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bn
H Hi
Gerard Cote,
Melissa
Grunlan
and their
teams are
developing
a rice-sized
device
to plant
underneath
the skin that
will monitor
blood
glucose
levels.
Allison Bradshaw — THE BATTALION
DIABETES CONTINUED
a day to monitor sugar levels. They must
always be i^vare of their blood sugar,
because if i^ets too low they can be
come light-Headed, shaky and may even
risk a coma pr death.
The finger-prick method has several
disadvantage^ compared to the device
Cote and hisM am are developing.
“When yip prick your finger, you
open it up for infection, and quite frank
ly it’s embarrassing for some people to
pull out their meter when they have to
monitor their sugar, say out at a restau
rant,” Cote said. ♦
The other way blood sugar is moni
tored is called continuous glucose mon
itoring, during which a patient will stick
the needle of a device into his or her
stomach area. This device sends data to
a meter that provides constant glucose
levels, but it has several downsides.
“It is indwelling,” Cote said. “It
is sticking out of the skin just like an
insulin pump does and it is very un
comfortable. Also it must be calibrated
against the finger prick device once a
day. These devices must be pulled out
and switched every three to seven days.”
Cote and his team aim to fix these
problems by implementing a small de
vice the size of a rice grain underneath
the skin. Once it is implemented, doc
tors allow the skin to heal over it and
glucose can be easily and noninvasively
monitored for at least three months to
a year before it needs replacing. Users
must simply shine a fluorescent light
from a watch or other device to get a
reading.
Andrea Locke, a doctoral student in
Cote’s lab, said the lab works with the
chemistry that uses glucose to produce
fluorescence while Grunlan’s lab works
on the biocompatible membrane that
will hold the assay, or the molecule that
interacts with the glucose to determine
what color the device will show.
The device uses two fluorescent dyes
— one is tied to a protein that binds to
glucose, and the other is tied to a sugar
that competes for the binding site on the
protein.
Although the process sounds compli
cated, it is actually quite simple, Locke
said.
“When no glucose is in the blood,
these dyes will be in close proxim
ity to each other and the second dye
will give off fluorescence,” Locke said.
“But when there is more glucose in the
bloodstream, the distance between the
dyes increases and the first dye fluoresc
es intensely while the second is mini
mized.”
The project is advancing, but it still
has some obstacles to overcome. Locke
said while the assay performs well in a
free solution, it has trouble when placed
in the capsule the team hopes will even
tually hold it. Cote said another issue is
determining how long the device can
remain in the body before the chemistry
on which it is based stops working.
The biocompatibility, or how well
the body accepts the device, is the final
hurdle.
“The body does one of three things
when it is injected with something,”
Cote said. “The first thing the body will
try is to push the foreign object out, like
a splinter. If the body can’t push it out
it tries to eat it up, and dispose of it. If
the body can’t do either of these, it tries
to put a capsule around it to protect the
rest of the body.”
Any of these would render the device
useless, so Grunlan’s lab is designing a
material that shrinks and swells to com
bat the encapsulation.
The implants still need to go through
several phases of human and animal
testing'that will take several more years
before it can start being used clinically.
TENNIS CONTINUED
Just when A&M felt it
could start to get comfort
able, freshman Jordi Arcon-
ada fell 5-7, 5-7 to his op
ponent on court six, making
the score 3-2 in favor of the
Aggies. After Jordi was elim
inated, only courts one and
two remained in play. A&M
just had to win one of two
while Georgia would need
wins on both courts to secure
the title.
Shane Vinsant, playing at
line two, won his first set,
6-4, and went on to drop his
second, 6-7, which led to a
lit. •yk'IXJnf yTc
decisive third set. Jeremy Ef-
ferding at line one also was
forced into a third set as his
first two finished, 6-7, 6-1
respectively.
When things started to
heat up in the third sets, both
Aggies seemed to have the
momentum slipping from
their grasp. Right as Vinsant
and Efferding were down
3-5 and 4-5 respectively in
the third set, the match was
postponed due to inclement
weather.
Upon returning from the
break, neither player lost a
single game on their way to
closing out the match and
capturing the team’s second
straight SEC Championship.
Efferding clinched the
match for A&M on court
one, 6-7, 6-1, 7-5. Vin-
sant’s match remained un
finished. However, he held
the advantage 6-5 when the
match was called. Efferding,
in addition to clinching the
championship for the Aggies,
was named MVP of the SEC
tournament.
“It feels great, you know,
just a lot of hard work paying
off and it’s a real honor to be
the MVP but I can’t take that
away from the whole team,”
Efferding said. “Anyone
; ,,i. . tiiirH no-)l(vl ^ tu
could have been out there
in that position and I know
Arthur, AJ, Jordi, Harry and
Shane have been rising up
to the occasion and playing
great tennis and everyone
has had their opportunity to
shine here and everyone has
been doing great. I feel like
everyone is an MVP on our
team.”
Moving forward, A&M
will prepare for the NCAA
tournament in which it proj
ects as a top-four seed. The
tournament will begin May
9. The NCAA bracket is set
to be announced at 5:30 p.m.
April 28.
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Can the U*S*—Can the World—
Afford a Palestinian State?
The middle East is in chaos: Islamists are waging bloody Jihad—
and winning— and Palestinian society is collapsing.
Is now the time for a Palestinian state?
While the Middle East is being overrun by Islamic terror groups, and Palestinian political factions are verging
On civil war, some world leaders now propose forced peace talks with Israel, guaranteeing the Palestinians a
state. Can we really afford a Palestinian state ripe for takeover by terrorists?
What are the facts?
Bloodthirsty violence wreaked by Islamic terror
groups in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Tunisia
has created epic instability in the Middle East. This
regional jihad is being waged by the Islamic State, al
Qaeda affiliates, al Nusra Front, Hizbollah, Hamas,
Houthi rebels and, most prominently, Iran.
Indeed, the jihadis are capturing more Middle East
territory daily. The Islamic
State continues to seize
ground in Syria and Iraq and
threatens next to attack
Israel’s neighbor Jordan. The
Houthis today control three
major cities in Yemen, and al
Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula is making gains in other parts of the
country. The greatest threat, however, comes from
Iran, which through its terrorist proxies now exerts
effective control over four Arab capitals: Baghdad, Iraq;
Damascus, Syria; Beirut, Lebanon; and Sana’a, Yemen.
This leaves Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy
and bastion of Western freedoms, almost encircled by
forces of radical Islam—Hizbollah and Iran on its
doorstep to the north in Lebanon and Syria; the
Islamic State in Syria and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula; and
Hamas to the south in Gaza. Iran, of course, threatens
weekly to annihilate the Jewish state—and it is
steadily, secretly building the nuclear capability to
back its bluster.
Adding to this regional volatility, the Palestinians’
two main political parties, Fatah in the W'est Bank and
the Islamic terror group Hamas in Gaza, are locked in
internecine strife. Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas’s government has no control over Gaza’s 1.9
million Arabs. The internal Palestinian conflict has
become so bitter that President Abbas recently called on
Arab nations to launch military attacks against Hamas.
But Palestinians’ problems run far deeper. Their
economy is in shambles: Without nearly $1 billion
annually in international aid, including $400 million
from the U.S., it would collapse. Palestinian civil
society in the W’est Bank is notoriously rife with
corruption. Political order is also crumbling: No
Palestinian elections have been held since 2006. The
80-year-old Abbas is serving his tenth year of a five-year
term, and his Fatah party has no provisions for a
successor. What’s more, security in the West Bank is
critically dependent on support from Israeli Defense
Forces. Without it, experts predict a takeover by
Hamas, which did the same in
Gaza in 2006. A Hamas coup
would leave Israel a tiny
island engulfed in a sea of
Islamist terror.
Why don’t the Palestinians
already have a state? The
Arabs were offered a state next
to Israel by the United Nations in 1948, but turned it
down. After Israel’s defeat of three invading Arab
armies in 1967, the Jewish state offered to negotiate
land for peace, but again the Arabs refused. As recently
as 2001 and 2008, under the auspices of the United
States, Israel offered the Palestinians up to 95 percent
of the West Bank and Gaza, plus a capital in East
Jerusalem, but again the Arabs walked away from
statehood and have for more than 60 years stubbornly
refused to recognize the Jewish state.
Today the situation in the Middle East has changed
dramatically in two ways. First, Israel and moderate
Arab nations are threatened as never before by radical
Islamists obsessed with conquest. Second, Palestinian
institutions have reached new lows of dependence and
disorganization, nearing total collapse. Iran-supported
Hamas is well armed and could seize control of the
W’est Bank at any time.
While some world leaders have proposed a deadline
for completion of peace negotiations between Israel
and the Palestinians, leading to a Palestinian state
within a few years, this idea does not account for
today’s horrific new reality in the Middle East. Indeed,
a Palestinian state that is forced upon Israel and the
rest of the world would most certainly turn into a
nightmare.
A Palestinian state forced upon
the world today would most
certainly turn into a nightmare.
While Israel, the United States and other nations have worked in good faith to create a Palestinian state, the
Palestinians themselves have consistently rejected requirements that would ensure Israel’s security and survival.
Today, explosive threats from radical Islamist terror groups in the Middle East, especially Iran, as well as the
disintegration of social, economic and political order among the Palestinians, make a Palestinian state
unrealistic. Rather, world leaders need to focus on stabilizing the region—especially Palestinian society—and put
Palestinian statehood temporarily on hold.
This message has been published and paid for by
FtAME
Facts and Logic About the Middle East
P.O. Box 590359 ■ San Francisco, CA 94159
Gerardo Joffe, President
James Sinkinson, Vice President
FLAME is a lax-exempi, non-profit educational 501 (c)(3)
organization. Its purpose is the research and publication of the facts
regarding developments in the Middle East and exposing false
propaganda that might harm the interests of the United States and its
allies in that area of the world. Your tax-deductible contributions are
welcome. They enable us to pursue these goals and to publish these
messages in national newspapers and magazines. We have virtually
no overhead. Almost all of our revenue pays for our educational work,
for these clarifying messages, and for related direct mail.
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