The Rosetta Mission

It was a mission that will go down in history, though perhaps not as amazing as man's first step on the Moon, but when the European Space Agency's one-billion-pound Rosetta probe swooped down over comet 67P and, from an altitude of 20km, released the robotic lander known as Philae, on descent to its surface, it was an incredible scientific feat. It may not have been 'one step for mankind' but that bounce over the comet culminated into a success after ten years of planning to occur beyond the orbit of Mars watched by the world. 

What was it?

The International Rosetta Mission was approved in ESA's Horizons 200 Science Programme 21 years ago in 1993. In those decades, scientists and engineers all over the world built an orbiter and lander for this expedition in order to discover and explore the secrets of the comet. Rosetta would, once landing on the Comet 67P, cross the asteroid belt and travel into deep space, more than five times the Earth's distance from the Sun. In 2015 when the mission will draw the close, the spacecraft and comet will have circled the Sun and be on their way out of the inner Solar System. The success of the mission is historic one. Rosetta will be the first spacecraft to orbit a comet's nucleus, fly alongside a comet as it heads towards the inner Solar system, and examine from close proximity how a frozen comet is transformed by the warmth of the Sun. One arriving at the Comet 67P, the orbiter will despatch Philae, the robotic lander, and its instruments will obtain images from the comet's surface and analyse its components. Once passing through the main asteroid belt, Rosetta will the first ever spacecraft to fly close to Jupiter's orbit using solar cells as its main power source.

Why do it?

Mainly to investigate the components of the comet that will be extracted by the lander and then fed back to Earth. The elements that make up the comet: complex organic molecules rich in carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, are the elements that make up nucleic and amino acids, the essential elements for life as we know it. Analysis of these elements may help answer some fundamental questions such as: did life on Earth begin with the help of comet seeding?

What happened?

The landing was not smooth: it bounced twice and culminated into a triple touchdown on Wednesday. Resting on its side, lodged in the shadows, the lander sent back historic images taken from the surface of the comet. As its landing left it surrounded by rocks, Philae then was only able to receive just 1.5 hours of sunlight instead of the expected 6 to 7 hours. However, despite this, the lander deployed a 1.2 metre arm and drill, accomplishing its primary mission to last around 60 hours on its initial battery charge and obtaining data on the surface of the comet. The drilling operation was deployed in order deliver samples to onboard instruments. The Cometary Sampling and Composition experiment instrument was chosen in order to study the first samples, and it works by detecting and identifying complex organic molecules from their molecular composition. The instrument detected and analyzed these moles of gas that naturally came off the comet's surface. The lander, however, did run out of power although there were some attempts to move it towards better sunlight in order for its solar panels to obtain more energy. Though the lander has now effectively gone to sleep, when the comet heads for its approach to the Sun that will occur in August 2015, by bringing the lander closer to sunlight, Philae may then power up.

What will happen next?

Dear Philae provided everything expected from it before it powered down, transmitting all the science data in the first sixty hours. As well as sending images and exercising of its Consert instrument that try to discern its internal structure, it can possibly be used to triangulate its precise position. Knowledge of its location would enable engineers to understand its future prospects. For now, Rosetta will continue to observations the 67P comet and we can admire the captured images



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The Anti-Aging Drug

Want to live forever? Or, alternatively, would you like to age well and healthy? Well, you can if you're a mouse. If, however, you are not a mouse that has mastered to ability to read blogs on Google and are a simple human being like myself, while there is still some time before anti-aging drugs become a possibility, there are some promising developments. Anti-Aging drugs may actually be a reality for the future as the current development of anti-aging compounds that Australian and US researchers have studied, have discovered a key breakthrough that saw the aging process reversed in mice.  

Exciting stuff.

This study discovered a possible way of restoring the efficiency of cells that would enable the reversal of the aging process in muscles. What occurred in the experiment is as follows: two-year-old mice were given a compound over a week,which resulted in moving back certain key indicators of ageing to that of a six-month-old mouse. This can be seen as the equivalent of an 60-year-old feeling more like a 20-year-old. This research has been concentrated on the area of cells, mitochondria, an place of which energy is produced from respiration. Over time, the communication between the mitochondria and the cell nucleus degrades, which leads to the aging process. Researchers have injected a chemical called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide - NAD - which reduces in the body as we age. The addition of this compound results in a radical reversal in the aging of mice.

Trials on humans are hoped to begin as soon as next year, with researchers confident that side-effects will be minimal due to the fact that the compound NAD is a naturally produced product. This possible advancement of biomedical science into age reversal could be used to treat diseases such as cancer, dementia and diabetes. Therefore, ant-aging research goals are not to enable people to live forever but for people to remain healthy longer into old age; a current issue as older people are now living much longer. 

Another advancement in this field has been explored in the tests on yeast, worms and mice who have all been treated with various chemical compounds in laboratory tests that have led to their living longer. As trials in humans have failed, reseachers are not proposing a different approach to animal testing: trials in pet dogs. Their target is rapamycin, which has been used clinically as part of an anti-rejection drug cocktail after kidney transplants in order prevent the body from rejecting its new organ. However, rapamycin has also shown promising results in extending the lives of mice by 13 percent in females and 9 percent in males.

This compound has yet to be tested in human trials due to its cost and the length of time necessary to be taken in order to learn whether the drug can extend a human life. Another issue is that rapamycin is no longer patenable so pharmaceutical companies are unwilling to invest in it. Additionally, the drug may also cause some serious side effects, for example, it has been linked to an increased risk of diabetes in people who have undergone kidney transplants. However, researchers have argued that at low doses, the drug will not be an issue for healthy dogs. 

Molecular biologists, Matthew Kaeberlein and Daniel Promislow from the University of Washington have proposed to give low doses of rapamycin to dogs in a study to test whether the drug can extend the animals' lives. The specific dogs to be testsed would be larger dogs that typically live for eight to ten years. Their proposal is that they would start giving the drug to dogs aged six to nine. In a pilot trial that would involve around thirty dogs, where half would receive the drug and their heart function and health measures would be observed. This trial aims to be completed in around three years.

Why dogs?

Scientists argue that pet dogs should provide a more realistic test than lab mice of how the drug would work in humans. In addition to this, pets experience some of the same environmental influences and sometimes get similar age-related diseases as their owners. Again, funding and time are important considerations in trials aiming to understand the mechanism of life-extending effects. As dogs are people's beloved pets, this may also be a later problematic hindrance to these planned trials. It has been considered whether pet owners could be asked to help fund a bigger trial, and whether researchers could promise in return that the pet owners who contribute mean that their dogs would be treated with rapamycin rather than a placebo without compromising the study. 

Why Rapamycin?

A protein kinase that controls cell growth and survival, little is actually known about how it can extend life. It is currently used to prevent transplant rejection as it has the ability to suppress the immune system. It characterized as such as by inhibiting the activation and proliferation of T-cells. This occurs by specifically acting on a FK-binding protein 12, commonly referred to as an immunophilin because it binds to immunosuppressive drugs. This complex then binds to a target of rapamycin, a kinase that regulates the progression of the cell cycle. The binding process results in the inhibition of the kinase, disrupts cell division, and hence the proliferation of T-cells - therefore the immune system is repressed.

 This diagram shows the process described above: how rapamycin, by acting on a FK-binding protein 12, becomes FKBP12, which in turn, then binds to the rapamycin kinase, mTOR

Additionally, due to the rapamycin kinase activities being implicated in cancer, rapamycin is also investigation for its use in the treatment of these malignancies. Additionally, rapamycin-coated stents, devices used to treat cardiovascular disease by narrowing the blood vessel, has been associated with reducing rates of recurrences of vessel narrowing. As a possible anti-aging drug, as the research in 2009 in mice indicated, the drug's inhibition of the rapamycin kinase is suspected to induce metabolic and stress responses that favour longevity. however, the process of which longevity occurs is still unknown. Other possibilities include retardation of the ageing process itself or preventing age-related diseases. 

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