Win $2,000 and save lives – help stop teens from texting and driving

In 2008 [the most recent data available], nearly 6,000 people died and more than half a million were injured in crashes involving a distracted driver, according to research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

With the spread of all kinds of new phone technology, one can imagine that those numbers continue to rise.

More than 20 percent of all crashes that same year involved some type of distraction – talking on a cell phone, texting and driving, eating, applying make-up, reading a map, talking with friends in the car, and the like.

The largest number of fatal crashes involved drivers under the age of 20.

The NHTSA also found that 40 percent of teenagers say they have been in a car when the driver used a cell phone in a way that put themselves or others in danger.

And that one in four American teens admit to texting while driving.

The U.S. Department of Transportation, Seventeen magazine and AAA today [Aug 2} announced a national “Two-Second Turnoff Day” Viral Video Challenge.

The video contest ends on Sept. 10.

The video challenge is about raising awareness about distracted driving. The winner will be featured as part of Seventeen’s National Two-Second Turnoff Day, on Sept. 17, 2010.

According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, taking your eyes off of the road for two seconds doubles your crash risk.

It also only takes two seconds to turn off the phone before getting behind the wheel.

Video about the contest, from Seventeen Magazine

Seventeen magazine is holding a National Two-Second Turnoff Day to remind teens to take two seconds and turn off the phone while driving.

According to a survey sponsored by Seventeen Magazine and the automotive organization AAA, 86 percent of teens know that distracted driving is dangerous, “and they do it anyway,” says Editor in Chief of Seventeen Magazine Ann Shoket.

“This contest helps teens hammer in [the message], the real danger of driving while distracted, to prevent accidents and save lives,” she says.

Can you get through to them?

So, the idea of the “viral video challenge” is to raise awareness among young people about the dangers of talking on a cell phone and/or texting while driving.

The challenge is to develop something catchy and creative enough to make the point stick.

You must be a teenager to enter. The official entry form can be downloaded at www.seventeen.com/twosecond.

Once you’ve completed your anti-distracted driving video, upload it to the Seventeen site, and get as many people as you can to view it.

The winning video will be featured at DOT’s second Distracted Driving Summit on Sept. 21, 2010 and on Seventeen.com, AAAExchange.com, and Distraction.gov.

The winner also receives a $2,000 prize sponsored by AAA and Discover.

To learn more about the National Two-Second Turnoff Day Video Challenge, visit www.seventeen.com/twosecond.

For more information on the dangers of distracted driving, visit www.distraction.gov and www.AAAExchange.com.

Posted Aug. 3, 2010

Editor’s note: if you submit a video, please feel free to tell us in the comment section – this will help you with your goal of getting the most number of viewers.

Flu vaccine in a skin patch?

Once placed on the skin, the “microneedles” pass through the surface skin layers, moisten, and dissolve, and thereby deliver flu vaccine to antigen-presenting cells. Photo courtesy of Georgia Tech.

You’ve probably heard of patches for delivering nicotine-replacement therapy or hormones for birth control. But what about other uses, such as vaccination?

For many years, researchers have been working to find a way to deliver flu vaccine – whose components are much larger than those of nicotine and hormones – using a transdermal (across the skin) patch.

One method, developed by scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, uses a new type of patch made of dissolving “microneedles,” which are tiny, painless needles that allow flu vaccine to pass through the skin.

A new study [testing the patch on mice] compares “microneedle” patches to traditional hypodermic needles to vaccinate mice against the flu.

This study was led by Georgia Tech’s Mark Prausnitz, Ph.D. and Sean Sullivan, Ph.D., Emory University’s Dimitrios Koutsonanos, Ph.D., Ioanna Skountzou, Ph.D., and Richard Compans, Ph.D.

The “microneedles” in this study were made of the polymer polyvinylpyrrolidone, a compound that has been previously tested and found to be nontoxic.

The investigators found “microneedles” to be at least as effective as hypodermic needles, and by some measures, more so.

The research was supported by the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

Melding engineering and biology

Dr. Prausnitz’s lab at Georgia Tech spent several years studying vaccine delivery.

“Our goal is to use engineering technology to solve drug delivery problems,” he explains. “We want to administer vaccines in a way that would be easy for patients.”

The investigators used an innovative method to create the microneedle patches.

In a process known as “in situ polymerization,” they mixed liquid vinylpyrrolidone with the vaccine, poured the mixture into a “microneedle” mold, and exposed it to ultraviolet light. This induced polymerization, creating much larger molecules.

Once placed on the skin, the “microneedles” pass through the surface skin layers, moisten, and dissolve, and thereby deliver flu vaccine to antigen-presenting cells in the skin. [Generally speaking, these are cells that indicate they are carrying an infection.]

These cells then break down antigens and display them to other immune cells. [In other words, they alert other cells that fight infection that there’s a problem.]

The body mounts an immune response to those antigens, and is thereby prepared to fight off the virus in the future.

When the “microneedles” fully dissolve – within a few minutes – the patch can be removed and disposed.

Also reduces spread of flu

After vaccination, the researchers measured flu antibody levels in the blood [of the mice] and found no difference between mice who received the “microneedle” vaccine and those who received a hypodermic injection.

In fact, when vaccinated mice were exposed to flu virus, those that received the “microneedle” vaccine were significantly better protected than those that received a hypodermic injection.

Four days after being exposed, mice in the “microneedle” group were able to clear the virus out of their lungs 1,000 times more efficiently than mice in the hypodermic group.

“Viral load is an important measure because it addresses the source of the problem: virus in the lungs. Microneedle vaccination brought the viral load in the lungs almost to zero,” says Dr. Prausnitz.

A reduced “viral load” may also have implications for the spread of flu; if a person expels less virus with a cough or sneeze, transmission may be reduced.

Self-vaccination

Microneedle patches also have practical advantages over traditional hypodermic injections:

• they take up less space in clinics,

• do not require special disposal (as hypodermics do),

• are inexpensive to make,

• and may be simple enough for patients to self-administer at home.

Because of these advantages, they could have important benefits for public health.

If these results can be replicated in humans, not only would people who receive the vaccine be better protected from the flu, but it may be easier for more people to get vaccinated.

If more people are vaccinated, fewer people are likely to get sick and be able to pass the virus on to others, lowering everyone’s chances of being exposed.

Why does it work?

The researchers are currently exploring the reasons why “microneedle” delivery resulted in reduced “viral load” in mice.

“Microneedle” skin patches target a different set of immune cells than conventional intramuscular injection [flu shots], notes Dr. Prausnitz.

“I don’t think the improvement in immunogenicity is something unique to microneedles, but rather is unique to delivery through the skin. Microneedles enable that to take place,” he says.

In answering this question, they are studying the immunologic pathways triggered by delivery to the skin.

They are also reaching out to experts in other infectious diseases, to test this delivery approach with different vaccines.

Dr. Prausnitz cites the growing importance of collaboration in this research.

“This study is one of more and more examples where the tools of engineering can be combined with the expertise of bioscientists, to obtain results that would have been hard to get without collaboration.”

Posted Aug. 3, 2010

Editor’s note: My clarifying comments appear in [brackets].

Related link: http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/6739.php?from=108642