Red Raiders victorious

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LIHUE After battling all season long, the series between the Red Raider girls and the Warrior wahine reached a climax and a champion was crowned.

Kauai High Schools varsity girls volleyball team defeated Kapaa in straight sets at home in Mondays second round playoff game, 25-16, 25-19 and 25-23, to win the Kauai Interscholastic Federation title.

The girls did a really good job. Both teams played a really tough game, said Red Raiders head coach Dorene Matias. Our girls wanted it so badly. I told them, Play it like its your last game. I couldnt do any more, but they could. They played with all their heart.

After winning the first two sets, the Red Raiders (12-2 KIF, 5-1 second round, 2-0 playoff) found themselves in a 12-8 deficit in the final game. The action continued back and forth until Kauai fought back to tie it, 22-22.

Freshman Tia Takasakis ace gave the Red Raiders the lead for good en route to completing the sweep.

It was really close in the end. It could have gone either way, Matias said. I dont want to take anything away from Kapaa. Theyre tough ... I was up against a really good coaching squad, too, and a really good team.

Senior co-captain Harley Kaeo had six kills, including the game-winner in the second set, and two blocks.

This was our last chance as seniors. We got our stuff together from our last loss and decided this was going to be it might as well play our hearts out, Kaeo said. All the hard hours put in at practice, all the running that you hate but you got to do, it finally paid off.

Junior Adrienne Graycochea and senior Jondee Rivera each added five kills.

I feel that a weight has been lifted off our shoulders, Graycochea said. We talked more on the court, and we found the openings a lot better. It was just going great. It was going smooth for us.

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Red Raiders victorious

Caps Insider: Capitals vs. Red Wings: Game 9 discussion thread

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Wednesday night, Washington Capitals (4-2-2) return home for a primetime NBC matchup with Detroit (4-2-2), one of six at Verizon Center over their next eight, following a topsy-turvy western Canadian road trip that saw arguably their most complete victory of the season in Calgary and then a dud in Vancouver. Once again, Coach Barry Trotz rejiggered his line combinations, separating Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom, promoting Andre Burakovsky to top-line center and quite possibly positioning Tom Wilson for his NHL season debut.

Defenseman Matt Niskanen, meanwhile, will play his 500th NHL game, on the seventh anniversary of his first NHL goal scored vs. San Jose while with Dallas. It was kind of a fluttering slap shot, Niskanen said. I dont know how the heck it went in. I was happy at the time.

Niskanen becomes the sixth Washington skater to reach the milestone, after Brooks Laich, Jason Chimera, Brooks Orpik, Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom, but admitted it might get forgotten once the puck drops.

As far as games played, milestones go, its kind of a cool one, 500s probably that first big one, maybe, Niskanen said. But its not spectacular. Its not 500 points like Nickie had. It is cool. It means Ive been relatively healthy, had somewhat decent success in the league. Im happy with that, but theres still a game to be played.

Trotz will coach against Detroits Mike Babcock in a regular-season game for the 62nd time, all previously while helming the Nashville Predators. In discussing the Red Wings, Trotz lauded their 200-foot game, ability to funnel pucks toward the net and persistence in all three zones, traits he has hoped the Capitals could adopt during his tenure.

Yeah, you want to create a culture, Trotz said. It takes time. It doesnt happen over night. Theyve had 20 some years at it. I think the successful teams in this business have the same thought process. It starts with the draft, then youve got to build a culture. Once you have your corps, you play a certain way, then keep doing it over and over. You make tweaks, but for the most part theyre self-sustaining.

The Capitals will also be wearing purple warmup sweaters for the Hockey Fights Cancer campaign, and bothgoaltenders willsport custom-painted helmets for the occasion.

The lines, goaltending matchup, injuries and links are below. Thanks for reading and enjoy the Wednesday night hockey, one of two NHL games on the docket.

LINES

Forwards

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Caps Insider: Capitals vs. Red Wings: Game 9 discussion thread

News at Nine, October 28

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New ocean telecom cables should be 'green'

The system ofsubmarine telecommunications that connects the world together represents a missed opportunity for tsunami warning, according to university scientists and a United Nations task force.

These submarine telecommunications cables are the backbone of the Internet, but they should be more green. According to the task force's report, sensor technology could be deployed to improve the world's understanding of ocean circulation and sea level rise.

According toRhett Butler, director of the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, all of the world's cable systems will be replaced within the coming quarter century.

Source: UH News

Kauai to study food waste to generate renewable gas

In an effort to possibly generate renewable gas to power The KauaiBus and other county vehicles, the County of Kauai is seeing how feasible it would be to generate renewable gas out of locally produced food waste.

In order to do this, the county is conducting a survey to see how much food waste it currently produces.

The survey is available athttps://www.surveymonkey.com/s/86DYP3J. Restaurants, schools and hospitals are encouraged to take it.

Source: The Garden Island

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News at Nine, October 28

UN task force: Ocean telecom cables should be green

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The global system of submarine telecommunication cables that support our connected world is deaf, dumb and blind to the external ocean environment and represents a major missed opportunity for tsunami warning and global climate monitoring, according to University of Hawaii scientists and a United Nations task force.

For an additional 5 to 10 percent of the total cost of any new cable system deployment, we could be saving lives from tsunamis and effectively monitoring global change, said UH-Manoas Rhett Butler, director of the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology and chairman of an international committee tasked to evaluate the cable opportunity.

Submarine telecommunication cables are the backbone of the Internet. More than half a million miles of the fiber-optic cable already criss-cross the deep ocean, linking more than 2.7 billion users and supporting global business, finance, social media, entertainment and political expression.

Now researchers are making a scientific and societal case for greening any new cables proposed to be built in the future.

The new report, published this month by a joint task force of three U.N. agencies, parallels an engineering feasibility study and analyses of strategy and legal challenges.

By adding a relatively straightforward set of instrumentation, accelerometers, high-resolution pressure gauges and thermometers integrated into the cables optical repeaters, the enhanced telecom cables could answer many basic science needs, as well as help monitor the physical state-of-health of the cable system itself, researchers say.

For example, a cable-based worldwide network of seafloor sensors could enable the monitoring of the pressure of a tsunami as it passes over the sea floor, allowing the measurement in real-time of the actual tsunami generated to assess its potential coastal threat and corroborate the necessity of a warning.

Likewise, global earthquake monitoring is hamstrung by the fact that nearly all of the worlds seismic stations are located on land. A smarter undersea cable system could significantly improve the resolution at which researchers can describe the earthquake process itself including how, where and how much the earthquake moves over its fault surface, details that are fundamental to understanding its tsunami-generating potential.

On the climate side, readily available sensor technology could be deployed to improve our understanding of ocean circulation, sea level rise and the exchange of heat through the ocean depths and with the atmosphere, essential elements for global monitoring.

The undersea communication cable is an untapped platform for oceanographic sensors, one that could outstrip all other systems attempting to observe the deep oceans, said Doug Luther, UH-Manoa professor of oceanography and another contributor to the report.

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UN task force: Ocean telecom cables should be green

Incredible Footage of NASA’s Antares Spacecraft Explosion in HD and 4K – Video

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Incredible Footage of NASA #39;s Antares Spacecraft Explosion in HD and 4K
Cygnus Cargo Spacecraft Destroyed in Launch Mishap The Orbital Sciences Antares rocket that was supposed to resupply the ISS exploded seconds after liftoff at NASA Wallops Island Flight Facility...

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Dr. Laura Iraci – Up in the Air: Methane and Ozone Over California – Video

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Dr. Laura Iraci - Up in the Air: Methane and Ozone Over California
NASA Ames Research Director #39;s Colloquium, August 7, 2014. The Alpha Jet Atmospheric eXperiment (AJAX) at NASA Ames Research Center measures in-situ carbon dioxide, methane, and ozone ...

By: NASA Ames Research Center

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Dr. Laura Iraci - Up in the Air: Methane and Ozone Over California - Video

Orbital Sciences ORB-3 Explodes on lift-off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facilities in Virginia – Video

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Orbital Sciences ORB-3 Explodes on lift-off from NASA #39;s Wallops Flight Facilities in Virginia
USA in Space Video Taken from the Media Viewing Area using a GoPro Hero 4. The Orbital Sciences Antares ORB-3 Exploded just seconds after clearing Pad 0A in Wallops Island, Virginia at the...

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Orbital Sciences ORB-3 Explodes on lift-off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facilities in Virginia - Video

NASA Panel Warned About Risks of Budget on Cargo Missions

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A NASA advisory panel said earlier this year that inadequate funding jeopardized the safety of commercial space cargo shipments, such as the unmanned Orbital Sciences Corp. (ORB) mission that exploded this week over Virginia.

In its annual report released in January, the agencys Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel warned about funding shortfalls in programs that use commercial companies to transport crew and cargo to low-orbit space.

Insufficient funding results in either extended schedule or lower performance, according to the 2013 annual report to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The panel said the result could be higher failure risk through improper or insufficient testing.

Space Taxis

A commercial space industry has emerged in the U.S. after budget cuts prompted NASA to retire the space shuttle in 2011. The agency now relies on Orbital and Elon Musks Space Exploration Technologies Corp. to ferry supplies to the International Space Station.

Last month, the agency for the first time handed responsibility for manned spaceflight to private contractors, awarding Boeing and SpaceX as much as $6.8 billion in contracts to ferry astronauts to the space station.

The explosion on Oct. 28 of a $200 million Antares rocket and spacecraft occurred seconds after launch at the Wallops Flight Facility on Virginias eastern shore. No one was injured. NASA and Orbital said they remain committed to the program, though Orbital Chief Executive Officer David Thompson said it would delay its next launch, scheduled for April. He said the company was still investigating the cause.

The NASA panels report said the agency should clarify what, if any, limits to the cargo program are appropriate for the relatively unproven vehicles and the limited insight/oversight posture currently in place.

NASA requested $850 million for fiscal year 2012 for contract management and oversight of the commercial operations, according to the advisory panels report. Congress appropriated $397 million, raising the risk of failure, according to the report.

Appropriations have increased since, though fell short of NASAs request again in 2013. The agency sought $830 million and received $525 million. That figure is only for the manned portion of the program because the cargo missions were shifted to the International Space Station budget in 2013, according to the Congressional Research Service. Figures for the cargo portion of the space station budget were not immediately available.

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NASA locates resting place of late LADEE probe

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- Six months ago, NASA's LADEE probe went out with a bang, slamming into the surface of the moon after little more than half a year on the job. Earlier this week, one of NASA's veteran lunar probes spotted LADEE's final resting place.

As new photographs captured by the camera of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show, a small crater marks the spot were LADEE intentionally smashed itself into the moon's surface on April 18, 2014. The crater lies within the larger Sundman V crater, located on the far side of the moon away from the Apollo landing sites. The new imagery confirms LADEE crashed roughly two-tenths of a mile away from where NASA engineers predicted the probe would make impact.

"I'm happy that the LROC team was able to confirm the LADEE impact point," Butler Hine, LADEE project manager at California's Ames Research Center, said in a press release. "It really helps the LADEE team to get closure and know exactly where the product of their hard work wound up."

While LADEE lasted only barely more than six months in space, LRO has been orbiting the moon for more than five years. The probe is managed by NASA engineers working from Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"With LRO, NASA will study our nearest celestial neighbor for at least two more years," said John Keller, LRO project scientist. "LRO continues to increase our understanding of the moon and its environment."

A slding composite image, showing before and after shots of the LADEE impact site, can be found on NASA's website.

2014 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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Investor Guide to Nanotechnology, October 23, 2014 – Video

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Investor Guide to Nanotechnology, October 23, 2014
This webinar reviews a new study providing investors and stakeholders with a comprehensive guide to the nascent, rapidly growing nanotechnologyy industry. The study indicates that nanotechnology...

By: Investor Responsibility Research Center Instititute

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Investor Guide to Nanotechnology, October 23, 2014 - Video

Delegation of Moscow industrial manufacture managers participated in the 56th International Engineering Fair MSV-2014

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Thedelegation ofMoscow industrial manufacture managers participated inthe 56th International Engineering Fair MSV-2014 which took place inBrno, theCzech Republic, inearly October. TheMoscow exposition andthe delegation participation was arranged bythe Department ofScience, Industrial Policy andEntrepreneurship forthe City ofMoscow.

International Engineering Fair MSV-2014 is thelargest international industrial event inthe Central andEastern Europe. Theevent included alarge-scale industrial fair, highly informative business program, conclusion ofinternational contracts andvisits toinnovation enterprises ofthe Czech Republic.

Inorder toestablish new business contacts andexpand theproduct market thedepartment ofScience, Industrial Policy andEntrepreneurship forMoscow arranged thegroup stand exposition ofthe leading industrial andscientific enterprises. Within theframework ofthe group stand exposition thegains inindustry had been presented byorganizations ofMoscow, forexample NIIAS JSC presented thesafe locomotive combined complex (BLOK); Alitir LLC presented theanticorrosion protection technology with theuse ofpulse current; Concern Nanoindustry incooperation with Institute forNanotechnology ofConversion International Fund introduced tothe exposition guests thedepth filters forhigh purification ofvarious environments anddisinfectants ofnew generation onthe basis ofnano-silver AgBion-2; A. A. Bochvar VNIINM JSC presented thetechnology ofgas-dynamic coating sputtering; LLC InnTechPro demonstrated acomposition Zinoferr () water-based non-organic zinc-filled silicate coating, made onthe basis ofhigh-modulus modified liquid glass, etc. Innovent company presented its innovative development with high operational characteristics radial duct booster UNIVENT () forventilation systems ofinhabited buildings, public places andindustrial premises; STANDARTINFORM Institute as ROSSTANDARD's authorized company presented its data bases ofregulatory andtechnical documents necessary forCzech companies that enter theRussian market. EcoCat Company presented equipment forcatalytic room heating. NCP Association ofRailway Equipment Manufactures presented developments ofits enterprises.

Theformal ceremony ofMoscow exhibition display opening atthe Fair was onSeptember 29, then exhibitors were visited byMr. Andrey Sharashkin, Counsel-general ofthe Russian Federation inBrno, Mr. Sergey Stupar, trading agent ofthe Russian Federation inthe Czech Republic, andMs. Natalya Popkova, Head ofMoscow Government delegation, Deputy head ofindustry policy authority ofDSPE forthe city ofMoscow. Theexhibition stand was very popular among international fair participants, during theevent execution theMoscow stand was visited bymore than 1,300 persons.

TheMoscow delegation participated inthe Business day ofthe Russian Federation atthe International Engineering Fair MSV-2014 onSeptember 30. Theprogram within theframework ofthe Business Day ofRussia was not limited byinformative discussions; several cooperation agreements were signed with Czech partners between participants ofMoscow exposition participants Non-Commercial Partnership Association ofRailway Equipment Manufactures (NCP OPZhT), Scientific Research andDesign andEngineering Institution ofInformation, Automation andCommunication inRailway Vehicles (JSC NIIAS) andthe Czech company UniControls a.s., RACOM s.r.o., Association ofRailway Industry Enterprises ofthe Czech Republic, onjoint adaptation andimplementation ofonboard andstationary control systems onthe basis ofsatellite navigation system, andon integration JSC NIIAS Company developments inthe field ofsmart devices ofdigital radio communication with automated control systems.

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Delegation of Moscow industrial manufacture managers participated in the 56th International Engineering Fair MSV-2014

New solar power material converts 90 percent of captured light into heat

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A multidisciplinary engineering team at the University of California, San Diego developed a new nanoparticle-based material for concentrating solar power plants designed to absorb and convert to heat more than 90 percent of the sunlight it captures. The new material can also withstand temperatures greater than 700 degrees Celsius and survive many years outdoors in spite of exposure to air and humidity. Their work, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's SunShot program, was published recently in two separate articles in the journal Nano Energy.

By contrast, current solar absorber material functions at lower temperatures and needs to be overhauled almost every year for high temperature operations.

"We wanted to create a material that absorbs sunlight that doesn't let any of it escape. We want the black hole of sunlight," said Sungho Jin, a professor in the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. Jin, along with professor Zhaowei Liu of the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering professor Renkun Chen, developed the Silicon boride-coated nanoshell material. They are all experts in functional materials engineering.

The novel material features a "multiscale" surface created by using particles of many sizes ranging from 10 nanometers to 10 micrometers. The multiscale structures can trap and absorb light which contributes to the material's high efficiency when operated at higher temperatures.

Concentrating solar power (CSP) is an emerging alternative clean energy market that produces approximately 3.5 gigawatts worth of power at power plants around the globe -- enough to power more than 2 million homes, with additional construction in progress to provide as much as 20 gigawatts of power in coming years. One of the technology's attractions is that it can be used to retrofit existing power plants that use coal or fossil fuels because it uses the same process to generate electricity from steam.

Traditional power plants burn coal or fossil fuels to create heat that evaporates water into steam. The steam turns a giant turbine that generates electricity from spinning magnets and conductor wire coils. CSP power plants create the steam needed to turn the turbine by using sunlight to heat molten salt. The molten salt can also be stored in thermal storage tanks overnight where it can continue to generate steam and electricity, 24 hours a day if desired, a significant advantage over photovoltaic systems that stop producing energy with the sunset.

One of the most common types of CSP systems uses more than 100,000 reflective mirrors to aim sunlight at a tower that has been spray painted with a light absorbing black paint material. The material is designed to maximize sun light absorption and minimize the loss of light that would naturally emit from the surface in the form of infrared radiation.

The UC San Diego team's combined expertise was used to develop, optimize and characterize a new material for this type of system over the past three years. Researchers included a group of UC San Diego graduate students in materials science and engineering, Justin Taekyoung Kim, Bryan VanSaders, and Jaeyun Moon, who recently joined the faculty of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The synthesized nanoshell material is spray-painted in Chen's lab onto a metal substrate for thermal and mechanical testing. The material's ability to absorb sunlight is measured in Liu's optics laboratory using a unique set of instruments that takes spectral measurements from visible light to infrared.

Current CSP plants are shut down about once a year to chip off the degraded sunlight absorbing material and reapply a new coating, which means no power generation while a replacement coating is applied and cured. That is why DOE's SunShot program challenged and supported UC San Diego research teams to come up with a material with a substantially longer life cycle, in addition to the higher operating temperature for enhanced energy conversion efficiency. The UC San Diego research team is aiming for many years of usage life, a feat they believe they are close to achieving.

Modeled after President Kennedy's moon landing program that inspired widespread interest in science and space exploration, then-Energy Secretary Steven P. Chu launched the Sunshot Initiative in 2010 with the goal of making solar power cost competitive with other means of producing electricity by 2020.

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New solar power material converts 90 percent of captured light into heat

Indie.Bio: it's cheaper to biohack than develop an app startup

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"It now costs less to build a biotech startup than an app startup," entrepreneur and venture partner Bill Liao tells the audience at Pioneers Festival in Vienna. As the man behind Indie.Bio, a synthetic biology accelerator in Ireland that funds startups using biology as a basis for technology, Liao understands the costs better than most.

He also knows why synthetic biology is worthwhile investing in. He became interested in the subject when his daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, meaning that she became dependent upon insulin produced by reprogrammed cells.

Biohacker and entrepreneur Ryan Bethencourt has also noticed the vast shift in price his work entails. "The cost of doing biology has dropped dramatically," he says. "In tech were saw Moores Law disrupt everything, in biotech we're beating that curve."

Both Bethencourt and Liao are keen to see more people -- both computer scientists and biologists -- think more about the entrepreneurship options that could be open to them. "You go to the existing labs and see people with strings of letters and they are working on validating a single molecule and they've been doing it for five years," says Liao. These are seriously smart people, he adds. "With all that skill, would you like to just take that skill and do something? A big part of what we are doing with our accelerator is inviting someone who has operated under a different covenant to start behaving like an entrepreneur."

He acknowledges though that it's not always an easy leap to make. "Biotech has had a lot of broken promises. All of that's still very hard, but there's a lot of stuff that's easier -- there's low hanging fruit." At one end of the spectrum there's the work that the people like Andrew Hessel are doing, attempting to create 3D-printed cancer-fighting viruses. But at the other end of the spectrum are the less controversial technologies that are more likely to actually make money.

"Commercialisation is going to come first in areas that aren't heavily regulated, because regulation always sets things back," he says. As an example he points to the startup Muufri, which is making milk without cows, using instead the key proteins and the fatty acids to build it from the bottom up.

"The stuff they make is not genetically modified," says Liao. "What you end up with is a liquid identical to that that comes out of cows." This technology could mean that vegan milk is widely available on shop shelves in less than two years. "It's about looking at things from the perspective of what can I make without genetically modifying organisms."

Liao doesn't come from a biology background and neither he nor Bethencourt believe that you have to be to get involved in biotechnology. "I want to democratise access to the tools. I want everyone to do biotechnology at home, and I don't want the government to be able to stop it," says Bethencourt. The fact that you can do biotech for under the cost of developing an app, means that anyone can do it, he adds. "You just have to teach yourself how to use science."

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Indie.Bio: it's cheaper to biohack than develop an app startup

Letter: For Hughes

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Several weeks ago I picked up a Chip Hughes for sheriff campaign poster from New Bern Republican Headquarters that I placed in my front yard. The next morning it was gone. Thinking that someone might have removed it because it was near the right-of-way, I went back to Republican Headquarters and got a second one. This was placed deeper into my front lawn. The next morning it too was gone.

I returned to Republican Headquarters for my third poster. Speaking with people there, I learned that my experiences were not unique. Others had come with similar stories. Some Republican campaign posters were removed, others defaced and some were thrown into ditches.

I placed my third Chip Hughes poster much deeper into my lawn and much closer to my house and I have resorted to taking it in at night.

I am concerned not only because of my yard and property being violated because of what I have observed at the end of Madam Moores Lane where there is a lineup of campaign posters. The first time I saw them they were all standing upright. A few days later I saw that one was pulled up and lying flat, a Chip Hughes one.

Sunday I noticed that someone righted it, but by Monday it was down again.

I have displayed a Chip Hughes poster because I am impressed with his credentials including more than 25 years in law enforcement and an impressive list of public service appointments, including chairman of the Governors Task Force on Safer Schools and North Carolinas Crime Commission. He also rose to the rank of sergeant in North Carolinas Highway Patrol.

It seems ironic that in the race for Craven County sheriff, a law enforcement position, crimes and misdemeanors including trespassing, theft and destruction of property are being used against a candidates campaign.

Perhaps more importantly, these actions deprive the candidates and the citizens of Craven County their constitutional rights guaranteeing freedom of expression.

Veronica Warrener, New Bern

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Letter: For Hughes

New molecular imaging technology could improve bladder-cancer detection

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

29-Oct-2014

Contact: Krista Conger kristac@stanford.edu 650-725-5371 Stanford University Medical Center @sumedicine

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a new strategy that they say could detect bladder cancer with more accuracy and sensitivity than standard endoscopy methods. Endoscopy refers to a procedure in which surgeons use an instrument equipped with a lens to see inside the patient.

The researchers identified a protein known as CD47 as a molecular imaging target to distinguish bladder cancer from benign tissues. In the future, this technique could improve bladder cancer detection, guide more precise cancer surgery and reduce unnecessary biopsies, therefore increasing cancer patients' quality of life.

The work is described in a paper that will be published Oct. 29 in Science Translational Medicine.

Bladder cancer, the fifth most common cancer in the United States, is generally identified in the clinic by a procedure called cystoscopy, an endoscopy in the bladder. Then in the operating room, surgeons remove the cancerous tissue for biopsy.

Need for close monitoring

Bladder cancer must be monitored closely because it has one of the highest recurrence rates of all cancers. It is important that cystoscopy imaging be both highly sensitive (able to detect subtle cancer) and specific (able to distinguish between benign and cancerous tumors) so surgeons can remove cancerous tissue at an early stage to prevent invasion into the underlying muscle, which may require complete removal of the bladder. However, standard cystoscopy has insufficient sensitivity and specificity, particularly for flat-appearing cancers that blend in with the bladder and may be confused with inflammation.

"Our motivation is to improve optical diagnosis of bladder cancer that can better differentiate cancer from noncancer, which is exceedingly challenging at times. Molecular imaging offers the possibility of real-time cancer detection at the molecular level during diagnostic cystoscopy and tumor resection," said co-senior author Joseph Liao, MD, an associate professor of urology and the chief of urology at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. The lead author is Ying Pan, PhD, a research associate in Liao's lab.

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New molecular imaging technology could improve bladder-cancer detection

Study identifies potential treatment target for cocaine addiction

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

29-Oct-2014

Contact: Terri Ogan togan@partners.org 617-726-0954 Massachusetts General Hospital @MassGeneralNews

A study led by investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has identified a potential target for therapies to treat cocaine addiction. In their study receiving advance online publication in Molecular Psychiatry, the investigators find evidence that changing one amino acid in a subunit of an important receptor protein alters whether cocaine-experienced animals will resume drug seeking after a period of cocaine abstinence. Increasing expression of the enzyme responsible for that change within the GluA2 subunits of AMPA receptors which receive nerve impulses carried by the neurotransmitter glutamate reduced cocaine seeking in animals allowed to self-administer the drug.

"The critical role of the AMPA receptor in cocaine addiction is clear," says Ghazaleh Sadri-Vakili, PhD, director of the NeuroEpigenetics Laboratory in the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease, senior author of the report. "We have known that activation of the AMPA receptor in the nucleus accumbens an area of the brain important for drug addiction promotes the resumption of cocaine seeking in animal models, and this study identifies an increased contribution of calcium-permeable AMPA receptors to this process."

AMPA receptors consist of four subunits that can be of four different types GluA1 through GluA4 and their involvement in cocaine addiction was previously described by study co-author, R. Christopher Pierce, PhD, of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The GluA2 subunit determines whether the receptor is permeable to calcium, which would enhance the strength of signals transmitted through the receptor.

In the normal adult brain, 99 percent of GluA2 subunits have been edited at the RNA processing stage into a form that renders the receptor impermeable to calcium, and disruptions in GluA2 editing that create a calcium-permeable receptor have been associated with disorders including depression, epilepsy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Since chronic cocaine exposure produces major changes in glutamate transmission in the brain including the nucleus accumbens, a structure deep within the brain known to be involved in reward and addiction the research team investigated the relationship of GluA2 editing within the accumbens to cocaine seeking in an animal model.

Study lead author Heath Schmidt, PhD, of the Perelman School of Medicine, first allowed a group of rats to self-administer cocaine for 21 days, then withheld cocaine from the animals for a week. Examination of the animals' brains after 7 days of drug abstinence found that levels within the nucleus accumbens of both edited GluA2 and of the enzyme responsible for editing were reduced, compared with the brains of animals not exposed to cocaine. These findings suggest that activation of AMPA receptors containing unedited GluA2 could potentially stimulate cocaine craving. In a different group of animals, Schmidt found that inducing overexpression in the nucleus accumbens of the editing enzyme, called ADAR2, both increased the presence of edited GluA2 in the AMPA receptor and reduced the resumption of cocaine seeking in habituated animals given access to the drug after 7 days of abstinence.

Sadri-Vakili explains, "Our findings support the novel hypothesis that calcium-permeable AMPA receptors containing unedited GluA2 subunits contribute to cocaine seeking and that repairing the deficient editing of GluA2, possibly by regulation of ADAR2 expression, could be a treatment strategy for cocaine addiction." She is an assistant professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School; Schmidt is an assistant professor of Psychiatry, and Pierce is a professor of Neuroscience in Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Study identifies potential treatment target for cocaine addiction