News Drug discovery Spray-on therapy for radiation sickness Anthony King


For anyone exposed to radiation after a nuclear accident or attack, the medicine cabinet is bare. There is nothing to treat radiation sickness. Now, a team of researchers in the US has developed a treatment using a variant of quinic acid (C7


– a compound found naturally in many plants including coffee and blueberries – that can be applied by simply spraying directly onto the victim’s skin. Charles Yates and colleagues at the University of Tennessee Health Science Centre and his team have shown that applying their quinic acid variant, KZ-41, 24 hours after radiation exposure increases survival in experimental rats three-fold compared with placebo. While consuming quinic acid from foodstuffs will not offer any radiation protection benefit as the body’s gut microbes chew up the natural


H12 O6 )


resistant to microbial breakdown. Radiation affects white and red


molecule, its amide analogue KZ- 41 (C10


H19 NO5 ) is designed to be


blood cells, causing a weakening of the body’s immune defences and a loss of clotting ability. ‘About three or four days after high dose radiation exposure, you lose the ability to clot and you get bleeds throughout the body,’ says Yates. ‘We have shown that this compound restores the body’s ability to form clots and heal wounds.’ So far, the team has not observed any toxic effects, he added, presenting the work at the 2012 American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists meeting in Chicago in October. Like many drugs, KZ-41 also works better if a patient receives it prior to exposure. ‘We are excited about the possibility of ultimately using this drug in cancer patients receiving radiation treatment,’ Yates


Food & agriculture Feed shortage to hit meat prices Anthony King


A contraction of global feed production has been predicted for 2013 by animal nutrition company Alltech. The fall – expected to be from 3 to 5% – will be driven by three factors: a reduction in protein consumption due to the global recession; conversion of feedstocks and materials to biofuels; and reduced feed supply due to a global drought, particularly in the US, the company note. ‘The high price of feed wheat will have a major effect on livestock prices, in particular pig and poultry, with many scare stories at present of farmers not being able to feed their animals because of high prices,’ said Paul Bilsborrow, crop production expert at Newcastle University. Global wheat production this year is down by about 50mt on 2011, noted Bilsborrow.


‘What also has not helped is that last


year’s maize stocks were very tight, with wheat substituting for maize in animal feed,’ he added.


6 Chemistry&Industry • November 2012


Skyrocketing agricultural commodity prices are causing the world to re-enter a period of ‘agflation’, with food prices forecast to reach record highs in 2013, analysts at Rabobank recently warned. About 40% of the US corn/maize crop is fed to livestock. ‘Weather is the major factor especially in Russia


and the Ukraine where production is significantly down and these countries, especially in combination with Australia and the US, where production is also down, are major wheat exporters,’ Bilsborrow said. Éric Darier, at Greenpeace International, says that the price of meat might go down In the short term due to early slaughter by meat producers but warns prices will go up if other extreme weather events continue to undermine expected crop yields. ‘The growth of meat consumption that requires


plant protein converted into meat protein is a very inefficient way of guaranteeing sufficient food for everyone while not destroying the last remaining intact ecosystems,’ commented Darier. He added that he believes global meat consumption will have


to go down in order to avoid a food crisis. The problems may be compounded by the fact that this year’s remaining US harvest is contamin- ated with multiple fungal toxins, according to a survey of fungal toxins by Alltech. As more of the 2012 corn crop is fed to animals, it warns that the incidence of aflatotoxin contamination, for example, will increase. Additional fungal contaminants that the feed industry has not traditionally paid much attention to were also found in many samples. ‘The actual levels of mycotoxins will vary


regionally depending on the local conditions during the growing season. However, the concept of multiple myco contamination is coming through time and time again,’ said Alltech vice-president Aidan Connolly. Alltech’s 2012 survey of the animal feed sector is due at the end of this year, and will cover the data for 2011. It confirms that poultry has the dominant share of the market by weight, with 379m t or 44% of the global market, and also reports that aquaculture is the fastest growing sector.


says. ‘It would reduce inflammation associated with radiation injury, bleeding and the reduction in infection-fighting capability.’ The group was able to apply the compound to skin directly by formulating it as a nano- emulsion in other substances. This also means that no needles or trained personnel are involved and there is no need for a sterile environment because the skin is still intact, Yates said. However, Timothy Jorgensen,


molecular radiation biologist at Georgetown University Medical Centre, warns that the number of people who might benefit might actually be quite small. ‘Typically the benefit of such drugs is restricted only to those patients who have received doses at or near the whole body dose threshold or human lethality,’ he commented, adding that quinic acid is the compound thought


to give


Find C&I online at www.soci.org/chemistryandindustry


coffee its slightly


acid taste. ‘It seems to have some biological activity that involves inhibition of cell cycling which may, in turn, allow more time for DNA repair to occur prior to cell division,’ Jorgensen says.


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