American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- March 5, 2008

Eco-minded drivers in drought-prone states take note: A new study concludes that producing electricity for hybrid and fully electric vehicles could sharply increase water consumption in the United States. It is scheduled for the June 1 issue of ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.

In the study, Carey W. King and Michael E. Webber note that policy makers often neglect the impact that fleets of hybrid and electric vehicles could have on already-scarce water resources. They calculated water usage, consumption, and withdrawal during petroleum refining and electricity generation in the United States. Each mile driven with electricity consumes about three times more water (0.32 versus 0.07-0.14 gallons per mile) than with gasoline, the study found.

“This is not to say that the negative impacts on water resources make such a shift undesirable,” King and Webber emphasized. “Rather this increase in water usage presents a significant potential impact on regional water resources and should be considered when planning for a plugged-in automotive economy.” — AD

ARTICLE #2 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
“The Water Intensity of the Plugged-In Automotive Economy”

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es0716195

CONTACT:
Michael E. Webber, Ph.D.
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas
Phone: (512) 475-6867
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ARTICLE #3 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Researchers develop more computer-aided drug design
Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling

Researchers in Germany report an advance toward the much awaited era in which scientists will discover and design drugs for cancer, arthritis, AIDS and other diseases almost entirely on the computer, instead of relying on the trial-and-error methods of the past. Their study is scheduled for the March 24 issue of ACS’ Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, a bi-monthly publication.

In the report, Michael C. Hutter and colleagues note that computer-aided drug design already is an important research tool. The method involves using computers to analyze the chemical structures of potential drugs and pinpoint the most promising candidates. Existing computer programs check a wide range of chemical features to help distinguish between drug-like and nondrug materials. These programs usually cannot screen for all features at the same time, an approach that risks overlooking promising drug-like substances.

In the new study, researchers describe a more gradual and efficient system. Their new program uses an initial quick screen for drug-like features followed immediately by a second, more detailed screen to identify additional drug-like features. They applied this new classification scheme to a group of about 5,000 molecules that had previously been screened for drug-like activity. The new strategy was more efficient at identifying drug-like molecules “whereby up to 92 percent of the nondrugs can be sorted out without losing considerably more drugs in the succeeding steps,” the researchers say. — MTS