Month: June 2014

Pollution-Plagued Bangladesh Imposes “Green Tax” on Factories That Dump Untreated Effluent Into Rivers

by
bangladesh

Pollution-plagued Bangladesh has passed an extra “green tax” in an attempt to force polluting factories to clean up their act. The factories will have to pay extra levies if they are found to have polluted “air, soil and water.”

The green tax is part of Bangladesh’s $32 billion budget for 2014-2015, announced Thursday.

Announcing the budget in parliament, Finance Minister A.M.A Muhith said that industrial effluent and waste from urban sewage was “severely contaminating our rivers and taking heavy toll on the aquatic environment and its surroundings.”bangladesh

The tax was aimed mainly at Bangladesh’s powerful textile and leather processing industries, which pour untreated effluent into the nation’s rivers.

“I propose to impose a one percent Environment Protection Surcharge or Green Tax on an ad-valorem basis on all kinds of products manufactured in Bangladesh by the industries which pollute the environment,” continued Muhith.

Munith said that Bangladesh was one of the world’s most polluted countries and the green tax would “get rid of this situation.” He expected it would encourage industries “to set up effluent treatment plants”.

Factories in Bangladesh already face one-off fines for breaches of pollution standards, but bribes often influence inspectors, reportedly.

Munith also announced tax exemptions for brick factories that build environmentally friendly kilns. There are approximately 6,000 such brick factories in Bangladesh.

By Sid Douglas

Mosquito Populations Can Be Decimated With a New Procedure, Causing Hopes of Total Malaria Eradication

by
mosquitoes

Seeking “a cheap and effective way to eliminate malaria from entire regions,” a team at Imperial College London’s Department of Life Sciences have modified mosquitos to produce sperm that creates 95 percent male offspring, leading to hopes that Malaria–which still kills 627,000 people per year, according to World Health Organization estimates–will be completely eradicated.

The report, “A synthetic sex ratio distortion system for the control of the human malaria mosquito,” was published in Nature Communications Tuesday. The report represents six years of research.

The Imperial College team tested their proceedure in five labratory cages. Genetically modified mosquitoes were introduced into the cages already inhabited by regular mosquito populations. In four of the five cages, all mosquitoes were eliminated within six generations due to lack of females.

“What is most promising about our results is that they are self-sustaining,” said lead researcher Dr. Nikolai Windbichler. “Once modified mosquitoes are introduced, males will start to produce mainly sons, and their sons will do the same, so essentially the mosquitoes carry out the work for us.”

malariaThe process of genetic modification used involves inserting a DNA cutting enzyme called l-Ppol into the mosquitoes. The enzyme cuts the DNA of the X chromosome during sperm production. Therefore, during mating, almost no X chromosomes exist to pass on, so offspring usually bear the XY pair, and are born female.

The Imperial College team explain the process this way: “We combine structure-based protein engineering and molecular genetics to restrict the activity of the potentially toxic endonuclease to spermatogenesis. Shredding of the paternal X chromosome prevents it from being transmitted to the next generation, resulting in fully fertile mosquito strains that produce [greater than] 95% male offspring.”

The idea put in practice by the Imperial College team is not new, but experiments in the area were previously hampered by lack of knowledge of the genetic makeup and mode of action of naturally occurring sex distorters and the incidence of co-evolving suppressors.

By Sid Douglas

Nature Communications

Sleep Promotes Memory Formation, NYU Researchers Find

by
sleep

Researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center have found evidence that sleep promotes memory by strengthening dendritic spines that grow during learning tasks. The study, published this month, was led by Guang Yang, Cora Sau Wan Lai, Joseph Cichon, Lei Ma, Wei Li and Wen-Biao Ga set out to discover the means by which sleep helps learning and memory, which are currently unknown.

Sleep Promotes Memory Formation, NYU Researchers Find (1)Yang et al. observed memories forming and strengthening in mice. When the mice learned motor tasks, “spines”–protuberances–formed on dendritic  branches of specific neurons. These spSleep Promotes Memory Formation, NYU Researchers Find (2)ines represent the formation of a new memory. Such dendritic structures are subject to strengthening and decay.

When mice slept after forming a new memory, the spines were retained better. Not only that: the researchers observed the refiring of neurons that had fired during learning. The refiring occurred during slow-wave sleep. Another way of phrasing this finding is that sleep after motor learning promotes the formation of postsynaptic dendritic spines on a subset of branches of individual layer V pyramidal neurons.

Slow wave is deep sleep. when EEG activity is synchronized, producing slow waves with a low frequency and relatively high amplitude. Slow wave sleep has two stages: a down state in which neurons in the neocortex are silent and at rest, and a up state in which neurons fired excitedly for a brief period. Slow wave sleep proceeds REM sleep.

The research findings have brought science one step closer to understanding the process of sleep. The findings indicated to the NYU team that sleep has a key role in promoting learning-dependent synapse formation and maintenance on selected dendritic branches, and contribute to the storage of memories.

By Sid Douglas

Science

Stay-at-Home Dads in America Have Doubled in 20 Years

by
stay-at-home dads

Stay-at-home dads have increased so sharply in recent years that the number of fathers who do not work outside the home has doubled since 1989, according to a Pew Research findings based on US Census Bureau data.american fathers

Although high unemployment during the 2007-2009 Great Recession also contributed to the trend, Pew found that fathers were choosing to care for family at home in 21 percent of the 2 million cases of fathers who did not work in 2012. In 1989, the number was 5 percent.

Dads also accounted for 16 percent of all stay-at-home parents in 2012, up six percent since 1989. Of ScreenHunter_179 Jun. 10 17.00these stay-at-home dads, 23 reported that they could not find a job. For mothers, 73 percent reported that they were home in order to care for their family.

The trend is at odds with cultural values. Pew found that only 8 percent of survey respondents thought that children were better off if their father did not work, but 51 percent said children are better off if their mother did not work.

Pew’s research included analysis of US census data from a nationally representative sample from 1989 through to 2012. It included all stay-at-home dads with kids ages 17 and younger. Stay-at-home dads were defined as men who did not have jobs during the prior year.

 

By Day Blakely Donaldson

US Census Bureau

Minnesota Population Center

Pew Social Trends

 

Canada’s Second Helicopter Prison Break – Three Hell’s Angels Received Loosened Security Measures One Day Before Escape

by

 

Orsainville Detention Centre
Orsainville Detention Centre

Three Hell’s Angels who escaped from a Canadian prison by helicopter–Canada’s second such helicopter prison escape–received relaxed security benefits in their prison just one day before the escape. The three convicts are the subject of a massive manhunt in the province of Quebec.

The three men–in prison on charges of murder and drug offenses–were not confined to handcuffs when they made their break. Questions have also been raised as to how three men could escape from a prison within the space of a minute by helicopter and remain missing.

Quebec Public Security minister Lise Thériault stated that the suspects had requested a loosening of their imprisonment conditions prior to the escape. The request was handled by an unnamed judge on Friday.

“The judge accepted the prisoners’ request,” Ms. Thériault said. “There will certainly be legitimate questions to ask ourselves about that.”

The helicopter is said to have been able to evade radar easily by flying into mountains nearby Quebec City and right beside the prison. “It wouldn’t take much to hide inside a valley,”  said the base manager of a helicopter flight school near the prison, Guy Dupont.

Canada's Second Helicopter Prison Break - Three Hell's Angels Received Loosened Security Measures One Day Before Escape (4)The SQ was largely silent about the search, but a former agent did comment. “If they’re in a forested area, locating them is like finding a needle in a haystack,” stated retired Sûreté du Québec lieutenant François Doré. “They could be in a chalet waiting to be picked up, keeping a low profile.”

The three men are Yves Denis, Denis Lefebvre and Serge Pomerleau, and are considered by Sûreté du Québec to be dangerous. 

A previous helicopter escape took place only 15 months earlier also in Quebec, prompting questions about Quebec’s prison security. “Prison directors have received orders to implement plans everywhere,” Ms. Thériault said. “I’m not going to make the plans public. That would be like telling the crooks that I’m giving them the keys so they free themselves.”

By James Haleavy

India’s New-Formed State Telangana, For Which 5000 Indians Set Themselves on Fire Over 20 Years, Elects Its First Speaker

by

Telangana State, India–where approximately 5000 Indians have self immolated for the cause of an independent state–has unanimously ScreenHunter_174 Jun. 10 12.25elected its first Speaker of the Telangana Assembly Tuesday, unopposed, one week after the creation of India’s 29th state.

Protests both for and against the formation of a separate Telangana state have often been fierce over the years. Approximately 5000 Indians have self immolated for the cause. The first wave of large numbers of self immolations took place in 1990 protesting the Reservation in India–a telanganasystem whereby the government sets aside a percentage of seats for “backward” and underrepresented communities, which discouraged the merit-based system and encouraged vote bank politics while diminishing social gaps.

Then, in 2000 an estimated 1,451 self immolations were recorded protesting the Reservation, followed in 2001 by 1,584 self immolations.

In 2012 another large wave of self immolations took place by protesters demanding Telangana statehood. Groups advocating the movement claimed at least 800 Indians immolated themselves India's New-Formed State Telangana, For Which 5000 Indians Set Themselves on Fire, Elects Its First Speaker (2)between 2010 and 2013. Most of the self immolators were reported to be students.

The elected speaker of the assembly is Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) MLA, S. Madhusudanachari. Madhusudanachari was a member of the TRS since its 2001 foundation and is a trusted lieutenant of TRS chief, K. Chandrasekhar Rao. He had previously been an MLA of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) between 1994 and 1999. He worked in TDP from 1982 to 1995 and subsequently sailed with NTR-TDP (Lakshmi Parvati) after change of guard in the party

The conflict over Telangana statehood dates back to the Independence of India in 1947. The Indian government annexed Hyderabad into the Indian Union against the will of the Hyderabad monarch. Telugu-speaking areas were carved out of Madras and Andhra State was created in 1953. Beginning in 1946, though, a violent peasant revolt led by the Indian Communist Party (CPI) began, called the Telangana Rebellion. In 1951 the movement began to seek a more peaceful, moderate strategy, seeking ultimately to invalidate the conjoinment of Telangana and Andhra.

In 2009, the Indian government began the process of the formation of Telangana state, sparking violent opposition which caused the government to put its plans on hold. Protests were impassioned on both sides, and included the hundreds of self immolation protests demanding separate statehood.

The resolution to form a separate Telangana state was passed in July 2013 by a unanimous Congress, and the state was officially formed June 2.

By Day Blakely Donaldson

Afghanistan Opium Up 66 Percent to $3 Billion, Poisoning US Efforts in Afganistan

by
opium

Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the worlds opium–which becomes heroin–and, although the crop is illegal in the country, it remains the main product of agriculture in large regions, especially in the south. Production in 2013 surpassed its previous record, which was set in 2010.

The UN estimates that Afghanistan has produced almost $3 billion worth of opium products in 2013. In 2012, the number was $2 billion–an increase of roughly 66 Percent.

On Tuesday, John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction–john sopkothe watchdog of US spending in the country–informed Congress that the trade was poisoning the Afghan financial sector, inflaming corruption, contributing to the success of Taliban insurgents and criminal networks, and threatened to damage progress America has made in its efforts to improve health, education and government in Afghanistan. The problems associated with the opium trade also make it harder for aid workers to work–hampering rebuilding and oversight programs.

By Cheryl Bretton

UNDOC

Uganda to Lead United Nations General Assembly

by

Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa is set to become President of the UN’s General Assembly on June 11. The election of Kutesa has caused some criticism because the Ugandan government–for which Kutesa forms foreign policy–has been under the 28-year rule of President Yoweri Museveni, and has been accused and found guilty by international courts of international and humanitarian crimes.

Kutesa himself has been accused by the UN, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International of crimes. Kutesa was indicted for corruption several times, and was censured by the Ugandan Parliament in 1999 for corruption–in the form of diverting millions of dollars away from Ugandan Airlines into a private company.

The government for which Kutesa serves has been accused and found guilty of war crimes. Mini-map-UgandaThe Ugandan government has been accused of wars of aggression against neighbor countries, ethnic cleansing and plunder of resources. These international and humanitarian crimes were committed by the Ugandan government against the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), for example, accoding to a ruling by the International Court of Justice. The World Court ruling, which was handed down in 2005. In 2006, the International Criminal Court also also launched a criminal investigation of the Ugandan government’s actions in the DRC. Uganda has been accused of similar crimes in Rwanda and South Sudan. The leadership of the government–and the man Kutesa answers to– is President Yoweri Museveni.

Museveni took office in 1986, when he restricted the activities of other political parties. Political parties were allowed by Museveni to exist, but were not allowed to campaign in Sam Kuseta Uganda to Lead United Nations General Assemblyelections or field candidates directly. The ban on political pluralism was ended by a constitutional referendum in 2005. Museveni won the vote in 2006, but the Ugandan Supreme Court ruled that the election was marred by intimidation, voter disenfranchisement, violence and other irregularities, but voted 4-3 in favor of upholding the results of the election. Museveni was again elected in 2011 with 68 percent of a 59 percent turnout. The 2011 election was called “illegitimate” by the opposition parties and the EU election observer team said the vote was “marred by avoidable and logistical failures, which led to an unacceptable number of Ugandan citizens being disenfranchised.” After the 2011 election, opposition leader Kizza Besigye was arrested on charges of attacking authorities, although the event was reported as Besigy’s car being attacked during “Walk to Work” protests, in which several people died and hundreds were wounded, prompting the UN to urge the Ugandan authorities to sop using “excessive force” against peaceful protesters. The next election is set for 2016.

Recently–in 2013–Human Rights Watch accused the Ugandan government of oppressing press freedom, saying, “Between January and June, a media watchdog organization registered 50 attacks on journalists, despite multiple pledges to respect media freedom.” During this time, two large publications were shut down and seized by the government in response to a leaked letter that mentioned a plot to assassinate opposition leaders of Museveni, as well as Museveni’s plans to hand over power to his son upon retirement.

The anti-homosexuality law was signed by Museveni earlier this year, claiming homosexuality was “disgusting” and was a learned trait. Attacks against LGBT have increased 10 times since the law was signed, as reported by the Guardian.

The punishments for homosexuality in Uganda include maximum sentences of life imprisonment for homosexuals and seven years for assisting homosexuals remain undetected.

The election of Kutesa has been objected to by at least two US Senators–Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand– who cited Uganda’s homosexuality laws, and Ugandan newspaper ScreenHunter_91 Jun. 01 19.10publisher Milton Allimadi–who lives in New York City–filed a petition to US Secretary of State John Kerry, who weeks ago publicly denounced Uganda’a Anti-Homosexuality Act, and UN members, saying that “Mr. Kutesa could become the President of the UN General Assembly in a few weeks unless the international community stops this travesty. This would be a mockery of all the ideals that the UN is supposed to stand for.” Allimadi called on Kerry to deny a visa to Kutesa, citing similar actions taken against Iran’s UN representative designate Hamid Aboutalebi. Allimadi also said that the election “would seriously undermine the United Nations and expose it to more ridicule and humiliation.”

The post of UNGA President is a rotating one-year position, and this year Africa is to provide the official. The UNGA President presides over the General Assembly and other meetings.

By Day Blakely Donaldson

Change.org

Art of Logo Design: Massimo Vignelli: “There was no need to change”

by
Massimo VIgnelli
Share this
Share

“There was no need to change. It’s been around for 45 years,” said designer Massimo Vignelli, famous for his work on corporate identies in the 60s and 70s, who died May 27. The statement was made in response to the 2013 replacement of one of his most famous works, the logo for American Airlines–the red and blue “AA.”

Massimo VignelliThe logo was created by the design team of Lella and Massimo Vignelli, who together had worked as the Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture in Milan since 1960.

“Every other airline has changed its logo many times, and every time was worse than the previous one. Fifty years ago there were very few logos in general. Somebody started to do logos and people started thinking that logos were important, and now there is a plethora and so many don’t make sense. You see the pages of the sponsors of a concert or an exhibition, and at the bottom there are 50 different logos. It’s ridiculous. A word is so much better.”

Massimo Vignelli The “AA” logo was used for almost half a century–from 1967 until 2013, when it was replaced by a new, “patriotic” paint job. The “AA” was painted on the tail of the old “Silver Bird,” which featured red, white and blue horizontal stripes and the joined word “AmericanAirlines” in Helvetica above a polished aluminum fuselage. The new design has the jets painted solid white body with an American flag-tail and the word “American.”

Of the new design, which was designed by FutureBrand, Vignelli said, “It has no sense of permanence. The American flag is great. I’m designing a logo now for a German company, and I’m using black, red, gold, and yellow. Why? Because national colors have a tremendous equity. They’re much more memorable. It rings the bell of identification. But the American flag has 13 stripes, right? Not 11. Did American add only 11 stripes [to the flag on the tail] because they are in Chapter 11? I don’t think two more stripes would have been a disaster. And there are only two colors shown instead of all three. So is it a different flag?”

Vignelli also said of the paintjob, “As you know, one of the great things about American Airlines was that the planes were unpainted. The paint adds so much weight that that brings an incredible amount of fuel consumption. For some reason they decided to paint the plane. The fact is, weight is weight.”

Choice of font was important in Vignelli’s design. “Legibility … is a very vignelli_associatesimportant element of an airplane. So we used Helvetica, which was brand new at the time. And we wanted to make one word of American Airlines, half red and half blue. What could be more American than that? And there were no other logos then that were two colors of the same word. We took the space away, made one word, and split it again by color. It looked great. The typeface was great. We proceeded by logic, not emotion. Not trends and fashions.”

Of the change, Vignelli said, “Now they have something other than Helvetica that’s not as good or as powerful. Then they did a funny thing: Some may see an eagle [next to it], some may see something else. And they don’t even say it’s the eagle—they say it could be the eagle.”

The plane that featured Vignelli’s design also bore an eagle, but the design team refused to design the eagle for American. “When we originally designed the logo, I designed without the eagle. They wanted an eagle. I said, ‘If you want an eagle, it has to have every feather.’ You don’t stylize and make a cartoon out of an eagle. Somebody else did the eagle, by the way.”

Massimo VignelliTo the question of American Airlines recent bankruptcy and it’s undergoing rebranding, as well as courting a merger with U.S. Airlines, Vignelli said the effort, unless there is a substanial change in the running of the company, is “a wolf camouflaged by sheep.”

Vignelli also made broader statements about his personal design aesthetics during his lifetime. “I like design to be semantically correct, syntactically consistent, and pragmatically understandable. I like it to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all timeless.”4707898059_1b86e82e91_b_verge_super_wide

“Design is a profession that takes care of everything around us,. Politicians take care of the nation and fix things — at least they are supposed to. Architects take care of buildings. Designers take care of everything around us. Everything that is around us, this table, this chair, this lamp, this pen has been designed. All of these things, everything has been designed by somebody.”

“I love my work because ‘design is one.’ It’s one profession, one attitude. As Italians, we have a long history of codifying design in this way. It has existed for centuries. It was the same for Leonardo da Vinci. In Italy, after the war, we had to do everything … architects like myself did everything … The discipline was thesame. The way of thinking, coming up with solutions, was always the same. The mental process was the same and the mental process was discipline.”

“I think that it is my responsibility to make the work better than it is.”

“The life of a designer is a life of fight—fight against ugliness,” Massimo Vignelli said in the 2007 documentary “Helvetica.”

Massimo Vignelli “Yes, my style is minimalist. Every language has its rules, everyone has his own style and rules, and that’s why every house is different. My style is more minimalist. You need to take away, take away until there is something left.”

“Design is much more profound. Styling is very much emotional. Good design isn’t—it’s good forever. It’s part of our environment and culture. There’s no need to change it. The logo doesn’t need change. The whole world knows it, and there’s a tremendous equity. It’s incredibly important on brand recognition. I will not be here to make a bet, but this [new logo] won’t last another 25 years.”

 

By Joseph Reight

Vignelli

FutureBrand

American Airlines

US Bill To Make VOA Officially a “Public Diplomacy” Service

by
VOA
Share this
Share

Bill HR4490, which has passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee with bipartisan support, would make Voice of America (VOA) officially a designated “public diplomacy” service, as well make additional changes in US international news communications–as a reaction against the alleged media manipulations of “countries like Russia.”

VOA would be mandated to “provide a sharper focus on explaining the United States, US government policies, and international news that affects the United States. The VOA’s role would be “public diplomacy” as well as providing objective, comprehensive news coverage. There is also a new VOA director provision that sets out the responsibilities–as well as the qualification requirements–of that position, and sets the VOA director under the supervision of the USICA CEO.

Currently, the tax-funded VOA has a mission expressed in the VOA Charter, which was created in 1960 and signed into law by President Gerald Ford in 1976. The Charter, which states that “to be effective, [VOA] must win the attention and respect of listeners,” and sets out three principles: 1) serving as a consistently reliable and authoritative news source which is “accurate, objective and comprehensive;” 2) represent America in a balanced and comprehensive way;” and 3) will present US policies clearly and effectively, as well as responsible discussions and opinion on the policies. The VOA Charter is not included in the bill, but “elements are integrated into the bill’s new VOA principles,” according to the report. The bill alters the mission of VOA by explicitly stating that VOA has a role in supporting American “public diplomacy” and government policies.

VOA was created in 1942 as part of the Office of War Information and with a mission of countering Nazi and Japanese propaganda. VOA became part of the State Department during the Cold War, and then became part of the US Information Agency, countering Communist propaganda in East Germany and other Soviet-backed states. VOA has been overseen by the BBG since 1999.

By Day Blakely Donaldson

Related:

Big Changes in US News Communications if Bill HR4490 Passes

New USICA Act Would Create a New US News Agency “Freedom News Agency,” Subsuming Other International News Agencies

Sources:

HR4490

Congressional Research Service report

Federation of American Scientists

US Foreign Affairs

Arms Trade Treaty Almost Accomplished, Amnesty Urges

by
arms trade treaty
Share this
Share

The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) needs 50 ratifications to become legally binding international law, and it already has 40 ratifications, with the eight ratifications added June 3. Ten were expected to ratify.

A total of 118 states have signed the treaty. Four of the world’s major arms producers–USA, France, Germany and USA–signed in September. Appeals have been made to the 155 states who voted last year to adopt the ATT at the UN General Assembly in New York last June 3, groups such as Amnesty International have made appeals to stop hesitating. Most of the 43 states who have yet to sign are from Asia, Africa and the Middle east.

The ATT prohibits conventional weapons and munitions sales to states when there is knowledge the weapons would be used to commit or fascilitate serious human rights abuses, such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. States will be required to conduct objective assessments to avoid risks.

Amnesty International estimates that 500,000 people are killed each year due to armed violence and conflict. In addition, millions of people are displaced, abused and injured.

Amnesty also called on states not to wait for the treaty to come into effect before observing its human rights provisions. Antigua and Barbuda, Belgium, Costa Rica, Germany, Iceland, Mexico, Norway, Serbia, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, and the UK have decided to implement the treaty’s human rights provisions sooner than the required date.

Currently, international commerce in weapons accounts for the equivalent of billions or trillions USD each year. The ATT is 20 years in the making–it started out as a group of civil activists expressed concern about unregulated global arms trade and its impact on human security. The idea was a set of ethical standards for arms trade.

China and Russia have abstained from signing so far. Both were expected to sign the treaty soon, but on May 20 Voice of Russia reported that Moscow would not sign the ATT because it was “not completely thought through,” and because it “discriminates against the Russian military industrial complex.”

The ATT will come into force 90 days after the 50th ratification. Ratification means adopting the ATT into a nations laws. The ATT will be the  first legally binding instrument ever negotiated in the United Nations to establish common standards for the international transfer of conventional arms.

By Day Blakely Donaldson

DW

Global Issues

Amnesty International

VOR

Universal Typeless Blood Substitute Being Developed at University of Essex

by

A team of scientists at Essex University with a goal of providing an artificial blood substitute to hospitals and disaster areas around the world–and overcome the barriers that have stumped 25 years and $3 billion of global scientific and business investment–have made progress with a recent $2.5 million funding boon.Universal Type-less Blood Substitute Being Developed at University of Essex 2

Overcoming several of blood storage’s perpetual problems, the new blood is hoped to be stored at room temperature, last up to two years, and be available to all patients, regardless of blood type. Donated blood operations are also fraught with concerns about decreasing active donors worldwide and the challenges of distribution to locations where there is need, as well as purity and efficacy concerns.

The Heam02 project  is working on creating an artificial hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier (HBOC). Hemoglobin is the key protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen around our bodies. The protein is protected in the body by the red cell, and previous attempts to make HBOCs have failed because the artificial hemoglobins could not survive outside their protective natural environment.

Heam02’s HBOC is detoxified by the body’s own defenses. HaemO2 is engineering recombinant hemoglobin variants with enhanced electron transfer pathways, and the variants will be better able to detoxify the reactive high oxidation state iron and free radicals produced in extracellular haemoglobin under conditions of oxidative stress. 

Universal Type-less Blood Substitute Being Developed at University of Essex 3“It means we could overcome some of the inherent problems with transfusions as there would be no need for blood group typing and a longer shelf life means you are able to stockpile the supplies necessary for major disasters. It also offers the opportunity for routine transfusion support in ambulances or at remote inaccessible locations,” explained Essex’s Professor Chris Cooper, a biochemist and blood substitute expert.

Professor Cooper commented on the $2.5 Medical Research Council-funded Essex project, which was leaving US attempts by the wayside. “This is an exciting time for artificial blood research in Britain. This funding allows our team to take to first step on the road to bridging the gap between top class research and the commercialization of a product.”

By Andy Stern

Heam02

University of Essex