MU chemist discovers shortcut for processing drugs

Prolific chemist adds another breakthrough to long list of accomplishments

2011-03-09

(Press-News.org) COLUMBIA, Mo. – A prolific University of Missouri chemist has discovered a quicker and easier method for pharmaceutical companies to make certain drugs.

Jerry Atwood, Curator's Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry in the MU College of Arts and Science, has recently published a paper – his 663rd in a refereed journal – that states that highly pressurized carbon dioxide at room temperature could replace the time consuming and expensive methods currently used to manufacture certain pharmaceutical drugs.

In the article, "A New Strategy of Transforming Pharmaceutical Crystal Forms," published in a recent edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), Atwood and a team of researchers explain how manufacturers of popular drugs such as clarithromycin (an antibiotic drug) and lansoprazole (an acid reflux drug) could benefit from this process.

To develop basic drugs that are safe for people to consume, manufacturers must utilize chemistry to make specific crystals that constitute the eventual compound. Depending on the drug, current methods may include high-temperature heating, raw material altering, washing, filtering, and intensive drying. Atwood's team found that pressurizing carbon dioxide can bring about the desired crystallization "with ease" and at normal room temperatures. Atwood said this discovery has the potential to streamline work flow and provide more safety for those who work with these chemicals.

"I believe this could have huge implications for the pharmaceutical industry," Atwood said. "In addition to streamlining processes, pressurizing gas could circumvent some of the more difficult techniques used on an industrial scale, leading to better pharmaceuticals, more effective treatments and ultimately a lower price."

Atwood points out that cost savings may be minimal to consumers, however, as drug companies set prices to recoup billion dollar investments in multiple-drug trials. Only one of every five clinically tested drugs makes it to market, Atwood said, and the companies must make a profit on the drug that becomes widely used.

The JACS paper was recognized by Chemical & Engineering News in its "News of the Week," an accomplishment Atwood has achieved nine times. Despite all of his success, Atwood remains focused on his ultimate goal: to develop a chemotherapy drug with a magnetic component that could bring targeted delivery of medication, rather than the bloodstream saturation process used now.

"When I lecture a group of world-class scientists, I tell them the good news and the bad news," Atwood said. "The bad news is that we must make a major breakthrough like curing a disease. If we can do that, then our field of chemistry will flourish, and we will pay society back for their investment. If we fail to make the breakthrough, society won't support what we are doing forever. The good news is that just one of our research groups has to do it, so the pressure is on all or us, not just on you or me."

### Atwood is one of the top 50 chemists in the world in terms of citations and has published 663 papers in his career. The more citations a scientist has, the higher their rating known as the Hirsch index is. The H-index ranks international researchers according to the volume of published articles and the number of times those articles are cited, thus measuring a particular scientist's influence. An H-index of 50 places a chemist in the top 500 worldwide. Atwood has an H-index of 83.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Study shows no-till's benefits for Pacific Northwest wheat growers

2011-03-09

This release is available in Spanish. Wheat farmers in eastern Oregon and Washington who use no-till production systems can substantially stem soil erosion and enhance efforts to protect water quality, according to research by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) hydrologist John Williams led a study that compared runoff, soil erosion and crop yields in a conventional, intensively tilled winter wheat-fallow system and a no-till 4-year cropping rotation system. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency, ...

Right-handers, but not left-handers, are biased to select their dominant hand

2011-03-09

Milan, Italy, 8 March 2011 – The vast majority of humans – over 90% – prefer to use their right hand for most skilled tasks. For decades, researchers have been trying to understand why this asymmetry exists. Why, with our two cerebral hemispheres and motor cortices, are we not equally skilled with both hands? A study from the University of Aberdeen in the UK, published in the April 2011 issue of Elsevier's Cortex (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00109452), suggests that the explanation may stem from actions that require us to use both hands at the same time, ...

Boy toddlers need extra help dealing with negative emotions

2011-03-09

URBANA – The way you react to your two-year-old's temper tantrums or clinginess may lead to anxiety, withdrawal and behavior problems down the road, and the effect is more pronounced if the child is a boy who often displays such negative emotions as anger and social fearfulness, reports a new University of Illinois study. "Young children, especially boys, may need their parents' help working through angry or fearful emotions. If you punish toddlers for their anger and frustration or act as if their fears are silly or shameful, they may internalize those negative emotions, ...

Study analyzes role of PARP enzyme in eukaryotes

2011-03-09

An Ohio State University molecular biologist leveraged a supercomputer to help better define the family tree of a group of enzymes that have been implicated in a wide range of human diseases and are important targets for anti-cancer therapies. Along with several OSU colleagues, Rebecca S. Lamb, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Molecular Genetics, recently analyzed the evolutionary history of the poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase (PARP) superfamily. These proteins are found in eukaryotes, a wide range of organisms – animals, plants, molds, fungi, algae and protozoa –whose ...

As we sleep, speedy brain waves boost our ability to learn

2011-03-09

Scientists have long puzzled over the many hours we spend in light, dreamless slumber. But a new study from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests we're busy recharging our brain's learning capacity during this traditionally undervalued phase of sleep, which can take up half the night. UC Berkeley researchers have found compelling evidence that bursts of brain waves known as "sleep spindles" may be networking between key regions of the brain to clear a path to learning. These electrical impulses help to shift fact-based memories from the brain's hippocampus ...

How long does a tuning fork ring?

2011-03-09

This release is available in German. From the wooden bars in a xylophone or the head of a drum, to the strings and sound box of a guitar or violin, musical instruments are the most familiar examples of mechanical resonators. The actual mechanical vibrations of these instruments create acoustic waves that we hear as sound. The purity of the emitted tone is intimately related to the decay of the vibration amplitude, that is, the mechanical losses of the system. A figure of merit for mechanical losses is the quality factor, simply called "Q", which describes the number ...

First census finds surprisingly few white sharks off California

2011-03-09

In the first census of its kind, research led by UC Davis and Stanford University found that there are far fewer white sharks off central California than biologists had thought. The study, published today in the journal Biology Letters, is the first rigorous scientific estimate of white shark numbers in the northeast Pacific Ocean. It is also the best estimate among the world's three known white-shark populations (the others are in Australia/New Zealand and South Africa). The researchers went out into the Pacific Ocean in small boats to places where white sharks congregate. ...

Cleansing the soul by hurting the flesh: The guilt-reducing effect of pain

2011-03-09

Lent in the Christian tradition is a time of sacrifice and penance. It also is a period of purification and enlightenment. Pain purifies. It atones for sin and cleanses the soul. Or at least that's the idea. Theological questions aside, can self-inflicted pain really alleviate the guilt associated with immoral acts? A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, explores the psychological consequences of experiencing bodily pain. Psychological scientist Brock Bastian of the University of Queensland, Australia and ...

March GSA Today: The case for a neoproterozoic oxygenation event

2011-03-09

The Cambrian "explosion" of multicellular animal life is one of the most significant evolutionary events in Earth's history. But what was it that jolted the Earth system enough to prompt the evolution of animals? While we take the presence of oxygen in our atmosphere for granted, it was not always this way. The Neoproterozoic era that preceded the Cambrian explosion of life was witness to a dramatic rise in oxygen levels. It has been widely assumed that the rise in atmospheric oxygen was the essential precursor to the evolution of animals. But the work of Graham Shields-Zhou ...

UNC study finds oral tongue cancer increasing in young, white females

2011-03-09

Chapel Hill, NC – A UNC study released this week in the Journal of Clinical Oncology finds an increasing incidence of squamous cell carcinoma of the oral tongue in young white females in the United States over the last three decades. A team of researchers from UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center analyzed data from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database and found that, between 1975 and 2007, the overall incidence for all ages, genders, and races of the disease was decreasing. However, the incidence of oral tongue ...

MU chemist discovers shortcut for processing drugs

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: