This Must Be America

Anxiety-ridden dogs that go berserk when left alone by their owners will soon have a new treatment option--a reformulated version of the antidepressant Prozac, known generically as fluoxetine. To be marketed under the name Reconcile by Indianapolis-based drugmaker Eli Lilly, the drug is chewable and flavored with a doggie-delectable zing. It is the latest in a string of recently approved canine drugs, reflecting the growing market for pet pharmaceuticals.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Reconcile in February after clinical tests in dogs showed it significantly improved symptoms of separation anxiety, a problem that strikes 10 to 20 percent of canines with varying severity; dogs affected may bark, chew household items, or urinate in inappropriate locations when left alone. The drug, which will go on the market in April and will be sold along with a behavior modification program, is the first product introduced by a new division of Lilly devoted entirely to pets.

Most drugs used for companion animals, as the pharmaceutical companies refer to pets, are human drugs that veterinarians prescribe off label. The cost of drug development is so high that few companies are willing to spend the money it takes to develop a canine-specific drug, or to run clinical trials testing human drugs for dogs or cats. But as more and more Americans view their pets as family members that is changing, and a new market is opening up: medications are being reformulated and sold in animal-friendly forms, and drugs that never quite made it through the human testing process are being revived.

"I think the human-animal bond has changed in the last few years," says Dawn Boothe, a veterinary internist and clinical pharmacologist at Auburn University in Auburn, AL. "People are starting to say, 'My animal is a member of the family, and I am willing to pay the cost of drugs that were developed for humans.' I think the pharmaceutical companies have picked up on that."

Two other pet drugs were approved early this year: the first diet drug for dogs, Slentrol, and the first motion-sickness drug for dogs, Cerenia. Both are being sold by New York-based Pfizer. Unlike Reconcile, neither drug has ever been prescribed for humans. Dirlotapide, the generic form of Slentrol, was originally tested for human use, but its side effects were deemed intolerable. (Compounds in the same class are being tested for their cholesterol- and triglyceride-reducing properties in humans.)

Veterinarians are excited about the prospect of drugs that have been tested specifically in pets. "Prozac is a drug we've used for years," says Boothe. "But having it approved in dogs gives us a level of confidence regarding safety and efficacy in that species." Although scientists have tested different drugs in cats and dogs, Boothe and others say it has been difficult to get pharmaceutical companies interested in developing them. Nicholas Dodman, an animal behaviorist and veterinarian at Tufts University in Medford, MA, says a drug currently used to treat dementia in humans is helpful in treating an animal form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but so far no pharmaceutical company has opted to develop it for the pet market.

Lilly's companion-animal division is testing molecules from its vast library of compounds to treat obesity and other conditions in pets, a process they hope will produce some returns on the original investment in those molecules. "Even if you assume only two million of the dogs with anxiety disorder get treated," says Dodman, "with owners paying $50 per month, that's a viable market."

Chemists Reinvent The Science And Industry Of Making Plastics

Chemists Reinvent The Science And Industry Of Making Plastics

Science Daily — Chemists at the University of Pennsylvania have created a new process for free radical polymerization, the chemical reaction responsible for creating an enormous array of everyday plastic products, from Styrofoam cups to PVC tubing to car parts. Unlike the traditional method for living polymerization, which has been around for more than 50 years, this method takes place at room temperature, uses less metal catalyst to drive the reaction and requires a very short reaction time.

We have basically re-written the equation of how the polymerization process can work, which can have a direct impact on the cost of the reaction and the types of materials that we can create. said Virgil Percec, a professor in Penns Department of Chemistry. Polymerization is a billion-dollar-a-year industry, and the applications for the technology are enormous, ranging from medicine to coatings, from moldable forms of rubber to electronics and even complex organic synthesis, all via these radical reactions.

This new technique, called Single Electron Transfer-Living Radical Polymerization, also offers chemists greater control over the molecular architecture of the polymers they create and allows them to use materials that did not work with the traditional process. The mechanism of the synthesis reaction works so well that there is very little worry about undesirable side reactions, and the resulting polymers do not need to be purified to remove the catalyst. Their findings are presented in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, available online now.

The SET-LRP mechanism can allow for a greater control over the three-dimensional structure of the polymers being created, Percec said. The overall process is not only more efficient, it also provides industrial chemists a new creative tool for building consumer and industrial.

Polymerization links individual molecules, referred to as monomers, together to form synthetic products on a larger-scale. In the chemical reaction to create polymers, chemists use catalysts to decrease the amount of energy it takes to create a shared bond between individual atoms of each monomer. The traditional method, referred to as atom-transfer radical polymerization or metal catalyzed living radical polymerization, demands high temperatures and a great amount of the metal catalyst, in part, because the process depends on the energy it takes to transfer inner-sphere electrons - which are deep within the cloud of electrons surrounding an atom - in the act of bonding monomers together.

The new method created by Percec and his colleagues involves the transfer of outer-sphere electrons, which requires much lower activation energy and, therefore, a different catalytic cycle than atom-transfer radical addition. Both the traditional and SET-LRP processes use copper-based catalysts to drive the reaction, but the SET-LRP reaction uses a common, elemental form of copper - in the form of powder or wire - in the presence of environmentally friendly solvents, such as water, to move the reaction along. This prevents the build up of excess amounts of copper by-products and reduces the need to continually add more catalyst to keep the reaction going.

While this might seem like a refinement of the traditional process - the resulting polymers, in fact, are structurally the same - this method involves an entirely different approach to the chemical reaction, Percec said.

Funding for the research was provided by the National Science Foundation.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University of Pennsylvania.

Nanowires Turn Vibrations into Electricity

The goal: nanotech that powers itself on the battlefield and in your body
Researchers have conjured up a trickle of electricity by zapping tiny nanowires with ultrasound. If they can grow that trickle into a stream, the technology might turn everyday vibrations into power for miniature sensors that could be sprinkled in the environment or implanted in the body.
Everyone knows that nanotechnology means really small stuff, such as sensors that could be placed inside the body to monitor blood sugar or on the battlefield to sniff out poison gas. But as sophisticated as these devices are, they are still burdened because they rely on an outside power. "The size of the entire device is determined by the size of the power source," says nanotechnologist Zhong Lin Wang of the Georgia Institute of Technology. On top of that, he says, batteries require toxic chemicals and have to be replaced periodically.
Looking to make a nanotech power source, Wang started from the fact that nanothin wires of zinc oxide are piezoelectric, meaning they develop a charge when bent. He and his team grew a forest of these wires on a semiconductor substrate and placed a corrugated silicon electrode closely above them [see image].
Ultrasound passing through the device rattles the electrode back and forth, Wang says, which in turn bends the wires to and fro like bristles on a toothbrush. The resulting charges transfer to a metal layer coating the electrode—and, voilà, a 500-nanowire array produces a nanoampere of current, the team reports in this week's Science.
Wang says that to actually power a simple electronic device such as a diode or a transistor, he has to raise the charge on the device from its current millivolt to at least half a volt. He says he plans to make the nanowires more uniform and stack multiple arrays as well as add capacitors, which accumulate charge.