|
Fit for purpose?
Food manufacturers to miss UK 5-a-day logo
Peptides underpin new anti-ageing cream
Touch and smell offers new possibilities
Grow your own shrink-wrap
EU faces brain drain to US
Health
Fit for
purpose?
Two Australian bioresearch firms
are taking advantage of local fitness fanatics to develop a simple,
quantitative test for assessing the immune system of top athletes.
Proteome Systems and VRI
BioMedical have agreed to develop point-of-care diagnostics for humans.
The fitness test will be the first product under this agreement. The
Australian Institute of Sport will evaluate the effectiveness and utility
of the test.
VRI, which also develops probiotic
products to boost immune system efficiency, has developed the reagents for
the tests to run against Proteome Systems’ DiagnostIQ platform. This
usually underpins Proteome Systems’ discovery programmes in cystic
fibrosis, cancer, infectious disease and ageing. This is its first use in
health care.
Marketing
Food
manufacturers to miss UK 5-a-day logo
Foods with extra sugar and salt
will be refused permission to use the British government’s new logo that
encourage consumers to eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables
a day.
A Department of Health spokesman
said Adsa, the Co-op and Safeway have signed up but competitors
Sainsbury’s and Tesco are reportedly unlikely to apply for a licence for
their private label processed and ready-made meals.
Recent research shows that most
Britons don’t know what is healthy food, and most eat less than the
recommended quantity.
The government estimates it could
cut cancer and heart disease rates by a fifth if people eat more fruit and
vegetables.
The Department of Health has
retained Checkmate to issue licences to use the logo, and is setting up a
way to handle appeals and disciplinary actions.
It is also forming an “expert”
group to see if manufactured foods and beverages meet nutritional
standards that might qualify them to use the logo.
Foods must contain at least one
portion (equivalent to about 80g) of fruit or vegetables. This includes
fresh, chilled, frozen, canned and dried fruit and vegetables, which have
no added sugar, salt or fat.
New products
Peptides
underpin new anti-ageing cream
Wound healing research has led to
the development of a new pentapeptide molecule used in Procter &
Gamble’s new skin care line, Olay Regenerist.
The research showed that the KTTKS
pentapeptide, which is a chain of five amino acids found naturally in
collagen, signals cells to produce new collagen. Further research showed
that attaching palmitic acid to the signal peptide made it possible to
form a molecule with cosmetic benefits for topical application.
P&G says the modified
pentapeptide, Pal-KTTKS, with added vitamins B and E, has been clinically
proven to stimulate collagen and elastin formation and to help produce
younger-looking skin.
Present anti-ageing treatments,
such as skin scraping, chemical peels and laser surgery, work by
temporarily irritating or damaging the top layers of skin in order to
trigger new growth. Instead, the skin absorbs the new cream which then
stimulates underlying skin cells.
New products
Touch
and smell offers new possibilities
Forget Scratch and Sniff – now
just touching a specially prepared surface can release loads of feel-good
fragrances.
AromaRelease can turn the surface
of almost any marketing collateral into a vehicle for a product or brand
fragrance, claims UK-based The Aroma Co. The scent is released by normal
handling, thus avoiding scratching and other forms of releasing the scent.
Present examples include
promotional pocket tissues, A4 and A5 flyer/mailers, two drinks coasters,
note pads and a mouse mat with full colour graphics that releases its
fragrance when a mouse is rolled over the mat. Other product ideas include
fragranced graphic floor mats and scented hairbrushes.
Research
Grow your
own shrink-wrap
Scientists at Cornell University
in the US are on the brink of finding an cheap way to make a polyester
found in many bacteria into a biodegradable plastic with uses from
packaging to biomedical devices.
Geoffrey Coates, a professor of
chemistry and chemical biology, has discovered an efficient chemical route
for the synthesis of poly(beta-hydroxybutyrate) or PHB.
The polypropylene-like
thermoplastic polyester is found widely in nature, particularly in some
bacteria, where it is formed as intracellular deposits and used to store
carbon and energy.
PHB is usually produced through
the costly, energy-intensive fermentation of sugar. Coates’s group uses
a monomer, a lactone called beta-butyrolactone. This reacts with a zinc
complex catalyst discovered by Coates in the late 1990s to make PHB.
But beta-butyrolactone is a
"handed" molecule. This means it has two mirror images, like
hands. Polymers produced from a mixture of two-handed forms have very poor
properties. The researchers are developing a new cobalt and aluminium
catalyst that produces the preferred single-handed form of beta-butyrolactone,
a process called carbonylation.
Science
EU
faces brain drain to US
Three-quarters of European
researchers at US labs prefer to stay in the States, citing better working
conditions and career prospects.
This came out of the European
Commission’s Third European Report on Science and Technology Indicators
2003, just released. The Commission says the EU produces more science and
technology graduates and PhDs than either the US or Japan, but can’t
keep them.
Furthermore, this numerical
advantage doesn’t translate into commercial success, at least partly
because of lower level of investment in research. The EU currently spends
1.94 percent of GDP on research and development, compared with 2.8 percent
in the US and 2.98 percent in Japan. Worse, from a commercial aspect,
governments pay for most of it.
Europe also has fewer researchers
in the labour force: 5.4 per 1000 compared with 8.7 in the US and 9.7 in
Japan.
Having discovered DNA, Europe may
miss the chance to exploit biotechnology. The Commission’s earlier
report on the EU strategy for life sciences and biotechnology, blamed
divergent policies of member states.
Funding for biotech businesses has
all but dried up. Of 1850 biotech companies in Europe, 1700 are going to
struggle to raise money, industry sources warn.
|
