Monthly Archives: April 2012

With autism, no longer invisible

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Jesse Wilson, 8, plays a game called FaceMaze at the autism center Joseph Sheppard co-directs at the University of Victoria.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Victoria, British Columbia (CNN) — Joseph Sheppard has an IQ above 130. Ask him about his life or worldview and he’ll start drawing connections to cosmology and quantum mechanics. He’ll toss around names of great intellectuals — Nietzsche, Spinoza — as if they’re as culturally relevant as Justin Bieber.

It might not be obvious that Sheppard has a hard time with small tasks that most of us take for granted — washing dishes, sending packages, filling out online forms. Or that he finds it challenging to break out of routines, or to say something appropriate at meaningful moments.

Sheppard, 42, has high-functioning autism. He found out only about six years ago, but the diagnosis explained the odd patterns of behavior and speech that he’d struggled with throughout his life. And it gave him the impetus to reinvent himself as an autism advocate.

“I was invisible until I found my inner splendor,” he told me in one of many long, philosophical, reflective e-mails last week. “My ability to interpret and alter my throughput of judgments, feelings, memories, plans, facts, perceptions, etc., and imprint them all with what I chose to be and chose to do.

“What I choose to do is change the course of the future for persons with autism, because I believe in them and I believe, given the right support and environment, they will be a strong force in repairing the world.”

Just last week, U.S. health authorities announced that autism is more common than previously thought. About 1 in 88 children in the United States have an autism spectrum disorder, according to the report. Autism spectrum disorders are developmental conditions associated with impaired social communication and repetitive behaviors or fixated interests.

iReport: What should the world know about autism?

Diagnoses have risen 78% since 2000, partly because of greater awareness, and partly for reasons entirely unknown. Most medications don’t help, and while some find improvements with intense (and expensive) behavioral therapy, there is no cure .

Continued here:
With autism, no longer invisible

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Searching for the why behind rising autism rate

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By Catherine Lord, Special to CNN

updated 5:08 PM EDT, Sun April 1, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor’s note: Catherine Lord is the director of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain, a subsidiary of Weill Cornell Medical College and New York Presbyterian Hospital.

(CNN) — This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its newest study on the rate of autism among 8-year-olds, showing that 1 in 88 has some form of the disorder. Previously, it was 1 in 110. Does the new figure indicate that we are seeing an epidemic of autism, as some have speculated?

At this point, it’s not clear.

One possibility is that we are seeing the result of better detection rather than a real surge in autism.

Catherine Lord

However, there are some striking parts about the study, which used data from 2008 collected in 14 sites across the United States. The rate of autism increased by more than 45% from 2002 to 2008 in numerous sites. It was a larger and more consistent increase than from 2002 to 2006. Also intriguing is that the increase was very uneven in terms of geography, gender, race and ethnicity.

Some sites had nearly five times as many children with autism as others. In several sites, almost 1 in 33 8-year-old boys were diagnosed with autism. This seems difficult to believe, particularly when these sites had smaller samples and children with less severe intellectual disabilities.

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Searching for the why behind rising autism rate

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Stem cell institute to work with foreign agencies

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California’s $3 billion stem cell agency, now more than 7 years old, has joined research partnerships with science and health agencies in eight foreign countries, the San Francisco institute announced.

The agreements call for collaboration in efforts aimed at speeding stem cell research from the laboratory to the hospital, where researchers hope that basic human cells will be programmed to treat scores of human degenerative diseases.

Research partnerships between American and foreign stem cell scientists are encouraged, but the California institute’s funds would only be spent within the state, institute officials said.

Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, signed agreements with stem cell funding agencies in Brazil and Argentina last week, he said Thursday.

“Both Brazil and Argentina have strong and robust stem cell research communities in basic science and transitional clinical science, which should create exciting synergies with many scientists in California,” Trounson said in a statement.

He has signed similar pacts with stem cell agencies in Canada, Britain, France, Spain, Australia, Japan, China and Indiana.

The California institute was created in 2004 after Proposition 71, a $3 billion bond issue, was approved by California voters at a time when use of federal funds was barred for research into the promising field of embryonic stem cells.

So far the state agency has committed $1.2 billion to scientists and training centers at 56 California institutions, and the rest of the bond money should last until 2020, a spokesman said.

This article appeared on page C – 9 of the SanFranciscoChronicle

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Stem cell institute to work with foreign agencies

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A Transcript of "Elixir of Life"

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An Australian program featuring researchers Aubrey de Grey and David Sinclair: “It feels like science fiction, but it’s actually true. And we’re really at the cutting edge, it’s a really exciting time in the field right now. … There’s no such thing as ageing gracefully. I don’t meet people who want to get Alzheimer’s disease, or who want to get cancer or arthritis or any of the other things that afflict the elderly. Ageing is bad for you, and we better just actually accept that. As far as I’m concerned, ageing is humanity’s worst problem, by some serious distance. … Now if you think that’s an overstatement, consider this: world-wide, a hundred and fifty thousand people die each day, two-thirds of them from ageing. That means potentially one hundred thousand people could be saved every day with therapies that combat ageing. … Ageing is simply and clearly, the accumulation of damage in the body. That’s all that ageing is. What it’s going to take is development of thoroughly comprehensive regenerative medicine for ageing. That means medicine which can repair the molecular and cellular damage that accumulates in our bodies throughout life, as side effects of our normal metabolic processes. … We do not know what humanity of the future is going to want to do. If thirty or fifty years from now people don’t have the problems that we thought they might have, but we didn’t develop those therapies, so those people have to die anyway, after a long period of decrepitude and disease, then they’re not going to be terribly happy are they? That’s why we have a moral obligation to develop these technologies as soon as possible.”

Link: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3465499.htm

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Investigating Intestinal Bacteria and Aging in Nematodes

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There’s a range of research to indicate that gut bacteria are important in the relationship between metabolism and aging, though the situation in higher animals is probably far more complex than in nematode worms: “A powerful approach to understanding complex processes such as aging is to use model organisms amenable to genetic manipulation, and to seek relevant phenotypes to measure. Caenorhabditis elegans is particularly suited to studies of aging, since numerous single-gene mutations have been identified that affect its lifespan; it possesses an innate immune system employing evolutionarily conserved signaling pathways affecting longevity. As worms age, bacteria accumulate in the intestinal tract. However, quantitative relationships between worm genotype, lifespan, and intestinal lumen bacterial load have not been examined. We hypothesized that gut immunity is less efficient in older animals, leading to enhanced bacterial accumulation, reducing longevity. To address this question, we evaluated the ability of worms to control bacterial accumulation as a functional marker of intestinal immunity. … We show that as adult worms age, several C. elegans genotypes show diminished capacity to control intestinal bacterial accumulation. We provide evidence that intestinal bacterial load, regulated by gut immunity, is an important causative factor of lifespan determination; the effects are specified by bacterial strain, worm genotype, and biologic age, all acting in concert. … In total, these studies focus attention on the worm intestine as a locus that influences longevity in the presence of an accumulating bacterial population. Further studies defining the interplay between bacterial species and host immunity in C. elegans may provide insights into the general mechanisms of aging and age-related diseases.”

Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22452899

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More Visceral Fat Means More Inflammation

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Yet another study showing a correlation between chronic inflammation and abdominal fat: “Obesity-related increases in multiple inflammatory markers may contribute to the persistent subclinical inflammation common with advancing age. … We used factor analysis to identify inflammatory factor(s) and examine their associations with adiposity in older adults at risk for disability. … [Inflammatory markers] were measured in 179 participants from the Lifestyle Interventions and Independence for Elders Pilot (Mean ± SD age 77 ± 4 years, 76% white, 70% women). Body mass index, waist circumference, and total fat mass were assessed by anthropometry and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. … Greater total and abdominal adiposity are associated with higher levels of an inflammatory factor related to CRP, IL-1ra, and IL-6 in older adults, which may provide a clinically useful measure of inflammation in this population. … [The associations were determined] after adjusting for age, gender, race/ethnicity, site, smoking, anti-inflammatory medications, comorbidity index, health-related quality of life, and physical function. These associations remained significant after further adjustment for grip strength, but only waist circumference remained associated with inflammation after adjusting for total lean mass.” Waist circumference is a better correlation with the amount of visceral fat packed around the organs in comparison to body mass index.

Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22451470

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More Commentary on Russia 2045

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An article by Ben Goertzel over at h+ Magazine discusses the Russia 2045 initiative, a program I’ve noted on a couple of occasions. A few highlights:

For 3 days in late February, Russian businessman Dmitry Itskov gathered 500+ futurists in Moscow for a “Global Future 2045 Congress” – the latest manifestation of his “Russia 2045″ movement. … The occurrence of a conference like this in Russia is no big shock, of course. Russia has a huge contingent of great scientists in multiple directly Singularity-relevant areas; and it also has an impressively long history of advanced technological thinking . My dear departed friend Valentin Turchin wrote a book with Singularitarian themes in the late 1960s, and the Russian Cosmists of the early 1900s discussed technological immortality, space colonization and other futurist themes long before they became popular in the West.

…

It’s unclear from the online conference abstracts and other Russia 2045 materials just how much actual work is going in Russia on right now, explicitly oriented toward realizing the exciting visions Itskov describes; and it’s also unclear to what extent Itskov’s “Russia 2045″ movement serves an active R&D role, versus a visionary and publicity role. It appears that most of the concrete science and engineering work at the conference was presented by scientists who had made their breakthroughs outside the context of the “Russia 2045″ project; whereas Itskov and the other Russia 2045 staff were largely oriented toward high-level visioning. But of course, Russia 2045 is a new initiative, and may potentially draw more researchers into its fold as time progresses.

…

Ray Kurzweil gave a fairly glowing report, noting “It was a well funded conference, funded by a number of major corporations in Russia….. There was significant representation from the mainstream press. The ideas were taken seriously. There were people from companies, from academe, from government…. The comparison to Humanity+ or the Singularity Summit is reasonable…. The people at the conference (about 500-600) were pretty sophisticated about all the issues you and I talk and write about.”

…

Clearly there are many smart scientists and engineers in Russia doing directly Singularity-relevant things; and Itskov’s Russia 2045 organization seems to be doing a good job of attracting public and political attention to this work. What amount of concrete work is actually going on toward Itskov’s list of grand goals is unclear to me at present, but certainly seems something to keep an eye on.

As Goertzel notes, there are the standard reasons for caution before becoming too taken by this project – but unlike the usual situation for an emerging initiative there is already a fair amount of money involved. So if we outsiders adopt a wait and see approach, matters will undoubtedly become more clear in time. Either there will be tangible progress, leading to more outreach and collaboration with the scientific community, or there will not. Either way it can be taken as a confirmation that the time is becoming right for far greater public support of longevity engineering: building longer healthy lives and attempting to reverse or effectively work around the consequences of aging.

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Separating Out the Effects of Rapamycin

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Via EurekAlert!: researchers have “explained how rapamycin, a drug that extends mouse lifespan, also causes insulin resistance. The researchers showed in an animal model that they could, in principle, separate the effects, which depend on inhibiting two protein complexes, mTORC1 and mTORC2, respectively. The study suggests that molecules that specifically inhibit mTORC1 may combat age-related diseases without the insulin-resistance side effect. … The mTOR complexes, for mammalian (or mechanistic) target of rapamycin, are proteins that regulate cell growth, movement, and survival, as well as protein synthesis and transcription. Specifically, there are two mTOR complexes and one mTOR protein. The mTOR protein is the core of both complexes (mTORC1 and mTORC2), which behave differently based on their associated proteins. One or both of the mTOR complexes can be inappropriately activated in certain cancers, and dual-specific inhibitors are being developed as chemotherapeutic agents. Several theories have been put forward by researchers to explain the observations that patients receiving rapamycin are more prone to developing glucose intolerance, which can lead to diabetes. Chronic treatment with rapamycin impairs glucose metabolism and the correct functioning of insulin in mice, despite extending lifespan. The research team demonstrated that rapamycin disrupts mTORC2 in the mice, and that mTORC2 is required for the insulin-mediated suppression of glucose metabolism in the liver. On the other hand, they also demonstrated that decreasing mTORC1 signaling was sufficient to extend lifespan independently from changes in glucose metabolism. They used a mouse strain in which mTORC1 activity was decreased and saw that lifespan was extended by 14 percent, yet the animals had normal glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity.”

Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-03/uops-dol032612.php

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SENS5 Video: Talking About AGEs and Aging

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Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) such as glucosepane are what you might think of as a sort of biological rust. They build up as an undesirable side-product of the chemistry of life and damage important molecular machinery in and around cells by sticking to molecules or sticking molecules together, making it impossible for them to do their jobs. The increase in AGE levels in the body with advancing age isn’t a matter of straight accumulation over time – it’s more dynamic than that, and the level of AGEs in the diet may play some role – but eventually it becomes enough to cause serious harm. Aging is little more than damage, and AGEs are one form of that damage.

The SENS Foundation is currently sponsoring research into therapies to break down glucosepane, what is probably the most important AGE in humans. I see that the UK-based research group has a few web pages devoted to their work, on one of which is offered some explanation as to why the drug industry isn’t all that much help when it comes to building ways to tackle AGEs:

There are two difficulties with creating AGE-breaker drugs. Firstly, AGEs are chemical targets, not genes or proteins. Almost all of pharmaceutical research over the last 40 years has been orientated to finding drugs that interact with proteins, and with the genes that make those proteins. So we cannot call on the trillions of dollars of research and technology development that have created the modern drug industry to help us (very much – we can use some of it). Secondly, AGEs are pretty stable and tough. That is inevitable – they are in essence the physiological equivalent of the black stuff on the bottom of your baking tin – what is left after years of use and the dishwasher. (In the case of humans, ‘the dishwasher’ is an array of mechanisms that take care of nearly all the waste products of metabolism.) We know how to break them quite easily, but only using a process that would also dissolve every protein in your body. The trick is finding a way to cleave them and leave all the rest of you intact.

Here is a recently posted video from last year’s SENS5 conference in which one of the research groups focused on AGEs discusses their work:

Advanced glycation end-products are a class of natural products that form non-enzymatically on exposed protein residues in the human body. AGEs accumulate as a result of normal metabolism and aging, and significant elevations in these molecules have also been observed in the plasma of patients with chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cancer, arthritis, cardiovascular disease, and others. Our laboratory is taking an orthodox approach to studying these materials; we have initiated a synthetic program to prepare AGE- adducts on large scale and in chemically homogenous form. This talk will describe ongoing efforts along these lines, with a particular focus on exploring a class of arginine-derived AGEs. Chemical and biological insight arising from these studies will also be discussed. It is our hope that this small molecule-based strategy will serve to shed new light on the role of AGEs in both healthy and disease physiology.

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The immune boosting power of garlic

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by: Dr. David Jockers

Garlic is a pungent herb and one of nature's best anti-biotics. Due to the powerful sulfur containing nutrients and immune stimulators within garlic, it is classified as a superfood herb. Consumption of garlic daily may be one of the best defense's against infection and inflammatory based disease.

Garlic has been used by many cultures throughout the history of mankind as a medicinal tool. The Sumerians and other groups around the Mediterranean region had a great reverence for its ability to fight infection. An Egyptian writing dating back to 1500 BC discusses the use of garlic for over 22 common health challenges. These same Egyptians fed a heavy garlic diet to their slaves to increase their strength as they built the great pyramids. Read more...

AyurGold for Healthy Blood

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The immune boosting power of garlic

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by: Dr. David Jockers

Garlic is a pungent herb and one of nature's best anti-biotics. Due to the powerful sulfur containing nutrients and immune stimulators within garlic, it is classified as a superfood herb. Consumption of garlic daily may be one of the best defense's against infection and inflammatory based disease.

Garlic has been used by many cultures throughout the history of mankind as a medicinal tool. The Sumerians and other groups around the Mediterranean region had a great reverence for its ability to fight infection. An Egyptian writing dating back to 1500 BC discusses the use of garlic for over 22 common health challenges. These same Egyptians fed a heavy garlic diet to their slaves to increase their strength as they built the great pyramids. Read more...

AyurGold for Healthy Blood

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GE Healthcare completes acquisition of SeqWright, Inc., expanding capabilities in fast growing molecular diagnostic segment

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GE Healthcare adds to its medical diagnostics business with additional sequencing and next generation technologies.  

In a few years it is entirely conceivable all of one's healthcare from cradle to grave will be supplied by a few providers for technical services.  From the amniocentesis to imaging your broken bones in childhood, to personalizing your colon, breast, lung or colon cancer and then the directed therapy to treat such cancer, could all be provided for by the likes of GE or Roche or another multi-national health services technology and treatment provider with personalized diagnoses, companion diagnostics, imaging and therapy.  

Addition of high growth company builds on Clarient’s biopharma service capabilities and provides platform to offer sequencing-based clinical diagnostics in the future

St Giles,UK – 4 April 2012 – GE Healthcare, a unit of GE (NYSE: GE) announced today that it has acquired SeqWright, Inc., a provider of nucleic acid sequencing and other genomic services.  The acquisition adds complementary genomics capabilities to Clarient, a unit of GE Healthcare and a leader in the fast-growing molecular diagnostics sector. The deal also provides a platform for Clarient to expand its clinical diagnostic offerings to include next generation sequencing. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“Understanding how genetic variation at the molecular level impacts disease is critical in the continued discovery and development of new and more effective therapies, and increasingly in the management of patient care through the use of more precise diagnostic tests,” said Pascale Witz, President and CEO, GE Healthcare, Medical Diagnostics.  “Combining the expertise and capabilities of the two companies will enable GE Healthcare to offer a substantially wider range of services to the biopharmaceutical, diagnostic and research industries and eventually to patients and health care providers.”

Molecular diagnostics provide precise information about a patient’s disease and can help doctors decide on the best treatment.  The rapid increase in the incidence of cancer worldwide, together with advances in specific cancer-focused therapies, is driving significant demand for molecular diagnostics. 

“As a CLIA-certified service provider, we are in a position to capitalize on the growing role next- and third -generation DNA sequencing technologies will play in clinical diagnostics,” said Fei Lu, President and CEO of SeqWright. “This partnership will put us in a position to apply the power of new direct detection technologies to clinical and companion diagnostics, potentially revolutionizing the way healthcare decisions are made. 

As biopharma companies continue to develop large portfolios of increasingly targeted therapies, the need for fast, accurate and cost effective sequencing technologies and services to determine the genetic profile of patient samples becomes vital to clinical trials and the development of companion diagnostics.  SeqWright has an extensive history of projects that focus on clinical trial and regulatory support for companion diagnostic submissions. The complementary capabilities of Clarient & SeqWright will allow the combined business to add immediate incremental value to existing pharmaceutical and biotechnology partnerships throughout their drug development and companion diagnostic development efforts. 

“Sequencing, including next-generation DNA sequencing, is an important technology for GE’s medical diagnostics business,” said Carrie Eglinton-Manner, CEO of Clarient.  “The acquisition of a specialized laboratory with long-standing expertise in the sequencing field as well as an established customer base allows us immediate entry into this high-growth space, and is an ideal complement to Clarient’s existing protein and gene expression profiling in support of pharmaceutical and in vitro diagnostic studies.”

Clarient provides pathologists and oncologists with access to diagnostic tests that shed light on the complex nature of various cancers by combining innovative diagnostic technologies with pathology expertise to assess and characterize cancer.  Clarient is focused on developing novel, proprietary diagnostic markers and tests for the profiling of breast, lung, colon, melanoma and blood-based cancers, to help clinicians make informed decisions on how best to treat their patients.  Given the increasing importance of more targeted cancer diagnostics, Clarient is well positioned to bring differentiated, added-value molecular diagnostic products and services to market.  Since 2007, Clarient’s revenues have grown at an approximate 30 percent compounded annual growth rate.

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.

Our "healthymagination" vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our web site at http://www.gehealthcare.com.

For our latest news, please visit http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com

About SeqWright, Inc. 

Founded in 1994, SeqWright, Inc. is a full-service nucleic acid technology contract research organization focused primarily on traditional and next-generation nucleic acid sequencing.  SeqWright is CLIA certified and GLP compliant, enabling the company to offer services in support of product regulatory submissions.  With over 17 years of genomics experience, SeqWright has built a reputation for quality, technical expertise and a willingness to customize services to meet its customers' individual needs.  The company’s mission is to drive scientific and medical innovation by helping to facilitate and accelerate the research and development efforts of its customers. 

SeqWright is based in Houston, Texas and employs approximately 34 people. For more information, please visit the company’s website at http://www.seqwright.com

 

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Frost & Sullivan: Industry Push toward Quantitative Imaging Positions Computer Aided Detection and Diagnosis Adequately for Renewed Clinical Expansion

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Notwithstanding recessionary trends, participants continue spirited R&D efforts to expand product portfolios

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Since the inception of the market in 1998 and until 2008, revenue from the North American computer aided detection and diagnosis (CAD) market continued to grow rapidly year over year. It surpassed the $100 million mark for the first time in 2007. However, this upward trend was reversed in 2009 due to several factors affecting global healthcare. Once confined to image analysis and pattern recognition algorithms, CAD solutions have expanded dramatically in recent years to provide more workflow management functions for the diseases and conditions they cover.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan's (http://www.medicalimaging.frost.com) North American Market for Computer-aided Detection and Diagnosis research finds that the market earned revenue of $103.5 million in 2010 and estimates this to reach$181.7 million in 2017.

If you are interested in more information on this research, please send an email to Britni Myers, Corporate Communications, atbritni.myers@frost.com, with your full name, company name, job title, telephone number, company email address, company Web site, city, state and country.

"From CAD solutions used on the spot, some have evolved into computer-assisted decision-making solutions or computer-assisted pre-surgical assessment solutions, whereby they provide more of an end-to-end solution used prior, during and after treatment or surgery and for accessing databases for clinical decision support," said Frost & Sullivan Principal Analyst Nadim Daher. "Applications such as prostate treatment or liver transplantation will drive CAD from a mere detection and diagnosis tool to a more complete solution providing image based analytics, disease quantification, treatment assessment, and workflow management."

Regardless of the unfavorable market conditions prevailing in North America since 2008, CAD industry participants have continued to fuel their R&D efforts and expand their product portfolio. As a result, the market is slowly starting to move towards multi-modality solutions, a trend that is poised to broaden market appeal of CAD through numerous sales channels.

Reimbursement is a key element in the business model for CAD purchases. The profitability of medical imaging service lines is being challenged as reimbursement rates for procedures continue to fall at the rate of a few percentage points annually due to various Medicare reimbursement cuts and healthcare reforms. In this tough economic landscape, it becomes difficult for clinicians to justify the extra cost that CAD adds to imaging procedures, without a clear financial return.

The business case for CAD becomes more challenging within, as well as outside, mammography. As for its clinical case, it is balanced by greater clinical acceptance on one hand, and slowing technology innovation on the other.

In light of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) draft guidance documents for CAD technology issued in October 2009, CAD vendors are facing a toughening regulatory environment and, as a result, will be slower in bringing CAD innovation to the marketplace.

"Despite imaging providers' budgets starting to free up during the latter part of 2010, CAD has not been in the best position to return to its historical double-digit growth rates," said Daher. "Current market dynamics suggest that the market will continue upon a steady, but not explosive, growth path."

A careful analysis of the clinical benefits, the impact on workflow, and the return on investment (ROI) of CAD solutions will be crucial for CAD vendors to drive more favorable purchasing decisions within a widening addressable marketplace. This market reality calls for greater customer education efforts from the vendors about CAD, as well as more effective communication and collaboration with existing and prospective customers.

North American Market for Computer-aided Detection and Diagnosis is part of the Advanced Medical Technologies Growth Partnership Service program, which also includes research in the following markets: Cloud Computing in Medical Imaging (Vital Signs); Molecular Imaging Equipment (PET, SPECT, and Hybrid Systems); Computer Aided Detection and Diagnosis; Healthcare Reform and Medical Imaging (Vital Signs); Cardiovascular Image and Information Management Systems; U.S. Core Modality Market Update: CT, MRI, DR/CR, Fusion Imaging (Vital Signs); Digital Pathology Image Management Systems; Personalized Medicine (Vital Signs); and Medical Ultrasound Imaging Equipment. All research services included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.

About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation, and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages 50 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visithttp://www.frost.com.

 

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Where does all of healthcare gather to discuss digital?

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“The International Healthcare Social Media & Web 2.0 Conference”

  • NEW: EARLY BIRD III EXTENDED UNTIL APRIL 10, 2012! Sign-Up Now!
  • Sample our Testimonials   Angel Gonzalez ”my sincere message of congratulations for all of  your effort on bringing to life this special conference that, for me, has got the category of ‘Gold-Standard’ in Health 2.0!”  Giovanna Marsico ”I recommend this rendez-vous in Paris as the major event in Europe for all people interested in Health and Medicine 2.0 and Social Media.”  Berci Mesko  “Doctors 2.0 and You 2011 in Paris was THE medical social media conference of the year and I can’t even imagine how great the next event will be with more participants with even more topics covered. I look forward to speaking there and I encourage everyone from pharma to patient groups and doctors to participate in these discussions.”  Pedro Pinto ”…pragmatic shared experiences, excellent network and great business opportunities… we are now involved in a vibrant and collaborative community of people who really want to make things change. Congratulations for this excellent work!”  

Producers/Organizers

Basil Strategies Team is delighted to prepare this exciting event. See the Basil Strategies team page.

What is Doctors 2.0™ & You?

The second edition of the must-attend annual health care social media conference in Paris ; the only international congress devoted to the understanding of how physicians use New Technologies, Web 2.0 tools, Social Media to communicate with other health care professionals, patients, payers, pharmaceutical companies, public agencies…

Who should participate?

Those who decide on and or benefit from e-services to physicians : professional and patient associations, pharmaceutical companies, governments, payors.
Who within these organizations is concerned? Program organizers, strategists, trainers, communicators, marketing professionals and IT specialists.
Please note that physicians practicing in France will benefit from CPD credit by attending this conference.

When / Where?

May 23-24 2012 in the City of Lights – Paris! The conference will take place at Cité Universitaire in Paris (to know more, click here). There will also be an amazing Cocktail Soirée on the 23rd, taking place at at an exclusive location to be announced soon!

Why?

Doctors 2.0™ & You will again be THE conference on this subject in 2012. You will meet the stars of Web 2.0 and Social Media for Health Care and Medicine. You will get a special look at the impact of the latest technologies on the relation between physicians and patients, colleagues, industry, the public sector. And maybe, just maybe,  you might win one of the contest’s prizes.

Meet our Advisory Board

Doctors 2.0™ & You is supported by the combined effort of Basil Strategies and the Advisory Team which include: (Austria) Michaela Endemann, (Canada) Pat Rich, (France) Catherine Cerisey, Alain Clergeot, Raphaëlle Laubie, (Germany) Alex Schachinger, Len Starnes, (Greece) Kathi Apostolidis, (Hungary) Berci Mesko, (Israel) Yossi Bahagon, (Italy) Roberto Ascione, Giovanna Marsico, (Netherlands) Janine Budding, Rob Halkes, (Spain) Jorge Juan Fernandez Garcia, Angel Gonzalez, (Switzerland) Silja Chouquet, (UK) Felix Jackson, (USA) Larry Chu, John Mack and Lawrence Sherman. For more information about the Advisory Board, please visit the Board of Advisors 2012 page.

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ATA 2012: The Year’s Biggest Telemedicine, Telehealth & mHealth Event

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San Jose event features 200 exhibitors, 450 peer-reviewed presentations, and keynote by Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak

WASHINGTON, April 2, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The ATA 2012 Annual Meeting (April 29 - May 1 in San Jose, California) is the world's largest meeting and tradeshow focusing exclusively on telemedicine, telehealth, mHealth and cutting-edge remote healthcare technologies. With more than 4,000 attendees, 200 exhibitors, 450 peer reviewed presentations and a keynote by Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, ATA 2012 will keep you up-to-date on the rapidly changing field of telemedicine.

Register now to stay up-to-date on the research, technologies and applications that are changing modern healthcare -- and save 15 percent in the process with code ata15disc. The ATA 2012 Educational Program features diverse and critical topics for the up-to-date healthcare professional and contains over 450 peer-reviewed presentations, exploring an array of topics related to telemedicine, telehealth, mHealth and remote medical technologies.

2012 will be our biggest exposition ever with more than 200 exhibiting companies showcasing the latest telemedicine technologies--many of which are being unveiled for the first time to the public. Whether you are just getting familiar with telemedicine or you're in the market to buy now, register today for a FREE Expo-Only Pass to see, test and handle the latest telehealth technology.

To view the multimedia content associated with this story, click here

Register here.

SOURCE: American Telemedicine Association

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Amazon Web Services Hosts Human Genetics Catalog in the Cloud

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By hosting the human genetics catalog in the cloud, AWS gives researchers instant access to the complete 1000 Genomes Project on AWS, enabling scientists to accelerate disease research.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that the complete 1000 Genomes Project is now available on AWS as a publically available data set.

AWS and NIH announced the news at the White House Big Data Summit on March 29. The announcement makes the largest collection of human genetics available to researchers worldwide, free of charge. The 1000 Genomes Project is an international research effort coordinated by a consortium of 75 companies and organizations to establish the most detailed catalog of human genetic variation, AWS officials said.

The project has grown to 200 terabytes of genomic data, including DNA sequenced from more than 1,700 individuals that researchers can now access on AWS for use in disease research. The 1000 Genomes Project aims to include the genomes of more than 2,600 individuals from 26 populations around the world, and the NIH will continue to add the remaining genome samples to the public data set this year.

The 1000 Genomes Project started out with pilot phases in 2008 that included just a couple terabytes of data, AWS told eWEEK. In 2010, NIH made a small portion of that data available on AWS as a public data set, and due to the positive feedback from scientists, it decided to make the 1000 Genomes Project as it stands today at more than 2000TB of data fully accessible on AWS. The amount of data produced by the 1000 Genomes Project is unprecedented in biomedical research, NIH officials said. NIH, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, serves as one of the data coordinators for the 1000 Genomes Project.

"Previously, researchers wanting access to public data sets such as the 1000 Genomes Project had to download them from government data centers to their own systems, or have the data physically shipped to them on discs," said Lisa D. Brooks, Ph.D., program director for the Genetic Variation Program, National Human Genome Research Institute, a part of NIH, in a statement. "This process took a long time, and that's assuming a lab had the bandwidth to download the data and sufficient storage and compute infrastructure to hold and analyze the data once they had it. We are happy that the 1000 Genomes Project data are on AWS to give researchers anywhere in the world a simple way to access the data so they can put the data to work in their research."/p>

"Putting the data in the AWS cloud provides a tremendous opportunity for researchers around the world who want to study large-scale human genetic variation but lack the computer capability to do so," said Richard Durbin, Ph.D., co-director of the 1000 Genomes Project and joint head of human genetics at the Welcome Trust Sanger Institute, in Hinxton, England.

AWS said for researchers to download the complete 1000 Genomes Project on their own servers, it would take weeks to months, and that s assuming they had the bandwidth to download the data and enough hardware and storage to hold it. To do meaningful analysis on the data, researchers often needed access to very large, high performing compute resources, which cost hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars, AWS officials said. The NIH was selected as one of the data coordinators for the 1000 Genomes Project, and it wanted to remove this friction and make the data as widely accessible as possible, so researchers can immediately start analyzing and crunching the data, even if they don t have the large budgets that are traditionally required for this level of data analytics, AWS said.

Public Data Sets on AWS provide a centralized repository of public data stored in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS). The data can then be directly accessed from AWS services such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and Amazon Elastic MapReduce (Amazon EMR), eliminating the need for organizations to move the data in-house and then procure enough technology infrastructure to analyze the data effectively, AWS said.

For its part, AWS highly scalable compute resources are being used to power big data and high-performance computing applications such as those found in science and research. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Langone Medical Center at New York University, Unilever, Numerate, Sage Bionetworks and Ion Flux are among the organizations leveraging AWS for scientific discovery and research. AWS is storing the public data sets at no charge to the community. Researchers pay only for the additional AWS resources they need for further processing or analysis of the data.

To read the original eWeek article, click here: AWS Hosts Human Genetics Catalog in the Cloud

 

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Activating Stilled Lives: The Aesthetics and Politics of Specimens on Display; International Conference at the Department of History of Art, UCL

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This exciting conference--free and open to all!--just announced! Looks like a good one; so wish I could go!

Cultures of Preservation
Prepared specimens appear in many guises: as monstrous or typical organs preserved in formaldehyde and kept in glass jars not unlike pickled food, as stained and fixed tissue slices, or as skilfully arranged mounted animals. They may be found in cabinets of curiosities, in the laboratories of histologists, in anatomy theatres or in natural history collections, but nowadays equally in art galleries, the shop windows of fashionable boutiques, or horror films. This research network is concerned with such kinds of preserved natural objects, in particular with anatomical wet or dry preparations and taxidermy. It explorses the hybrid status of these objects between nature and representation, art and science and studies their fabrication, history and display.

The network is a collaboration between the UCL Department of History of Art, UCL collections, in particular the Grant Museum of Zoology, the Hunterian Museum, London and the Natural History Museum, London.

Activating Stilled Lives: The Aesthetics and Politics of Specimens on Display
International conference at the Department of History of Art, UCL
Thursday 17 May - Friday 18 May 2012

The past twenty years saw an explosion of exhibitions fathoming the relations between art and science as well as numerous refurbishments of natural history or former colonial museums. Many of these displays and gallery transformations mobilised specimens, be it taxidermied animals or preserved human body parts. Objects were put into new contexts opening up their meanings, others disappeared in storage or travelled back to the countries where they were once collected. The conference will address the challenges institutions face when dealing with formerly living entities and consider the aesthetics and politics of their display. The idea is to discuss the use of specimens in temporary exhibitions, museums or university collections and the role curators, art and artists have been playing in the transformation of these spaces. We also would like to consider how preserved specimens have changed through the altering contexts in which they have been displayed. One could name the initial transformation of organisms into objects, the more recent re-definition of pathological specimens as human remains, or the dramatic rearrangements that took place when natural history, anthropology or anatomy collections (many dating from the nineteenth century) were updated – coinciding with a shift in audiences, from specialists to a broader public. Often the historical displays were significantly altered, or even destroyed and replaced by „techy“ but at times also sentimentalised, „post-modern“ installations that still await a critical assessment.

Beyond that, the question of preservation shall be considered in a more expanded sense, as this subject area offers a unique opportunity to reflect more broadly on issues of conservation and their ethics and to raise a variety of questions such as: How and why do various cultures preserve elements of what is considered as nature? How does this relate to environmental notions of conservation and extinction? Should flawed specimens be disposed of? Can museums as a whole be considered cultural preserves? Should we preserve the preserves? And last but not least: Do we really need to embalm everything?

Confirmed speakers: Claude d'Anthenaise (Director, Musée de la chasse et de la nature, Paris), Steve Baker (Artist and Art Historian, Norfolk), Christine Borland (Artist, Glasgow), Mark Carnall (Curator, Grant Museum of Zoology, London), Nélia Dias (Anthropologist, Lisbon), Anke te Heesen (Museology / European Ethnology, Berlin), Petra Lange-Berndt (Art Historian, London), John MacKenzie (Professor Emeritus of Imperial History, Lancaster), Robert Marbury (Artist / Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermy, Baltimore), Angela Matyssek (Art Historian, Marburg / Maastricht), Lisa O'Sullivan (Curator, Science Museum/art-history/events/culture_of_preservation London), Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (Historian of Science, Berlin), Rose Marie San Juan (Art Historian, London), Johannes Vogel (Director, Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin)

Detailed programme: For further information please contact
Mechthild Fend m.fend(@)ucl.ac.uk or Petra Lange-Berndt p.lange-berndt(@)ucl.ac.uk

More information available here.

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"O Death Where Is Thy Sting?" or Happy Easter Everyone!

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Easter week celebrates the moment when, in Christian metaphysics, mortality is overcome by everlasting life. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ redeems mankind from the sinful state into which mankind fell through Adam's disobedience to the will of God in the garden of Eden. His resurrection liberates us from eternal perdition: in Saint Paul's famous words (I Corinthians, XV.54-55) "So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory'. O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?".

These concepts were articulated with fresh force in the later sixteenth century through the Counter-Reformation, in media such as altarpieces, sermons, the educational work of the Jesuit Order, and through devotional prints which were widely disseminated. Here we present four such prints from the holdings of the Wellcome Library...

Read the entire article from which this excerpt is drawn--and see more images!--on the excellent Wellcome Library blog by clicking here; click on image to see a much larger, more detailed view.

Image: Engraving after Maerten de Vos, late 16th century. Wellcome Library no. 23283i.

As described on the blog:

Finally in this sequence, we have the powerful figure of Christ triumphing over death. The upper part combines two scenes: Christ is simultaneously resurrected from the tomb and ascends into heaven. In the lower left corner, Death itself is about to be swallowed up by a monster, while in the centre the snake that led Adam and Eve astray, and who is entwined around the secular world, is about to be trampled down by the wounded foot of Christ. On the right a tablet engraved with the Ten Commandments faces upwards, indicating that Christ is triumphing over righteousness of the law, replacing it with righteousness of faith...

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"Ouija: The Talking Board" A New Episode of The Midnight Archive, Featuring Mitch Horowitz

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A new episode of The Midnight Archive--the web-based documentary series centered around Observatory--has just been uploaded and can be viewed above. Here is what the series creator--film-maker and many-time Observatory lecturer Ronni Thomas--has to say about this episode:

Episode 11 : Ouija: The Talking Board -- And we’re back - with the fascinating Mitch Horowitz (see Occult NY parts 1 and 2) and the incredible history of the Ouija Board. Learn about its early roots as a sort of ‘telegraph’ to the other side - to its evolution into the board game to outsell Monopoly. Get a haunting glimpse into some of the celebrities who used the board and learn about its ominous warning to poet Sylvia Plath. Its more than just a toy and a Morrissey song. So enjoy this latest installment and make sure to ‘like’ us on Facebook. Also for a more detailed history make sure to check out Mitch’s book Occult America (which can and should be purchased here).

For more on the series, to see former episodes, or to sign up for the mailing list and thus be alerted to future uploads, visit The Midnight Archive website by clicking here. You can also "like" it on Facebook--and be alerted in this way--by clicking here. You can find out more about the amazing work of Sigrid Sarda by clicking here.

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NHGRI Plans to Fund More Clinical Sequencing Projects

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By Matt Jones

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) The National Human Genome Research Institute plans to fund more new research projects that explore how to best use genome sequencing in clinical care, as well as the ethical, legal, and social implications of using that genomic information in the clinic.

After receiving a strong response from the research community to its Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research program, which funded several new projects late last year, the institute plans to renew the funding call sometime late this spring, NHGRI Program Director Brad Ozenberger told GenomeWeb Daily News on Thursday.

"We had a really strong response to [the first] RFA," he said. "There's a real interest in this area in the community, so we decided to reissue the RFA and expand this consortium. We expected that there would be a good response, but it exceeded our expectations. There is just a lot of activity right now with next-gen sequencing and trying to move some of those technologies into medical care, so this RFA really hit a hot button."

The CSER program was designed to support multi-disciplinary studies involving clinicians, bioinformaticians, and ethicists to explore through specific projects the challenges, opportunities, and ethical questions related to using genome sequence data in clinical care. The research should address critical questions about how to apply genomic sequencing to clinical care in individual cases, "from generation of genomic sequence data, to interpretation and translation of the data for the physician," NHGRI said in a notice about its plans to fund more CSER awards.

Each of these projects are to include three components: a clinical genomics study; a sequencing, analysis, and interpretation of sequence data project; and a study of some of the ethical, legal, economic, and psychosocial implications of using genomic information to diagnose and treat real patients. NHGRI sees these projects as more than studies of specific diseases and their care, but foremost as efforts to evaluate how sequencing can be used in medical practice more broadly.

"The point of the program is not to solve those diseases or discover new disease association alleles, but it is really about the process. So the breadth of approaches in disease areas is going to help us in that area," Ozenberger explained.

Last December, NHGRI granted $40 million to fund the first five CSER projects. These included a project to use and evaluate whole-exome sequencing as a diagnostic tool in searching for genetic errors that may be linked to patients' eating disorders, a study that will use genome and exome sequence data alongside ELSI surveys to study commonalities between colon cancer patients, and an effort to use sequencing and analysis with genetic counseling to study patients with disorders that cannot be easily diagnosed, among others.

These awards primarily went to research universities and institutes with a history of conducting basic genomics research, such as Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Washington, but also went to the large clinical research centers of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

"NHGRI historically has been much more focused on basic research, but with our new strategic direction of moving into genomic medicine, we did have a lot of applicants who are not the typical people we work with at NHGRI," Ozenberger said.

Continue reading here:
NHGRI Plans to Fund More Clinical Sequencing Projects