Here is the latest
American Chemical Society (ACS) News Service Weekly press
package (PressPac) with reports selected from 35 major
peer-reviewed journals and Chemical & Engineering
News.
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ACS NEWS
SERVICE
Weekly PressPac
- ALL CONTENT IS FOR IMMEDIATE USE EXCEPT ARTICLE #5
(EMBARGOED FOR 9 A.M., EASTERN TIME, NOV. 27,
2006)
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PressPac Archive:
http://www.chemistry.org/news/presspac.html
The American Chemical Society
(ACS) News Service PressPac is your access point for
discoveries in fields ranging from astronomy to -zoology,
which are reported in the 35 peer-reviewed journals of the
American Chemical Society. With more than 158,000 members, ACS
is the world’s largest scientific society. Chemistry is the
science that transforms lives, and these news alerts are from
the leading edge of that science at ACS
headquarters.
Contact:
Michael
Woods
202-872-4400
m_woods@acs.org
In This Edition:
-
Toward improved
medications for iron-overload diseases
-
Fostering a new
medical life for a forgotten
antibiotic
-
Engineering the
“Super Enzyme” — a potential new weapon against heart
disease
-
The semantics on
the next revolution in online scientific
publishing
-
A
continued erosion in
United
States’ share of global R&D
publications
-
Journalists’
Resources: Landmarks, news sources and more
-
Mark Your
Calendars: Chemistry’s growing role in cancer
research
The information in this press
package is intended for your personal use in news gathering
and reporting and should not be distributed to others. Anyone
using advance ACS News Service Weekly Press Package
information for stocks or securities dealing may be guilty of
insider trading under the federal Securities Exchange Act of
1934.
To download manuscripts and
images, please click on the links provided with each
item.
Please cite the individual
journal, or the American Chemical Society, as the source of
this information.
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ARTICLE #1 FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
Toward new
medications for iron-overload diseases
Journal of Medicinal
Chemistry
Scientists report progress in
developing much-needed new medications for hemochromatosis and
other iron-overload diseases. In these conditions, excess
amounts of iron accumulate in the liver, heart, pancreas and
other organs and eventually cause serious damage.
Raymond J. Bergeron and
colleagues at the University of Florida explain that existing treatments
remove only small amounts of iron from sensitive organs like
the heart. Treatment sometimes must continue for years to
remove enough iron to prevent organ damage, they note in a
report scheduled for the current (Nov. 16) issue of the ACS
Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, a biweekly
publication.
The researchers report the
synthesis and early testing in laboratory animals of a
possible new generation of iron chelating drugs, compounds
that remove excess iron from the body. In addition to working
more efficiently than existing medications, the new compounds
target specific organs such as the liver, heart and pancreas
that are most vulnerable to iron-overload damage.
ARTICLE #1 FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
“The Design, Synthesis, and
Evaluation of Organ-Specific Iron Chelators”
DOWNLOAD PDF
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/jmcmar/asap/pdf/jm0608816.pdf
DOWNLOAD HTML
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/jmcmar/asap/html/jm0608816.html
CONTACT:
Raymond J. Bergeron,
Ph.D.
University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida
Phone:
352-846-1956
Fax:
352-392-8406
Email:
rayb@ufl.edu
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ARTICLE #2 FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
Fostering a new
medical life for a forgotten antibiotic
Journal of the American
Chemical Society
The increasing need for
new antibiotics to combat multidrug-resistant bacteria has led
chemists to develop the first method for synthesizing a
potentially valuable antibiotic that has been sidelined from
clinical use for 40 years.
Harvard University’s Daniel E. Kahne and colleagues report the
first total synthesis of the antibiotic, moenomycin A, in an
article in the Nov. 15 issue of the Journal of the
American Chemical Society, a weekly
publication.
Kahne points out that
moenomycin is a broad-spectrum antibiotic with unusual
promise. It has strong antibacterial activity against a large
group of bacteria that cause pneumonia, urinary tract
infections, gastritis, stomach ulcers, food poisoning and
other disorders. Moenomycin also kills bacteria in an unusual
way; it binds directly to enzymes that bacteria need to form a
cell wall.
Although used as a growth
promoter in animals, moenomycin has never been developed for
medical use in humans because it is poorly absorbed into the
body. Discovery of a method to synthesize moenomycin is
important because it will allow scientists to better
understand the antibiotic and make variants of the natural
antibiotic that may be suitable for medical use.
ARTICLE #2
“The Total Synthesis of
Moenomycin A”
DOWNLOAD PDF
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/jacsat/asap/pdf/ja065907x.pdf
DOWNLOAD HTML
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/jacsat/asap/html/ja065907x.html
CONTACT:
Daniel E. Kahne,
Ph.D.
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Phone:
617-496-0208
Fax: 617-496-0215
Email:
kahne@chemistry.harvard.edu
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ARTICLE #3 FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
Engineering the
“Super Enzyme” — a potential new weapon against heart
disease Biochemistry
Efforts to understand the
link between the cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitor arthritis
drugs and heart disease have had an unanticipated benefit in
leading to development of an engineered protein with “great
potential” as a new treatment for heart disease, according to
a new scientific report.
In an article scheduled
for the Nov. 28 issue of the ACS weekly journal
Biochemistry, University of Texas’s Ke-He Ruan and colleagues point
out that the COX-2 drugs like the banned Vioxx have beneficial
anti-inflammatory effects for arthritis. However, studies now
suggest that those drugs also may increase the risk of heart
attacks and strokes by decreasing the body's production of
prostacyclin (a blood vessel protector that dilates blood
vessels and prevents blood clots) and increasing production of
thromboxane (which constricts vessels and promotes clot
formation).
A drug that increases
prostacyclin levels and decreases thromboxane could be an
ideal way to prevent and treat inflammation and cardiovascular
disease, they state. Ruan’s group reports taking a step in
that direction. They report linking together two enzymes to
engineer a protein to form a “Super Enzyme” with three
catalytic functions that makes cells grown in laboratory
cultures continuously produce protective prostacyclin. The
enzyme has advantages over another proposed strategy that
involves increasing prostacyclin levels by administering the
COX gene into cells, they add.
ARTICLE #3 FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
“Engineering of a Protein
with Cyclooxygenase and Prostacyclin Synthase Activities That
Converts Arachidonic Acid to Prostacyclin”
DOWNLOAD PDF
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/bichaw/asap/pdf/bi0614277.pdf
DOWNLOAD HTML
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/bichaw/asap/html/bi0614277.html
CONTACT:
Ke-H Ruan, M.D.,
Ph.D.
University of
Texas Health
Science Center at Houston
Houston, Texas
Phone:
713-500-6769
Fax: 713-500-6810
Email:
ke.h.ruan@uth.tmc.edu
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ARTICLE #4 FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
The semantics on the
next revolution in online scientific
publishing
Journal of Chemical
Information and Modeling
Publishers of
electronic scientific journals should adopt approaches
pioneered by online merchants and digital music purveyors in
order to complete the revolution in information access that
began with the first online journals, according to scientists
in the United
Kingdom.
Henry S. Rzepa and Omer
Casher explain that online retailing and digital music
management rely on “semantic” models in providing customers
with highly targeted access to products. That's “semantic” as
in the Semantic Web, the project now underway to foster
information exchange by putting documents with
computer-processable meaning (semantics) on the Internet so
that software agents can help in the dissemination of
information.
In a report scheduled for the
Nov. 27 issue of the bimonthly ACS Journal of Chemical
Information and Modeling, the researchers describe
SemanticEye, a semantic web application that adapts the
digital music model to chemical-related electronic journal
articles. It allows journal articles to contain embedded
document object identifiers (DOIs) and other material. Those
clues enable software to find relationships between new
articles and those already published, and collect all the
relevant documents for the user's benefit.
ARTICLE #4 FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
“SemanticEye: A Semantic Web
Application to Rationalize and Enhance Chemical Electronic
Publishing”
DOWNLOAD PDF
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/asap.cgi/jcisd8/asap/pdf/ci060139e.pdf
DOWNLOAD HTML
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/asap.cgi/jcisd8/asap/html/ci060139e.html
CONTACT:
Henry S. Rzepa,
Ph.D.
Imperial College
London
London, United
Kingdom
Phone:
+44-020-7594-5774
Fax:
+44-020-7594-5804
Email:
rzepa@imperial.ac.uk
ARTICLE #5
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE
AT 9 A.M., EASTERN TIME, NOV.
27
A continued
erosion in United
States’ share of global R&D
publications
Chemical &
Engineering News
The
United
States’ share of scientific papers
published worldwide in peer-reviewed science and engineering
journals has eroded since the 1990s, despite big increases in
R&D funding and in the number of researchers, according to
an article in the Nov. 27 issue of Chemical &
Engineering News (C&EN), the ACS’ weekly
newsmagazine.
Written by C&EN
Editor-at-Large Michael Heylin, the article notes that the
National Science Foundation has launched a special study to
find explanations for the stagnation in U. S. R&D
publications — a key indicator of scientific activity. Heylin uses the
latest data from several sources, including the ACS’ Chemical
Abstracts Service, to document above-average global growth in
publications and especially rapid growth in
China and selected Asian and Western
European countries.
The
United
States remains the largest single
national source of research papers by a large margin, the
article states.
However, an NSF ranking of 157 nations puts the
United States
12th in terms of scientific
papers published per million population. The top 6 producers
all were smaller nations —
Sweden,
Switzerland,
Israel,
Finland,
Denmark and The
Netherlands.
ARTICLE #5 EMBARGOED
FOR RELEASE AT 9 A.M., EASTERN TIME, NOV.
27
“Globalization of Science
Rolls on:
Growth of scientific literature remains strong, while
the world of science continues to flatten”
For full text
contact:
Michael
Bernstein
ACS News Service
Phone:
202-872-6042
Fax:
202-872-4370
Email:
m_bernstein@acs.org
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Mark Your
Calendars
Chemistry in Cancer
Research: A
Vital Partnership
Chemistry has an
increasingly important role in research on cancer diagnosis,
prevention and treatment. To spotlight that role, the American
Chemical Society (ACS) and the American Association for Cancer
Research (AACR) will cosponsor a special conference entitled,
“Chemistry in Cancer Research: A Vital
Partnership,” Feb. 4-7 in San
Diego, Calif. The program
(http://acswebcontent.acs.org/meetings/specialty/AACR/index.html)
will feature presentations by prominent scientists on drug
discovery, proteomics, the chemical biology of carcinogenesis,
biomarkers and analytical chemistry, modeling and
bioinformatics, and structural biology.
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Journalists’
Resource:
National Historic Chemical
Landmarks
America came of age as a nation in the
late 1700s — the same time chemistry came of age as a science.
Since then, chemists have played key roles in expanding the
frontiers of knowledge, advancing medicine and industry, and
creating products from aspirin to zippers. The ACS’ National
Historic Chemical Landmarks program recognizes these
outstanding accomplishments and tells the stories behind the
research. The most recent landmark was designated on Oct. 25,
when ACS designated Procter & Gamble’s development of
Tide® — "the washing miracle" synthetic detergent — a National
Historic Chemical Landmark in a special ceremony in
Cincinnati, Ohio. The Landmarks’ Web site
(http://acswebcontent.acs.org/landmarks/) has valuable
resources for feature stories and
background.
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National Meeting
Resources
A treasure trove of news
sources, background material and story ideas is available from
the ACS’ latest National Meeting. Reporters can search and
view abstracts of 10,000 scientific presentations, 600
non-technical summaries of those presentations and browse
press releases online.
INDEX OF PRESS
RELEASES
http://oasys.acs.org/acs/232nm/newsservice/tableofcontents.cgi?action=final
VIEW NON-TECHNICAL
SUMMARIES
http://oasys.acs.org/acs/232nm/newsservice/viewpressrelease.cgi
GENERAL ACS NATIONAL MEETING
INFORMATION
http://chemistry.org/meetings/sanfrancisco2006
ABSTRACTS FROM THE TECHNICAL
PROGRAM
http://oasys2.confex.com/acs/232nm/techprogram/
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ACS News Service
Weblog
Science, September & San
Francisco
Visit the ACS News
Service’s National Meeting Weblog for reports from scientific
sessions and other events at the ACS National Meeting
in San Francisco.
(http://acsnewsservice.typepad.com/sf_meeting/)
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The American Chemical
Society — the world’s largest scientific society — is a
nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress and a
global leader in providing access to chemistry-related
research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed
journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are
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Columbus, Ohio.
