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BSc Biochemistry with Professional Placement – School of Biosciences – Video

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BSc Biochemistry with Professional Placement - School of Biosciences
Ben Golland, a final year student on the BSc Biochemistry with Professional Placement degree, describes his experiences on the course and during his year in industry, where he worked for GlaxoSmith...

By: Uni Birmingham

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BSc Biochemistry with Professional Placement - School of Biosciences - Video

NIH stem-cell programme closes

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Bradley J. Fikes

Stem-cell biologist Mahendra Rao expected five projects to receive support to set up clinical trials.

Stem-cell researchers at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) have been left frustrated and confused following the demise of the agencys Center for Regenerative Medicine (CRM). The intramural programmes director, stem-cell biologist Mahendra Rao, left the NIH, in Bethesda, Maryland, on 28March, and the centres website was taken down on 4 April. Although no official announcement had been made at the time Nature went to press, NIH officials say that they are rethinking how they will conduct in-house stem-cell research.

Researchers affiliated with the centre say that they have been left in the dark. When contacted by Nature on 7April, George Daley, a stem-cell biologist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of the centres external advisory board, said that he had not yet been told of Raos departure or the centres closure.

The CRM was established in 2010 to centralize the NIHs stem-cell programme. Its goal was to develop useful therapies from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells adult cells that have been converted into embryonic-like stem cells and shepherd them towards clinical trials and regulatory approval. Its budget was intended to be $52million over seven years.

Rao took the helm in 2011. Relations seem to have soured last month owing to an NIH decision to award funding to only one project aiming to move iPS cells into a clinical trial. Rao says he resigned after this became clear. He says that he had hoped that five trials would be funded, especially because the centre had already sorted out complex issues relating to tissue sources, patents and informed consent.

James Anderson, director of the NIHs Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives, which administered the CRM, counters that only one application that made by Kapil Bharti of the National Eye Institute in Bethesda and his colleagues received a high enough score from an external review board to justify continued funding. The team aims to use iPS cells to treat age-related macular degeneration of the retina, and hopes to commence human trials within a few years. Several other proposals, which involved the treatment of cardiac disease, cancer and Parkinsons disease, will not receive funding to ready them for clinical trials. Anderson stresses that Bhartis trial will not be affected by the CRMs closure.

NIH

Therapies based on induced pluripotent stem cells, here differentiating into retinal cells on a scaffold, were the focus of the Center for Regenerative Medicine.

Other human iPS-cell trials are further along. For example, one on macular degeneration designed by Masayo Takahashi at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, began recruiting patients last August.

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Stem Cells Show Promise for Stroke Recovery

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Brenda Goodman HealthDay Reporter Posted: Monday, April 7, 2014, 4:00 PM

MONDAY, April 7, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- In an early test, researchers report they've safely injected stem cells into the brains of 18 patients who had suffered strokes. And two of the patients showed significant improvement.

All the patients saw some improvement in weakness or paralysis within six months of their procedures. Although three people developed complications related to the surgery, they all recovered. There were no adverse reactions to the transplanted stem cells themselves, the study authors said.

What's more, the researchers said, two patients experienced dramatic recoveries almost immediately after the treatments.

Those patients, who were both women, started to regain the ability to talk and walk the morning after their operations. In both cases, they were more than two years past their strokes, a point where doctors wouldn't have expected further recovery.

The results have encouraged researchers to plan larger and longer tests of the procedure, which uses stem cells cultured from donated bone marrow.

An expert who was not involved in the research called it a promising first step.

"It's a small, early human study. It takes multiple steps to get to something clinically useful, and this is a nice, early step," said Dr. Steven Cramer, clinical director of the Stem Cell Research Center at the University of California, Irvine.

The findings were to be presented Monday at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons annual meeting, in San Francisco. The results of studies presented at meetings are considered preliminary until they've been published in peer-reviewed medical journals.

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New research may provide effective nonsurgical treatment for knee osteoarthritis

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

8-Apr-2014

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2156 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, April 8, 2014A new nonsurgical approach to treating chronic pain and stiffness associated with knee osteoarthritis has demonstrated significant, lasting improvement in knee pain, function, and stiffness. This safe, two-solution treatment delivered in a series of injections into and around the knee joint is called prolotherapy, and is described in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine website.

David Rabago, MD, and a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and Meriter Health Services, Madison, WI, report substantial improvement among participants in the one-year study who received at least three of the two-solution injections. Symptom improvement ranged from 19.5-42.9% compared to baseline status.

As described in the article "Dextrose and Morrhuate Sodium Injections (Prolotherapy) for Knee Osteoarthritis: A Prospective Open-Label Trial", reported improvement in knee pain, function, and stiffness scores exceeded the minimum for a "clinically important difference" in 50-75% of patients.

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About the Journal

Celebrating 20 years in 2014, The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine is a monthly peer-reviewed journal publishing observational, clinical, and scientific reports and commentary intended to help healthcare professionals and scientists evaluate and integrate therapies into patient care protocols and research strategies. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine website.

About the Publisher Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Alternative and Complementary Therapies, Medical Acupuncture, and Journal of Medicinal Food. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.

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New research may provide effective nonsurgical treatment for knee osteoarthritis

Are women in Iran who use Facebook less likely to wear a veil?

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

8-Apr-2014

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, April 8, 2014Use of social media such as Facebook can influence attitudes and behaviors among people of all countries and cultures. Among women in Iran, the duration and amount of daily Facebook activity is associated with their desire to wear a traditional head-covering and their willingness to display pictures of themselves without a veil, according to an article in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking website.

In "The Influence of Social Networking Technologies on Female Religious Veil-Wearing Behavior in Iran," Sean Young, PhD, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Abbas Shakiba, University of Shahid Chamran (Ahvaz, Iran), Justin Kwok, UCLA, and Mohammad Sadegh Montazeri, University of Semnan, Iran, report the results of a survey of Iranian women. They found significant relationships between several factors and how likely the Iranian women surveyed were to cover themselves with a veil and whether they would post unveiled photos on Facebook.

"This study is an important foray into the impact technology and social media is having on cultural and religious norms," says Brenda K. Wiederhold, PhD, MBA, BCB,BCN, Editor-in-Chief of Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, from the Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, CA.

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About the Journal

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking is a peer-reviewed journal published monthly online with Open Access options and in print that explores the psychological and social issues surrounding the Internet and interactive technologies, plus cybertherapy and rehabilitation. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking website.

About the Publisher

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Are women in Iran who use Facebook less likely to wear a veil?

Exercise: The Top Anti-Aging Secret

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There is a great reason to get up and dust off the sneakers: research shows that exercise just might be one of the most effective ways to combat aging!

Not to mention it helps you lose weight, sleep better, look better and the benefits go on and on. Heres what the research says and some ways to get inspired to spring into shape!

Exercise & Aging: The Research

While it is no secret that exercise is good for you, recent research from Canadas McMaster University found that endurance exercise cut short the aging process in mice in spite of the fact that they were engineered to age faster.

After several months of treadmill exercise routine, these mice continued to appear as young as the normal mice that were not engineered to age faster. Additionally, researchers found that the exercise program prevented premature aging in almost every organ of the mice; in some cases, the organs were even made better with the exercise!

Overall, the research noted that the exercise routine provided almost perfect protection against muscle and brain atrophy and graying fur.

Want more good news? Its never too late to get back on the treadmill. Other studies have shown that even subjects who have spent an excessive amount of time being sedentary can still gain the benefits from exercise, including increasing mobility, boosting energy, and supporting healthy, vital organs.

Bonus Tip: While pursuing optimum health and longevity, dont overlook the power of herbal healing! Herbs like schisandra berry, fennel seed, and lycium berry can help you maintain your youthful glow inside and out. Consider supplementing your exercise routine with our specially blended Enduring Youth Anti-Aging Formula.

Get active every day to look and feel younger

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Exercise: The Top Anti-Aging Secret

Why John Hubley Was One of the Best Animators You’ve Never Heard Of

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John Hubley's "Harlem Wednesday."

In the 1950s, when Senator Joseph McCarthy was nodding his head in demagogic agreement with himself, animation pioneer and Hollywood blacklist member John Hubley was tapping his toes to the rhythm of jazz. His experimental animation seemed uncontainable wildly singular visions that owed more to Hans Hoffman than Max Fleischer. Hubley (whose films are currently touring the country to celebrate his 100th birthday) gave audiences intimate glimpses into the lives of those who were often ignored by major animation studios, and tackled topics such as nuclear war, agnosticism, and social justice. While children hunkered down in front of big, boxy televisions to watch Silly Symphonies, John Hubley was recording his children's voices and using them to create socially-conscious animated films.

Hubley tackled topics such as nuclear war, agnosticism, and social justice.

Hubley started his career painting backgrounds and layouts for Walt Disney Studios in 1935, when he was 22-years-old. He worked on the first classic Disney film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," and acted as art director for "Bambi," "Dumbo" (uncredited), the "Rite of Spring" section of "Fantasia," and "Pinocchio." Of these projects, "Rite of Spring" best hints at the ambitious, idiomatic vision of his personal projects that was percolating just beneath the surface: the harmonious marriage of music and animation, and the lush, boundless backgrounds, and Hubley's penchant for breathing life into nebulous entities. "Rite of Spring" has a massive, cosmic scope, of course; Hubley would scale down these aesthetic peculiarities and funnel them into intimate exposs on quotidian life.

After leaving Disney during the strike of 1941, John Hubley joined the United Productions of America, for whom he created the Oscar-winning "Mr. Magoo." In 1952, Hubley was forced to leave UPA consequent of his blacklisted status. He subsequently founded Storyboard Studios, which acted as an alias, and started turning out wildly popular animated commercials. Though they didn't bear his name in the credits, Hubley's animated ads were wholly his own, stamped with his invisible signature; they felt simultaneously out of place within the advertising establishment and, somehow, in some inexplicable way, connected to each other, coursed by a common thread that tethered them to the unnamed artist behind the animation, like episodes of a television anthology.

Hubley's famous 1956 "I Want My Maypo" commercial featured his young son's voice, which lent the ad an authentic air (the child's whininess is undeniably that of a child who wants his Maypo). Hubley's triumph was unexpected, as the commercial was intended to be a failure: Heublein, Inc. planned on dumping their money into a bomb of a commercial for the poorly-selling Maypo in order to create huge loses and get tax-deductible expenses, so they hired Hubley, known for being independent, uncompromising, and antipodal to a capitalistic enterprise's desires, with the simple instructions of making a "slice of life."

The commercial didn't bomb, of course it increased sales by an average of 78%. In the wake of this immense success, animated commercials proliferated, and the cowboy hat-wearing child, dubbed Marky Maypo, became a household name.

The irony of churning out commercial advertisements while maintaining the aspirations of an artist wasn't lost on Hubley: In his ten-minute live-action short "Date With Dizzy," a Hubley stand-in instructs iconic trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie on scoring (or "dubbing," as he calls it) a short commercial for an instant rope ladder. Gillespie and his band watch the cartoon with ambivalence (it's all very silly, as one might expect from a commercial for an instant rope ladder), and they break into a swinging number, which, while aurally stunning, has very little to do with selling instant rope ladders.

The director hangs his head in desperation as Dizzy's quartet lets the music flow. The commercial director tries, in vain, to get Dizzy and crew to play more commercial-apt music, but the real artist remains incorruptible, even as he tries to work with the careerist, whose inability to appreciate art is obvious. Hubley's subversion was subtle but not invisible: The mockery of commercials, capitalism, and the usurpation of art for the sake of the almighty dollar in Hubley's short burns like a freshly-struck match.

"Date With Dizzy" acts as a lens through which we can decipher the filmmakers career. As John Sayles aptly notes in the recent film issue of The Believer Magazine (which features a DVD of films Hubley made with his wife, Faith, spanning 17 years, including "Date With Dizzy"), Hubley's cartoons feel alive, attuned to the syncopated rhythm of the world. Sayles likens Hubley's effect on animation to that of Miles Davis on jazz. Sayles remembers how Hubley's cartoons and commercials seemed to infiltrate the drive-in theater screen, those sneaky, subtly subversive clips slipping into the otherwise milquetoast pre-programming galre of kiddy cartoons, as the sun receded and the screen glowed in the night. Sayles succinctly describes his pre-filmmaker impression of the cartoons: "It's one of those again!"

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Why John Hubley Was One of the Best Animators You've Never Heard Of

VIDEO | Ateneo graduate dies after undergoing stem cell therapy

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By: Ina Zara, News5 April 7, 2014 9:05 PM

Contributed file photo of Katherine Grace Tan.

InterAksyon.com The online news portal of TV5

MANILA, Philippines A cum laude graduate from the Ateneo de Manila University, who was suffering from Hodgkin's lymphoma, died last year after undergoing embryonic stem cell therapy that was allegedly administered by Antonia Park, the alternative medicine doctor of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Bernard Tan claimed that Park had promised that within three months, his 23-year-old daughter, Katherine Grace Tan, would be cured of her disease, which according to the doctor was not cancer but just hormonal imbalance.

But after undergoing treatment and strictly following a juice diet, Katherine got weaker and died.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Park, of the Green & Young Health & Wellness Center,admitted that she wasnt licensed to practice in the Philippines.

Records from the theProfessional Regulatory Commission as of August 2013 showed that Park was not on the list of physicians authorized to practice medicine in the country.

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VIDEO | Ateneo graduate dies after undergoing stem cell therapy

Next-generation glaucoma therapeutics hold considerable promise

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

7-Apr-2014

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, April 7, 2014Elevated pressure in the eye is the most common risk factor for glaucoma, an optic neuropathy that can cause blindness and affects more than 67 million people worldwide. Elevated eye pressure in glaucoma develops due to abnormal functioning of the trabecular meshwork (TM) causing intraocular fluid to back up. Next-generation glaucoma drugs will target the finely tuned mechanisms of the TM that maintain normal intraocular pressure, as described in an article in Journal of Ocular Pharmacology and Therapeutics, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article, one of 25 articles in a special double issue of the Journal, is available free on the Journal of Ocular Pharmacology and Therapeutics website.

The article "Intraocular Pressure Homeostasis: Maintaining Balance in a High-Pressure Environment," by Ted Acott and coauthors, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, describes the efficient mechanisms at work in the eye to keep intraocular pressure within an acceptable range for 92-98% of the population. Understanding these mechanisms will enable the development of drug interventions to treat the unfortunate 2-8% of people that are at risk of developing elevated eye pressure and glaucoma.

"The TM, a unique multilayered tissue that controls intraocular pressure, and its surrounding structures represent viable targets for the development of novel glaucoma therapies," write Editor-in-Chief W. Daniel Stamer, PhD, Duke University (Durham, NC) and Guest Editor John R. Samples, MD, Professor, Rocky Vista University and Director, Western Glaucoma Foundation, Portland, OR, in the Editorial "The Trabecular Meshwork Special Issue, Inspired by the TM Study Club."

The special double issue provides a comprehensive look at the TM and next-generation glaucoma therapies in development through a collection of editorials, original research articles, and reviews. Included is the review article "The Role of TGF-2 and Bone Morphogenetic Proteins in the Trabecular Meshwork and Glaucoma," in which Robert Wordinger, Tasneem Sharma, and Abbot Clark, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, describe the TGF- superfamily of growth factors and their role in primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG), the second leading cause of blindness worldwide.

Also of note, Nelson Winkler, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, and Michael Fautsch, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, explore the current understanding of how prostaglandin analogues, first-line treatments for glaucoma, work to reduce elevated intraocular pressure, in the review article "Effects of Prostaglandin Analogues on Aqueous Humor Outflow Pathways."

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Antipsychotic drug use among ADHD-diagnosed foster care youth is increasing

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

7-Apr-2014

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, April 7, 2014Antipsychotic medications are often used for unlabeled indications, such as treatment of children and adolescents with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The results of a study of "atypical antipsychotic" drug use among youths with ADHD, comparing age groups, Medicaid eligibility, and presence in foster care are presented in Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology website.

Mehmet Burcu and Julie Zito, University of Maryland, Aloysius Ibe, Morgan State University, and Daniel Safer, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD, report that nearly one-third of the ADHD-diagnosed foster care youth ages 2-17 years of age included in the assessment received atypical antipsychotics during the study period. The most common medications given were risperidone, aripiprazole, and quetiapine, according to the article "Atypical Antipsychotic Use Among Medicaid-Insured Children and Adolescents: Duration, Safety, and Monitoring."

"This study adds critical hard data to our understanding of a persistent and unacceptable trend in pediatric psychiatry," says Harold S. Koplewicz, MD, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, and President, Child Mind Institute, New York, NY. "Our poorest, most vulnerable children, lacking access to evidence-based care, are receiving potentially harmful treatment with little oversight. The highlight of Burcu et al.'s paper for any reader should be the simple but necessary recommendations for antipsychotic prescribing and monitoring in these populations."

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About the Journal

Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published 10 times a year in online with Open Access options and in print. The Journal is dedicated to child and adolescent psychiatry and behavioral pediatrics, covering clinical and biological aspects of child and adolescent psychopharmacology and developmental neurobiology. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed online on the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology website.

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Antipsychotic drug use among ADHD-diagnosed foster care youth is increasing