New Advance In Revolutionary 'Bullet Fingerprinting' Technique

'Bullet fingerprinting' technology developed at the University of Leicester in collaboration with Northamptonshire Police is now being advanced in new ways.

John Bond, from Northamptonshire Police Scientific Support Unit and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Leicester's Forensic Research Centre developed -- in collaboration with University scientists -- a method to 'visualize fingerprints' even after the print itself has been removed.

The revolutionary technique was named last year as one of Time Magazine's top 50 inventions of the year.

Now continuing work exploring this forensic technique in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Leicester is uncovering new ways of recovering fingerprints from metal surfaces.

Researcher Alex Goddard has uncovered a natural technique that he believes is so simple, which can explain why it has been overlooked until now.

The technique involves studying the chemical and physical interactions occurring between the metal and the fingerprint sweat deposit. Using advanced surface imaging techniques, such as an Atomic Force Microscope, nanoscale observations of fingerprinted brass samples can identify optimum conditions to promote the natural enhancement of the fingerprint, vastly improving their recovery rate. It has also proven that components of the sweat deposit survive washing and wiping of the surface.

Goddard explains, "Once a finger has touched the metal surface, a residue remains behind, this starts to react with the metal and an image of the fingerprint can be developed by use of elevated temperature and humidity, with the resultant image becoming a permanent feature on the surface of the metal."

"Currently, fingerprint recovery from bullets is very low; less than 1 percent. This uses a natural process and even if it only leads to small increase in success rate, then that would be significant.

"Previous recovery methods include applying powder to the material which can actually damage the evidence. This new technique promotes a naturally occurring process which does not involve adding anything to, or damaging, the evidence. Instead, it employs heat and humidity to promote the enhancement of the fingerprint image, there are also indications that it could be used after other techniques have failed, perhaps as a last resort."

John Bond says: "I am delighted that this research in the Chemistry Department is producing really interesting and useful results. This is an important area of forensic research and Northamptonshire Police is proud to be associated with the University. I look forward to further developments".

Alex Goddard recently presented his findings at the University of Leicester's Postgraduate Research Festival.

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Methamphetamine Enters Brain Quickly and Lingers

Using positron emission tomography (PET) to track tracer doses of methamphetamine in humans' brains, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory find that the addictive and long-lasting effects of this increasingly prevalent drug can be explained in part by its pharmacokinetics -- the rate at which it enters and clears the brain, and its distribution. This study in 19 healthy, non-drug-abusing volunteers includes a comparison with cocaine and also looked for differences by race. It will appear in the November 1, issue of Neuroimage.

"Methamphetamine is one of the most addictive and neurotoxic drugs of abuse," says Brookhaven chemist Joanna Fowler, lead author on the study. "It produces large increases in dopamine, a brain chemical associated with feelings of pleasure and reward - both by increasing dopamine's release from nerve cells and by blocking its reuptake."

Studies by Fowler and others have shown that drugs that produce greater elevations in brain dopamine tend to be more addictive. But other factors, including the speed with which a drug enters and clears the brain and its distribution within the brain, can also be important in determining its addictive and toxic potential.

In undertaking this first study of methamphetamine pharmacokinetics, the researchers also wanted to know if there were differences between Caucasians and African Americans. "Reports that the rate of methamphetamine abuse among African Americans is lower than for Caucasians led us to question whether biological or pharmacokinetic differences might explain this difference," Fowler says.

The scientists measured brain uptake, distribution, and clearance of methamphetamine by injecting 19 normal healthy men (9 Caucasian, 10 African American) with a radioactively tagged form of the drug in "trace" doses too small to have any psychoactive effects. They used PET scanning cameras to monitor the concentration and distribution of the tagged methamphetamine in the subjects' brains. On the same day, the same subjects were injected with trace
doses of cocaine and scanned for comparison. The scientists also used PET to measure the number of dopamine reuptake proteins, known as dopamine transporters, available in each research subject's brain.

Like cocaine, methamphetamine entered the brain quickly, a finding consistent with both drugs' highly reinforcing effects. Methamphetamine, however, lingered in the brain significantly longer than cocaine, which cleared quickly. In fact, some brain regions, particularly white matter, still showed signs of tracer methamphetamine at the end of the 90-minute scanning session, by which time all cocaine had been cleared. The distribution of methamphetamine in the brain was
remarkably different from that of cocaine. Whereas cocaine was concentrated only in the 'reward' center and cleared rapidly, methamphetamine was concentrated all over the brain, where it remained throughout the study.

"This slow clearance of methamphetamine from such widespread brain regions may help explain why the drug has such long-lasting behavioral and neurotoxic effects," Fowler says. Methamphetamine is known to produce lasting damage not only to dopamine cells but also to other brain regions, including white matter, that are not part of the dopamine network.

Surprisingly, the researchers found significant differences in cocaine pharmacokinetics between African Americans and Caucasians, with the African Americans exhibiting higher uptake of cocaine, a later rise to peak levels, and slower clearance. In contrast, the scientists found no differences in methamphetamine pharmacokinetics between these groups.

"This suggests that variables other than pharmacokinetics and bioavailability account for the lower prevalence of methamphetamine abuse in African Americans," Fowler says. "The differences observed for cocaine pharmacokinetics are surprising considering there are no differences in cocaine abuse prevalence between these two ethnic groups." These differences may merit further study, and also suggest the need to match subjects by ethnic group in future studies to avoid interference from this potentially confounding variable.

Another interesting finding was that across all research subjects, the level of dopamine transporters was directly related to the level of methamphetamine taken up by the brain. This finding suggests that transporter proteins somehow play a role in regulating the brain's uptake of this drug.

This research was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Intramural Program, and by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research within DOE's Office of Science. Brain-imaging studies such as PET are a direct outgrowth of DOE's long-standing investment in basic research in chemistry, physics, and nuclear medicine. The ongoing neuroimaging research at Brookhaven is a prime example of how DOE's national laboratories bring together the expertise of chemists, physicists, and
medical scientists to address questions of profound significance for society.

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Single-Crystal Semiconductor Wire Built Into Optical Fiber

An international science team from Penn State University in the United States and the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom has developed a process for growing a single-crystal semiconductor inside the tunnel of a hollow optical fiber. The device adds new electronic capabilities to optical fibers, whose performance in electronic devices such as computers typically is degraded by the interface between the fiber and the device. The research is important because optical fibers -- which are used in a wide range of technologies that employ light, including telecommunications, medicine, computing, and remote-sensing devices -- are ideal media for transmitting many types of signals.

The development of the single-crystal device, which will be described in a paper to be published later this month in the journal Advanced Materials, builds on research reported in 2006, in which the team first combined optical fibers with polycrystalline and amorphous semiconductor materials in order to create an optical fiber that also has electronic characteristics. The group's latest finding -- that a single-crystal semiconductor also can be integrated into an optical fiber -- is expected to lead to even further improvements in the characteristics of optical fibers used in many areas of science and technology.

"For most applications, single-crystal semiconductor materials have better performance than polycrystalline and amorphous materials," says John Badding, associate professor of chemistry at Penn State. "We have now shown that our technique of encasing a single-crystal semiconductor within an optical fiber results in greater functionality of the optical fiber, as well."

The team used a high-pressure fluid-liquid-solid approach to build the crystal inside the fiber. First, the scientists deposited a tiny plug of gold inside the fiber by exposing a gold compound to laser light. Next, they introduced silane, a compound of silicon and hydrogen, in a stream of high-pressure helium. When the fiber was heated, the gold acted as a catalyst, decomposing the silane and thus allowing silicon to deposit as a single crystal behind the moving gold catalyst particle, forming a single-crystal wire inside the fiber.

"The key to joining two technologies lies not only in the materials, but also in how the functions are built in," says Pier Sazio, senior research fellow in the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton. "We were able to embed a nanostructured crystal into the hollow tube of an optical fiber to create a completely new type of composite device."

The research team sees potential to carry the application to the next level. "At present, we still have electrical switches at both ends of the optical fiber," says Badding. "If we can get to the point where the electrical signal never leaves the fiber, it will be faster and more efficient."

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How Cancer Spreads by Aggregating Platelets

Scientists have provided new details about how cancer cells spread by surrounding themselves with platelets – the blood cells needed for blood clotting. Katsue Suzuki-Inoue, associate professor of medicine at the University of Yamanashi, Japan, and colleagues have identified for the first time a protein on the surface of platelets that plays a key role in cancer-induced platelet aggregation. These results could help design new drugs that prevent cancer cells from metastasizing, or spreading throughout the body.

“In order to spread, cancer cells release chemicals that make neighboring platelets aggregate and surround the cancer cells, helping them evade the immune system and allowing them to bind to the blood vessels’ inner linings,” Suzuki-Inoue says. “We have discovered how one of these chemicals, called podoplanin, binds to the platelet cells and stimulate their aggregation. Although podoplanin has been known since 1990, how it induces platelet cell aggregation has been a mystery – until now.”

The new study, to be published in the September 7 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, was selected as a “Paper of the Week” by the journal’s editors, meaning that it belongs to the top one percent of papers reviewed in significance and overall importance.

Suzuki-Inoue and colleagues had previously discovered that the snake venom rhodocytin stimulates platelet aggregation by binding to a protein called C-type lectin-like receptor 2 (CLEC-2) located on the surface of the platelets in a way similar to a key (rhodocytin) binding to a lock (CLEC-2).

By studying the details of what happens inside these platelets before and during aggregation, the scientists noticed many similarities with the way platelets aggregate when they are induced by podoplanin from cancer cells. Whether stimulated by rhodocytin or podoplanin, the platelets are slow to aggregate at first and, after they start aggregating, the proteins that are activated inside the platelets are similar in both cases.

Suzuki-Inoue and her team reasoned that maybe CLEC-2 binds not only to rhodocytin but also to podoplanin. The scientists tested this hypothesis by first growing CLEC-2 in culture and then by adding them to cultured cells expressing podoplanin. The hypothesis was confirmed: CLEC-2 and podoplanin bound to each other in the same lock-and-key mechanism displayed by CLEC-2 and rhodocytin.

“We were pleasantly surprised,” Suzuki-Inuoue says. “After all these years, we finally found the long-missing protein to which podoplanin binds to promote platelet aggregation.”

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Research House To Develop Treatments for SARS, Bird Flu, More

SRI International, a nonprofit research and development organization, has been awarded a $56.9 million contract with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, to provide preclinical services for the development of drugs and antibodies for anti-infective therapeutics.

SRI will provide five years of support for the development of treatments for avian flu, SARS, West Nile virus, hepatitis, and biodefense pathogens and toxins. SRI will perform medicinal chemistry, custom drug synthesis, formulation, analytical chemistry, clinical manufacturing, microbiology and virology screening, pharmacokinetics, safety testing, and preparation of Investigational New Drug (IND) applications to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"We are very excited to have won this important contract, which further establishes SRI as one of the foremost anti-infective contract research organizations in the United States," says Jon Mirsalis, Ph.D., D.A.B.T., managing director of SRI’s Biosciences Division and principal investigator for the program. "This major project, coupled with SRI’s basic research groups, demonstrates SRI’s capabilities to take projects from idea to IND stage."

In addition to this contract for anti-infective therapeutic development, SRI has worked for many years with NIAID’s Division of AIDS conducting safety, formulation, and clinical manufacturing projects, as well as with the NIAID biodefense safety, vaccine, and screening programs.

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