News in brief

Published: 1-Jun-2004


Pharmaceutical companies have been asked to review their manufacturing systems to minimise the risk of plasma-based medicines carrying human transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, such as CJD. Guidance issued by the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA) recommends that 'manufacturing steps with potentially the highest removal capacity are experimentally investigated.'

The Global Fund for the Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is giving US$26m to Burkina Faso to boost its fight against HIV/AIDS and malaria; the money will be distributed by the UN Development Programme.

Meanwhile, the World Bank has approved US$16.6m in grant financing to support HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care services along the heavily-travelled Abidjan-Lagos corridor in the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Togo and Nigeria, complementing national anti-AIDS programmes.

Australian pharmaceutical company Novogen has announced a new trial of its lead compound, phenoxodiol, to assess its ability to help patients who have developed chemo-resistant ovarian cancer. Novogen's 87% owned subsidiary, Marshall Edwards, will begin the trial in the US. Novogen hopes that phenoxodiol will restore the sensitivity of chemo-resistant cancer cells. Marshall Edwards has licensed rights to bring phenoxodiol to market globally from its parent company. Phenoxodiol is currently in phase I and II clinical trials as an anticancer therapy.

Joint research by the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Osaka Gas has developed a method of mass-producing nanotubes of nickel metal. Whereas other methods yield only several milligrams of nickel

nanotubes, the new technique can produce the material in gramme quantities.

The nickel nanotubes are made by plating a nickel solution on a template of fibres. After the nickel is plated down, the pH of the solution is made alkaline to fragment the fibres, leaving behind hollow tubes of nickel with diameters of 100, 200 and 500nm.

Metal nickel acts as a catalyst for chemical reactions, so the nanotubes, with their large surface area, are highly reactive. Additionally, the hollow tubes serve as a conduit for liquids and gases, promoting chemical reactions without the need for high pressures.

These properties make the nickel nanotubes a promising material for the catalysts used in chemical synthesis.

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