No Bisphenol A (BPA) in baby Bottles

Canada has announced a ban on bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles. This ban will be effective from 2009. This is the first time regulation of the compound anywhere in the world.

Bisphenol is a high production-volume chemical used to manufacture polycarbonate plastic and epoxy-based resins, have been on the market for more than 50 years. BPA is found in numerous consumer products, from compact discs to bicycle helmets to automotive parts. But it's the food, beverage, and dental applications of BPA that have some researchers and activist groups riled up because those uses are thought to be the primary routes of human exposure. Almost all food and beverage cans are lined with epoxy resins made with BPA; dental sealants painted on children's teeth contain BPA; and many reusable plastic water bottles and food containers, including baby bottles, are made from BPA-containing polycarbonate plastic. More than 2 billion lb of BPA is used annually in the U.S.

Structure of BPA

BPA potentially may harm infants and is toxic to fish.The chemical mimics estrogen, and some studies suggest that exposure to BPA may cause reproductive and developmental har.

More about announcement of ban

More about the chemistry and Toxicity of BPA

BPA on Wiki

Laxmi Thapa graduated from Sunmoon

One of our fellow friends recently graduated from Sunmoon University, South Korea with his PhD degree. His research area is biochemistry. Title of his thesis was "Biosynthesis of spectinomycin from Streptomyces spectabilis and heterologous expression".

Congratulations Dr Thapa.

Dr Thapa's doctoral research talks about enhancement of the production of existing antibiotic by selecting different host bacteria and to produce hybrid aminoglycoside antibiotics as well as to prove the putative function of bacterial genes by in vivo and in vitro assay.

More than dozens of Nepalese students are studying at Sunmoon University

Green fluorescent protein (GFP) earns Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Nobel prize in chemistry for 2008 has been recently announced. Three scientists will share the prize equally. They are working on the development and research of green fluorescent protein. Science reporter of BBC news, Jonathan Amos writes about this topic.-Adm
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A clever trick borrowed from jellyfish has earned two Americans and one Japanese scientist a share of the chemistry Nobel Prize.

Martin Chalfie, Roger Tsien and Osamu Shimomura made it possible to exploit the genetic mechanism responsible for luminosity in the marine creatures.

Today, countless scientists use this knowledge to tag biological systems.

Glowing markers will show, for example, how brain cells develop or how cancer cells spread through tissue.

But their uses really have become legion: they are now even incorporated into bacteria to act as environmental biosensors in the presence of toxic materials.

Colour palette

Jellyfish will glow under blue and ultraviolet light because of a protein in their tissues. Scientists refer to it as green fluorescent protein, or GFP.

Shimomura made the first critical step, isolating GFP from a jellyfish (Aequorea victoria) found off the west coast of North America in 1962. He made the connection also with ultraviolet light.

Meanwhile in the 1990s, Chalfie demonstrated GFP's value "as a luminous genetic tag", as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences described it in the Nobel citation.

Scientists use GFP to study mosquitoes and malaria

Tsien's contribution was to further "our general understanding of how GFP fluoresces". In essence, he started to tune it, to broaden the palette to colours other than green. This was significant because it has allowed scientists to follow a number of different biological processes at once.

GFP has now become a standard laboratory tool. As well as assisting fundamental research in simply revealing how biological systems work, it has become invaluable in the domain of genetic engineering.

Scientists trying to modify a plant or animal will often include the gene responsible for GFP as part of the change. Fluorescence will then tell them if the modification has been taken up successfully or not, dramatically improving the efficiency of the research.

Shared glory

It is this science which has led to the stream of popular media stories down the years of "glowing" rabbits, butterflies, pigs - and all the other green-tinged animals to emerge from laboratories.

Just how far colouring techniques have come was demonstrated eloquently last year by a team led from Harvard University.

The GFP technique has provided fodder for the news media

The group used a combination of multiple fluorescent proteins to colour brain cells (neurons) in up to 90 distinct colours. They published a stunning image in the journal Nature which they called a "brainbow".

Osamu Shimomura is affiliated to the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, US. Martin Chalfie is at Columbia University, New York; and Roger Tsien's home institution is the University of California, San Diego. They share the prize equally.

The Nobel Prizes - which also cover physics, medicine, literature, peace and economics (more properly called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize) - are valued at 10m Swedish Kronor (£800,000; $1.4m).

Laureates also receive a medal and a diploma.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk