Category Archives: Research

Medical, Research, Science

An influenza patch that can replace the annual flu jab

MEDICAL SCIENCE

A PATCH could replace the annual flu jab, research suggests.

In future, the patches could be sent out in the post, enabling people to quickly and easily vaccinate themselves without having to queue at the GPs surgery, experts have said.

A trial of the patch by US scientists at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, found it worked as well as a jab and was preferred by patients.

The study, published this week in the Lancet medical journal, also revealed it could be safely stored for a year without a fridge – meaning it could easily be distributed to patients to administer to themselves.

The device, measuring roughly one inch in diameter, contains the same vaccine as is given in conventional flu injections.

But it can be self-administered by simply placing on the wrist for 20 minutes and then removed.

The patch contains 100 tiny ‘microneedles’ which pierce the top layer of the skin.

The needles dissolve while they are in the skin, meaning there is no danger of piercing a second patient and passing on bloodborne diseases – a major safety fear when people inject themselves without professional medical supervision.

Experts said the device could significantly improve uptake of the flu vaccination.

The disease kills 5,000 people in England each year, and the vast majority of victims are elderly or suffer from existing respiratory conditions.

For this reason, the NHS encourages anyone over the age of 65 to have an annual influenza jab.

Younger people who are considered at risk – including all pregnant women, young children aged two, three and four, and anyone with asthma or other conditions – are also offered the vaccine.

However, uptake of the jab is poor, and falling. Only 71 per cent of over-65s had the vaccine in 2015/16, along with just 42 per cent of pregnant women, roughly a third of young children, and less than half of people with existing health conditions.

Experts said alternative ways of delivering the vaccine might improve take-up – particularly among those afraid of needles or too busy to go to the GP.

Researchers tested the patch on 100 people who had chosen not to receive the flu vaccine.

They found that after six months, no serious side effects linked to the vaccine were reported and there were no cases of influenza.

As well as this, participants reported high ‘acceptability’ scores of between 4.5 and 4.8 out of five, with some 70 per cent saying they preferred it to the injection.

Study leader Dr Nadine Rouphael said: ‘Despite the recommendations for adults and children to receive a flu shot, many people remain unvaccinated. The patch could be safely applied by participants themselves, meaning we could envisage vaccination at home, in the work place, or even via mail distribution.

‘These advantages could reduce the cost of the flu vaccine and potentially increase coverage.

‘Our findings now need confirming in larger trials.’

Experts in Britain welcomed the study, saying the patches could be particularly useful for children.

Dr Maria Zambon, director of reference microbiology at Public Health England, said: ‘This is a good early research and we await more tests on these patches to see their effectiveness.

‘Microneedle patches have the potential to be used for vaccination programmes and could help people scared of needles.’

Appendage:

Flu Patch (2)

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China, Research, Science, Technology

A quantum leap in the pursuit of a secure and new type of internet

QUANTUM SCIENCE

Quantum

China’s quantum satellite, Micius. The satellite has beamed entangled particles of light to ground stations more than 700 miles apart.

Scientists have taken a major step towards building a global quantum internet by beaming “entangled” particles of light from a satellite to ground stations more than 700 miles apart.

The feat paves the way for a new kind of internet which draws on the curious ability for subatomic particles to be connected to one another despite being far apart and even on opposite sides of the planet.

Researchers believe that by linking particles together in this way, encrypted information could be sent from place to place across a quantum network with no danger of it being decrypted and read by others, as can be done on the existing internet.

Jian-Wei Pan, who led the research at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei in China, said the demonstration was a moment he had been dreaming of since 2003. “Many people thought it was a crazy idea, because it was very challenging,” he said.

The work obliterates the previous world record for sending pairs of photons that are connected to one another by a strange rule of quantum physics first spotted by Einstein. Until now, the farthest researchers had ever sent entangled photons stood at a mere 65 miles, less than one tenth of the distance achieved in the satellite experiment.

“It’s a first step, and a major step, toward creating a global quantum network,” said Pan. “All the previous methods are limited to about 100km so can only work within a city.”

The experiment relied on the world’s first quantum-enabled spacecraft: a Chinese satellite called Micius. As it soared over China, the satellite created pairs of photons with properties that were linked through quantum entanglement. It then beamed these simultaneously to ground stations in Delingha, Lijiang and Nanshan. Each pair of particles travelled up to 1,240 miles before they reached their destinations. Details of the study are published in Science.

Pan said that the kind of cryptography used to keep data safe today relies on complex mathematics which can often be defeated by hackers. “If a future quantum network is established, the security is ensured by the laws of physics, which are unconditionally secure,” he said. “It will be beneficial for all human beings.”

Martin Stevens, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, said he was impressed with the work. “These types of experiments are not easy to do, even within the controlled confines of a laboratory environment. Doing them between two remote ground locations and a satellite flying overhead at a speed of thousands of kilometres per hour is mind-bogglingly difficult.”

In 2015, Stevens sent entangled photons down a 65-mile length of optical fibre. That is good enough for quantum communications between neighbouring towns, but it cannot work for much greater distances, because the signal is gradually lost the more optic fibre it travels down. The advantage of using a satellite is that the particles of light travel through space for much of their journey.

Anton Zeilinger at the Vienna Centre for Quantum Science also praised the work. “It’s an important step towards a worldwide quantum network. If you envisage a quantum network, the question is how to cover large distances and that cannot be done with glass fibres on the ground. You have to go into space, because in glass fibres you lose the signal. It’s very important to show that it works with satellites, so I’m very excited by this.”

Zeilinger is working with Pan on an intercontinental quantum network and hopes to have results to report before the end of the year.

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Arts, Research, Science, Technology, United States

DNA Phenotyping…

FORENSIC COMPUTER SCIENCE

Intro: DNA Phenotyping is the prediction of physical appearance from DNA

Until now, DNA left at the scene of a crime only proved useful if it was already stored in a database and could be matched to a suspect.

A team of forensic experts, however, have now devised a way to recreate the face of a person, including eye and skin colour, using as little as 50 picograms (0.05 nanograms) of extracted DNA.

Called DNA phenotyping, the tests also determine the person’s ancestry, if they have freckles and can be used to match with distant relatives.

DNA phenotyping is the prediction of physical appearance from DNA and is a technique being pioneered by Virginia-based Parabon Nanolabs (example pictured). The technology can be used to generate leads in cases where there are no suspects or database hits, or to help identify remains, for example.

DNA phenotyping is the prediction of physical appearance from DNA and is a technique being pioneered by Virginia-based Parabon Nanolabs (example pictured). The technology can be used to generate leads in cases where there are no suspects or database hits, or to help identify remains, for example.

DNA phenotyping is the prediction of physical appearance from DNA and is a technique being pioneered by Virginia-based Parabon Nanolabs.

The technology can be used to generate leads in criminal cases where there are no suspects or database hits, or to help identify remains, for example.

Samples can be potentially taken from as little as a fingerprint.

Parabon’s Snapshot Forensic system is said to be able to accurately predict genetic ancestry, eye colour, hair colour, skin colour, freckling, and face shape in individuals from any ethnic background.

Each prediction is presented with a ‘measure of confidence’.

As an example, the test can say a person has green eyes with 61 per cent confidence, green or blue with 79 per cent confidence, and that they definitely don’t have brown eyes, with 99 per cent confidence.

Based on ancestry, and other markers, the test also creates a likely facial shape.

From all of this information, it builds a computer generated e-fit.

And the test will predict how two people are related, as distant as third cousins, and great-great-great-great-grandparents.

‘DNA carries the genetic instruction set for an individual’s physical characteristics, producing the wide range of appearances among people,’ explained Parabon Nanolabs.

‘By determining how genetic information translates into physical appearance, it is possible to “reverse-engineer” DNA into a physical profile.

‘Snapshot reads tens of thousands of genetic variants from a DNA sample and uses this information to predict what an unknown person looks like.’

The project was supported with funding from the the US Department of Defense (DoD).

Samples can be taken from as little as a fingerprint. Parabon's Snapshot Forensic system is said to be able to accurately predict genetic ancestry, eye colour, hair colour, skin colour, freckling, and face shape in individuals from any ethnic background (example pictured).

Samples can be taken from as little as a fingerprint. Parabon’s Snapshot Forensic system is said to be able to accurately predict genetic ancestry, eye colour, hair colour, skin colour, freckling, and face shape in individuals from any ethnic background (example pictured).

Each prediction is presented with a ‘measure of confidence’. As an example, the test can say a person has green eyes with 61 per cent confidence, green or blue with 79 per cent confidence, and that they definitely don’t have brown eyes, with 99 per cent confidence. A series of example charts is pictured.

Each prediction is presented with a ‘measure of confidence’. As an example, the test can say a person has green eyes with 61 per cent confidence, green or blue with 79 per cent confidence, and that they definitely don’t have brown eyes, with 99 per cent confidence. A series of example charts is pictured.

Ellen McRae Greytak, Parabon’s director of bioinformatics told Popular Science that the system has been used in 10 cases across the US, and the first department to release a Snapshot report was the Columbia Police Department.

It produced a profile for a ‘person of interest’ in the murder of 25-year-old Candra Alston and her daughter Malaysia Boykin in 2011. (Investigators in South Carolina are hoping the DNA technique could lead to to a breakthrough in the unsolved murder case of Malaysia Boykin, three, (left) and her mother Candra Alston (right) in 2011).

The only piece of evidence left at the scene was an unspecified DNA sample.

There were no witnesses to the murder, so the local authorities turned to the forensic phenotyping and found the person was a male with dark-skinned, brown hair and brown eyes (profile pictured).

There were no witnesses to the murder, so the local authorities turned to the forensic phenotyping and found the person was a male with dark-skinned, brown hair and brown eyes (profile pictured).

There were no witnesses to the murder, so the local authorities turned to the forensic phenotyping and found the person was a male with dark-skinned, brown hair and brown eyes.

Mark Vinson, a cold case investigator with the Columbia police department, said that more than 200 people were interviewed in connection with the deaths.

Around 150 of them submitted their DNA – but none matched the sample left at the scene.

 

Ancillary:

FIND LONG-LOST RELATIVES USING YOUR DNA

Family history site Ancestry has extended its AncestryDNA service – a home testing kit that unlocks the secrets of a person’s genetic ethnicity – to the UK.

The results can be cross-checked with millions of family trees to help people discover unknown relatives.

It uses microarray-based autosomal DNA testing, which looks at person’s entire genome at more than 700,000 locations using saliva.

Since it was released in 2012, AncestryDNA has been used by around 700,000 people.

All of these results have been stored on a secure, encrypted database, and each set of results is linked to a person’s individual Ancestry account and subsequent family tree.

AncestryDNA can help people identify relationships with unknown relatives through a list of possible DNA member matches.

 

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