Monthly Archives: June 2012

Health spending likely to keep rising with or without Obama's plan

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WASHINGTON Even as President Barack Obamas health care law expands health coverage and transforms the way millions of Americans get medical care, it will have little effect on the nations total health care bill, according to a new government report on national health care spending.

Total U.S. spending on health care is expected to continue to surge over the next decade, hitting about $4.8 trillion in 2021, independent economists at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimate.

That is up from $2.8 trillion this year and will push health care spending to nearly 20 percent of the U.S. economy by the beginning of the next decade.

The new estimates the latest in a series of annual projections from the federal government undermine claims by some critics that the law will dramatically drive up health care spending. At the same time, they also underscore some of the laws limitations.

The growth rate of national health spending is projected to be fairly similar with or without the Affordable Care Act, said Sean Keehan, lead author of the report.

Total spending on health care over the next decade will be approximately 1 percent higher or about $478 billion as result of the new law, even with the federal government spending hundreds of millions of dollars to guarantee nearly all Americans health coverage for the first time.

After the law is fully implemented in 2014, total health care spending is expected to grow slightly more slowly than it would without the law, the report said.

The economists estimate that 30 million more people will gain health coverage over the next decade, with major expansions of the government Medicaid program for the poor and the creation of insurance exchanges, in which consumers who do not get coverage at work will be able to shop for insurance plans starting in 2014.

Many of those people are expected to qualify for federal subsidies that will be available to people making up to four times the federal poverty line, or $92,200, for a family of four.

But the new estimates also show how little the law will do to fundamentally change the trajectory of health care spending.

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Health spending likely to keep rising with or without Obama's plan

Health Care Law Supporters Hoping to Send Signal to High Court

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Jun 13, 2012 11:52am

The Supreme Court isnt expected to rule until later this month on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, but theres been some interesting developments as outside interest groups prepare for what they say might occur.

This week a few of the larger health insurancecarriers UnitedHealth, Aetna and Humana announced that no matter how the Supreme Court rules on the health care law, they would allow some of the more popular insurance reforms to go forward. UnitedHealth, for instance, said it would allow young adults to stay on their parents health plans, a popular provision of the lawthat is currently in effect.

The protections we are voluntarily extending are good for peoples health, promote broader access to quality care and contribute to helping control rising health care costs. These provisions make sense for the people we serve, and it is important to ensure they know these provisions will continue, said Stephen J. Hemsley, president and CEO of UnitedHealth Group, in a statement.

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But today a public interest group supporting the health care law Health Care for America Now issued the following warning: Dont be fooled by the Big Insurance Companies.

In the statement the group said that the insurance companieswere going on a PR offensive and hoping to send a signal tothe high court:

The coordinated announcements by three of the five biggest health insurance companies is a cynical tactic to signal to the high court that its okay to gut the law and remove its consumer protections because the health insurance companies will act responsibly and police themselves. No more insurance company abuses. The free market wont cost consumers their health anymore. The insurers message to the court, it would seem, is that its a new day so we can stick with the old rules.

And what Health Care for America now says what will really happen is this:

What the insurance companies didnt say and what they wont do is the real story. They arent saying they will stop discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions as the law requires beginning in 2014. That would be a big deal, because that part of the law will stop 129 million people with chronic conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma from being overcharged or being denied coverage. They also have not offered to keep covering children with pre-existing conditions a provision which has already taken effect and insurers have fought.

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Health Care Law Supporters Hoping to Send Signal to High Court

Health Care Law Supporters Say Carriers on PR Offensive – Hoping to Send Signal to High Court

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The Supreme Court isn’t expected to rule until later this month on the constitutionality of  the Affordable Care Act, but there’s been some interesting developments as outside interest groups prepare for what they say might occur. This week a few of the larger health insurance carriers –...

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Health Care Law Supporters Say Carriers on PR Offensive - Hoping to Send Signal to High Court

Leaders in Personalized Medicine to Discuss Clinical and Market Access Challenges at 4th Annual Personalized Medicine …

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MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

The worlds leading experts in the field of personalized medicine are meeting in Boston, MA September 12th and 13th 2012 for the 4th Annual Personalized Medicine Conference. This conference will tackle the issues driving, as well as restraining, the clinical delivery of personalized medicine, including coding and reimbursement, whole genome sequencing in practice, the economics of personalized medicine, Medicare policy, and market access challenges for companion diagnostics.

Personalized medicine has the potential to revolutionize medical care by utilizing an improved understanding of genetics and molecular biology to allow for better, more precise diagnostic tests, greater predictability of disease course, and improved patient safety.

Speakers and panelists will be answering the following key questions:

Is personalized medicine changing clinical practice? Can personalized medicine improve clinical outcomes? Will insurers fund the genomic revolution? What types of validation requirements are payors looking for?

At this conference, Robert C. Green, MD, MPH, Director, G2P Research Program, Associate Director for Research, Partners Center for Personalized Genetic Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School will discuss the impact that whole genome sequencing will have on the practice of medicine, patients, and health care costs, as well as the potential risks associated with its use.

An important question being asked today by the medical community is What genome information is ready for clinical use? Michael Christman, Ph.D., President & CEO, Coriell Institute for Medical Research will be answering this question in a presentation which will outline how the Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative (CPMC) is studying the use of genomic information in clinical decision-making.

Bryan Loy, MD, Market Medical Officer, Humana will describe the various perspectives that must be considered when addressing the payment methods for molecular diagnostics. He will discuss the issue of more widely integrating personalized medicine, while keeping the health plan, the consumer, and the provider in mind.

Dora Dias-Santagata, Ph.D., Instructor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School and Co-Director, Translational Research Laboratory at Mass General, will be describing her experience in developing and implementing a clinical platform for broad-base tumor genotyping. She will also outline the challenges that arose in her clinical testing. Her presentation will also include patient cases with clinical follow-up.

Numerous other speakers will be participating. Please visit http://www.personalized-medicine-conference.com for the full list of speakers, a preliminary agenda, and information on how to register to attend.

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Synthesis of genetically evolved semiconductor material

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SANTA BARBARA In the not-too-distant future, scientists may be able to use DNA to grow their own specialized materials, thanks to the concept of directed evolution. UC Santa Barbara scientists have, for the first time, used genetic engineering and molecular evolution to develop the enzymatic synthesis of a semiconductor.

"In the realm of human technologies it would be a new method, but it's an ancient approach in nature," said Lukmaan Bawazer, first author of the paper, "Evolutionary selection of enzymatically synthesized semiconductors from biomimetic mineralization vesicles," published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Bawazer, who was a Ph.D. student at the time, wrote the paper with co-authors at UC Santa Barbara's Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Biomolecular Science and Engineering; Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies; California NanoSystems Institute and Materials Research Laboratory; and Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. Daniel Morse, UC Santa Barbara professor emeritus of biochemistry of molecular genetics, directed the research.

Using silicateins, proteins responsible for the formation of silica skeletons in marine sponges, the researchers were able to generate new mineral architectures by directing the evolution of these enzymes. Silicateins, which are genetically encoded, serve as templates for the silica skeletons and control their mineralization, thus participating in similar types of processes by which animal and human bones are formed. Silica, also known as silicon, is the primary material in most commercially manufactured semiconductors.

In this study, polystyrene microbeads coated with specific silicateins were put through a mineralization reaction by incubating the beads in a water-in-oil emulsion that contained chemical precursors for mineralization: metals of either silicon or titanium dissolved in the oil or water phase of the emulsion. As the silicateins reacted with the dissolved metals, they precipitated them, integrating the metals into the resulting structure and forming nanoparticles of silicon dioxide or titanium dioxide.

With the creation of a silicatein gene pool, through what Bawazer only somewhat euphemistically calls "molecular sex" the combination and recombination of various silicatein genetic materials the scientists were able to create a multitude of silicateins, and then select for the ones with desired properties.

"This genetic population was exposed to two environmental pressures that shaped the selected minerals: The silicateins needed to make (that is, mineralize) materials directly on the surface of the beads, and then the mineral structures needed to be amenable to physical disruption to expose the encoding genes," said Bawazer. The beads that exhibited mineralization were sorted from the ones that didn't, and then fractured to release the genetic information they contained, which could either be studied or evolved further.

The process yielded forms of silicatein not available in nature, that behaved differently in the formation of mineral structures. For example, some silicateins self-assembled into sheets and made dispersed mineral nanoparticles, as opposed to more typical agglomerated particles formed by natural silicateins. In some cases, crystalline materials were also formed, demonstrating a crystal-forming ability that was acquired through directed evolution, said Bawazer.

Because silicateins are enzymes, said Bawazer, with relatively long amino acid chains that can fold into precise shapes, there is the potential for more functionality than would be possible using shorter biopolymers or more traditional synthetic approaches. In addition, the process could potentially work with a variety of metals, to evolve different types of materials. By changing the laboratory-controlled environments in which directed evolution occurs, it will be possible to evolve materials with specific capacities, like high performance in an evolved solar cell, for example.

"Here we've demonstrated the evolution of material structure; I'd like to take it a step further and evolve material performance in a functional device," said Bawazer.

Research for this paper was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Synthesis of genetically evolved semiconductor material

EU may ease genetic engineering rules on food

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The European Commission would like to relax limits on genetically modified organisms in food. But Germany's agriculture minister supports a no-tolerance policy.

When the Augustinian monk Gregor Johann Mendel crossed a yellow with a green pea 150 years ago, he hardly could have guessed what his experiment would unleash. It was the starting point for a brand new area of science: genetic technology, which polarizes today more than ever.

The latest point of controversy for business, politicians and citizens is the current zero-tolerance policy, which the European Commission would like to relax. Under current regulations, genetically modified organisms (GMO) which have not been approved are not allowed in food products, but regulators would like to change that to allow contamination by up to 0.1 percent.

Germany's Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner believes the EU's proposal goes too far.

"When we're talking about unapproved GMOs, then security must be given highest priority, especially when it comes to food," Aigner said in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio.

Consumers seem to agree with her. But questions remain. How dangerous are food products manipulated in this way? And are we not eating them already without knowing it?

Alexander Hissting prefers the zero tolerance approach

A loophole on zero tolerance

The fact that many foods already include GMOs is usually ignored in the debate on the zero-tolerance policy. Organisms with manipulated genes have been used in Germany for about ten years - provided they have been approved by the EU. Consumers often don't know that because approved GMOs don't have to be identified.

"For approved GMOs, we don't have a zero-tolerance policy," said Alexander Hissting of Lebensmittel ohne Gentechnik (Food without Genetic Technology), a group that advocates against genetically modified foods. "The laws permit GMOs that have been checked for safety to be used in products to a certain degree."

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EU may ease genetic engineering rules on food

ICEHOUSE Network Event Headlines Leading Entrepreneurs and Futurist

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On July 6, 2012 the Network Event will introduce an impressive line-up of keynote speakers and panellists including Rob Adams, U.S entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author; Sarah Gibbs, co-founder of Trilogy; Tim Longhurst, futurist; Vinny Lohan, founder and CEO of OneBeep; and Chris Quin, CEO of Gen-i Australasia.(PRWEB) June 13, 2012 The ICEHOUSE Network Event is all about looking to the ...

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ICEHOUSE Network Event Headlines Leading Entrepreneurs and Futurist

Eugenics meets technology

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The current Yale Alumni Magazine includes a portrait of Irving Fisher, an economics professor in the 1920s and '30s and a giant of his field.

The author, Richard Conniff, takes note of Fisher's prodigious accomplishments and his private decency in order to foreground the real subject of his article: the economist's role as one of his era's highest-wattage proponents of eugenics.

The American elite's pre-World War II commitment to breeding out the "unfit" - defined as racial minorities, low-IQ whites, the mentally and physically handicapped, and the criminally inclined - is a story that defies easy stereotypes about progress and enlightenment.

On the one hand, these U.S. eugenicists tended to be WASP grandees like Fisher - ivory-tower dwellers and privileged have-mores with an obvious incentive to invent spurious theories to justify their own position.

But these same eugenicists were often political and social liberals - advocates of social reform, partisans of science. "They weren't sinister characters out of some darkly lighted noir film about Nazi sympathizers," Conniff writes, "but environmentalists, peace activists, fitness buffs, healthy-living enthusiasts, inventors and family men."

From Teddy Roosevelt to the Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, fears about "race suicide" and "human weeds" were common among progressives, who saw the quest for a better gene pool as of a piece with their dream of human advancement.

This fascination with eugenics largely ended with the horrors wrought by National Socialism.

But the practice urged by Fisher and others - the elimination or pre-emption, through reproductive planning, of the weaker members of the human species - has become a more realistic possibility than it ever was in the 1920s and '30s.

The eugenicists had general ideas about genetics and heredity, crude ideas about intelligence, and poisonous ideas about racial hierarchies. They did not have, as we do, access to the genetic blueprints of individuals - including, most important, human beings still developing in utero, whose development can be legally interrupted by the intervention of an abortionist.

That access, until recently, has required invasive procedures like amniocentesis. But last week brought a remarkable breakthrough: A team of scientists mapped nearly an entire fetal genome using blood from the mother and saliva from the father.

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Eugenics meets technology

Scientific America Your Inner Ecosystem June 2012 Dr. Dan Pompa – Video

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11-06-2012 13:33 Scientific America Your Inner Ecosystem June 2012 with Dr. Dan Pompa. Beyond Organic products Amasia and SueroViv are great solutions to introduce these necessary gut bacteria back into your body. Beyond Organic Milk is what we call these amazing beyond organic products.

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Scientific America Your Inner Ecosystem June 2012 Dr. Dan Pompa - Video

Manhattan's biggest hotel gets even greener

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A new living green roof and a super-energy-efficient heat and power system are the latest eco-upgrades at Hilton New York, the city's largest hotel.

The 16,000-square-foot green roof system is planted with vegetation from an upstate New York farm. The foliage and roots naturally absorb airborne pollutants, which prevents carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. The vegetated rooftop also deflects solar radiation and reduces the energy needed to cool the hotel. All together, these benefits help to reduce the hotel's Urban Heat Island effectincreased temperatures in midtown Manhattan due to dense cityscapes and lack of vegetation.

The environmentally friendly cogeneration (combined heat and power) systemthe largest of any New York City hotel uses clean and efficient natural gas to produce electricity and hot water. The Hilton New York's 1,981 rooms and common areas consume more than 23 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year, and the new system will provide more than half the hotel's electrical power plus 40+ percent of steam used for heating and hot water. It is expected to reduce the Hilton New York's carbon footprint by more than 30 percent. The carbon dioxide reduction into the atmosphere will be more than 10,000 metric tons per yearequal to removing more than 6,000 mid-sized sedans from the roads.

For Earth Week 2012, the hotel was host to sustainability experts and advocates from across the corporate world for the Sustainable Operations Summit. Other green programs at the Hilton New York include the use of UTC Power fuel cell technology, a cleaner method of providing electric power and hot water to the property. In 2009, the Avenue of the Americas Association awarded Hilton New York with the "Green Street" Award in recognition of this fuel cell investment.

Article continues at Green Traveler Guides

Image credit: http://www.nyc.com

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Manhattan's biggest hotel gets even greener

Hugh Laurie set to play villain in Robocop remake

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British actor in negotiations to join the cast of José Padilha's remake of Paul Verhoeven's film about a cyborg crimefighter Hugh Laurie is in negotiations to join what is shaping up to be an impressive cast for Elite Squad director José Padilha's upcoming Robocop remake, according to the Hollywood Reporter . If he signs on to play the main villain the British actor will join Joel Kinnaman, star ...

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Hugh Laurie set to play villain in Robocop remake

Hugh Laurie – Hugh Laurie To Play Robocop Villain

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Hugh Laurie is being lined up to play the villainous CEO of Omni Corp which creates a super-human cyborg for it's own gain in the 'RoboCop' remake.

Hugh Laurie is being lined up to star in 'RoboCop'.

The 'House' actor is currently in negotiations to play the main villain in the Jose Padilha directed movie, which features police officer Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) who is brutally murdered and subsequently re-created as a super-human cyborg.

Hugh is set to play the villainous CEO of Omni Corp, which creates the title character for its own gain.

This will be Hugh's first high profile film role since his eight season stint on TV show 'House' ended.

It was previously revealed that Gary Oldam will star as Norton, a scientist who creates the technology that brings the titular super-human cyborg to life in the MGM reboot.

Gary's alter-ego will find himself torn between Hugh's character and the machine who is trying to rediscover his humanity.

Abbie Cornish is in talks to play Murphy's wife, who is led to believe her husband has been killed in the line of duty while Samuel L. Jackson will take on the role of ''charismatic media mogul'' Pat Novak.

The movie is due to begin shooting in Toronto, Canada, this September and scheduled to be released next summer.

A total of three 'RoboCop' films were made between 1987 and 1993, with the first making $53.4 million at the box office, while the third made just $10.6 million.

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Hugh Laurie - Hugh Laurie To Play Robocop Villain

It's the local touches that define Florida beaches

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There's more to a beach vacation than sand and surf.

Distilled to those basic elements, every Florida beach getaway might seem the same. Yet there are also infinite variables that imprint distinct personalities to stretches of the state's 1,250 miles of coastline, a distance second only to Alaska:

Breathtaking sunsets on the Gulf Coast. Atlantic Ocean waves that have launched the careers of world-class surfers. Remote dunes dotted by sea oats that offer the perfect spot for a book and a blanket. Fishing piers that are magnets for afternoon anglers. Bustling beaches within walking distance of shops, galleries and nightspots.

So if the view of the blue horizon seems to be the same, look over your shoulder: There's probably something cool right behind you.

Blue water and Blue Angels

From Central or South Florida, the road trip to Pensacola Beach is a daunting drive, especially the final leg across the seemingly endless Panhandle west from Tallahassee on Interstate 10.

All that windshield time is worth it, however, to catch the first glimpse of sunshine reflecting off the waters of Pensacola Bay and the Gulf of Mexico from the Bob Sikes Bridge. It's the gateway to one of the state's old-fashioned beach towns, with a rustic flip-flop vibe that persists despite the occasional high-rise condo or beachside resort.

The most recognizable landmark is still the giant beach-ball tower, which casts its shadow on the Pensacola Beach Gulf Pier (41 Fort Pickens Road). The 1,500-foot pier offers fishing, entertaining people-watching and a gorgeous sunset view. The more-secluded Opal Beach, with its quiet dunes, is about seven miles west.

There are plenty of shops and restaurants within shouting distance of the pier and adjoining Casino Beach, the busiest piece of Pensacola Beach. For breakfast, sample the breakfast burrito at Native Cafe (45 Via de Luna Drive) and make sure to top it with the homemade salsa.

At lunch, try a dozen oysters, a grouper sandwich and a beer at Peg Leg Pete's (1010 Fort Pickens Road), where it's possible to avert the inevitable wait for a table by snagging a spot at one of the two character-laden bars.

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It's the local touches that define Florida beaches

Funding for Big Astronomy Ventures Could Hurt Smaller Projects

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A rendering of the planned Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which could add pressure to already strained federal science budgets. Credit: LSST Corporation

ANCHORAGEMuch of the hand-wringing about budget cuts to astronomy in recent years has centered on the big, costly space missions and telescope projects that have been diminished, delayed or canceled. But the newest round of bad news may hit closer to home for many astronomers.

Jim Ulvestad, who directs the National Science Foundations Division of Astronomical Sciences, warned his colleagues Monday at the American Astronomical Society meeting here that their odds of securing federal research grants are falling fast. Along with NASA, NSF NSF is one of the two major U.S. funding agencies thatfacilitates astronomical sciences by doling out grants to individual astronomers and collaborations for specific research campaigns. But the agency is approving fewer and fewer of the applications it receives.

Our success rate has been slumping gradually down to 20 percent over the past few years, Ulvestad said. In 2012 its going to go down precipitously. Only 13 percent of astronomy grant applications are likely to be approved this year, he noted. And with many research dollars for the coming years already allocated as part of past multiyear awards, the outlook for the future is just as bad, if not worse. This is highly unlikely to turn around in the next three years, Ulvestad said.

In 1992, NSF approved nearly half of the 266 grant applications it received for astronomical research programs. On average, each grant provided $152,000. By 2011, though, the size of the average award had more than doubled, to $367,000. And the number of proposals had skyrocketed to 658. Were getting a huge increase in the number of proposals, a huge increase in the average award, Ulvestad said. There really is just no way for us to keep up.

Ulvestad said that no one factor was responsible for the surging number of proposals, which now increases by about 10 percent annually. But with NSFs astronomy budget decreasing slightly in each of the past several years, the flood of applications has made the grant program more and more competitive. That is unlikely to change. In fact, NSF will soon be on the hook for expensive telescope facilities, such as the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which could further eat away at the research dollars available for individual investigators.

The trend toward big, expensive projects is prompting NSF to review its ongoing programs and figure out which should proceed and which will fall victim to cost-cutting. A report on the outcome of that portfolio review should go public in late summer. We have to make some choices, and we want to make them strategically, Ulvestad said. Were moving toward a situation where, if were not carefulif we have a lot of facilities and they dont have any ability to support grad students or postdocs, then that would be pretty devastating to the field.

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Funding for Big Astronomy Ventures Could Hurt Smaller Projects

PPG Aerospace goes for gold with British Airways’ Olympics livery

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LONDON, June 13, 2012 PPG Industries (NYSE:PPG) aerospace coatings group created custom paint colors for British Airways dove livery, which is being used on nine Airbus A319 aircraft to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

PPG Aerospace coatings specialists worked with livery artist Pascal Anson to supply DESOTHANE(R) HS/CA 8000 series topcoats in gold, light grey and white. A two-step gold mica created outlines of feathers, which were accented in white and painted over a light grey fuselage to represent the body and wings of the dove. Gold on the cockpit created the doves beak, and gold on the tail created the British Airways Chatham Dockyard Union flag design. Desothane HS/CA 8000/B900A clear topcoat provided a final protective coating.

All the colors used for the aircraft were bespoke, said Alex Reid, PPG Aerospace account manager at the North Europe application support center based at the PPG Shildon plant in Northern England.

Anson visited the PPG Shildon coatings manufacturing plant to select colors. He wanted to design his own gold, Reid said. The plane had to be light grey to make it look like a dove, so together we designed a grey and a special gold mica with a unique base color to achieve the desired effect.

British Airways made the paint masks. They have their own graphics shop, so everything was produced in-house, Reid said. There was only one drawing of how to paint the plane.

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PPG Aerospace goes for gold with British Airways’ Olympics livery

AMP Receives 40% Increase in Abstract Submissions

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Newswise Bethesda, MD, June 13, 2012: the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) announced a record-breaking number of abstract submissions for the AMP 2012 Annual Meeting on Genomic Medicine, marking a 40% increase over last year. The Meeting will be held October 25-27, 2012 in Long Beach, CA. An increase in the number of meeting attendees and exhibitors is anticipated as well. "The record growth in every phase demonstrates clearly how well-recognized it is that AMP offers the meeting of the year in molecular diagnostics and genomics," stated Iris Schrijver, MD, AMP President.

Growth in recent years and the spike in this years AMP Annual Meeting participation mirror the marked growth in the field of molecular pathology. AMP has had consistent growth in the number of abstracts submitted and number of attendees at the annual meeting, but the increase this year blew the lid off even our expectations, noted Mary Steele Williams, Executive Director, The AMP 2012 Annual Meeting on Genomic Medicine promises to be jam-packed with attendees and exciting scientific exchange.

As the only organization dedicated solely to the practice and science of molecular pathology, it is natural that the AMP Annual Meeting serves as the showcase for translational research, clinical practice, and practical technical discussions in all aspects of molecular diagnostics and genomic medicine. Abstract topics submitted for this years meeting span the breadth of molecular diagnostics, including the use of next generation sequencing in a clinical setting; novel tools for the detection of infectious agents; development and validation of new molecular tests; detection and analysis of various biomarkers in cancer.

Session topics chosen for this years meeting include; integrating pharmacogenomics into health care, utility of next generation sequencing, new molecular pathology CPT codes, and many more. AMP expects a record number of poster presentations at this years AMP Annual Meeting. With 400+ posters plus more than 30 hours of educational sessions and 55 presentations, this years event is expected to be the largest to date.

ABOUT AMP: The Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) is an international medical professional association dedicated to the advancement, practice, and science of clinical molecular laboratory medicine and translational research based on the applications of molecular biology, genetics, and genomics. For more information, please visit http://www.amp.org.

CONTACT: Mary Steele Williams mwilliams@amp.org (301) 634-7921

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AMP Receives 40% Increase in Abstract Submissions