Blood types A, B converted to type O

Mon Apr 2, 2007 8:12PM BST
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – In a report released Sunday, researchers describe the use of newly discovered enzymes to convert blood types A, B, and AB into O, the universal donor type.

Blood types are based on the type of a molecule, called agglutinogen, found on the surface of red blood cells. Types A, B, or AB can clump together if mixed, but type O does not react with other types.

More than two decades ago, researchers began testing the concept of removing the surface proteins on red blood cells to create universal blood cells, according to the report in the April 1st online issue of Nature Biotechnology.

In 2000, findings from a trial showed that type B red blood cells could be converted into type O cells, which then survive normally when given to type A and O individuals. However, the usefulness of this approach was limited by the large amount of enzymes required for the conversion.

In the present study, Dr. Henrik Clausen, from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, and colleagues describe two previously unknown enzymes, small amounts of which are capable of efficiently removing the A and B agglutinogen.

“The enzymatic conversion processes we describe hold promise for achieving the goal of producing universal red blood cells, which would improve the blood supply while enhancing the safety of clinical transfusions,” Clausen and his team conclude.

SOURCE: Nature Biotechnology, online April 1st, 2007.

Who Leads the Middle East?

A Saudi Desert Fox
King Abdullah brushes aside the United States and seeks to take the lead in a strife-torn Middle East.
By Christopher Dickey
April 9, 2007 issue – Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah often has the weary air of a simple man who’s lived long enough to see it all, and in many ways he has. He was born more than 80 years ago, into a world of desert warriors where his father had yet to conquer the holy cities of Mecca and Medina or found the nation that Abdullah rules today. No oil flowed from beneath the sands. No Israel existed. The whole of the modern Middle East, for better or worse, has been created in his lifetime.
Yet now, say senior Saudi princes and members of the government, Abdullah has grown so angry and “emotional” about the disasters confronting the region that he’s decided to take on a new role. No longer will Saudi Arabia play backup while its ally the United States fronts the band. Abdullah has grown frustrated, almost bitter, with the fecklessness of a divided Arab world. As if taking a line from Plato’s Republic—”He who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one worse than himself”—the old king is now trying to lead on virtually every sensitive issue in the Middle East, from an Arab-Israeli peace to Darfur.

This surge of diplomatic initiative has baffled Washington. Bush officials worry whether Abdullah’s new activism will ultimately support U.S. policy or undermine it. The Saudi monarch minced few words last week in his address to the summit of Arab kings, princes, prime ministers and presidents in Riyadh. Without diplomatic nicety, he condemned the “illegitimate foreign occupation” of Iraq. “Blood flows between brothers … threatening a civil war,” he harshly declared. American officials quickly noted that U.S. forces operate under a United Nations mandate, renewed every year. But there was no mistaking Abdullah’s angry frustration with both the Americans’ failure to bring order, after launching an ill-conceived invasion, and the Iraqis’ own penchant for violence.

The threat of civil wars among the Lebanese and Palestinians has also aroused his passion—as have Tehran’s efforts to exploit the unrest to spread its Islamic revolution. The Saudis see Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s incendiary rhetoric against Israel as a crass bid for support among embittered Arabs, both Sunni and Shiite. And they consider Iran’s race to become a nuclear power a direct threat to Saudi Arabia’s own influence, if not its survival, as well as a provocation to the United States that will bring more war to the region. “Do you think those U.S. warships are out there on vacation?” Abdullah warned Ahmadinejad when they met a few weeks ago in Riyadh, according to sources close to the royal family.

Abdullah’s fears about Iran’s hegemonic ambitions date at least to September 2005. “It seemed at the time as if Iraq were being presented to the Iranians on a silver platter,” says Turki Al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief who was then ambassador to Washington. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal, the ambassador’s brother and, like him, the son of a former king, met with George W. Bush last May to press Saudi concerns. “We have two nightmares about our relationship with Iran,” he told the president, according to Turki. “One is that Iran will develop a nuclear bomb, and the other is that America will take military action to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb.”

Over the summer, however, U.S. officials started getting what seemed to be very different signals from other Saudi officials. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a close friend of the Bush family and for years a charismatic figure on the Washington scene, had been appointed as Abdullah’s national-security adviser. As Bandar made frequent trips to visit members of the Bush administration, word spread in Washington that he was advocating a blatantly aggressive line against Tehran and its clients in the region, possibly including efforts to undermine Hamas in the Palestinian territories, support for Israel’s efforts to take out Hizbullah in Lebanon and even military action against Iran’s nuclear installations. (At the height of Bandar’s back-channel activity, Ambassador Turki Al-Faisal suddenly resigned for what he said were personal reasons.) The Israeli press reported without official confirmation that Bandar had also met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in a third country. Bandar was unavailable for comment, and U.S. officials declined to discuss their conversations with him. Other Saudi officials flatly denied that Bandar had met with any member of the Israeli government.

Amid all this noise, Vice President Dick Cheney flew to Saudi Arabia to spend several hours with King Abdullah over Thanksgiving weekend. No official word about that meeting has been forthcoming, but according to usually well informed Saudi sources, if Cheney thought the king would endorse military action against Iran, he was mistaken. Since then, Abdullah’s policy has been quite clearly to talk to Iran and its clients—whether Washington wants him to or not.

But he’s also been talking tough. In Lebanon, the Saudis have reached out not only to their longtime allies but to Hizbullah as well, seeking to restore the unity of a government bitterly divided between anti-Syrian and pro-Syrian factions. Even more ambitiously, Abdullah has tried to restart the Arab-Israeli peace process. If his emotions were running high before, he must have been beside himself over the increasingly violent clashes between Hamas, which gets Iranian support, and the Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, pushing the Palestinians toward civil war. “He just couldn’t take that,” says Foreign Minister Al-Faisal.

Summoning the leaders of Fatah and Hamas to Mecca, Abdullah successfully pressured them to stop the fighting and form a unity government. When he then faced criticism from the Bush administration and Israel for undermining efforts to isolate Hamas, he was, according to one source close to the royal family, “furious.”

By now, Abdullah is on a roll. He used last week’s Arab summit to relaunch a peace initiative he had first proposed five years ago. It promises full recognition and peace for Israel with all Arab countries if and when it withdraws to its 1967 borders and an equitable solution is found for the future of Palestinian refugees. Far from dismissing the plan, as in the past, Olmert left the door open to further talks. “Saudi Arabia is the country that in the end will determine the ability of the Arabs to reach a compromise with Israel,” he said.

At a time when the future of so much of the Middle East is so bleak, the old scion of desert warriors may yet find new paths toward peace. At least, he’s out there looking, and leading.

Times have changed

Show of power at king’s palace reflects growing Saudi influence in region

Orly Azoulay

Published:

03.29.07, 17:05

var agt=navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();var is_major = parseInt(navigator.appVersion);var is_ie = ((agt.indexOf(“msie”) != -1) && (agt.indexOf(“opera”) == -1));var is_ie5 = (is_ie && (is_major == 4) && (agt.indexOf(“msie 5.0″)!=-1) ); function txt_link(type,url,urlAtts) { switch (type){ case ‘external’ : if( urlAtts != ” ) {var x = window.open(unescape(url),’newWin’,urlAtts)} else {document.location = unescape(url);} break; case ‘article’ : urlStr = ‘/articles/0,7340,L-to_replace,00.html’;url=urlStr.replace(‘to_replace’,url); if( urlAtts == ” || !urlAtts) {document.location = url;} else {var x = window.open(url,’newWin’,urlAtts)} break; case ‘yaan’ : urlStr = ‘/yaan/0,7340,L-to_replace,00.html’;url=urlStr.replace(‘to_replace’,url); if( urlAtts == ” || !urlAtts) {document.location = url;} else {var x = window.open(url,’newWin’,urlAtts)} break; case ‘category’ : urlStr = ‘/home/0,7340,L-to_replace,00.html’; url=urlStr.replace(‘to_replace’,url); if( urlAtts == ” || !urlAtts) {document.location = url;} else {var x = window.open(url,’newWin’,urlAtts)} break; } } function setDbLinkCategory(url) {eval(unescape(url));} Riyadh: The power of the Saudi kingdom, which is gradually becoming a leading force in the Middle East, didn’t go unnoticed at the Arab Summit in Riyadh.

The heads of the Arab states coming through the congress palace doors in Riyadh couldn’t ignore the opulent wealth evident in every corner: From the Italian marble highlighted by bright lights, to the solid gold faucets in the bathrooms, the shining crystal chandeliers hanging from the expansive session halls ceiling, through to the gold trays bearing the emblem of the royal court on which lunch was served.

A fleet of thousands of shiny new cars had been put at the disposal of the guests. Officials of the Saudi Information Ministry accompanied them to the conference sessions. The hundreds of journalist who arrived from all over the world to cover the summit were taken aback by the luxurious press center prepared for them. Royal guards dressed in white robes and bearing golden swords were stationed in each of the session rooms.

This demonstration of Saudi power is the climax of a recently developing process. The US has realized that its support for Israel coupled with its desire to enforce democracy as was the case in Iraq, served to anger the Arab world and weakened its ability to serve as Mideast mediator.

Thus, in recent weeks Washington has shifted its policies and has decided to come closer to the Arab world. This decision has transformed Saudi Arabia, which is closely affiliated to the American Administration, into a bridge between the US and the Arabs states.

The Riyadh summit has established Saudi Arabia’s status as a regional superpower. The reconciliation process between Israel and the Arab world led by the Saudi kingdom has granted the Saudis the status of a popular mediator sought by all.

Leaders of the region are seeking Saudi assistance in resolving the conflicts plaguing them. The Syrian president has asked the Saudis to add him to the diplomatic process being consolidated; the Lebanese president placed the issue of the instability of his country on King Abdullah’s table; and the Sudanese president made pilgrimage to Riyadh in the hope that the king would assist him in finding a solution to the ongoing tragedy in the Darfur region.

Egyptians unhappy

Heads of the Saudi kingdom are now trying to also use their influence on Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who arrived at the summit at the very last moment, in order resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis.

Only the Egyptian representatives at the summit walked around bearing an angered expression. It’s easy to see how humiliated and offended the Egyptians are by the Saudi’s takeover of their leadership role in the Mideast arena. Times have changed: Processes that will evolve shortly in the Middle East and Africa will pass through King Abdullah’s courtyard.

Saudi Arabia has managed to bring about an agreement between the Palestinians, which paved the way to the establishment of a unity government, a Saudi official who was proud of his country’s new status told me.

He said the Saudis shall continue on this path. He added that they initiated the reconciliation between Israel and the Arab world and will soon convene a joint conference with the participation of representatives from the Middle East and the Quartet, in order to build the engine that will move the peace process forward.

Contrary to him, there are some who contend that Saudi Arabia is attempting to establish a coalition in the Arab world in order to sabotage Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Diplomatic sources at the conference told me that behind the scenes the following move is being consolidated: The US has realized that it is losing its power due to its tendency for unilateralism towards Israel and has decided to get closer to Saudi Arabia so that it would consolidate a moderate Arab coalition.

However, just like in Washington, there are no free meals in Riyadh either: In order for the Saudis to enter this process, the Americans assured them that they would exert pressure on Israel to make difficult decisions and to reach a compromise that would enable the Palestinians to establish an independent state. Thus, the US would be granted a type of Arab umbrella for a diplomatic or military campaign against Iran, whereas Saudi Arabia would be able to boast before the Arab world that it had succeeded in bringing about an Israeli compromise.

Symbolic and historic event

A senior official in the Saudi administration told me that had the Israeli prime minister’s political status been stronger, it may well be assumed that the peace train would have proceeded much faster. “There’s a serious process here,” he said.

He told me that the fact that I, a representative of an Israeli newspaper, was present there is not incidental. He added that this was a “symbolic and historic event.” It’s not just a sign for Israel; it is primarily aimed at the Arab world as if to say: Look, speaking to the Israelis is possible, he said.

The presence of an Israeli journalist in the Saudi king’s palace sparked considerable unease. Following publication in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Arab journalists and media outlets tried to locate me for an interview. Al-Jazeera reported my visit in its news update, as did the French news agency and the Los Angeles Times.

A journalist working for an Arab TV network told me this has created quite a commotion in the Arab world, and that not everyone was in favor. He said that according to the majority of Arabs, Israel is a cruel occupier. The conference is clearly an Arab world event, and even though it was known that your presence here would irritate a lot of people – the Saudi foreign minister himself invited you, he said. “That says a lot. He has the power and courage to do things that lack consensus.”

The Saudis with whom I spoke to during the conference responded with friendliness to my visit. “You are our guest,” the official from the Information Ministry accompanying the journalists told me, “perhaps one day we too shall be your guests in your country.”