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March 6, 2000

For more information on these science news and feature story tips, please contact the public information officer at the end of each item at (703) 292-8070. Editor: Peter West

Information Technology Research May Produce Better Batteries

The ideal battery for a laptop computer, cell phone, or electric car would be lightweight, inexpensive, and powerful, losing none of its effectiveness even after repeated charging and discharging. For now, however, durability and weight are sacrificed to hold down costs. Currently, for example, the price of materials to build a battery for an electric car is around $10,000.

Computer and network infrastructure provided by the National Science Foundation is helping researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to create supercomputer models that demonstrate how to build lighter and more powerful lithium batteries -- the most common type of rechargeable battery -- at a lower cost. The simulations are performed over a broadband network using advanced computers made available through the NSF-funded National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI) in San Diego. [Tom Garritano]

For information about this research, see: http://www.npaci.edu/enVision/v15.3/ceder.html

For more about NPACI, see http://www.npaci.edu/

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Revised Model of Model of Protein-Drug Interactions Makes Drug Design Easier

Some people have difficulty distinguishing others from their mirror images, but cell proteins have no such problem. They are exquisitely selective, able to latch tightly to one molecule, but reject its mirror image. Now, scientists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) claim it's time to revise a 50-year-old theory that seemed to explain how proteins discriminate so precisely. Scientists had thought that there was only one binding mode at an active site of a protein; this research shows that there can be at least two. The finding could be a significant boon to drug designers, who may be needlessly discarding promising new drugs because of this misconception.

According to cell biologist Daniel Koshland, Jr., of the University of California at Berkeley, certain models explain how proteins bind to so-called "chiral" molecules, or molecules that cannot be superimposed on their mirror images. The mirror-image versions of chiral molecules act very differently in the body. Some bacteria, for instance, can degrade one version of a pollutant, but not its mirror image. In other cases, an amino acid turns on a key receptor in the brain, but not its mirror image.

However, assuming that only one of two mirror images of a drug will bind strongly to a protein -- when in fact both may bind to the active site -- can lead to possible rejection of a promising drug candidate. In the goal of switching a receptor on or off, or disabling an enzyme in hopes of stopping a disease process, drug designers must investigate whether both mirror images of a drug will bind to a protein strongly. [Cheryl Dybas]

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NSF Announces Early Opportunity to use Gemini

NSF and six international partners have announced two limited programs to use Gemini North, a new eight-meter, optical-infrared telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, this summer, prior to the start of full scientific operations.

The early observing opportunities will use sophisticated infrared-imaging instruments to demonstrate Gemini's high-resolution capabilities to the astronomical community.

Construction of the telescope was completed in June 1999. But Gemini's adaptive optics technology already has produced some of the sharpest infrared images ever obtained by a ground-based telescope. [Amber Jones]

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