INDEX: A Piggy-Back Satellite for Advanced Technology Demonstration

This paper describes outline of the piggy-back satellite INDEX for demonstration of advanced satellite technologies as well as for a small scale science mission. INDEX satellite will be launched in 2002 by Japanese H2-A. The satellite is mainly controlled by the high-speed, fault-tolerant on-board RIes processor (three-voting system of SH-3). The attitude control is a compact system of three-axis stabilization. Although the size of INDEX is small (50Kg class), several newly-developed technologies are applied to the satellite system, including silicon-on-insulator devices, variable emittance radiator, solar-concentrated paddles, lithium-ion battery, and GPS receiver with all-sky antenna-coverage. These technology developments will be applied to Japanese scientific space exploration in future

Chemotherapy cytotoxicity of human MCF-7 and MDA-MB 231 breast cancer cells is altered by osteoblast-derived growth factors

One-third of women with breast cancer will develop bone metastases and eventually die from disease progression at these sites. Therefore, we analyzed the ability of human MG-63 osteoblast-like cells (MG-63 cells), MG-63 conditioned media (MG-63 CM), insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I), and transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGP-beta 1) to alter the effects of adriamycin on cell cycle and apoptosis of estrogen receptor negative (ER-) MDA-MB-231 and positive (ER+) MCF-7 breast cancer cells, using cell count, trypan blue exclusion, flow cytometry, detection of DNA fragmentation by simple agarose gel,and the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT)-mediated nick end-labeling method for apoptosis (TUNEL assay). Adriamycin arrested MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells at G(2)/M phase in the cell cycle and inhibited cell growth. In addition, adriamycin arrested the MCF-7 cells at G(1)/G(0) phase and induced apoptosis of MDA-MB-231 cells. Exogenous IGF-I partially neutralized the adriamycin cytotoxicity/cytostasis of cancer cells. MG-63 CM and TGF-beta 1 partially neutralized the adriamycin cytotoxicity of MDA-MB-231 cells but enhanced adriamycin blockade of MCF-7 cells at G(1)/G(0) phase, MG-63 osteoblast-like cells inhibited growth of MCF-7 cells while promoting growth and rescued MDA-MB-231 cells from adriamycin apoptosis in a collagen coculture system. These data suggest that osteoblast-derived growth factors can alter the chemotherapy response of breast cancer cells. Conceivably, host tissue (bone)-tumor cell interactions can modify the clinical response to chemotherapy in patients with advanced breast cancer