The Kinmen County Fisheries Research Institute and National Tsing Hua University are collaborating on a research project aimed at eliminating the need to use horseshoe crab blood in tests to detect bacterial contamination in drugs and intravenous devices as well as other medical items.
A horseshoe crab blood extract, specifically the substance tachyplesin, is used in Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) solutions and LAL tests, as well in by in biomedical industries for toxin-free surgical sutures and in the development of wound dressings for burn victims.
However, it takes a liter of horseshoe crab blood to produce 20cc of tachyplesin and research by US universities has shown that horseshoe crabs faced a 2 to 3 percent chance of dying if one-10th of their blood is extracted.
Photo: Wu Cheng-ting, Taipei Times
A research team headed by university professor Margaret Chang (張大慈) aims to employ genetic engineering technology to “plant” genes that produce tachyplesin in the Escherichia coli virus in the hopes that the E. coli virus’ gram-negative nature will stimulate production of tachyplesin.
If successful, the research might remove the need to extract blood from horseshoe crabs entirely, the institute said.
The team arrived in Kinmen on Wednesday to draw the first batch of horseshoe crab blood to be used in research.
Institute staff member Li Chin-chao (黎錦超) said the research would be the first in the nation aimed at helping promote the conservation of horseshoe crabs.
High demand for horseshoe crab blood, coupled with its limited supply put its price at about US$15,000 per liter.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS