Thermal imaging – a hotspot for the future?

Thermal Imaging has been considered for use in a wide range of medical circumstances. It has been shown to be useful in aiding diagnosis and guiding management of foot injuries in military recruits when combined with clinical examination, radiographs and bone scanning.⁴ Telethermography has been demonstrated as a useful tool in aiding diagnosis and management of sports injuries.⁵ Cole et al. demonstrated a significant relationship between early thermographic assessment of the depth of skin burns and clinical outcome.³ Various types of thermal imaging have also been used in studies of diabetic neuropathic feet,¹ the detection of carpal tunnel syndrome,⁷ the investigation of tendon injuries in horses⁶ and in the monitoring of undesirable thermal proximity damage during surgical energized dissection and coagulation.² During the international severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) crisis of 2003, thermal imaging was employed as a screening tool at border points. At Singapore's Changi International airport alone 442,973 passengers were screened and of those 136 identified for further investigation and observation.⁸ The modality's sensitivity for identifying passengers with even low grade pyrexia (>37.5 °C) highlights recent technological advances and brings to attention future possible uses.

The main problems previously identified with the use of thermal imaging in the evaluation of a possibly injured limb include a lack of specificity in identifying the site and nature of pathology and difficulty in establishing normal references. While thermography could never replace radiography as a diagnostic tool, it may be useful as an adjunct to clinical examination and X-ray. As this case demonstrates, children can prove difficult to assess in the accident and emergency department environment. Injury localisation in this patient group can prove difficult and the “survey” of a limb with X-ray may result. The use of thermal imaging could improve the sensitivity of clinical examination and therefore assist in injury localisation, preventing unnecessary X-ray exposure.

In this case it may be postulated that thermal imaging has detected a localised increase in temperature associated with the normal inflammatory response to a fracture. This is an early response and if it was shown to be reliable then the modality may be useful in a wider area of emergency medicine. Early radiological findings can be unreliable in conditions such as scaphoid fracture and the “toddler's” type fracture of the tibial shaft. Thermal imaging could potentially be used in early follow-up to exclude fracture in these situations and prevent prolonged immobilisation and possibly more invasive and expensive bone scanning. It is likely that thermal imaging would be of use when examining bones that are relatively superficial where temperature changes are going to be more apparent.

Thermal imaging has been shown to be effective in assessing the depth of skin burns³ by measuring different skin temperatures created by varying states of perfusion. It may therefore be useful as a real time assessment tool examining changes in peripheral perfusion during the resuscitation of a shocked patient, giving a continuous recording of response to treatment.

Modern thermal imaging is rapid, non-invasive, non-emitting and with improving technology becoming more user-friendly and more cost effective. Given these attributes and the potential applications to emergency medicine outlined above, there is a need for our speciality to study the technique further.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7CRN-4FSNXTG-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=efb4696dcc5badfe4bdb2698296eaf13

Thermal imaging and predictive maintenance: what the future has instore

Advancement in infrared detector technology has made significant progress. Whilst there is still good reason to use single element detectors to achieve the high spatial resolution required for remote kiln shell line scanning, infrared focal plane array based thermal imaging systems bring new benefits to thermal imaging used within the cement plant. Lower costs and easier to use equipment with simple to use software open up many opportunities for plants to perform their own predictive and preventive maintenance. This provides more flexibility and faster return on capital as they can conveniently utilise the equipment for preventive and diagnostic use instead of being wholly dependent on third parties or consultants. Focal plane array based infrared cameras are now being brought into new roles within the entire plant including inside the kiln itself, where they can bring both imaging and measurement benefits that improve process control, operational efficiency and energy costs

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/6862/18429/00848528.pdf?arnumber=848528

Molecular Biology Current Innovations and Future Trends

One could be led to believe that a molecular biologist armed with a copy of 'Maniatis', or one of the 'Current Protocols' publications, would have adequate technical support to successfully accomplish most experimental procedures. In the real laboratory world, we know that even established methodology is adapting and changing at an alarming rate and that new experimental approaches are regularly appearing on the horizon. This small book fills an important niche in the market, for it aims, and I believe succeeds, in bringing the reader up to date with recent innovations in established techniques as well as introducing us to more state of the art methodology.

The book contains ten chapters, all written by experts in the particular fields and interestingly, the editors have recruited over half the authors from the commercial sector. These contributions tend to bias their chapters towards products available from their particular companies, although in general they seem to have covered their subjects fairly comprehensively. Each chapter covers a review of the technique, concentrating on recent innovations and then discusses likely future trends. Most chapters end with protocols covering recent advances or more specialised approaches. Each chapter is also accompanied by an extensive list of references, in most cases concentrating on papers published in the last five years. All chapters refer to material published last year, which is a good indication that the editors and the publisher have succeeded in bringing this book to the bookshelves without undue delay.

The first chapter covers general PCR techniques and is written by a group of authors from Stratagene. In addition to covering recent advances in PCR methodology and instrumentation, the authors describe specific techniques such as cloning PCR-generated fragments and using PCR for site-directed mutagenesis. Sadly the accompanying figures are black and white copies of coloured diagrams from the company¹s catalogue and some of the detail has been lost during reproduction. A specific utilisation of PCR, thermal cycle sequencing, is described in the next chapter, which contains a generalised protocol for the technique. This is followed by a chapter devoted to methods for isolating plasmid DNA from mini-preps using silica-based resins. Whilst there are a profusion of commercial kits available, the author very rightly draws attention to the dangers of total reliance on these products and so presents a very extensive protocol utilising common laboratory reagents and equipment.

Electrophoresis is covered by three chapters, the first by Branko Kozulic, who provides a very readable account of recent theories which attempt to explain electrophoretic phenomena, including his own Œdoor-corridor¹ model. He also provides a tantalizing glimpse into the world of new gel matrices and intercalating dyes. The second chapter is devoted to pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) in which the authors review the various aspects of the technique and provide protocols for the preparation of high molecular weight DNA from soya bean leaves and provide physical mapping data from PFGE combined with two dimensional electrophoresis. The other chapter describes capillary electrophoresis (CE) as applied to the isoelectric focusing of proteins and provides an extensive protocol and a troubleshooting chart.

A chapter on subtractive hybridisation describes the use of commercially available multipurpose cloning vectors to perform cDNA subtractive hybridisation between biotinylated RNA and single stranded DNA. The unhybridised product is purified by streptavidin and used for transformation. This technique should appeal to researchers involved in gene expression and developmental studies.

The widespread use of PCR in molecular biology has required the simultaneous development of reliable methods for the production of oligo primers. A chapter describes recent developments in the related field of oligoribonucleotide synthesis. The demand for synthesized RNA is likely to increase as interest in antisense RNA and the possible use of ribozymes in gene therapy intensifies.

Finally, there are two interesting chapters on instrumentation. One describes state of the art devices for automated DNA hybridization and detection and the other is devoted to a relatively new technique called matrix assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI). The authors speculate that MALDI will, in the not too distant future, replace gel electrophoresis in the analysis of DNA sequencing reactions.

This modestly priced book provides the molecular biologist with a wealth of current information on a wide variety of essential techniques. I look forward to the publication of volume 2 in this series, later this year.

http://www.horizonpress.com/hsp/revs/revs1mb.html

The Pioneers of Molecular Biology: David Baltimore

With his first experiment on the subject, he shattered existing theories of DNA and RNA function

It was not until the late 1950s that David Baltimore was even aware of the discovery that would change his life. "I was in high school when the Watson-Crick paper was published," he says, "but my teacher never mentioned it, nor did my parents, who were not particularly literate in science." At Swarthmore College, too, no one on the faculty ever talked about DNA. But as an upperclassman Baltimore majored in chemistry and began reading science journals, where he was introduced to the double helix. "I was transformed," he says. "I saw the edifice of molecular biology beginning to appear before me and decided that this was what I was going to spend the rest of my life working on."

Baltimore opted for the study of tumor viruses, fully aware of the so-called central dogma that double stranded DNA transfers genetic information to single-stranded RNA, but that information never flows the other way. One scientist, however, Howard Temin, had earlier hypothesized that RNA-DNA transfer could occur, and in 1970 Baltimore set out to prove him right. Assuming that the accepted wisdom was wrong was easy, he says. "I was trained in chemistry and saw it as a chemical problem."

Baltimore shattered the dogma with his very first experiment. He discovered the enzyme, now called reverse transcriptase, that enables a retrovirus to transfer information from RNA to DNA. The implications were enormous; they suggested that a virus could infiltrate a cell's DNA and turn itself into a gene. The enzyme also turned out to be a powerful tool for probing DNA for individual genes, including the oncogenes that cause cancer. Indeed, his discovery was instrumental in development of the entire field of biotechnology.

Having loosed the genie from the bottle, Baltimore became concerned about the helter-skelter transfer of genes from one organism to another. He feared that putting entire viruses into bacteria, for example, might lead to bacteria spreading a viral disease. Fanciful stories in the press spoke darkly of creation of a "Doomsday Bug."

Concerned, Baltimore and Stanford's Paul Berg organized a conference at Asilomar, on California's Monterey peninsula. There scientists in the field agreed to a voluntary moratorium on certain kinds of biotechnology experiments and containment safeguards on others until the experiments were proven safe. "As far as we know," says Baltimore, "it was absolutely observed by everyone in the community." In retrospect, he believes the Asilomar scientists erred on the side of caution.

Realizing that the new technology might well provide a tool for fighting cancer, Baltimore converted his lab to the study of cancer viruses. Today, as president of CalTech, he's increasingly involved in research on the AIDS virus. In a way he's come full circle. HIV, like the subject of his historic experiment, is a retrovirus.

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030217/scdprofile1.html

The Future of Molecular Biology

The discovery, in 1953, of the double-helical structure of DNA sparked a revolution in the biological sciences, the full impact of which is only now beginning to be appreciated. The structure immediately suggested how genetic information might be replicated and soon led to the deciphering of the genetic code. Together with the discovery of methods for determining the amino acid sequences of proteins and for sequencing DNA and RNA, it paved the way for emergence of recombinant DNA technology that, in turn, spawned the biotechnology industry and rapidly transformed the fields of molecular biology and molecular genetics that today inform almost every aspect of biomedical science.

Given the quite extraordinary progress of the past forty years, what might we look forward to as we approach the twenty-first century? Launched in the 1980s, the international genome initiative has as its stated goal the cloning and sequencing of the 50,000 or more genes that constitute the human genome and, concurrently, the genomes of a number of other organisms, including the plan aradopsis, yeast, the nematode worm, the fruit fly, and the mouse. Clinical medicine will undoubtedly be the principal beneficiary of this work. Already well over one thousand disease-related genes have been identified, often leading, as in the case of cystic fibrosis, phenylketonuria, muscular dystrophy, and colon cancer, to new DNA-based diagnostic procedures and beginning attempts at gene therapy.

The general field of developmental biology is likely to be the other major beneficiary of the advances in molecular biology and genetics. With the new tools that are now available, rapid progress is being made in elucidating the molecular mechanisms involved in such processes as gametogenesis, fertilization, the establishment of body-plan, differential gene expression and cell-fate determination, and the control of cell proliferation and cell death. The availability of techniques for transferring genes from one organism to another or eliminating specific genes by homologous recombination is contributing to the rapid progress in our understanding of the development of even very complex systems such as the mammalian hematopoietic and immune systems.

In the long term, the greatest challenge remaining to biologists is to understand how the human brain works. Every aspect of human behavior-including our ability to perceive the world around us, to carry out appropriate motor acts, to speak and understand written or spoken language, and to feel and to express our emotions-is due to the integrated actions of the nerve cells in our brains. We are far from understanding how such high-level functions "emerge" from such low-level activities as the conduction of nerve impulses and their transmission at synaptic junctions. The "mind-brain" problem, which for centuries has been exclusively the domain of philosophers and theologians, is now awaiting the concerted efforts of research biologists. Its elucidation will undoubtedly be the greatest triumph of the human intellect and as revolutionary (and with as many societal consequences) as the discovery of evolution by natural selection in the mid-19th century and of the nature of genes in the mid-20th century.

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0073031216/student_view0/exercise6/the_future_of_molecular_bio_.html