Posted on 02/03/2006 2:44:55 PM PST by nickcarraway
PORTLAND, Ore. — A new technology offers advance warning of the ability of a virus to infect humans. The technique could help stem the spread of bird flu, according to the inventors of glycan microarray technology. The Consortium for Functional Glycomics, a project of the National Institute of Health's National Institute of General Medical Sciences, is making the technology widely available to researchers for free. The microarray can pinpoint pathogens in a few hours that can infect humans.
"Its like any other medical microarray, but instead of depositing little spots of DNA, we put down carbohydrates called glycans which virus cells bind to," said Jeremy Berg, director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. "Most cells are coated with carbohydrates and our technology allows hundreds of different varieties to be put down on a single glycan array."
The glycan microarray was created by consortium members at The Scripps Research Institute in cooperation with Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
Microarrays work by depositing hundreds, even thousands, of different examples of DNA. In this application, however, carbohydrate molecules called glycans are used. Samples are then spread across the entire array.
Finally, a fluorescent-tagged antibody that binds to samples is spread across the array and illuminated with a laser. A photocell detector recognizes the precise site where the sample binded, thereby pinpointing a specific glycan and revealing whether the sample could infect humans.
"The microarray holds the carbohydrates and you add hemagglutinin—the binding protein from the virus," Berg said. The technique then recognizes which carbohydrate the hemagglutinin binded with using the tagged antibody.
For viruses and many other pathogens, the carbohydrates on human or bird cell surfaces offer a binding site that enables them to burrow through and cause infections. The Consortium for Functional Glycomics was formed to determine which carbohydrates coat which cells as well as catalog their vulnerability to infections from various pathogens.
The glycan microarray was developed to house all this knowledge on a single chip so that carbohydrate binding site vulnerabilities can be quickly identified for a variety of maladies.
"There is a huge universe of carbohydrates on the surface of cells. Our technology was not developed specifically for influenza, but is a very broad research tool," said Berg.
Yawn.
"Bird Flu" is the new Y2K virus -only without the handy deadline.I love your tagline. But maybe you should consider the deadline "inconvenient" instead of "handy" because all the Y2K chicken-littles had to shut up on Jan 1, 2000 when nothing happened but the bird flu chicken-littles can (like the energy bunny) keeping chirping and chirping and chirping, without fear of any deadline to make them stop.
I had "inconvenient" for a while. Maybe that's better. Time to get out the thesaraus I geuss.
It just depends on how you want to frame it, I guess. Either way, it's a great idea you had, linking the Y2K hoax to the bird-flu hoax.
I don't believe in bird flu panic hysteria, but I do pay attention, because it could be an economic impact, because while I don't think it will be the disaster some fear, I think it could cause problems in certain areas.
"Bird Flu" is the new Y2K virus - only without the handy deadline a drop dead date.
Perhaps, but don't you think we're being well-enough informed on "bird-flu" already, given the scope of the threat it presents? Worldwide, "bird-flu" has killed how many people? A dozen? Two dozen? Twenty dozen?
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