Author Archives: ev1

Shelton firms products in the pipeline could end diseases

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A company specializing in the emerging field of nanomedicine has opened in Shelton, offering the possibility that major healthcare advances could be developed in the city.

U.S. Rep. Jim Himes cuts the ribbon at the new NanoViricides facility in Shelton while joined by company officials, including President and Chairman Anil R. Diwan, Interim Chief Financial Officer Meeta Vyas and Chief Executive Officer Eugene Seymour.

The products being produced here could very well end diseases such as influenza and dengue fever, U.S. Rep. Jim Himes said at this weeks opening of the NanoViricides Inc. facility on Controls Drive.

This is truly a game changer for humankind, Himes said.

He predicted the companys president and chairman, Anil R. Diwan, could even win the Nobel Prize in medicine if products now in development at NanoViricides succeed.

Diwan said the firm has six medicines in the pipeline that would treat the flu, dengue, HIV, herpes (cold sores) and eye viruses.

With money raised from investors, NanoViricides has bought the 18,000-square-foot building at 1 Controls Drive, near Long Hill Cross Road. The company is now moving its facilities and employees there from West Haven.

The Shelton site will include manufacturing areas, labs, research-and-development space and offices. The building offers a lot of room for expansion.

It will be the only nanomedicine clinical product manufacturing facility in Connecticut.

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Shelton firms products in the pipeline could end diseases

Why Android Wear is worth watching

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Let's talk about a version of Android that you wear. We're right at the beginning in the miniaturization of technology. You're gonna talk to your wrist. How tall is Barack Obama? It's finally possible to make a powerful computer small enough to wear comfortably all day long. Google's Android Wear is a compact version of an operating system that really has to do three things. Run well on new devices like smart watches, get manufacturers to buy into that market and get consumers to do the same thing. And Google pretty much delivered on almost every rumor we predicted and their full roll out of Android where with big time support coming out of the gates with the LGG watch and Samsung's [INAUDIBLE]. Just one more tap to pay. And the pizza's on its way. The pretty gorgeous stainless steel and leather banded watch. It's here. Your watch will also provide intelligent answers to spoken questions. He can even check his heart rate after a jog. Now, Android Wear on its own actually does very little. A Smartwatch running it, like a Samsung Gear Live or an LG G watch, has to first pair to a late model Android phone. No Windows phone, no iPhone support here. Once that pairing is done, your watch starts to get fed the content it needs for some very simple notifications and basic interactions. Like reminders of your next appointment, or simple guidance to get somewhere, like your next appointment. Messages and easy ways to reply, weather forecasts coming up, payment confirmations, travel status updates. Now these are just some basic early use cases and, of course, an Android Wear's functionality is limited only to what developers can come up with, which isn't much of a limitation at all. But note the mode is to have very simple swipe and voice interactions between menus and information screen. There's no keyboard on that watch. Now the first watches out with Android Wear are the predictably nerdy Samsung Gear Live and LGG watch. More interesting is the pending Motorola 360. This is a watch with a round face and a very jewelry like look. Andre Ware is able to map it's display and interface to the actual round display. Not just crudely crop it. That's important, because many, like myself, believe that a key part of SmartWatch success, on any platform, is gonna be the ability for watch designers to really spread out aesthetically and not be limited to square text style displays. Another big step forward with Android Wear is a degree of agnosticism. In the past, most smart watches, short past, I should point out, only worked with their own family of phones. Early Samsung smart watches only worked with Samsung Galaxy phones, and not even all of those. That's not a formula for success. Going forward Android Wear will allow the watch to work with any ANdroid phone running 4.3 of the Operating System, or newer, but still no Windows Phone, I-Phone, or Blackberry coordination. Its early days of course were the smart watches. Not to mention the Android wear subset of them. That's it. Here is my memo to the Android wear team as well as the manufacturer's building Onyx. First make it smarter. Right now we feel the early Android wear watches are kind of giving scatter shot display of information and content, it doesn't really seem to map to my moment in the day as well as it could. Let's filter better. Make it indispensable. This is still very much a luxury market. Nobody can't live without an Android Wear smart watch. Let's find the really important use cases so it goes beyond the novelty stage. We need to extend battery life. We all have enough devices right now that get plugged in every day. And look like jewelry. Once you get past that first million geeks and earlier adopters, nobody's gonna buy a smartwatch that looks like they strapped a smartphone on their wrist. It is, of course, too soon to predict the growth curve for Android wear let alone the broader smartwatch market, for a number of reasons. First of all, Apple hasn't even entered this space yet. Secondly, most consumers have no idea what we're talking about. Thirdly, the battle between fitness bands and smart watches has to be sorted out. And there's an awful lot of overlap there. But for now, at this moment, Android Wear seems to be the biggest bear in a small, growing, and rapidly changing wood.

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Why Android Wear is worth watching

How sweet it is: Bioenergy advanced by new tool

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A powerful new tool that can help advance the genetic engineering of "fuel" crops for clean, green and renewable bioenergy, has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), a multi-institutional partnership led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The JBEI researchers have developed an assay that enables scientists to identify and characterize the function of nucleotide sugar transporters, critical components in the biosynthesis of plant cell walls.

"Our unique assay enabled us to analyze nucleotide sugar transporter activities in Arabidopsis and characterize a family of six nucleotide sugar transporters that has never before been described," says Henrik Scheller, the leader of JBEI's Feedstocks Division and a leading authority on cell wall biosynthesis. "Our method should enable rapid progress to be made in determining the functional role of nucleotide sugar transporters in plants and other organisms, which is very important for the metabolic engineering of cell walls."

Scheller is the corresponding author, along with Ariel Orellana at the Universidad Andrs Bello, Santiago, Chile, of a paper describing this research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper is titled "The Golgi localized bifunctional UDP-rhamnose/UDP-galactose transporter family of Arabidopsis." The lead authors are Carsten Rautengarten and Berit Ebert, both of whom hold appointments with JBEI, and both of whom, like Scheller, also hold appointments with Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division. (See below for the full list of co-authors.)

The sugars in plant biomass represent an enormous potential source of environmentally benign energy if they can be converted into transportation fuels -- gasoline, diesel and jet fuel -- in a manner that is economically competitive with petroleum-based fuels. One of the keys to success in this effort will be to engineer fuel crops whose cells walls have been optimized for sugar content.

(From left) Berit Ebert, Carsten Rautengarten and Henrik Scheller at JBEI have developed an assay for characterizing the functions of nucleotide sugar transporters in plant cell walls. (Photo by Irina Silva, JBEI)

With the exception of cellulose and callose, the complex polysaccharide sugars in plant cell walls are synthesized in the Golgi apparatus by enzymes called glycosyltransferases. These polysaccharides are assembled from substrates of simple nucleotide sugars which are transported into the Golgi apparatus from the cytosol, the gel-like liquid that fills a plant cell's cytoplasm. Despite their importance, few plant nucleotide sugar transporters have been functionally characterized at the molecular level. A big part of the holdup has been a lack of substrates that are necessary to carry out such characterizations.

"Substrates of mammalian nucleotide sugar transporters are commercially available because of the medical interest but have not been available for plants, which made it difficult to study both nucleotide sugar transporters and glycosyltransferases," Scheller says.

For their assay, Scheller, Rautengarten, Ebert and their collaborators, created several artificial substrates for nucleotide sugar transporters, then reconstituted the transporters into liposomes for analysis with mass spectrometry. The researchers used this technique to characterize the functions of the six new nucleotide sugar transporters they identified in Arabidopsis, a relative of mustard that serves as a model plant for research in advanced biofuels.

"We found that these six new nucleotide sugar transporters are bispecific, which is a surprise since the two substrates are not very similar from a physical standpoint to the human eye," Scheller says. "We also found that limiting substrate availability has different effects on different polysaccharide products, which suggests that cell wall polysaccharide biosynthesis in the Golgi apparatus of plants is also regulated by substrate transport mechanisms."

In addition to these six nucleotide sugar transporters, the assay was used to characterize the functions of 20 other transporters, the details of which will soon be published.

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How sweet it is: Bioenergy advanced by new tool

SAGE(r) Labs Licenses CRISPR/Cas9 Technology from the Broad Institute

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Newswise ST. LOUIS, July 29, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- SAGE Labs Inc., a leading provider of products, services and technologies in the field of genome engineering, announced today that they have licensed CRISPR/Cas9 technology from the Broad Institute. The license enables SAGE Labs to use the CRISPR/Cas9 system to engineer cell and animal models for their clients as well as distribute validated CRISPR reagents. This is the second license obtained by SAGE Labs around CRISPR/Cas9 technology; SAGE also obtained a license from Caribou Biosciences in September 2013.

The Broad Institute was recently issued the first patent for CRISPR/Cas9 technology based on the research of Feng Zhang, PhD, published in Science in January of 2013. CRISPR/Cas9 technology represents the latest advancement in nuclease-based gene editing tools, which have revolutionized genetic engineering by markedly reducing development times and enabling genetic engineering in potentially any species.

David Smoller, PhD., CEO of SAGE Labs, explained, "At SAGE Labs we use the latest technologies to provide our clients with the most advanced models of human disease, and in the shortest timelines possible. It's also essential that our clients receive the freedom-to-operate with their research models, and we're committed to obtaining the necessary licenses."

About SAGE Labs

SAGE Labs is a leading provider of advanced gene editing tools, research models, and support services. Harnessing the latest technologies for genome engineering including Zinc Finger Nucleases (ZFN) and CRISPR/Cas9, SAGE produces complex research models in less than half the time as conventional technologies. In addition, SAGE Labs is a premier source for custom-designed and stringently validated CRISPR/Cas9 reagents. For more information, visit http://www.sageresearchlabs.com.

About the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard: The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard was launched in 2004 to empower this generation of creative scientists to transform medicine. The Broad Institute seeks to describe all the molecular components of life and their connections; discover the molecular basis of major human diseases; develop effective new approaches to diagnostics and therapeutics; and disseminate discoveries, tools, methods, and data openly to the entire scientific community.

Founded by MIT, Harvard, and its affiliated hospitals, and the visionary Los Angeles philanthropists Eli and Edythe L. Broad, the Broad Institute includes faculty, professional staff and students from throughout the MIT and Harvard biomedical research communities and beyond, with collaborations spanning over a hundred private and public institutions in more than 40 countries worldwide. For further information about the Broad Institute, go to http://www.broadinstitute.org.

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SAGE(r) Labs Licenses CRISPR/Cas9 Technology from the Broad Institute

PM for greater research in agriculture, RSS linked outfits oppose GM crop

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New Delhi: Two Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) linked outfits on Tuesday sought a ban on field trials of genetically-modified crops cleared by biotech regulator Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) on a day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi pressed for greater use of research for boosting the agriculture sector.

However, the government said that it is yet to take a final call. Sources said that it has assured RSS affiliated outfits that it will deal with the issue of GM crops with caution, adding that no decision will be taken in haste.

Representatives of Swadeshi Jagran Manch and Bhartiya Kissan Sangh on Tuesday met the Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on the issue of field trials of GM crops of certain varieties of rice, brinjal and cotton among others. The outfits claim that the minister assured them that the decision about field trials of GM crops has been "put on hold".

They apprised him about their concerns while claiming that the Minister assured them that the decision about field trials of GM crops has been "put on hold". "The minister assured the delegation that the decision about the field trials of GM crops has been put on hold by the government," All-India co-convener of the Manch Ashwani Mahajan said.

When contacted, Javadekar confirmed the meeting but asserted that the government has not taken any decision on the contentious issue. He said that GEAC has taken such a decision but government has not acted upon it yet.

"The government has not taken any decision on the contentious issue. The government will not take any decision in haste," he said. The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) had earlier this month cleared 15 proposals for confined field trials for rice, brinjal, chickpea, mustard and cotton.

The delegation reminded the minister that Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture in its report on GM food crops - prospects and impacts, tabled in Parliament on August 9, 2013 has clearly recommended the 'stopping of all field trials under any garb'.

The Manch and Sangh members told the minister that it is "not advisable" to allow GM crops without proper scientific evaluation about their probable long term impact on human health and soil. They said, "The technology, which involves introducing a 'foreign' gene, is dangerous because once introduced, it is irreversible. Once you have a GM crop, you cannot reverse the process if you find that it is causing harm."

They contended that there is no scientific study to prove that GM technology does increase productivity as is claimed by the promoters of the technology. They also pointed out that environmental costs might outweigh any benefits that the introduction of such a technology brings. The delegation told the minister that there is major issue of food security of the nation attached to this issue.

The Manch urged the minister that government should not rely on the biased and manipulated reports of vested interests among the industry and institute enquiries about the likely impact of GM food crops on soil, human and other species' health to ensure that no harm is done to traditional gene pool and biodiversity of the nation, soil, food security and health of the people of India.

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PM for greater research in agriculture, RSS linked outfits oppose GM crop

One day we may live twice as long as we do today!

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My late father, as was so common in his generation, had a heart attack in his 40s, a stroke in his 50s and succumbed to heart disease in his early 60s.

After a heart attack at age 55, I felt confident I was likely to follow the path of my father and grandfather (who died at age 59), and not live much beyond my mid-60s. Perhaps because of my lifestyle and the miracles of modern medicine, I am 71 and feel 40, fabulous and frisky!

Not surprisingly, we all want to live very long lives. There is even the promise by some expert gerontologists (scientists who study the aging process) of life expectancies of a century and a half. Longevity has become a passion. Industries have evolved that promise youth, reversal of the aging process and a prolongation in life expectancy. Much is cosmetic and only skin-deep, with anti-aging creams, diets to reduce wrinkling and promote youth, and an explosive increase in cosmetic surgery to avoid the inevitable growing older.

Interest in longevity has led to a new health care field called anti-aging medicine that promises youthfulness, longer lives and the tantalizing promise of immortality. Today sales pitches from purveyors of dubious natural and pharmaceutical products promise longer and better lives. Interest in this area has grown explosively with over 10,000 physicians belonging to the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, a driving force in so-called longevity medicine. The evidence that any current therapy can reverse aging is doubtful or frankly nonexistent. Politicians have referred to anti-aging advocates as 21st-century snake oil salesmen, and some years ago Dr. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois circulated a position paper signed by 51 of the nations most eminent scientists warning of the hype of anti-aging remedies.

Anti-aging therapies include sex and growth hormones that have the potential of building muscle and strength, but they accelerate rather than prevent aging. Antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and immune-boosting medications have all been proposed as anti-aging therapies. More and more evidence is accumulating that these, including vitamin E, vitamin C, vitamin A, various minerals and many others increase cancer risk and shorten rather than increase life expectancy.

While reversing the aging process is currently impossible, never say never! We know that restricting food intake in animals prolongs life by about 30 percent, and as we learn more and more about how individual cells function, new strategies to reverse aging are possible. The tip of every chromosome is referred to as the telomere. As a cell ages, the telomere shortens, and this prevents the cell from dividing. Once the telomere is very short the cell dies. Research has shown that an enzyme known as telomerase can prevent telomere shortening and prolong the life expectancy of cells. Much research is currently underway to use this strategy to prolong life in animals and perhaps one day in man. To date, this had not been achieved.

Even more exciting is the ongoing research by world-renowned and highly respected gerontologists who have identified genes in worms, fruit flies, mice and even monkeys that prolong life. By the use of cutting edge research, these genes can be modified, prolonging life expectancy in these organisms by 50 percent or more. Finding a single gene or a number of linked genes that can either be altered or injected into humans to reverse the aging process may one day be a reality. Who knows what the future may hold? The incredible sophistication of modern-day research technologies makes anything possible.

Even if no more than a promise for the future, these research endeavors to prolong life are vital to truly understanding the factors involved in longevity. A longer life will only work if we minimize or eradicate chronic diseases that cause disability, such as frailty and Alzheimers disease. This will assure not only a longer but, more importantly, a better life. Simultaneously, we must prevent the leading causes of death, including heart disease, cancer, chronic lung and kidney disease.

If we all live beyond 100, and 90 percent of us reside in nursing homes, living longer will be accompanied by suffering, depression and unrealistic economic burdens. It is not how long we live but how well.

Dr. David Lipschitz is the author of the book Breaking the Rules of Aging.

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One day we may live twice as long as we do today!

Ethos Spa Skin and Laser Center Adds Fractional Lens Array for PicoSure Laser for Fine Line and Sun Spot Removal …

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SUMMIT, NJ (PRWEB) July 28, 2014

Ethos Spa Skin and Laser Center now offers the first-of-a-kind anti-aging benefits of the PicoSure FOCUS lens array at its Summit and Englewood locations. This new, non-invasive treatment leverages the powerful photomechanical effect of the PicoSure laser to diminish and remove sun spots, fine lines, wrinkles, enlarged pores, redness and hyperpigmentation while improving the skins texture.

According to Ethos Spa Medical Director Hardik Soni, M.D., the FOCUS skin revitalization system is 20 times more powerful than other anti-aging lasers. By focusing more precisely on small areas of the skin, surrounding tissue is left untouched and gently protected, making it gentler and safer than other lasers to provide superior results with less discomfort, less downtime, and less risk.

The PicoSure laser system uses picosecond (trillionth of a second) technology with the powerful photomechanical effect pressure wave and the FOCUS lens array to concentrate the laser pulse on imperfections that age a persons appearance. FOCUS skin revitalization is also the latest answer to improving skin laxity, ruddiness and acne scars, and can be used to revitalize skin on any body area including the neck, shoulders, back, chest, arms and hands.

PicoSure costs $750 per treatment, and two to four treatments may be necessary to achieve ideal results. Post-treatment downtime is minimal. Treated areas may be sensitive for a couple of hours, and the next day there may be some redness.

For more information on the FOCUS skin rejuvenation treatments or any of the expert aesthetic services available at the Ethos Spa, Skin and Laser Center, visit the Ethos Spa website, call the Summit location at (908) 273-5400, or call the Englewood location at (201) 541-6600.

About Hardik Soni, M.D. and Ethos Spa, Skin and Laser Center:

Ethos Spa, Skin and Laser Center Medical Director Hardik Soni, M.D. strives to achieve the best possible results for his patients by drawing on his experience and proficiency with multiple laser platforms, earned from having performed more than 15,000 cosmetic treatments including botulinum injection (Botox and Dysport), dermal fillers (Juvederm, Restylane, Radiesse), laser hair removal, chemical peels and laser skin rejuvenation. He is a platinum level injector with Allergan, the makers of Botox and Juvederm; his primary focus is on minimally invasive and non-invasive cosmetic procedures including Aesthera Candela, Cutera, Fraxel, Sciton and Syneron. Soni believes in a more conservative approach to cosmetic procedures, and prioritizes patient education. Clients are able to decide on their own ideal treatment after discussing their options, and weighing the expected outcomes, costs and risks.

He finished his undergraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland and is board certified in Emergency Medicine. Soni currently works as an emergency room physician at Overlook Medical Center in Summit, New Jersey, as well as serving as medical director of Ethos Spa, Skin and Laser Center. He was recently chosen to the Advisory Medical Panel of Bella Magazine in NYC.

Ethos Spa, Skin and Laser Center is committed to providing the safest, most effective aesthetic procedures, customized to each individual client, utilizing the latest advances in non-invasive cosmetic treatments and technologies. Within a peaceful, luxurious environment, patients can choose from a wide array of cosmetic services and products to enhance the skins appearance.

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Ethos Spa Skin and Laser Center Adds Fractional Lens Array for PicoSure Laser for Fine Line and Sun Spot Removal ...

Lung Institutes Medical Director Celebrates 55th Anniversary in Medical Practice

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Tampa, FL (PRWEB) July 29, 2014

This month marks a milestone for the Lung Institutes Medical Director, Dr. Burton Feinerman, as he celebrates his 55th anniversary in the medical field. Practicing medicine for over half a century, Dr. Feinerman has distinguished himself as a world-renowned physician in the field of regenerative medicine with the development of innovative stem cell treatments for lung diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Dr. Feinermans medical career has been punctuated by many firsts. In the 1950s and 1960s, Dr. Feinerman was the owner of Opa-Locka General Hospital, the only private hospital accepting African Americans in Miami, Florida. He also set up the first Pediatric Emergency Rooms in South Florida at Parkway Hospital and Miami General Hospital.

The Lung Institutes medical director was also involved with the first successful allogeneic (genetically dissimilar) bone marrow transplant performed on a 10-month-old child with severe combined/immunodeficiency, known as bubble baby. This patient, who was given a very poor prognosis of life expectancy, is now 36-years-old and a high school teacher. In 1998, Dr. Feinerman set up the first medical service website site, Webmedicalservices.com, to directly answer patient questions, which later became a public company.

It was during his time in Hawaii as the first physician to offer cosmetic dermatology and anti-aging medicine that Dr. Feinerman initially became interested in stem cells. Over subsequent years, he developed stem cell patents for a variety of disorders including Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Parkinsons, Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis, autism, cerebral palsy, COPD, pulmonary fibrosis, diabetes types 1 and 2, end-stage kidney disease and brain damage in children and adults. He also developed patents for gene therapies to treat such conditions as Tay-Sachs, Sandhoff disease, Huntingtons disease and metachromatic leukodystrophy.

Dr. Feinermans stem cell quest continues at Regenerative Medicine Solutions and Lung Institute, with his current research aimed at conquering neurological and chronic lung diseases as well as diseases causing blindness such as age-related macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, and stargardts disease.

I am humbled at the acknowledgement of my role as a catalyst for change in medicine, confessed Dr. Feinerman who was honored last year as Lifetime Achievement Award finalist for the Tampa Bay Business Journals Healthcare Heroes. When I reflect back on my medical career, I only see my patients.

About the Lung Institute At the Lung Institute, we are changing the lives of hundreds of people across the nation through the innovative technology of regenerative medicine. We are committed to providing patients a more effective way to address pulmonary conditions and improve quality of life. Our physicians, through their designated practices, have gained worldwide recognition for the successful application of revolutionary minimally invasive stem cell therapies. With over a century of combined medical experience, our doctors have established a patient experience designed with the highest concern for patient safety and quality of care. For more information, visit our website at LungInstitute.com, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or call us today at (855) 469-5864.

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Lung Institutes Medical Director Celebrates 55th Anniversary in Medical Practice

Pope Francis visits Caserta, has private meeting with Evangelical community

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Pope Francis made a short visit to the the city of Casterta on Saturday. During his stay he had a meeting with the diocesan priests and celebrated an open air Mass. On Monday he returned to the city for a private visit with the Evangelical community, and an old friend from his days as Archbishop of Buenos Aires,Pastor Giovanni Traettino.

During his meeting with the priests on Saturday, Pope Francis set aside aside his prepared text he spoke off the cuff, answering four questions they presented to him.The Holy Father said bishops must set an example of the unity that Jesus asked of His Father for the Church. This cannot be done speaking badly about each other. The unity of bishops is important to the unity of the Church, he said, adding that the devil revels in and profits from internal conflict. The bishops must be in agreement in unity, but not in uniformity. Each one has his charism, each one has his way of thinking and his point of view; this is at times the result of mistakes, but it is often the result of the Spirit a unity in diversity, in which no-one loses his own personality.

The Pope was asked for suggestions for pastoral outreach that relaunches the primacy of the Gospel without diminishing popular piety. He answered that true popular piety was born of that Sensus Fidei described in the Encyclical Lumen Gentium and which is guided by devotion to the Saints, to the Virgin, and also by folkloric expressions, in the positive sense of the word. He added, the agnosticism that has entered into the Church in groups of intimist piety are not good, but are instead a form of heresy. Popular piety is inculturated, it cannot be produced in a laboratory, aseptic it is always born of life.

Another question focused on the identity of the priest in the third millennium. How can we overcome the existential crisis born of the linguistic, semantic and cultural revolution in evangelical witness?. With creativity, replied the Pope. It is the commandment that God gave to Adam and Jesus to his disciples. And creativity is found in prayer. A bishop who does not pray, a priest who does not pray, has closed the door to creativity.

The fourth question related to the foundations of spirituality for a priest. Francis described the priest's dual capacity for contemplation: towards God and towards man. He is a man who looks, who fills his eyes and heart with contemplation: with the Gospel before God, and with human problems when among men. The priest must be contemplative in this way. But this must not be confused with monastic life, which is something else.

Pope Francis emphasised that diocesan life must be at the centre of the spirituality of the diocesan priest. Maintaining a relationship with the bishop and with the rest of the priests simple, but at the same time not easy. The greatest enemy of these relationships is gossip. The devil knows that this seed bears fruit, and he sows it well ... to impede that evangelical, spiritual and fruitful relationship between the bishop and the presbytery. He remarked that it was better to say things clearly and openly, rather than give satisfaction to the devil who in this way attacks the centre of the spirituality of the diocesan clergy. The Holy Father concluded with some comments on the bitterness of some priests and the image of an angry Church. One may anger at times; it is healthy to be angry at times. But the state of rage is not God's, and leads only to sadness and disunity.

More than two hundred thousand people attended the Mass celebrated by the Holy Father in the square in front of the Royal Palace of Caserta on Saturday evening.

The Pope spoke in his homily about the kingdom of Heaven, based on the parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl. In the first, the kingdom is similar the treasure hidden in a field, that the farmer finds and hides again, full of joy, then sells everything he has to buy the field. In the second, a merchant who seeks fine pearls encounters one of great value and sells everything he owns in order to buy it.

The farmer and the merchant, explains the Pope, have the same sentiment in common: the surprise and joy of the fulfilment of their desires and, through these two parables, with simple words that everyone can understand, Jesus explains what the kingdom of heaven is, how it is found and what one can do to obtain it.

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Pope Francis visits Caserta, has private meeting with Evangelical community