A team of National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) researchers has developed a new therapy for a rare childhood immunodeficiency disorder that employs nanotechnology to enhance the use of curcumin as a medication.
Chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) affects nearly one in 200,000 births worldwide, and more than 10 Taiwanese children have the disease, pediatrician Shieh Chi-chang (謝奇璋), a professor of clinical medicine at the Tainan-based university who also works at the National Applied Research Laboratories, told a news conference yesterday at the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taipei.
Children with CGD suffer from repeated infections and could die at an early age, as there is no known cure, he said.
Photo: Wu Liang-yi, Taipei Times
Doctors often prescribe interferons in a bid to prevent more infections or recommend stem cell transplants, he said.
Seeking a more accessible and safer treatment, about six years ago he began researching using curcumin, which is extracted from turmeric roots, Shieh said.
Curcumin’s poor water solubility means it is not readily absorbed by the human body and there have been concerns that it might kill cells other than the targeted ones, he said.
His team eventually developed a method using nanotechnology to wrap curcumin with a more biocompatible material, allowing it to act on target bacteria, he said.
The medication has been tested on mice and he expects to complete clinical testing and commercialization in five years, he said.
He thanked current and former members of the team, including Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Shieh Dar-bin (謝達斌), for their work.
The method could be applied to other diseases with similar pathologies, Shieh Chi-chang told a reporter who asked if developing a cure for one rare disease was worth the effort.
The National Laboratory Animal Center has developed a bacterial artificial chromosome technique that can transfer nearly 200,000 base pairs of human genes into mice, a task few researchers in the world have achieved, center researcher Jiang Si-tse (蔣思澈) added.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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