Re: Move Over, Penicillin: Researchers Mold Clay Into Potential Therapy

[Guest guest]

I found this to be interesting and sad at the same time. " The

National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at

> NIH was established in 1998 for just this kind of study. One of

the

> 27 Institutes making up NIH, the Center funds scientific research

> and technologies that examine herbal remedies, " . I'm glad that the

NIH now studies these medicines, yet the National Center has only

been in existance since '98, so much time needlessly lost.

What really gets me though is MANY of the treatments, medications,

etc., that we are using are considered " alternative " , that is until

the big pharmacutical companys get hold of them and then they are

main stream medications. IE: guaifenesin. Used to break up

congestion in the lungs. Labeled for many years as useless, junk

science, etc., but now it is highly advertised, MUCINEX. Check out

your expecturants (over the counter)the main ingredient is

quaifenesin 600 mg. Maybe, we were right all along (said with

tongue in cheek.)

KC

--- In , " tigerpaw2c " <tigerpaw2c@...>

wrote:

>

> Move Over, Penicillin: Researchers Mold Clay Into Potential Therapy

> Science Daily

> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061101150630.htm

>

> Clay is most commonly associated with the sublime experience of

the

> European spa where visitors have been masked, soaked and basted

with

> this touted curative since the Romans ruled. If ASU geochemist

Lynda

> and microbiologist Haydel's research on the

> antibacterial properties of clays realizes its full potential,

> smectite clay could one day rise above cosmetic use to take its

> place comfortably with antibacterial behemoths like penicillin.

>

>

> " We use maggots and leeches in hospitals, so why not clay? " Haydel

> poses. " I had a professor in graduate school say, `Maybe perhaps

> once in your life, in your scientific career, you'll come across

> something that can change the world.' Sometimes I think: Is this

it?

> Will this help some people? "

>

> Theirs is an unusual research pairing. They are female scientists,

> each in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, yet pursuing

> different lines of scientific discovery. is an associate

> research professor in the School of Earth and Science Exploration

> and studies clay mineralogy. Haydel is an assistant professor and

> expert in tuberculosis in the School of Life Sciences and with the

> Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccinology in the Biodesign

> Institute at Arizona State University.

>

> " People are interested in natural cures and I think that there is

a

> lot of nature that we don't understand yet, " says. " What

if

> we discover a mechanism for controlling microbes that had never

been

> discovered before? It is these avenues, at the boundaries of

> scientific discovery, at the edges of my field and knowledge (and

> 's), where such discoveries are made. "

>

> National Institutes of Health (NIH) program directors agreed. They

> awarded a $438,970 grant over two years to and Haydel for

> the study of clay mineral alternative treatment for Buruli ulcer.

> What makes this award even more interesting is the rarity for a

> geochemist to net a NIH grant.

>

> National Center encourages alternative studies

>

> The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at

> NIH was established in 1998 for just this kind of study. One of

the

> 27 Institutes making up NIH, the Center funds scientific research

> and technologies that examine herbal remedies, such as dandelion,

> green tea, valerian, and horse chestnut, and practices like

> acupuncture, Tai Chi, and Reiki that fall outside conventional

> medicines.

>

> The ASU duo will examine the mechanisms that allow two clays mined

> in France to heal Buruli ulcer, a flesh-eating bacterial disease

> found primarily in central and western Africa. Buruli ulcer has

been

> declared to be " an emerging public health threat " by the World

> Health Organization (WHO). Related to leprosy and tuberculosis,

the

> Mycobacterium ulcerans produces a toxin, lesions, and destroys the

> fatty tissues under the skin.

>

> " The toxin is immunosuppressant; the patients feel no pain and the

> body mounts no response to infection. It leads to disfigurement,

> isolation, not unlike that seen in leprosy, " Haydel

> explains. " Traditional antibiotics can only make a difference at

the

> very earliest stages of the disease, so treatments have, in the

> past, been largely confined to amputations or surgical excision of

> the infected sites. "

>

> This means if the clays are antibacterial in nature and the locus

> for that activity can be isolated, they may represent a new form

of

> treatment, one that goes beyond the capacity of existing

> antibiotics. " And they could be produced and distributed cheaply, "

> notes.

>

> Humanitarians answer Internet challenge

>

> So how did a clay mineralogist whose background is in low

> temperature geochemistry become involved with a health care

project

> centered in the Ivory Coast? The scientific equivalent of an

online

> dating or matchmaking service: " I answered a posting on the Clay

> Mineral Society's list serve placed by Thierry Brunet de Courssou.

> He was asking to have someone take high resolution scanning

electron

> micrographs of the clays, " explains. " I confess that we

all

> ignored him initially. "

>

> According to the Brunet de Courssou Web site, the family has been

> operating health clinics on the Ivory Coast and in New Guinea. For

a

> decade, Madame Line Brunet de Courssou, Thierry's mother, had been

> importing two French clays to treat people with Buruli ulcer and

was

> getting startling results, while her use of native clays had no

> effect. reviewed the mother's work and notes that " Line

> Brunet de Courssou was a careful observer. " However, Madame Brunet

> de Courssou was not a scientist. The mother, who is now deceased,

> approached the WHO in 2002 at its fifth advisory group meeting on

> Buruli ulcer, having documented more than 50 cases of successful

> healing with the clay treatments. WHO documents indicate that the

> organization was receptive, calling her results " impressive, " yet,

> notes, funding was denied for lack of scientific study.

>

> , from a family of physicians, says that it was really the

> second message that finally drew her to the project. " He said, `I

> guess that no American scientists are interested in helping poor

> people in Africa.' "

>

> He guessed wrong. Armed with 100 grams of green powder (clay high

in

> reduced iron), not only took the micrographs of the

> minerals, she went a step further and examined their crystal

> structure and chemical compositions. She recruited Haydel to the

> project before the microbiologist arrived at ASU in 2005. Haydel

> brought more than 13 years of experience with pathogenic bacteria,

> in particular tuberculosis, to the project. Within two months of

> Haydel's arrival, they submitted the grant proposal to the NIH.

>

> " I approached this work from the viewpoint of a clinical

> microbiologist, " Haydel says. " I ordered bacterial strains that

> pharmaceutical companies use to test their antimicrobials. "

>

> Haydel and tested both of the French clays that Brunet de

> Courssou had been importing. One completely inhibited pathogenic

> Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa

> (often a problem as an opportunistic infection in burn wards) and

> Mycobacterium marinum (related to Mycobacterium ulcerans, which

> causes Buruli ulcer disease). The clay was also found to partially

> inhibit the growth of pathogenic Staphylococcus aureus, including

a

> multi-drug resistant variety. " The other clay actually helps the

> bacteria to grow, " Haydel adds.

>

> What makes one clay kill bacteria, and the other promote growth?

And

> why do most clays tested have no effect? Research like that being

> done by and Haydel can answer such questions. " Clay can

be

> as variable as the bacteria we are studying. There is a lot to be

> learned yet, " notes.

>

> Clay's properties fuel interest

>

> ' career fascination with clay started when she was a

> mineral exploration geologist looking for ore deposits. She worked

> with `the father of clay mineralogy,' Bob Reynolds, at Dartmouth

> College. Later, as a research associate at Louisiana State

> University, a colleague was studying geophasia – eating clay, a

> behavior seen in animals and people, since the time of the

> aborigines.

>

> " In the South Appalachian Mountains, poor women would eat the

local

> clay to help soothe nausea and stomach ailments, particularly

during

> pregnancy. The clay was rich in kaolinite. (Kaolinite is the major

> ingredient in the over the counter remedy Kaopectate). But one

day,

> they ran out of clay and moved over to another mountain and people

> began dying. We wanted to know why. "

>

> The key to clay's variable nature seems to be its structure. " Clay

> is a mineral; it has a crystalline structure that is both flexible

> and fluid, " says. She likens them to very thin, two-

> nanometer-thick slices of bread in a " peanut butter and jelly

> sandwich. " The " bread " is composed of three regions, two silicate

> layers with tetrahedral rings bounding an octahedral core.

> The " peanut butter " is the charged cations, for example,

potassium,

> that stick to the negatively charged tetrahedral ring surface. And

> the jelly? Organic compounds or other species of any or no charge

> are possible. This interlayer, as the peanut butter and jelly are

> termed, can vary in width and composition depending on the kinds

of

> waters and elements present when it was formed. It is this

> interlayer where much of the elemental variability between clays

can

> be found. And the interlayer surface area is huge (greater than

100

> square meters per gram of clay – bigger than a football field). As

a

> result, surface chemical reactions from these sites have an

enormous

> impact on the geochemistry of the local environment.

>

> is passionate about her subject: " Clays are as individual

> in character as people are in personality. They can be as old as

> Precambrian time (probably older, since meteorites contain clay

> minerals from other celestial bodies) or as young as I can make

them

> in my lab in a few hours. They form when the chemistry,

temperature

> and pressure conditions are right. In the case of the two French

> clays we are testing, their chemical structures are almost

> identical, but the different trace element chemistry of the

> interlayer records an older geologic condition, from a time when

the

> antimicrobial property was likely inherited. "

>

> Crystal structure, the interlayer, the way other materials,

metals,

> ions bind to clays, the absorptive characteristics of clays, all

> could potentially play a role in the antibacterial activity they

> find in the one French clay. And, while preliminary results

suggest

> that the antibacterial activity is associated with the interlayer,

> crystal size and structure also seem to play a role.

>

> It is a mystery that engages both research partners: " It's

> fascinating, " Haydel says. " Here we are bridging geology,

> microbiology, cell biology – transdisciplinary sciences, exactly

> what (ASU President) Crow has been promoting. A year ago,

> I'd look at the clay and say, `well that's dirt.' Now I know a

> little something about clay structure; Lynda knows a little bit

> about microbiology. Alone, we each would have had to study for

> years; together we are partnering these disciplines with synergy

> that really works. "

>