Predicting Drug Toxicity
To study ways of predicting drug toxicity to humans, researchers in NC State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences examined mouse genes. They published a paper in Genome Research that found a genetic marker linked to the risk of acetaminophen-induced liver injury in mice. They then examined the mouse gene’s counterparts in humans, and found a specific human gene associated with possible liver injury.
Although the gene’s role in liver toxicity in humans is not yet known, the method of using corollaries of animal model genes represents a new way of predicting the side effects drugs will have on humans.
Combating Childhood Obesity
The Natural Learning Initiative, a program of NC State’s College of Design, will receive $750,000 over three years to create more outdoor learning environments at North Carolina child care centers, where studies show the risk of childhood obesity is greatest, and to set up an online resource center for child care centers to turn to when they develop outdoor experiences for children.
Nearly a third of all children in North Carolina between the ages of 2 and 4 are overweight or considered at risk of becoming so. The state has the fifth highest rate of childhood obesity in the nation.
Connecting Rural Schools
Thanks to a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation, NC State is delivering advanced mathematics software to rural, underserved high schools in North Carolina through an innovative cloud computing system. The program is designed to be replicated across the country.
Students and teachers can enter NC State’s Virtual Computing Lab from computers in their classrooms, libraries or even at home, and access expensive software packages that run remotely on powerful, centrally located servers. School systems don’t have to install the software program on individual computers.
Over the summer, algebra and geometry teachers from four districts in North Carolina participated in a series of professional development workshops to learn how to incorporate state-of-the-art math software into their classrooms.
The research is a collaboration between NC State’s College of Education and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Storing a Library on a Chip
A researcher in NC State’s College of Engineering has developed a computer chip that can store an unprecedented amount of data – enough to hold an entire library’s worth of information – on a single chip. The new chip stems from a breakthrough in the use of nanodots, or nanoscale magnets, and represents a significant advance in computer-memory technology.
The nanodots are made of single, defect-free crystals, creating magnetic sensors that are integrated directly into a silicon electronic chip. They can be made uniformly as small as six nanometers in diameter and are all precisely oriented in the same way, allowing programmers to reliably read and write data to the chips.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
Finding National Debt Tipping Point
Researchers in NC State’s Poole College of Management have identified a “tipping point” for national debt – the point at which national debt levels begin to have an adverse effect on economic growth.
The findings could influence economic policy discussions globally, and were distributed at a meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group.
The tipping point – a debt level of 77 percent or more – was developed based on an analysis of the debt of 100 countries over 30 years. The tipping point could be higher or lower for any specific nation, based on the nation’s wealth.
The United States has not exceeded the tipping point yet, according to researchers. During the sample period of 1980-2008, U.S. debt was 61 percent of GDP.
A paper describing the study, “Finding the Tipping Point: When Sovereign Debt Turns Bad,” was published in October in a World Bank volume titled Sovereign Debt and the Financial Crisis.
Analyzing Bioenergy Processes
Around the world, scientists are working to convert renewable biomass into fuels as a substitute for petroleum-based fuels. As new technologies and processes are developed in the lab, a pressing issue is how to evaluate them with respect to scale, economics and sustainability.
Researchers in NC State’s College of Natural Resources are developing engineering tools and methodologies to do these evaluations using advanced computer simulations and life cycle assessment.
The analysis involves modeling complex mass and energy flows for bioenergy processes using engineering process simulation software. Once the inputs and outputs of these processes are defined, the results are fed into economic models and life cycle assessment software to analyze economic and environmental sustainability issues.
The result is a robust set of tools that scientists, industry and policy makers can use to promote sustainable bioenergy technologies that are optimized for the feedstock or location.
Sustainability is a major focus of research in the college. In 2010 researchers also worked on a cost-effective system for rating the resiliency of housing, developed a model program to support micro-entrepreneurship among the rural poor, and worked with military bases in North Carolina to promote the sustainability of both military training and wildlife conservation.
Developing Genetic Off Switches
Researchers in NC State’s College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences have found a way to “cage” genetic off switches in such a way that they can be activated when exposed to UV light. This technology gives scientists a more precise way to control and study gene function in localized areas of developing organisms.
The off switches, called morpholino oligonucleotides, are like short snippets of DNA that, when introduced into cells, bind to target RNA molecules, effectively turning off specific genes.
Morpholinos have been used as genetic switches in many animal models, including the zebrafish embryo. However, morpholinos are distributed throughout dividing cells in a developing embryo, thereby turning off the specific gene everywhere. Moreover, they are active right after injection, silencing the targeted gene throughout development of the organism. Such uncontrolled genetic disruption makes studying tissue-specific and time-specific gene function difficult.
A team of NC State researchers developed a new methodology to turn off genes at a specific time and in a specific region of an organism. The researchers’ results appeared online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health.
Targeting Mosquitoes to Fight Malaria
A researcher in NC State’s College of Textiles has netted a new idea to fight malaria, a disease that causes at least a million deaths per year in third-world countries. Over the years, mosquitoes, which spread the infectious disease, have become resistant to the insecticides often applied to bed netting.
After getting seed funding from the university, the researcher worked with biomedical engineering students to find the best way to attack mosquitoes. The students anesthetized the insects and then disabled their legs or antennae, but they found that even hobbled mosquitoes were able to bite. They then tested ultra-smooth and particulate-laced surfaces for the netting to try to make it difficult for mosquitoes to land.
One of the particulates, diatomaceous earth – a naturally occurring, soft, sedimentary rock – was found to be particularly effective. Instead of hindering landing mosquitoes, the chalky, ground-up remains of fossilized algae proved to be insecticidal. The abrasive particles, which are safe for humans, disrupt the waxy layer that makes up a mosquito’s exoskeleton, causing the insect to dehydrate and die. The hope is that shortening a mosquito’s usual two-week lifespan by even a day or two could help reduce the transmission of malaria.
Speeding Recovery
Researchers in NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine have uncovered a novel function for a protein called chloride channel protein 2 (ClC-2) that may prove to be beneficial for the recovery of injured gastrointestinal tracts in animals and people.
The research identified CIC-2 as the source of gastrointestinal recovery after discovering that intestinal chloride secretion occurred immediately prior to the recovery process after problems such as excessive stomach acid or low blood flow, which occur when the intestine twists.
The research, initially supported by the National Institutes of Health and the United States Department of Agriculture, was presented at Digestive Disease Week, the largest gastroenterology meeting in the world. Sucampo Pharmaceuticals became interested in the discovery, and the research team shared additional information on a newly developed group of compounds called prostones that can activate ClC-2 and speed up repair of the gastrointestinal tract. NC State patented this discovery in partnership with Sucampo and research continues with funding from the company.
Recent findings show that ClC-2 may be responsible for re-assembling the connections between injured cells from the gut. The ongoing investigation has been published in Gastroenterology and the American Journal of Physiology.
In 2010, the college also focused on combating food-borne pathogens. Research funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture is seeking to understand the molecular epidemiology of drug-resistant pathogens by studying the occurrence of Salmonella in pigs.