Since 1998 there has been a serious public health problem in South East Asia of counterfeit antimalarial drugs containing no or minimal amounts of the active antimalarial ingredient, this has led to deaths from untreated malaria, reduced confidence in this vital drug, created large economic losses for the legitimate manufacturers, and led to concerns that this antimalarial drug might cause resistance. As the situation continues to deteriorate, a group of police, criminal analysts, chemists, palynologists (people who study pores, pollen and certain algae), and health workers collaborated to determine the source of these counterfeits.

What did they find?

Red blood cells infected with Plasmodium falciparum: This thin film Giemsa stained micrograph reveals ring-forms, and gametocytes of Plasmodium falciparum.
Courtesy cdcThey analyzed a total of 391 samples of genuine and counterfeit artesunate (the anti-malarial drug) collected in Vietnam (75), Cambodia (48), Lao PDR (115), Myanmar (Burma) (137) and the Thai/Myanmar border (16). They found sixteen different fake types of the drug. High-performance liquid chromatography and/or mass spectrometry confirmed that all specimens thought to be counterfeit (195/391, 49.9%) contained no or small quantities of artesunate (up to 12 mg per tablet as opposed to ∼ 50 mg per genuine tablet). Chemical analysis demonstrated a wide diversity of wrong active ingredients, including banned pharmaceuticals, such as metamizole, and safrole, a carcinogen, and raw material for manufacture of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (‘ecstasy'). Evidence from chemical, mineralogical, biological, and packaging analysis suggested that at least some of the counterfeits were manufactured in southeast People's Republic of China. This evidence prompted the Chinese Government to act quickly against the criminal traders with arrests and seizures. Go to PLoS Medicine for the full scientific article and a very well written editor’s summary.

What Do these Findings Mean?
From the PLoS editor’s summary…
The results were crucial in helping the authorities establish the origin of the fake artesunate. For example, the authors identified two regional clusters where the counterfeit tablets appeared to be coming from, thus flagging a potential manufacturing site or distribution network. The presence of wrong active pharmaceutical ingredients (such as the older antimalarial drugs) suggested the counterfeiters had access to a variety of active pharmaceutical ingredients. The presence of safrole, a precursor to the illicit drug ecstasy, suggested the counterfeits may be coming from factories that manufacture ecstasy. And the identification of minerals indigenous to certain regions also helped identify the counterfeits' origin. The researchers concluded that at least some of the counterfeit artesunate was coming from southern China. The Secretary General of INTERPOL presented the findings to the Chinese government, which then carried out a criminal investigation and arrested individuals alleged to have produced and distributed the counterfeit artesunate.
The collaboration between police, public health workers and scientists on combating fake artesunate is unique, and provides a model for others to follow. However, the authors note that substantial capacity in forensic analysis and the infrastructure to support collaborations between these different disciplines are needed.

Tags : malaria, infectious disease, spectroscopic analysis, detective

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Analysis of remains from a gladiator graveyard has revealed new information about how the battling athletes had lived their lives.

Tough times for the losing gladiators: Pollice Verso. 1872 gladiator painting by Jean-Leon Gerome. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.It’s the first scientifically verified cemetery of it’s kind and is adding much to gladiator lore and legend, with new information on how they lived and died.

The site was first found about 5 years ago in Ephesus, a major Roman city in Turkey, and contained the mixed remains of some 67 individuals, nearly all of them under 30 years of age. Many showed signs of healed wounds.

For much of the past five years, two Austrian forensic anthropologists at the Medical University of Vienna have been studying and cataloguing the remains. Professors Karl Grossschmidt and Fabian Kanz have analyzed every bone measuring for age, injury and cause of death. The study’s results have surprised even them.

One of the skeletons showed signs of two major healed wounds to the skull, and tested as being much older than the others – 50 years of age at the time of death, a ripe old-age for Roman times. This evidence, along with a gravestone dedicated by two young gladiators to the memory of a trainer named Euxenius, suggests that the remains may be those a former gladiator-turned-trainer.

Gladiators were the professional athletes of ancient Roman times, battling each other, or even wild animals or condemned criminals, for the amusement of the masses in arenas spread throughout the Empire. Sometimes the battles were to the death.

Like today’s professional athletes, gladiators were venerated by the Roman populace, and celebrated in everything from mosaics to graffiti. Images of the sporting fighters grace nearly 1/3 of the oil lamps found in archaeological sites around the ancient empire.

But the adoration sometimes came at a price. Some of the corpses show signs of mortal wounds, such as blows to the head with three-pointed tridents.

"The bone injuries - those on the skulls for example - are not everyday ones, they are very, very unusual, and particularly the injuries inflicted by a trident, are a particular indication that a typical gladiator's weapon was used," Professor Karl Grossschmidt said.

Other scars indicate some sort of blunt hammer-like instruments were sometimes used, possibly by an assistant in the arena to relieve wounded battlers from their suffering.

"I assume that they must have been very severely injured gladiators, ones who had fought outstandingly and so had not been condemned to death by the public or by the organizer of the match, but who had no chance of surviving because of their injuries. It was basically the final blow, in order to release them," said Professor Kanz.

But some gladiators met other fates.

Written records tell that if the crowd was dissatisfied with a fighter’s performance or his lack of courage, demands for his death could be heard across the arena, and he would be expected to accept his fate with some semblance of dignity. Relief pictures from those times show a kneeling man being done in by having a sword rammed down his throat and into his heart.

Despite the gruesomeness of it all, the gladiators seemed to have been treated well in general. They were well fed especially before matches. Analysis of their bones show high levels of strontium, indicating a strict vegetarian diet, probably barley and beans. Strontium is also known to strengthen bones and speed-up the healing process.

"The Romans may have known more about the human body than we ever thought possible," said Dr Kanz.

Some of the corpses –including that of Euxenius- also showed evidence of high-level medical treatment, such as amputation and head surgery. Galen, considered the father of modern surgery, lived and practiced only 60 miles away, and was also known to have worked at a gladiator training school. Strong evidence of his techniques were noted on many of the remains Kanz and Grossschmidt examined.

Gladiators entered each match with about a 1 in 3 chance of surviving the battle, but if they lasted three years, they would win their freedom, and sometimes, like Euxenius, they would become teachers at the gladiator training school, and live out their lives quite comfortably.

LINKS AND MORE INFO

Gladiators at Ephesus
BBC website story
Panoramic Virtual Tour of Ephesus
More photos of Ephesus
BBC Television press release

Tags : archaeology, spectroscopic analysis, ancient Rome, gladiators

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Tyrannosaurus rex: The Denver Museum of Nature and Science's T-rex doing the Funky Chicken, a dance that's been passed down to his barnyard descendents. Photo courtesy Mark Ryan.Researchers have concluded that the collagen protein extracted from the bones of a 68-million year old Tyrannosaurus rex is very similar to that found in a present day chicken. The analysis supports the theory that birds are the closest living descendents of the ferocious prehistoric predators.

Two years ago paleontologist Mary Schweitzer and colleagues at North Carolina State University announced they had discovered soft tissue inside the femur of a Tyrannosaurus that had to be broken in pieces for transport. The vessels and cells discovered inside the bone were so elastic they could still be stretched like rubber bands. Initial studies of the material revealed it to be surprisingly similar to that found in an ostrich. Read Gene’s posting of the story here, and you can examine some of the photos that Bryan posted here.

But now more detailed spectroscopic analysis of the collagen’s amino acids show that they match sequences found in the genomes of modern species. John M. Asara, of the Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center in Boston did the spectroscopic analysis using amino acid sequences from seven short fragments of collagen. One sequence matched that of a frog, one matched a newt, but three of the sequences matched those of a chicken. Until now skeletal similarities had been mainly used to link to the two species.

“This allows you to get the chance to say, ‘Wait, they really are related because their sequences are related,’” Asara said. “We didn’t get enough sequences to definitely say that, but what sequences we did get support that idea.”

The new results appear this week in the journal Science.

Source story in Minneapolis Star Tribune
National Geographic story on T-rex soft tissue discovery
Science News story on T-rex soft tissue discovery
Wired story on T-rex soft tissue discovery

Tags : evolution, dinosaurs, paleontology, Tyrannosaurus rex, spectroscopic analysis

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