosis I (MPS 1).

This is a so-called lysosomal storage disorder, in which sugary debris builds up in cells, damaging tissue in the heart, eyes, skeleton and brain.

Without replacement enzymes, sufferers of MPS 1 often die in childhood.

Until now, the therapy has been produced by coaxing cultures of cells taken from the ovaries of Chinese hamsters, and is hugely expensive.

The existing drug for MPS 1, laronidase (marketed as Aldurazyme) costs around US$300,000 annually for children and US$1 million for adults.

The research, led by Allison Kermode at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, is published in the journal Nature Communications.

The results amount to "proof of concept" for making the enzyme in laboratory conditions, the team say.

Further work would be needed to scale up volume, but this should not be too much of a problem and conventional techniques could be used, they add.

Severe MPS I occurs in approximately in one in 100,000 newborns, according to the website Genetics Home Reference, which is supported by the US health authorities.

A milder form, called attenuated MPS I, occurs in about one in 500,000 births. – AFP/Relaxnews

‘Designers are making technology more human,’ says London’s Brompton Design District curator

Posted: 22 Sep 2012 12:42 AM PDT

'Designers are making technology more human,' says London's Brompton Design District curator

LONDON, Sept 22 — Brompton Design District is a programme which was born in West London as a response to the domination of East London in areas such as design and art which was attracting all the creative talent eastwards in the city.

"We created the Brompton Design Programme to join the dots and get people to work together," says Jane Withers. — AFP/Relaxnews

As part of the London Design Festival (September 14 -23) Brompton Design District is holding a series of events including pop-up exhibitions, talks and workshops. Relaxnews went on a tour around the district with the curator of the programme Jane Withers.

Relaxnews: Can you tell us what the Brompton Design District programme is about?

Jane Withers: Brompton Design District began five years ago, partly because the area has deep roots in design. In 1851 the great exhibition gave rise to institutions such as the V&A and the Royal College of Art, the Imperial College, and a number of museums on Exhibition Road. There is also the retail area in Brompton Cross.

We created the Brompton Design Programme to join the dots and get people to work together. As part of the programme we have used empty properties to stage guerrilla exhibitions, pop-up exhibitions and workshops, among others. In the past five and a half years we have held a couple of hundred design events.

R: We have seen a number of projects which address technology and the digital world, could we call this is a current trend?

JW: In different ways, design is a way to reinterpret change and find ways for us to negotiate the changing world. We have selected projects which reflect that, some of them have used cutting-edge technology and created a very human interaction. Digital is becoming a trend in design, we are all in the computer world, these designers are turning technology [into something that is] a lot more human and closer to us, they are making strange hybrids between the physical and the virtual world.

R: What is dominating the mind of designers at the moment?

JW: Designers are getting away from the perfect industrial finishes and getting more and more into crafting. Designers are taking a poetic view of design rather than a functional view. It is a response to the 20th century design format and I think it is because it is hard for new designers to be picked up by the established industry, so they find alternative ways to create, to exhibit and market their products; for example, the pop-up exhibition trend.

R: What is the tangible impact of the festival on the international world of design?

JW: An awareness of London as a creative city, it is a good place for design, it is quite maverick and experimental. There is a long tradition of inventors in the UK who managed to think differently.

http://www.bromptondesigndistrict.com/ — AFP/Relaxnews

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Sabtu, 22 September 2012