Monthly Archives: December 2013

Trachea transplants: an update

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I got curious the other day about trachea transplants, a topic I first wrote about one an Aug. 22, 2011 posting featuring Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene and wondered how things had worked out for him. For anyone who doesn’t know the story, ,

In early July 2011, there were reports of a new kind of transplant involving a body part made of a biocomposite. Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene underwent a trachea transplant that required an artificial windpipe crafted by UK experts then flown to Sweden where Beyene’s stem cells were used to coat the windpipe before being transplanted into his body.

It is an extraordinary story not least because Beyene, a patient in a Swedish hospital planning to return to Eritrea after his PhD studies in Iceland, illustrates the international cooperation that made the transplant possible.

The scaffolding material for the artificial windpipe was developed by Professor Alex Seifalian at the University College London in a landmark piece of nanotechnology-enabled tissue engineering. Tim Harper in his July 25, 2011 posting provides more details about the scaffolding,

A team led by Professor Alexander Seifalian (UCL Division of Surgery & Interventional Science; professor of nanotechnology and regenerative medicine at University College London, UK), whose laboratories are headquartered at the Royal Free Hospital, created a glass mold of the patient’s trachea from X-ray computed tomography (CT) scans of the patient. In CT, digital geometry processing is employed to generate a 3D image of the inside of an object from a large series of 2D X-ray images taken around one single axis of rotation.

Then, they manufactured a full size y-shaped trachea scaffold at Professor Seifalian’s laboratories. The scaffold of the trachea was built using a novel nanocomposite polymer developed and patented by Professor Seifalian. Professor Seifalian worked together with Professor Paolo Macchiarini at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden (who also holds an Honorary appointment at UCL).

…

What I didn’t realize in 2011 was there had been some earlier transplants as Gretchen Vogel writes in her April 19, 2013  article (Trachea Transplants Test the Limits) which summarizes and critiques the work* on synthesized tracheas to date for Science magazine (the article is behind a a paywall),

More than a dozen ill people have received a bioengineered trachea seeded with stem cells during the past 5 years, but outcomes are mixed, and critics say the treatment may not do what its developers claim.

…

Although at first glance the trachea might seem like a simple tube, its thin but cartilage-reinforced walls must stand up to near-constant use as a person breathes, clears his throat, or coughs. Any transplant, therefore, has to be strong enough to withstand such pressures without collapsing. But a rigid prosthesis can rub against and damage the adjacent major blood vessels in the upper part of the chest, leaving a patient at risk for a fatal hemorrhage. At the same time, the natural blood supply for the trachea’s tissues is intricate, with vessels too small for surgeons to easily reconnect during a transplant operation. And because it is exposed to inhaled air, the wound between the implant and the remaining airway is especially vulnerable to infection.

Surgeons have tried for years to find ways around these challenges, without much success. When Castillo (Claudia Castillo,  first patient to receive a trachea transplant using her own stem cells) was hospitalized in Barcelona in March 2008, Macchiarini [Paolo Macchiarini], who was then at the University of Barcelona’s Hospital Clínic, and Birchall [Martin Birchall], then at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, had experimented with bioengineered transplants in pigs. They would take a trachea from a pig and remove its living cells to create a so-called decellularized scaffold. They seeded this with cells from the recipient pig: bone marrow cells on the outer layer, thought to help form new cartilage, and epithelial cells on the inside, which they hoped would regrow the trachea’s lining. They allowed the cells to grow on the scaffold for several days in a bioreactor designed to provide different conditions for the two types of cells. They hoped that the decellularized scaffold would not require immunosuppressive drugs to prevent its rejection and that the seeded cells would take over the removed cells’ roles, ultimately forming a living organ.

The main difference between the 2008 Castillo operation and the 2011 Teklesenbet Beyene,operation is the scaffolding. For Castillo, they used a cadaverous** trachea where living cells were removed to create a ‘decellularized’ scaffold. For Teklesenbet Beyene, they used a nanocomposite** polymer. According to Vogel, 14 people have had the operation using either the decellularized or the nanocomposite composite polymer as the base for a new trachea. There have been some problems and deaths although Castillo who is still alive did not respond to any of Vogel’s requests for a comment . As for Teklesenbet Beyene (from the article),

His current doctor, Tomas Gudbjartsson of Landspitali University Hospital in Reykjavik, tells Science that Beyene has had several stents, but is healthy enough that he was able to complete his studies last year [2012]. The researchers have mentioned other patients in passing in several papers, but no formal reports have been published about their health, and Science has not been able to independently verify the current status of all the patients.

Both Birchall and Macchiarini have received grants for clinical trials,

In March [2013?[, Birchall received a £2.8 million ($4.3 million) grant from the United Kingdom’s Medical Research Council to conduct a trial of decellularized and stem cell–seeded upper trachea and larynx, with roughly 10 patients. Macchiarini has already completed two transplants in Russia as part of a clinical trial—funded with a $6 million grant from the Russian government—that he says should eventually enroll 20 or 25 patients. “We were allowed to do this type of transplantation only in extreme cases,” he says. “The clinical study for the first time gives us a chance to include patients who are not in such critical shape.”

Macchiarini is also the lead investigator on a 5-year, €4 million ($5.2 million) grant from the European Union to begin a clinical trial using decellularized tracheas and further develop the polymer scaffolds in large animal models. That project may need to be reorganized, however, following a legal dispute last year in Italy, where the transplants were supposed to take place—Macchiarini had a part-time position at Careggi Hospital in Florence. In September, however, Italy’s financial police accused him of attempted extortion, and briefly placed him under house arrest, for allegedly telling a patient that he could receive treatment in Germany for €150,000. Macchiarini and his lawyer say that he was simply informing the patient of possible options, not demanding payment. The main charges were soon dropped, but Macchiarini says that the charges stemmed from academic politics in Tuscany and he has severed ties with the hospital and university there. “There is no way to go back there.”

That last bit (in the excerpt) about academic politics in Tuscany seems downright Machiavellian (Wikipedia essay on Machiavelli here).

Getting back to the trachea transplants, there seems to be a major difference of opinion. While the researchers Macchiarini and Birchall have opted for human clinical trials other experts are suggesting that animal trials should be the next step for this research. I recommend reading Vogel’s article so you can fully appreciate the debate.

*’which a summary and critique of the work’ changed to ‘which summarizes and critiques the work’ for grammatical correctness on April 8, 2016.

**’pig trachea’ changed to ‘cadaverous trachea’ and ‘nanocompostie’ changed to ‘nanocomposite’ on April 19, 2016.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) report on responsible development of nanotechnology plus news about upcoming survey on nanotechnology commercialization

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I stumbled onto this OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation for Development) information in the context of research on another, unrelated, story about the current state of nanotechnology standards and regulations (Dec. 23, 2013 news item on Nanotechnology Now) which is not likely to be written up here.  Getting back to this posting, I found a report from the OECD’s Working Party on Nanotechnology dated Nov. 29, 2013 and titled: RESPONSIBLE DEVELOPMENT OF NANOTECHNOLOGY
Summary Results from a Survey Activity (report no. DSTI/STP/NANO(2013)9/FINAL). This 34 pp. report includes the latest information for 25 countries that agreed to take part in the survey. Here’s the information supplied by Canada,

Canada
While Canada does not have a distinct policy for nanotechnology, the Government of Canada is engaged in a number of activities which specifically address the responsible development of
nanotechnology:
• Policy principles for regulation and oversight: Federal departments are working together under the Canada-United States Regulatory Cooperation Council Nanotechnology Initiative to strengthen current policy principles to guide government decision-making concerning the responsible development of nanotechnology. These principles address the need to protect human health, safety, and the environment, while not unnecessarily hampering innovation and the exploitation of potential benefits from nanotechnology use.
• Research and international collaboration: In collaboration with domestic and international partners, the Government of Canada is actively involved in research and other activities to assess the environmental, health, and safety aspects of nanomaterials and to develop appropriate and internationally compatible approaches for their responsible development and application (e.g. through safety assessment work at the OECD, ISO/IEC nanotechnology standards development, bilateral regulatory co-ordination, and government research and government-funded extramuralresearch).
• Development of new policy tools: In October 2011, Health Canada introduced a Working Definition of Nanomaterials to provide a tool to assist the Government to gather safety information about nanomaterials in support of Health Canada’s mandate. The Working Definition is not an additional source of authority, but applies within existing regulatory frameworks that allow for obtaining information (www.hc-sc.gc.ca/sr-sr/pubs/nano/pol-eng.php).
• Federal science and technology (S&T) strategies: Federal strategies for S&T research recognise the interconnection between responsible innovation, regulation, and socioeconomic development. Through its 2007 strategy, Mobilising Science and Technology to Canada’s Advantage, for example, the Government of Canada is committed to ensuring the responsible development of nanotechnology. Federal strategies set out the general priority areas for government S&T research support (www.science.gc.ca/S&T_Reports-WS5F25C99B-1_En.htm). [Ed. Note: I would describe the information as statistical data rather than strategy and,in fact, the webpage you’re being directed to is titled: Science and Technology Data.)
• Interdepartmental collaboration and coordination: Federal science-based departments and agencies (SBDAs) are engaged in an initiative to foster interdepartmental collaboration and coordination of activities for the responsible governance of nanotechnology. The results of this initiative will inform SBDA work and activities concerning innovation, regulation, public engagement and research.
• External collaboration and coordination: Federal departments and agencies collaborate with external partners, such as provincial nanotechnology associations, on issues related to the responsible development of nanotechnology. (p. 9)

I mentioned the Canada-United States Regulatory Cooperation Council Nanotechnology Initiative in a June 26, 2013 posting.

As for this OECD report, there’s always the question, What constitutes ‘responsible’ development? The OECD report provides an answer,

For the purpose of this activity the responsible development of nanotechnology was described as actions to stimulate the growth of nanotechnology applications in diverse sectors of the economy, while addressing the potential risks and the ethical and societal challenges the technology might raise. Policy and initiatives for the responsible development of nanotechnology aim both at supporting research (and/or business activities) and implementing effective legal and regulatory frameworks in order to assure that risk and safety standards are met. They also aim at supporting and stimulating the debate on the place of science and technology in society by engaging with the public on social and ethical issues. As nanotechnology develops, countries and regions have begun to develop, refine and/or articulate regulatory approaches to support the responsible development of nanotechnology. (p. 7)

The question as to which countries have a specific policy for the responsible development of nanotechnology is answered at length (from the OECD report),

All participating delegations responded to the questions on whether a dedicated policy for the responsible development of nanotechnology was in place or if nanotechnology was addressed as part of other policies; and whether a dedicated research programme for nanotechnology was in place or if nanotechnology formed a part of other research programmes.

Many delegations reported a specific policy for the responsible development of nanotechnology, with 11 delegations, out of the 25 participating, indicating the development of a policy brief, a regulatory framework, a legislative framework and/or an overall strategy for the responsible development of nanotechnology. All of these delegations reported that the policy had already been implemented. Some of the delegations that indicated a dedicated policy for the responsible development of nanotechnology also indicated that nanotechnology was included within other policies.

Where there was a dedicated policy for nanotechnology, the policy operated at the national level in all cases with the exception of Spain, which indicated that there was a nanotechnology policy in some of its regions, in parallel with the national dedicated nanotechnology policy for R&D and innovation.

Nine delegations [Canada was one of the nine delegations] indicated there was no dedicated policy for the responsible development of nanotechnology, but those delegations indicated that nanotechnology was included as part of other policies.

Two delegations indicated there was neither a dedicated policy for the responsible development of nanotechnology nor a policy of which nanotechnology was a part. However, these delegations either reported a dedicated research programme on nanotechnology, or that nanotechnology had been recognised as a strategic research area.

Finally, three delegations, out of the 25 participating, indicated that a policy for the responsible development of nanotechnology was under development (Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom) with publication planned for 2013-2014. For those countries, nanotechnology is currently included under the general umbrella of science and technology policy.

The majority of delegations highlighted the importance of collaboration and co-operation across- ministries, departments and agencies to ensure responsible and efficient development of the technology. Indeed, nanotechnology was expected to impact on a variety of industrial and economic sectors; this cross- sectoral nature appears to be a challenge for policy makers who require the involvement of all governmental stakeholders likely to be impacted by nanotechnology development. The majority of delegations involved a number of relevant ministries and departments in the development of their strategies for the responsible development of nanotechnology. This broad involvement was noted as a clear requirement in order to succeed in the development of nanotechnology.

… (pp. 7-8)

Finally, there is an OECD survey currently underway regarding nanotechnology commercialization according to a Dec. 20, 2013 notice on the Nanotechnology Industries Association (NIA) website (Note: A link has been removed),

NIA Members Consultation: OECD WPN Survey on Nanotechnology Commercialisation Policy – Deadline: 3 January 2014
Posted on 20 Dec 2013

The Working Party on Nanotechnology (WPN) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is undertaking a project examining policies that support the commercialisation of nanotechnology research. It aims to identify:

Which existing government policies help companies efforts in commercialisation;
How significant this support is; and
What else governments could do/do more of, that would most significantly increase the commercialisation of nanotechnology research.

As part of its role within the Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC), NIA is asking its members to provide their views to the project via a short questionnaire.

Participating members have the option to remain anonymous, with their identity and other information kept confidential by the project.

The findings from the questionnaire responses will be presented in a final OECD WPN Report and will be made available to all participants in the new year.

Only NIA members have access to the questionnaire and I cannot find any mention of it on the OECD website although I did stumble on this delightful page titled: OECD Working Party on Nanotechnology: Second meeting of the Working Party on Nanotechnology, which contains a number of documents including one which outlines a 2007 Canadian project: Nanotechnology Pilot Survey by Statistics Canada.

I hope to hear about this commercialization survey in a more timely fashion than I’ve been managing lately. In any event, it’s nice to get caught up on the Canadian nanotechnology scene.

On a related front: In March 2013 the OECD and the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) held a joint symposium about assessing nanotechnology’s economic impacts. My Sept. 19, 2013 posting features the final report on the symposium. There’s also my July 23, 2012 interview with Vanessa Clive, Industry Canada’s Nanotechnology Policy Advisor and one of the symposium organizers. Finally, there’s the OECD’s 2010 report, The Impacts of Nanotechnology on Companies: Policy Insights from Case Studies. This report was co-designed and co-led by Vanessa, one of her Canadian colleagues and a Swiss colleague. The report itself was written by OECD staff as per Vanessa’s comments in my March 29, 2012 posting.

Are science cities London, Paris, New York and Tokyo losing prominence?

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I am more accustomed to thinking about great art cities than great science cities but it appears I lack imagination if a Dec. 13, 2013 news item on Nanowerk is to be believed (Note: A link has been removed),

The world’s largest scientific centers are losing some of their prominence due to geographical decentralization at the global scale, according to a team of researchers from the LISST (Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Solidarités, Sociétés, Territoires, CNRS / Université de Toulouse II-Le Mirail / EHESS) who conducted a systematic statistical analysis of millions of articles and papers published in thousands of scientific reviews between 1987 and 2007. Their project, whose results were recently published on the Urban Studies website (“Cities and the geographical deconcentration of scientific activity: A multilevel analysis of publications (1987–2007)”), was the first to focus on the geography of science in all the world’s cities.

Here’s an image illustrating the researchers’ work,

Courtesy o CNRS [downloaded from http://www2.cnrs.fr/presse/communique/3353.htm]

Courtesy o CNRS [downloaded from http://www2.cnrs.fr/presse/communique/3353.htm]

The Dec. 10, 2013 CNRS (France’s Centre national de la recherche scientifique) news release, [English language version] [en français]), which originated the news item, provides more details,

Geographic encoding, city by city, of all of the articles listed in the Science Citation Index (SCI) (1) between 1987 and 2007 shows that traditional scientific centers are not as prominent as they used to be: the combined share of the world’s top 10 science cities dropped from 20% in 1987 to 13% in 2007. Researchers at the LISST (Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Solidarités, Sociétés, Territoires, CNRS /Université de Toulouse II-Le Mirail / EHESS), aided by two collaborators at the CIRST (Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche sur la Science et la Technologie) in Montreal, concluded that this phenomenon is accompanied by a general trend toward decentralization worldwide, especially in emerging nations. China offers a good illustration: the main provincial capitals are playing a much stronger role than they did in the past, and the skyrocketing development of science in China goes alongside with a geographical realignment. Whereas Beijing and Shanghai together accounted for 52.8% of the articles published by Chinese researchers in the Science Citation Index in 1987, this percentage dropped to 31.9% in 2007. Turkey is another striking example of an emerging nation whose scientific system has seen very rapid growth. In terms of the number of articles published, the country rose from 44th to 16th place worldwide between 1987 and 2007. Over the same period, its two main scientific hubs, Ankara and Istanbul, lost some of their pre-eminence within the country. While these two cities represented more than 60% of Turkey’s scientific production in 1987, they now produce slightly less than half of the articles published by Turkish researchers. And, as in China, growth in scientific activity is accompanied by geographical decentralization: Turkey has more science hubs now than it did two decades ago, and its two traditional scientific capitals play a lesser role.

The US, which remains the world leader in terms of scientific production, is an exceptional case: the number of articles published by American researchers continues to rise steadily, but at a slower pace than in the emerging nations. Consequently, the country’s share of worldwide scientific production is lower than it used to be: in 1987, the US represented 34% of the SCI, but by 2007 this figure had fallen to 25%. Nonetheless, the American scientific scene remains quite stable geographically: the role of its main research centers has not evolved significantly because the US scientific establishment has always been one of the least centralized in the world, with research activities scattered across hundreds of cities of all sizes.

Does this development herald the decline of the great scientific centers? The fact that scientific activity is becoming more geographically decentralized on a worldwide scale does not imply that it is declining in large cities with a strong research tradition. The number of articles published in London, Paris, New York and Tokyo continues to rise every year. But the pace of growth in those traditional centers is slower than in others in the global scientific system. As more research is conducted in an increasing number of cities, the main scientific centers contribute a lesser share to the total.

The findings of this project, funded as part of an ANR program (2010-2013), challenge the assumption that scientific production inevitably tends to be concentrated in a few large urban areas, which therefore should be given priority in the allocation of resources.

(1) The Science Citation Index (or SCI) is a bibliographical database created in the US in 1964 for the purpose of documenting all scientific production worldwide. In its current version (SCI-Expanded), which is part of the Thomson Reuters Web of Science database (WoS), it registers more than one million scientific articles every year, encompassing the experimental sciences and sciences of the universe, medicine, the engineering sciences, etc., but not the humanities and social sciences, which are included in the SSCI. The SCI-Expanded records contain information on the content of each article (title, name of publication, summary, keywords), its author or authors (name, institution, city, country), and the list of references cited in the article.

This is especially fascinating in light of a recently published book claiming that the major city centres for art in the 21st century will shifting to some unexpected places. From Phaidon Press’ Art Cities of the Future webpage,

The volume profiles 12 global cities to watch for exciting contemporary art: Beirut, Bogotá, Cluj, Delhi, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Lagos, San Juan, São Paulo, Seoul, Singapore and Vancouver.

Thankfully, in both the old world and the new, commentators appear to agree. “It’s great to have a look around and discover truly interesting new work,” said Simon Armstrong, book buyer at Tate Modern and Tate Britain, in The Bookseller, “and there are some great examples of emergent artists here in this huge presentation of contemporary art from 12 cities on the fringes of the art map.”

Hannah Clugston, writing in Aesthetica concurred, describing the title as “brilliantly executed” with “stunning images,” and possessing an awareness “of the wider concerns behind the work.”

…

It appears that the geography of creative endeavours in the arts and the sciences is shifting. For those curious about the science end of things, here’s a link to and a citation for the paper about geography and scientific activity,

Cities and the geographical deconcentration of scientific activity: A multilevel analysis of publications (1987–2007) by Michel Grossetti, Denis Eckert, Yves Gingras, Laurent Jégou, Vincent Larivière, and Béatrice Milard. Urban Studies, 0042098013506047, November 20, 2013, doi:10.1177/0042098013506047

This paper is behind a paywall.

Radio interview with Eugene Seymour, Chief Executive Officer, NanoViricides

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A Dec. 24, 2013 news item on Azonano announced a radio interview with Eugene Seymour, Chief Executive Officer of NanoViricdes,

The Company today announced that Michael Yorba of Clear Channel’s Business Talk Radio Show, The Traders Network, interviewed CEO Dr. Eugene Seymour live on December 19, 2013.

In this very informative one on one interview, Dr Seymour was asked about their platform technology to rapidly create anti-viral drugs and how it related to HIV/AIDS and other viral diseases. He explained the construction and function of their line-up of drugs all work on the same basic principle. A nanomicelle that is a 20 nanometer polymeric-based structure attached to a “mimic” of the receptor protein that sits on the host cell that is then used to lure the virus to the cell. For example; Influenza is a virus that causes the illness known at “flu.” If you can at least control, or better yet, destroy the virus in the bloodstream, you can reverse the symptoms of the illness, allowing the patient to recover quickly.

The news item provides more detail from the interview or you can listen to the embedded audio file featuring Michael Yorba of The Traders Network on Clear Channel’s DFW 1190AM, Dallas as he interviews Seymour, (running time: over 11 mins.),

click here to download or listen on your mobile device

If there are problems accessing the audio file, go here and search through the archives for Trader’s Network, 2-3 pm, Dec. 19, 2013; it is segment 1. There’s also a Wall Street Journal Dec. 23, 2013 recap of this audio interview.

It seems to me the interviewer is more interested in hyping the company than discussing the technology and I noticed Seymour mentions several times that the therapies his company offers (as exciting as they are) have not been tested in human clinical trials yet. Seymour also gives out his email address towards the end of the interview as he offers to answer more questions. (I’m impressed; not many people will encourage such a direct contact anymore.)

I have written about NanoViricides in a July 9, 2013 posting which features their agreement with Public Health England and in a July 2, 2013 posting about their work with a therapy for dengue fever. You can find the NanoViricdes website here.

Green chemistry and zinc oxide nanoparticles from Iran (plus some unhappy scoop about Elsevier and access)

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It’s been a while since I’ve featured any research from Iran partly due to the fact that I find the information disappointingly scant. While the Dec. 22, 2013 news item on Nanowerk doesn’t provide quite as much detail as I’d like it does shine a light on an aspect of Iranian nanotechnology research that I haven’t previously encountered, green chemistry (Note: A link has been removed),

Researchers used a simple and eco-friendly method to produce homogenous zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles with various applications in medical industries due to their photocatalytic and antibacterial properties (“Sol–gel synthesis, characterization, and neurotoxicity effect of zinc oxide nanoparticles using gum tragacanth”).

Zinc oxide nanoparticles have numerous applications, among which mention can be made of photocatalytic issues, piezoelectric devices, synthesis of pigments, chemical sensors, drug carriers in targeted drug delivery, and the production of cosmetics such as sunscreen lotions.

The Dec. 22, 2013 Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council (INIC) news release, which originated the news item, provides a bit more detail (Note: Links have been removed),

By using natural materials found in the geography of Iran and through sol-gel technique, the researchers synthesized zinc oxide nanoparticles in various sizes. To this end, they used zinc nitrate hexahydrate and gum tragacanth obtained from the Northern parts of Khorassan Razavi Province as the zinc-providing source and the agent to control the size of particles in aqueous solution, respectively.

Among the most important characteristics of the synthesis method, mention can be made of its simplicity, the use of cost-effective materials, conservation of green chemistry principals to prevent the use of hazardous materials to human safety and environment, production of nanoparticles in homogeneous size and with high efficiency, and most important of all, the use of native materials that are only found in Iran and its introduction to the world.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Sol–gel synthesis, characterization, and neurotoxicity effect of zinc oxide nanoparticles using gum tragacanth by Majid Darroudi, Zahra Sabouri, Reza Kazemi Oskuee, Ali Khorsand Zak, Hadi Kargar, and Mohamad Hasnul Naim Abd Hamidf. Ceramics International, Volume 39, Issue 8, December 2013, Pages 9195–9199

There’s a bit more technical information in the paper’s abstract,

The use of plant extract in the synthesis of nanomaterials can be a cost effective and eco-friendly approach. In this work we report the “green” and biosynthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) using gum tragacanth. Spherical ZnO-NPs were synthesized at different calcination temperatures. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) imaging showed the formation most of nanoparticles in the size range of below 50 nm. The powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) analysis revealed wurtzite hexagonal ZnO with preferential orientation in (101) reflection plane. In vitro cytotoxicity studies on neuro2A cells showed a dose dependent toxicity with non-toxic effect of concentration below 2 µg/mL. The synthesized ZnO-NPs using gum tragacanth were found to be comparable to those obtained from conventional reduction methods using hazardous polymers or surfactants and this method can be an excellent alternative for the synthesis of ZnO-NPs using biomaterials.

I was not able to find the DOI (digital object identifier) and this paper is behind a paywall.

Elsevier and access

On a final note, Elsevier, the company that publishes Ceramics International and many other journals, is arousing some ire with what appears to be its latest policies concerning access according to a Dec. 20, 2013 posting by Mike Masnick for Techdirt Note: Links have been removed),

We just recently wrote about the terrible anti-science/anti-knowledge/anti-learning decision by publishing giant Elsevier to demand that Academia.edu take down copies of journal articles that were submitted directly by the authors, as Elsevier wished to lock all that knowledge (much of it taxpayer funded) in its ridiculously expensive journals. Mike Taylor now alerts us that Elsevier is actually going even further in its war on access to knowledge. Some might argue that Elsevier was okay in going after a “central repository” like Academia.edu, but at least it wasn’t going directly after academics who were posting pdfs of their own research on their own websites. While some more enlightened publishers explicitly allow this, many (including Elsevier) technically do not allow it, but have always looked the other way when authors post their own papers.

That’s now changed. As Taylor highlights, the University of Calgary sent a letter to its staff saying that a company “representing” Elsevier, was demanding that they take down all such articles on the University’s network.

While I do feature the topic of open access and other issues with intellectual property from time to time, you’ll find Masnick’s insights and those of his colleagues are those of people who are more intimately familiar (albeit firmly committed to open access) with the issues should you choose to read his Dec. 20, 2013 posting in its entirely.

Graphene hype; the emerging story in an interview with Carla Alvial Palavicino (University of Twente, Netherlands)

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i’m delighted to be publishing this interview with Carla Alvial Palavicino, PhD student at the University of Twente (Netherlands), as she is working on the topicof  graphene ‘hype’. Here’s a bit more about the work from her University of Twente webpage (Note: A link has been removed),

From its origins the field of nanotechnology has been populated of expectations. Pictured as “the new industrial revolution” the economic promise holds strong, but also nanotechnologies as a cure for almost all the human ills, sustainers of future growth, prosperity and happiness. In contrast to these promises, the uncertainties associated to the introduction of such a new and revolutionary technology, and mainly risks of nanomaterials, have elicited concerns among governments and the public. Nevertheless, the case of the public can be characterized as concerns about concerns, based on the experience of previous innovations (GMO, etc.).

Expectations, both as promises and concerns, have played and continue playing a central role in the “real-time social and political constitution of nanotechnology” (Kearnes and Macnaghten 2006). A circulation of visions, promises and concerns in observed in the field, from the broadly defined umbrella promises to more specific expectations, and references to grand challenges as moral imperatives. These expectations have become such an important part of the social repertoire of nano applications that we observe the proliferation of systematic and intentional modes of expectation building such as roadmaps, technology assessment, etc.; as well as a considerable group of reports on risk, concerns, and ethical and social aspects. This different modes of expectation building (Konrad 2010) co-exist and contribute to the articulation of the nano field.

This project seeks to identify, characterize and contextualize the existing modes of expectations building, being those intentional (i.e. foresight, TA, etc.) or implicit in arenas of public discourse, associated to ongoing and emerging social processes in the context of socio-technical change.

This dynamics are being explored in relation to the new material graphene.

Before getting to the interview, here’s Alvial Palavicino’s biography,

Carla Alvial Palavicino has a bachelor degree in Molecular Biology Engineering, School of Science, University of Chile, Chile and a Master’s degree on Sustainability Sciences, Graduate School of Frontier Science, University of Tokyo, Japan. She has worked in technology transfer and more recently, in Smart Grids and local scale renewable energy provision.

Finally, here’s the interview (Note: At the author’s request, there have been some grammatical changes made to conform with Canadian English.),

  • What is it that interests you about the ‘hype’ that some technologies receive and how did you come to focus on graphene in particular?

My research belongs to a field called the Sociology of Expectations, which deals with the role of promises, visions, concerns and ideas of the future in the development of technologies, and how these ideas actually affect people’s strategies in technology development. Part of the dynamic found for these expectations are hype-disappointment cycles, much like the ones the Gartner Group uses. And hype has become an expectation itself; people expect that there will be too many promises and some, maybe many of them are not going to be fulfilled, followed by disappointment.

I came to know about graphene because, initially, I was broadly interested in nanoelectronics (my research project is part of NanoNextNL a large Dutch Nano research programme), due to the strong future orientation in the electronics industry. The industry has been organizing, and continues to organize around the promise of Moore’s law for more than 50 years! So I came across graphene as thriving to some extent on the expectations around the end of Moore’s law and because simply everybody was talking about it as the next big thing! Then I thought, this is a great opportunity to investigate hype in real-time

  • Is there something different about the hype for graphene or is this the standard ‘we’ve found a new material and it will change everything’?

I guess with every new technology and new material you find a portion of genuine enthusiasm which might lead to big promises. But that doesn’t necessarily turn into big hype. One thing is that all hype is not the same and you might have technologies that disappeared after the hype such as High Temperature Semiconductors, or technologies that go through a number of hype cycles and disappointment cycles throughout their development (for example, Fuel Cells). Now with graphene what you certainly have is very ‘loud’ hype – the amount of attention it has received in so little time is extraordinary. If that is a characteristic of graphene or a consequence of the current conditions in which the hype has been developed, such as faster ways of communication (social media for example) or different incentives for science and innovation well, this is part of what I am trying to find out.

Quite clearly, the hype in graphene seems to be more ‘reflexive’ than others, that is, people seem to be more conscious about hype now. We have had the experience with carbon nanotubes only recently and scientist, companies and investors are less naïve about what can be expected of the technology, and what needs to be done to move it forward ‘in the right direction’. And they do act in ways that try to soften the slope of the hype-disappointment curve. Having said that, actors [Ed. Note: as in actor-network theory] are also aware of how they can take some advantage of the hype (for funding, investment, or another interest), how to make use of it and hopefully leave safely, before disappointment. In the end, it is rather hard to ask accountability of big promises over the long-term.

  • In the description of your work you mention intentional and implicit modes of building expectations, could explain the difference between the two?

One striking feature of technology development today is that we found more and more activities directed at learning about, assess, and shaping the future, such as forecasts, foresights, Delphi, roadmaps and so on. There are even specialized future actors such as consultancy organisations or foresight experts,  Cientifica among them. And these formalized ways of anticipating  the future are expected to be performative by those who produce them and use them, that is, influence the way the future – and the present- turns out. But this is not a linear story, it’s not like 100% of a roadmap can be turned practice (not even for the ITRS roadmap [Ed. Note: International Technology Roadmap for Semi-conductors] that sustains Moore’s law, some expectations change quite radically between editions of the roadmap). Besides that, there are other forms of building expectations which are embedded in practices around new technologies. Think of the promises made in high profile journals or grant applications; and of expectations incorporated in patents and standards. All these embody particular forms and directions for the future, and exclude others. These are implicit forms of expectation-building, even if not primarily intended as such. These forms are shaped by particular expectations which themselves shape further development. So, in order to understand how these practices, both intentional and implicit, anticipate futures you need to look at the interplay between the various types.

  • Do you see a difference internationally with regard to graphene hype? Is it more prevalent in Europe than in the North America? Is it particularly prevalent in some jurisdiction, e.g. UK?

I think the graphene ‘hype’ has been quite global, but it is moving to different communities, or actors groups, as Tim Harper from Cientifica has mentioned in his recent report about graphene

What is interesting in relation to the different ‘geographical’ responses to graphene is that they exemplify nicely how a big promise (graphene, in this case) is connected to other circulating visions, expectations or concerns. In the case of the UK, the *Nobel prize on Graphene and the following investment was connected to the idea of a perceived crisis of innovation in the country. Thus, the decision to invest in graphene was presented and discussed in reference to global competitiveness, showing a political commitment for science and innovation that was in doubt at that time.

In the European case with its *Graphene flagship, something similar happened. While there is no doubt of the scientific excellence of the flagship project, the reasons why it finally became a winner in the flagship competition might have been related to the attention on graphene. The project itself started quite humbly, and it differed from the other flagship proposals that were much more oriented towards economic or societal challenges. But the attention graphene received after the Nobel Prize, plus the engagement of some large companies, helped to frame the project in terms of its economic profitability.  And. this might have helped to bring attention and make sense of the project in the terms the European Commission was interested in.

In contrast, if you think of the US, the hype has been there (the number of companies engaged in graphene research is only increasing) but it has not had a big echo in policy. One of the reasons might be because this idea of global competition and being left behind is not so present in the US. And in the case of Canada for example, graphene has been taken up by the graphite (mining) community, which is a very local feature.

So answering your questions, the hype has been quite global and fed in a global way (developments in one place resonate in the other) but different geographical areas have reacted in relation to their contingent expectations to what this hype dynamic provided.

  • What do you think of graphene?

I think it’s the new material with more YouTube videos (this one is particularly good in over promising for example)  and the coolest superhero (Mr G from the Flagship). But seriously,  I often get asked that question when I do interviews with actors in the field, since they are curious to learn about the outsider perspective. But to be honest I try to remain as neutral and distant as possible regarding my research object… and not getting caught in the hype!

Thanks so much for a fascinating interview Carla and I very much appreciate the inclusion of Canada in your response to the question about the international response to graphene hype. (Here are three of my postings on graphite and mining in Canada: Canada’s contribution to graphene research: big graphite flakes [Feb. 6, 2012]; A ‘graphite today, graphene tomorrow’ philosophy from Focus Graphite [April 17, 2013[; and Lomiko’s Quatre Milles graphite flakes—pure and ultra pure [April 17, 2013] There are others you can find by searching ‘graphite’ in the blog’s search box.)

* For anyone curious about the Nobel prize and graphene, there’s this Oct.7, 2010 posting. Plus, the Graphene Flagship was one of several projects competing for one of the two 1B Euro research prizes awarded in January 2013 (the win is mentioned in my Jan. 28, 2013 posting).

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays to all!

Nanoscale menorah

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World's smallest hanukkiya shown next to human hair. [downloaded from http://www.cfhu.org/news/worlds-tiniest-menorah-built-by-hebrew-u-lab]

[downloaded from http://www.cfhu.org/news/worlds-tiniest-menorah-built-by-hebrew-u-lab] Courtesy of the Canadian Friends of Hebrew University of Jerusalem

It’s the time of year when scientists celebrate the season by making very small objects. This menorah was created by a team at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, from the Dec. 3, 2013 posting by Ari Yashar for the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (CFHU) website,

In honor of Hanukkah a physics laboratory at Hebrew University in Jerusalem has built the world’s tiniest hanukkiah (menorah for Hanukkah). The hanukkiah, which is the size of a dust speck, demonstrates the revolutionary abilities of the lab’s Nanoscribe system.

The Jerusalem-based laboratory, part of the Peter Brojde Center for Innovative Engineering and Computer Science, focuses on applying scientific discoveries into ground-breaking technology.

As part of its state-of-the-art research, Brojde lab recently became home of the first and only Nanoscribe system in Israel. To demonstrate the Nanoscribe’s capabilities in constructing miniscule three-dimensional structures, Yossi Kabessa and Ido Eisenberg, two doctoral students at the lab, recently built the tiniest hanukkiah in the world.

Standing at less than a tenth of a milimeter and invisible to the naked eye, the microscopic menorah is built of building blocks measuring 100 nanometers.

Here’s a little about the technology used to create the menorah, from the nanoscribe technology webpage,

Nanoscribe’s technology for the fabrication of three-dimensional micro- and nanostructures of photo-sensitive materials is based on “direct laser writing”, i.e., a non-linear two-photon absorption process. Learn more about technical backgrounds and new developments called Dip-in laser lithography (DiLL) on the following pages:

Nanoscribe’s company headquarters is located in Germany.

Getting back to the menorah, I offer a belated Happy Hannukah!

Single-element quasicrystal created in laboratory for the first time

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There’s a background story which gives this breakthrough a fabulous aspect but, first, here’s the research breakthrough from a Dec. 24, 2013 news item on Nanowerk (Note: A link has been removed),

A research group led by Assistant Professor Kazuki Nozawa and Professor Yasushi Ishii from the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Chuo University, Chief Researcher Masahiko Shimoda from the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) and Professor An-Pang Tsai from the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials (IMRAM), Tohoku University, succeeded for the first time in the world in fabricating a three-dimensional structure of a quasicrystal composed of a single element, through joint research with a group led by Dr. Hem Raj Sharma from the University of Liverpool, the United Kingdom.

The Dec. 2, 2013 National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS; Japan) press release, which originated the news item, describes quasicrystals and the reasons why this particular achievement is such a breakthrough,

Quasicrystals are substances discovered in 1984 by Dr. Dan Shechtman (who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2011). [emphasis mine] To date, quasicrystals have been found in more than one hundred kinds of alloy, polymer and nanoparticle systems. However, a quasicrystal composed of a single element has not been found yet. Quasicrystals have a beautiful crystalline structure which is closely related to the golden ratio, called a quasiperiodic structure. This structure is made of a pentagonal or decagonal atomic arrangement that is not found in ordinary periodic crystals (see the reference illustrations). Due to the complexity of the crystalline structure and chemical composition, much about quasicrystals is still veiled in mystery, including the mechanism for stabilizing a quasiperiodic structure and the novel properties of this unique type of crystalline structure. For these reasons, efforts have been made for a long time in the quest for a chemically simple type of quasicrystal composed only of a single element. The joint research group has recently succeeded in growing a crystal of lead with a quasiperiodic structure which is modeled on the structure of a substrate quasicrystal, by vapor-depositing lead atoms on the quasicrystal substrate of an existing alloy made of silver (Ag), indium (In) and ytterbium (Yb). Success using this approach had been reported for fabricating a single-element quasiperiodic film consisting of a single atomic layer (two-dimensional structure), but there had been no successful case of fabricating a single-element quasiperiodic structure consisting of multiple atomic layers (three-dimensional structure). This recent success by the joint research group is a significant step forward toward achieving single-element quasicrystals. It is also expected to lead to advancement in various fields, such as finding properties unique to quasiperiodic structures that cannot be found in periodic crystals and elucidating the mechanism of stabilization of quasiperiodic structures.

Here’s an image illustrating the researchers’ achievement,

Illustrations of the deposition structure of lead. The Tsai cluster in the substrate quasicrystal which is near the surface of the substrate is cut at the point where it contacts the surface. While lead usually has a face-centered cubic structure, it is deposited on the quasicrystal substrate in a manner that it recovers Tsai clusters which are cut near the surface of the substrate. This indicates that a crystal of lead is grown with the same structure as the structure of the quasicrystal substrate. (Courtesy National Institute for Materials Science, Japan)

Illustrations of the deposition structure of lead. The Tsai cluster in the substrate quasicrystal which is near the surface of the substrate is cut at the point where it contacts the surface. While lead usually has a face-centered cubic structure, it is deposited on the quasicrystal substrate in a manner that it recovers Tsai clusters which are cut near the surface of the substrate. This indicates that a crystal of lead is grown with the same structure as the structure of the quasicrystal substrate. (Courtesy National Institute for Materials Science, Japan)

I suggested earlier that this achievement has a fabulous quality and the Daniel Schechtman backstory is the reason. The winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, Schechtman was reviled for years within his scientific community as Ian Sample notes in his Oct. 5, 2011 article on the announcement of Schechtman’s Nobel win written for the Guardian newspaper (Note: A link has been removed),

A scientist whose work was so controversial he was ridiculed and asked to leave his research group has won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Daniel Shechtman, 70, a researcher at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, received the award for discovering seemingly impossible crystal structures in frozen gobbets of metal that resembled the beautiful patterns seen in Islamic mosaics.

Images of the metals showed their atoms were arranged in a way that broke well-establised rules of how crystals formed, a finding that fundamentally altered how chemists view solid matter.

…

On the morning of 8 April 1982, Shechtman saw something quite different while gazing at electron microscope images of a rapidly cooled metal alloy. The atoms were packed in a pattern that could not be repeated. Shechtman said to himself in Hebrew, “Eyn chaya kazo,” which means “There can be no such creature.”

The bizarre structures are now known as “quasicrystals” and have been seen in a wide variety of materials. Their uneven structure means they do not have obvious cleavage planes, making them particularly hard.

…

In an interview this year with the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, Shechtman said: “People just laughed at me.” He recalled how Linus Pauling, a colossus of science and a double Nobel laureate, mounted a frightening “crusade” against him. After telling Shechtman to go back and read a crystallography textbook, the head of his research group asked him to leave for “bringing disgrace” on the team. “I felt rejected,” Shachtman said.

It takes a lot to persevere when most, if not all, of your colleagues are mocking and rejecting your work so bravo to Schechtman! And,bravo to the Japan-UK project researchers who have persevered to help solve at least part of a complex problem requiring that our basic notions of matter be rethought.

I encourage you to read Sample’s article in its entirety as it is well written and I’ve excerpted only bits of the story as it relates to a point I’m making in this post, i.e., perseverance in the face of extreme resistance.

US National Insitute for Occupational Health and Safety issues report on strategies for handling nanomaterials

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A Dec. 19, 2013 news item on Nanowerk announces the release of a recent publication about the safe handling of nanomaterials from the US National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH), Note: A link has been removed,

Occupational health risks associated with manufacturing and using nanomaterials are not yet clearly understood. However, initial toxicological data indicate that there is reason for caution. NIOSH is committed to promoting the responsible development and advancement of nanotechnology through its research and communication efforts to protect workers. NIOSH has taken a leading role in conducting research and making recommendations for nanotechnology safety in work settings. See the nanotechnology topic page for a list of documents and resources.

Recently, NIOSH has released a document titled, Current Strategies for Engineering Controls in Nanomaterial Production and Downstream Handling Processes, which provides information on how to control exposures for many of the most common processes seen in facilities that use or produce nanomaterials or nano-enabled products.

A Nov.8, 2013 NIOSH news release provides some additional insight into NIOSH’s strategy,,

Engineering controls are favored over administrative controls and personal protective equipment for lowering worker exposures, because they are designed to remove the hazard at the source, before it comes into contact with the worker. However, evidence showing the effectiveness of controls during the manufacture and downstream use of engineered nanomaterials in specific applications has been scarce.

The NIOSH recommendations fill a gap for science-based guidance that employers and workers can apply now, as research continues for better understanding of nanomaterial characteristics, and ways in which workers may be exposed, that may pose the risk of adverse health effects.

The consumer products market currently has more than 1,000 nanomaterial-containing products including makeup, sunscreen, food storage products, appliances, clothing, electronics, computers, sporting goods, and coatings. As more nanomaterials are introduced into the workplace and nano-enabled products enter the market, it is essential that producers and users of engineered nanomaterials ensure a safe and healthy work environment, the new document states.

Processes discussed in the document and for which controls are recommended and described include reactor operations and cleanout processes, small-scale weighing and handling of nanopowders, intermediate and finishing processes, and maintenance tasks. The document also includes recommendations for evaluating the performance of control technologies and control systems.

There’s a Dec. 9, 2013 NIOSH blog posting written by Jennifer L. Topmiller and Kevin H. Dunn which provides more detail about workers’ exposure to nanomaterials,,

Engineered nanomaterials are materials that are intentionally produced and have at least one primary dimension less than 100 nanometers (nm). Nanomaterials have properties different from those of larger particles of the same material, making them unique and desirable for specific product applications.  The consumer products market currently has more than 1,000 nanomaterial-containing products including makeup, sunscreen, food storage products, appliances, clothing, electronics, computers, sporting goods, and coatings [WWICS 2011].

It is difficult to estimate how many workers are involved in this field. By one estimate, there are 400,000 workers worldwide in the field of nanotechnology, with an estimated 150,000 of those in the United States [Roco et al. 2010]. The National Science Foundation has estimated that approximately 6 million workers will be employed in nanotechnology industries worldwide by 2020.

Occupational health risks associated with manufacturing and using nanomaterials are not yet clearly understood.  However, initial toxicological data indicate that there is reason for caution. NIOSH is committed to promoting the responsible development and advancement of nanotechnology through its research and communication efforts to protect workers. NIOSH has taken a leading role in conducting research and making recommendations for nanotechnology safety in work settings. …

…

The greatest exposures to raw nanomaterials are likely to occur in the workplace during production, handling, secondary processing, and packaging. In a review of exposure assessments conducted at nanotechnology plants and laboratories, Dr. Derk Brouwer determined that activities which resulted in exposures included harvesting (e.g., scraping materials out of reactors), bagging, packaging, and reactor cleaning [Brouwer 2010]. Downstream activities that may release nanomaterials include bag dumping, manual transfer between processes, mixing or compounding, powder sifting, and machining of parts that contain nanomaterials.  Similar to controlling hazards in traditional macro-scale manufacturing, engineering controls are recommended to reduce exposures to nanomaterials.

… Because little has been published on exposure controls in the production and use of nanomaterials, this document focuses on applications that have relevance to the field of nanotechnology and on engineering control technologies currently used, and known to be effective, in other industries.

Assessing how well the exposure control works is also essential for verifying that the exposure goals of the facility have been successfully met. This document covers a range of control evaluation tools including airflow visualization and measurement and containment test methods, such as tracer gas testing. Additional methods, such as video exposure monitoring, also provide information on critical task-based exposures and helps identify high-exposure activities and help provide the basis for interventions.

intriguingly, there’s also a plea for partnership at the end of this Dec. 9, 2013 NIOSH posting,

Producers and users of engineered nanomaterials are invited and encouraged to partner with NIOSH. Companies that have installed exposure controls, such as local exhaust ventilation, or are interested in assessing and reducing worker exposures can work with NIOSH engineers to develop and evaluate exposure mitigation options. Partnering with NIOSH not only benefits your company by providing an assessment of process emissions and recommending effective exposure control approaches  but also expands the knowledge base that benefits the industry as a whole.  Please feel free to contact us through the comment section below or by sending an e-mail to nioshblog@cdc.gov.  Thank for your interest in protecting workers!

You can find the NIOSH report, Current Strategies for Engineering Controls in Nanomaterial Production and Downstream Handling Processes here.

Shocker! Science data being lost at a disturbing rate

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A Dec. 19, 2013 University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) news release (on EurekAlert) provides a shock for anyone unfamiliar with the problems of accessing ‘old’ data,

Eighty per cent of scientific data are lost within two decades, according to a new study that tracks the accessibility of data over time.

The culprits? Old e-mail addresses and obsolete storage devices.

“Publicly funded science generates an extraordinary amount of data each year,” says Tim Vines, a visiting scholar at the University of British Columbia. “Much of these data are unique to a time and place, and is thus irreplaceable, and many other datasets are expensive to regenerate.

“The current system of leaving data with authors means that almost all of it is lost over time, unavailable for validation of the original results or to use for entirely new purposes.”

For the analysis, published today in Current Biology, Vines and colleagues attempted to collect original research data from a random set of 516 studies published between 1991 and 2011. They found that while all datasets were available two years after publication, the odds of obtaining the underlying data dropped by 17 per cent per year after that.

“I don’t think anybody expects to easily obtain data from a 50-year-old paper, but to find that almost all the datasets are gone at 20 years was a bit of a surprise.”

Vines is calling on scientific journals to require authors to upload data onto public archives as a condition for publication, adding that papers with readily accessible data are more valuable for society and thus should get priority for publication.

“Losing data is a waste of research funds and it limits how we can do science,” says Vines. “Concerted action is needed to ensure it is saved for future research.”

Unfortunately, there’s nothing about the research methodology in the news release. It would be nice to know how the researchers approached the topic and whether or not they focused on biological sciences and are generalizing those results to all of the sciences,including the social sciences. It is likely more or less true of all the sciences as there is a major issue with being able to access data over time. Whether or not the researcher can provide access to the data set, which is a problem in itself, there’s also the issue of obsolete hardware, software, and formats, problems that haunt the arts, the sciences, and the humanities, as well as, business and government. One of my more recent postings about the issue of archiving data is this March 8, 2012 posting and there’s this March 9, 2010 posting (I believe it was my first on the topic). I also mentioned the current Council of Canadian Academies assessment Memory Institutions and the Digital Revolution in a June 5, 2013 posting.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the UBC study,

The Availability of Research Data Declines Rapidly with Article Age by Timothy H. Vines, Arianne Y.K. Albert, Rose L. Andrew, Florence Débarre, Dan G. Bock, Michelle T. Franklin, Kimberly J. Gilbert, Jean-Sébastien Moore, Sébastien Renaut, Diana J. Rennison. Current Biology, 19 December 2013 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.11.014
Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.

This paper is behind a paywall.