News roundup

• Protein structure may lead to treatment for infection targeting cystic fibrosis patients
• Argonne inventions win five R&D 100 Awards
• New sensor technology detects chemical, biological, nuclear and explosive materials

Protein structure may lead to treatment for infection targeting cystic fibrosis patients

Researchers at Argonne have determined the structure of a key protein believed to play a role in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a deadly infection that afflicts the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients. This finding, published in a recent issue of Science, may lead to a new drug to treat the bacterial infection.

Determining and imaging the structure of the protein Hcp1 was part of the routine structural biology research Argonne biologists are performing on pathogens with funding from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences' (NIGMS) Protein Structure Initiative. This initiative funds researchers to determine a number of unique protein structures to serve as a base of knowledge from which other structures and functions can be inferred.

The protein crystallography research was performed at Argonne by researchers in the Argonne-led Midwest Center for Structural Genomics, funded by NIGMS. Following the protein cloning, expression, purification and crystallization, the protein crystallography data were collected at Argonne's Structural Biology Center at this hemisphere's most brilliant source of X-rays for research – the Advanced Photon Source.

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Argonne inventions win five R&D 100 Awards

Five of the world's top 100 scientific and technological innovations during 2005, as judged by R&D magazine, came from Argonne.

Argonne has been consistently on the R&D 100 Awards list, having won 95 of the honors since the magazine began presenting them in 1964.

Argonne director Robert Rosner congratulated the winners, saying, “I am thrilled that Argonne staff members have been recognized for their important innovations with these prestigious awards. Winning such awards attests to the high quality of research at Argonne and to the caliber of our staff.”

The winners are:

• The world's fastest commercially producible hydrogen sensor, already being commercialized by Makel Engineering of Chico, Calif., detects hydrogen leaks in fuel cells for transportation and stationary applications.
• Anti-scatter grids to improve the resolution and sensitivity of X-ray and nuclear imaging for medical and other applications. This technology was developed jointly with Creatv MicroTech, Inc. of Potomac, Md.
• Materials resistant to metal dusting degradation to improve the durability and lifetime of components in plants that manufacture hydrogen or synthetic fuels.
• Multiport dryer technology for the forest industry will improve the efficiency of dryers used in paper mills.
• The separative bioreactor, developed jointly with Archer Daniels Midland Company, aids the economic production of biobased chemicals as industrial feedstocks.

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New sensor technology detects chemical, biological, nuclear and explosive materials

Argonne engineers have successfully performed the first-ever remote detection of chemicals and identification of unique explosives spectra using a spectroscopic technique that uses the properties of the millimeter/terahertz frequencies between microwave and infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum. The researchers used this technique to detect spectral "fingerprints" that uniquely identify explosives and chemicals.

The Argonne-developed technology was demonstrated in tests that accomplished three important goals:

• Detected and measured poison gas precursors 60 meters away in the Nevada Test Site to an accuracy of 10 parts per million using active sensing.
• Identified chemicals related to defense applications, including nuclear weapons, from 600 meters away using passive sensing at the Nevada Test Site.
• Built a system to identify the spectral fingerprints of trace levels of explosives, including DNT, TNT, PETN, RDX and plastics explosives semtex and C-4.

Sponsors of this research include the U.S. Department of Energy, the Transportation Security Administration, and the U.S. Air Force.

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