Laser Barbecue (3) The SMAP team almost got the Nobel Prize!

Believe it or not, we were very close to get the Nobel Prize. The research on which we were putting all our efforts in the SMAP team has been awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine in 1997. The receiver of the prize was Stanley B. Prusiner. He was the one who evidenced the role of prion in the degenerative process at the origin of dementia and in the sponge consistence of the brain leading to death in the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (also termed mad cow disease). In our previous studies, we had pointed out the importance of prion (see laser barbecue 2) and developed a method to fight against it with lasers. The approach we carried out with our laser technology has considerably attracted attention in the world of medicine. When we heard that this Nobel Prize had been awarded while we were about to make our method known, in the SMAP team no one could conceal their amazement. The Nobel Prize was just one small step ahead. But, as S.B. Prusiner said, research about prion has just started and there is still much to do about it. Next chance will be ours.

And just after this, we were even more amazed when we heard about the Nobel Prize in physics. Still in 1997, it was awarded for pioneering works on atom refrigeration with lasers. It happens that one of our former members had been showing deep interest in atom refrigeration methods as off their first stages and suggested that it would be a hot topic in the following years. But we did not let ourselves defeat by this frustration and entered in a combative research mode without wasting time lamenting on the past. In the SMAP team, all our minds are oriented towards our main future success: delicious barbecue.

But what is the SMAP team? Our name stands for Super Meat by Advanced Photons. We are a non-profit and independent research group putting all our efforts in the accomplishment of laser barbecue.

Our potential can be already revealed in regular barbecue events. Without forgetting our motto “delicious barbecue with lasers”, we are entirely devoted to developing the laser barbecue technology. We call this the Road to Yakiniku (barbecue in Japanese). Recently, research on prion has been flourishing and our research has found more academic motivations. It started with the mad cow disease in England and ended with the concept of "healthy laser barbecue".

Let’s get back to the discussion about the Nobel Prize. The discovery made by S.B. Prusiner is that prion is a non-pathogenic nucleic acid. Actually it’s just a simple protein. So how can substances having no DNA or RNA transmit infections? This is a question that remained unanswered for a long time. The reason why a protein (so, neither a virus nor a bacterium) can cause such terrible diseases is yet unknown. An important point here is that the SMAP method which aims at killing the bacteria with UV beams cannot be used in entities that do not possess nucleic acids. In consequence, it is impossible to destroy prion this way.

What we know is that 2 kinds of prion exist and that they differ by their two-dimensional structures: the normal prion (α helix type) and the scrapie prion (βsheet type). The normal prion is harmless and commonly present in people with good health. However, genetic mutations can change the normal form of the prion into the scrapie type and, after several years of incubation, the first symptoms appear such as dementia and ataxia. Death can then eventually follow.

In becomes then crucial to carry out health inspections checking the existence of scrapie prion in the body and, if presence is detected, to extract it. This is where the SMAP team enters into action again. The difference between the two kinds of prion can only be found in their two-dimensional structure. More precisely, they can be discriminated by their helix or plane (sheet-like) structure. And there is no other way to do this discrimination that laser technology. In the SMAP team, we suggest to focus on optical rotation properties. The molecules constituting the proteins cause a rightwards rotation of the light stronger than common amino-acids. This is due to their helix-shaped structure. In consequence, entities of which the helix structures that have been altered bring a leftwards contribution to the light rotation. By using this phenomenon, we can evaluate the amount of proteins having a helix-shaped structure. With a laser probe measuring optical rotation properties, the relative proportion of the two kinds of prion can be estimated. By detecting the ratio of scrapie prion, the disease can be diagnosed in early stages and treatment can be administrated before it becomes too late.

The ambitious projects of the SMAP team have yet just begun. Next time, the Nobel Prize will be ours. However, we must not forget that our real target is to implement healthy barbecues and we are still looking for kind fellows ready to endorse our activity.