ROCKVILLE, Md., July 16, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Novavax, Inc. (NVAX), CPL Biologicals (CPLB) and the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), today announced that they have formed a new collaboration to develop a novel malaria vaccine in India. This unique public-private partnership will combine the advanced vaccine technology of Novavax with the malaria vaccine research capabilities of ICGEB and vaccine manufacturing capability of CPLB, to develop a new and effective malaria vaccine. The project is being funded by India's Department of Biotechnology Vaccine Grand Challenge Program and will be managed by the Malaria Vaccine Development Program, a New Delhi-based not-for-profit organization established to support the development of malaria vaccines.

Novavax's virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine technology platform will be applied to construct malaria vaccine candidates, which CPLB will manufacture for advanced preclinical studies, clinical trials and commercialization. The partners will develop and evaluate VLPs that express Plasmodium falciparum circumsporozoite protein (PfCSP), which has been used to develop the only recombinant malaria vaccine that has shown efficacy in field trials. After establishing the feasibility of Novavax's technology, the partners will explore the possibility of producing additional VLPs against antigens from other stages of malaria parasites. The partners believe a multi-stage VLP malaria vaccine has the potential for higher efficacy compared to vaccines based on a single antigen or that target only one stage of the malaria parasite.

Malaria remains a major public health problem in many regions of the tropical world. Forty percent of the world's population lives in malaria endemic regions of Africa, Asia and Central and South America. Despite the widespread use of insecticides, bed nets and other malaria control efforts, there are approximately 210 million cases of malaria each year that lead to around 650,000 deaths, primarily in children less than five years of age. There is an urgent need for malaria vaccines with high efficacy that can be used in conjunction with other control efforts to provide protection against malaria.

Dr. Virander Chauhan, Ph.D., Director of ICGEB, New Delhi, which will provide their extensive experience in pre-clinical and clinical development of vaccines, said, "ICGEB is excited about the possibility of working with Novavax and CPLB to advance malaria vaccine development."

Indravadan A Modi, Chairman of Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd, said, "CPLB will develop manufacturing processes for the vaccine candidates and will provide GMP production capability in support of this initiative." He also stated, "Malaria is a common health problem for tropical countries and efforts have been ongoing for years for its eradication. I am confident that a multi-stage VLP malaria vaccine will prove beneficial in saving precious lives by restricting morbidity and mortality associated with malaria."

Dr. Gale Smith, Novavax's Vice President Vaccine Development, stated: "Novavax is honored to be working with leading malaria experts at ICGEB and with the Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India to support the development and production of malaria vaccine candidates by Novavax and CPLB. By combining our knowledge and experience with these partners to pursue the most advanced malaria vaccine concepts, we hope to one day have an effective vaccine against one of the world's most devastating diseases."

About Novavax

Novavax, Inc. (NVAX) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company creating novel vaccines to address a broad range of infectious diseases worldwide. Using innovative virus-like particle (VLP) and recombinant nanoparticle vaccine technology, as well as new and efficient manufacturing approaches, the company produces novel vaccine candidates to combat diseases, with the goal of allowing countries to better prepare for and more effectively respond to rapidly spreading infections. Novavax is committed to using its technology platforms to create geographic-specific vaccine solutions and is therefore involved in several international partnerships, including collaborations with Cadila Pharmaceuticals of India and LG Life Sciences of Korea. Together, these companies have worldwide commercialization capacity and the global reach to create real and lasting change in the biopharmaceutical field. Additional information about Novavax is available on the company's website: http://www.novavax.com.

About CPLB

CPL Biologicals Pvt. Ltd., a joint-venture biotechnology company established by Novavax Inc. and Cadila Pharmaceuticals, one of the largest privately held pharmaceutical companies in India based in Ahmedabad, manufactures VLP-based influenza vaccines developed by Novavax. CPLB has made rapid progress with the completion and validation of its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, which is now operational and capable of producing a significant volume of novel vaccine doses every year. This facility utilizes the identical single-use vaccine bioprocessing system that Novavax employs at its pilot plant in Rockville, Maryland.

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NOVAVAX, CPL Biologicals and the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Announce Collaboration ...

NEW YORK, July 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue:

China Genetic Engineering Drug Industry Report, 2011-2012

http://www.reportlinker.com/p0934677/China-Genetic-Engineering-Drug-Industry-Report-2011-2012.html#utm_source=prnewswire&utm_medium=pr&utm_campaign=Biopharma

China gets a late start in developing genetic engineering drug industry, but has achieved leapfrog advance. At present, China has at least one hundred enterprises involved in genetic engineering drugs. In recent years, the compound growth rate of genetic engineering drug market in China is as high as 49%, with an average gross margin of more than 80%. However, the technology strength and efficacy of locally produced genetic engineering drugs are relatively weak. In particular, the pegylated recombinant human granulocyte colony stimulating factor (PEG-rhG-CSF) for injection of CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Limited that approved for marketing in March 2012 is the only homemade long-acting protein product. Still, due to the impetus of huge market capacity as well as a package of preferential policies, many domestic enterprises, including GeneScience Pharmaceuticals, Amoytop and Anhui Anke Biotechnology, are accelerating the industrialized research of long-acting protein drugs.

Monoclonal antibody is one of the most promising genetic engineering drugs. As of May 2012, SFDA approved the marketing of a total of 18 monoclonal antibody drugs. Among these drugs, nearly 60% are foreign brands including Roche, Merck and Novartis with the combined sales accounting for three fourths of the Chinese monoclonal antibody drug market. However, with the marketing of monoclonal antibody drugs made by companies such as Shanghai CP Guojian Pharmaceutical and Biotech Pharmaceutical, the market share of homemade monoclonal antibody industry is on the rise gradually.

In addition, recombinant human erythropoietin, recombinant human interferon, recombinant human growth hormone, recombinant human granulocyte-colony stimulating factor and recombinant human insulin are among the important genetic engineering drugs. As of late 2011, China had roughly 20 recombinant EPO manufacturers that approved for marketing of related products. In particular, as former EPO preparation exporters to China, enterprises including America-based Amgen and Germany-based Boehringer Mannheim GmbH have withdrawn from the Chinese market owning to low price competition. Presently, the Chinese EPO market is dominated by domestic manufacturers including 3SBio Inc. and DIAO Group. In 2011, the sales of 3SBio Inc. accounted for 42.7% in China's EPO market. As such, impacted by channel, price competition and other factors, recombinant human growth hormone and recombinant human granulocyte-colony stimulating factor markets are also dominated by domestic enterprises.

In the recombinant human interferon market, the high-performance long-acting interferon of Schering-Plough and Roche still maintained huge consumption in Chinese market in spite of the high prices. In recent years, the market share of imported long-acting interferon has remained at 60% or so in China.

Moreover, due to improving economic level and raising awareness of people, foreign-branded recombinant human insulin in Chinese market are predominant, occupying 90% market share in the corresponding period.

Although China lags behind in terms of the overall level of genetic engineering drugs, the industry has accumulated rich R&D and industrialization experience as well as capital reserves. Thus, with a host of genetic engineering drug patents to become due, Chinese enterprises, such as Walvax, are committed to the industrialization research of monoclonal antibody, long-acting recombinant protein drugs and other generic drugs with high technical barriers. On April 26th, 2012, Walvax announced to invest in Shanghai Fengmao in next four years to develop and produce genetic engineering generic drugs including rituximab, bevacizumab, adalimumab, panitumumab, denosumab and long-acting EPO.

Papermaking

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China Genetic Engineering Drug Industry Report, 2011-2012

Public release date: 12-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Cathia Falvey cfalvey@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, July 12, 2012 Although acetazolamide is widely prescribed to prevent and treat acute mountain sickness (AMS), the appropriate dose at which it is effective and safe has not been clearly defined. A comprehensive review and meta-analysis of 24 studies comparing the efficacy and risks associated with increasing doses of acetazolamide is published in High Altitude Medicine & Biology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (http://www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free online at the High Altitude Medicine & Biology (http://www.liebertpub.com/ham) website.

Bengt Kayser and colleagues, University of Geneva, Switzerland, reviewed the data compiled on more than 1,000 subjects and describe the relationship between efficacy in preventing and treating AMS, risk of side effects, and increasing drug dosages. They discuss their findings in the article "Reappraisal of Acetazolamide for the Prevention of Acute Mountain Sickness: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/ham.2011.1084)."

Unless the baseline risk of AMS is high, as with rapid transport to high altitude (as opposed to a slow ascent), acetazolamide has limited effectiveness. Some side effects occur with even the lowest doses of the drug, whereas others appear to be dose-dependent. The authors suggest that treatment be tailored for the individual depending on AMS risk and acceptability of the most common side effects such as increased urination, numbness and tingling, and taste disturbance.

"This is a valuable contribution on the pros and cons of using the most important medication for preventing and treating acute mountain sickness," says John B. West, MD, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of High Altitude Medicine & Biology and Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.

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About the Journal

High Altitude Medicine & Biology (http://www.liebertpub.com/ham), the Official Journal of the International Society for Mountain Medicine (http://www.ismmed.org/), is published quarterly online. It is the only peer-reviewed journal dedicated exclusively to the latest advances in high altitude life sciences. The journal presents findings on the effects of chronic hypoxia on lung and heart disease, pulmonary and cerebral edema, hypertension, dehydration, infertility, appetite and weight loss, and other diseases. Complete tables of content and sample issue may be viewed online at the High Altitude Medicine & Biology (http://www.liebertpub.com/ham) website.

About the Publisher

Link:

Is acetazolamide effective and safe for preventing acute mountain sickness?

Public release date: 12-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Cathia Falvey cfalvey@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, July 12, 2012The profound sense of loss and public mourning that followed the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was a reflection of how great an impact he had on society and on the lives of individuals through the technology he helped to create. The magnitude and reasons for the outpouring of emotion upon his death by people who did not know him personally are explored in an article in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (http://www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free online at the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking (http://www.liebertpub.com/cyber) website.

"Steve Jobs touched so many people because he dared to be different, he was unconventional, he was brilliant, and that, combined with his uncompromising nature, resulted in a company whose products had no peer," says Mary Ann Liebert, CEO and Publisher. "Very few of us know anyone like that personally, and when he died, a hero and a magician was gone."

"We'll Miss You Steve: How the Death of a Technology Innovator Emotionally Impacts Those Who Use and Love his Digital Devices (http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/cyber.2011.0623)," reviews three studies that explore people's emotional connections to technology and even to a particular device and how that relationship may extend beyond the technology to feelings of personal connectedness and loss when the relationship ends.

Andrew Przybylski, University of Essex, Colchester, U.K., compares and discusses the findings of studies conducted during the weeks following Steve Jobs' death in October 2011. The studies evaluated the types of people most likely to be emotionally impacted and how their psychological link to Apple devices relates to their sadness and overall response to Jobs' passing.

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About the Journal

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking (http://www.liebertpub.com/cyber) is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published monthly in print and online that explores the psychological and social issues surrounding the Internet and interactive technologies. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed online at the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking (http://www.liebertpub.com/cyber) website.

About the Publisher

Continued here:

Why did Steve Job's death affect people who never knew him?

Public release date: 12-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Cathia Falvey cfalvey@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, July 12, 2012The profound sense of loss and public mourning that followed the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was a reflection of how great an impact he had on society and on the lives of individuals through the technology he helped to create. The magnitude and reasons for the outpouring of emotion upon his death by people who did not know him personally are explored in an article in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (http://www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free online at the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking (http://www.liebertpub.com/cyber) website.

"Steve Jobs touched so many people because he dared to be different, he was unconventional, he was brilliant, and that, combined with his uncompromising nature, resulted in a company whose products had no peer," says Mary Ann Liebert, CEO and Publisher. "Very few of us know anyone like that personally, and when he died, a hero and a magician was gone."

"We'll Miss You Steve: How the Death of a Technology Innovator Emotionally Impacts Those Who Use and Love his Digital Devices (http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/cyber.2011.0623)," reviews three studies that explore people's emotional connections to technology and even to a particular device and how that relationship may extend beyond the technology to feelings of personal connectedness and loss when the relationship ends.

Andrew Przybylski, University of Essex, Colchester, U.K., compares and discusses the findings of studies conducted during the weeks following Steve Jobs' death in October 2011. The studies evaluated the types of people most likely to be emotionally impacted and how their psychological link to Apple devices relates to their sadness and overall response to Jobs' passing.

###

About the Journal

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking (http://www.liebertpub.com/cyber) is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published monthly in print and online that explores the psychological and social issues surrounding the Internet and interactive technologies. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed online at the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking (http://www.liebertpub.com/cyber) website.

About the Publisher

Read more here:
Why did Steve Job's death affect people who never knew him?

Public release date: 11-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Cathia Falvey cfalvey@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, July 11, 2012As athletes from around the world compete for medals at the Summer Olympics in London, the city will be striving to meet Olympic-level sustainability goals. A fascinating first-person view of how these sustainability targets were developed and will be achieved is featured in Sustainability: The Journal of Record, a publication of Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (www.liebertpub.com) The article is available free online at the Sustainability: The Journal of Record (www.liebertpub.com/sus) website.

The central location of the Summer 2012 Olympics is the East End neighborhood of Stratford, once known as an industrial wasteland. But it has been transformed into a model for sustainability, developed under the guidance of five key themes: climate change, waste, biodiversity, inclusion, and healthy living. The use of public transportation only on the Olympic groundsno cars permitted and no parking lotsis just one example of the extent to which London has gone to reach its sustainability goals. Another example: no waste will flow directly to landfills, through a combined effort involving composting, recycling, and reduced packaging use.

Shaun McCarthy, Chair of the Commission for a Sustainable London, the independent watchdog group responsible for making sure sustainability goals for the Summer Games are tracked and met, discusses the challenges and the progress being made as the Games approach in the article entitled, "The Olympics Go for the Green: With the 2012 Games Looming, London Works to Raise Bar in Sustainability (http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/SUS.2012.9965)."

"The Olympic Games are the singular event of our time where the whole world will be watching, and to have sustainability be such a visible factor in the Games is invaluable to the sustainability movement," says Jamie Devereaux, Editor of Sustainability: The Journal of Record (www.liebertpub.com/sus).

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About the Journal

Sustainability: The Journal of Record (www.liebertpub.com/sus) documents the implementation of sustainability programs in higher education and business, and provides the central forum for academic institutions, the business community, foundations, government agencies, and leaders of green-collar endeavors to share and learn about one another's progress and programs. The Journal fosters collaborations among all stakeholders for attaining mutually supportive objectives. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed online at the Sustainability: The Journal of Record (www.liebertpub.com/sus) website.

About the Publisher

View original post here:

Summer Olympics go for the green as London prepares to host the world

Public release date: 10-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 x2156 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, July 9, 2012Genetic tests exist to identify risk for the rare inherited form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to predict susceptibility to the more common, late-onset form of AD, but do people want to know, and how do they react? The answers can be found in the article published in Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The article is available free on the Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers website.

"This article addresses a major disease of tremendous impact on increasing numbers of people and documents the large psychological component that physicians and genetic counselors must be ready to address." says Kenneth I. Berns, MD, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers, and Director of the University of Florida's Genetics Institute, College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL.

In the article "To Know or Not to Know: An Update of the Literature on the Psychological and Behavioral Impact of Genetic Testing for Alzheimer Disease Risk," B. Rahman and a team of researchers from Australia review the latest studies on whether people at risk for early-onset familial AD want to know their genetic profile and actually undertake testing, and how they tend to respond to the results. They also evaluate the attitudes of the general population and people with a family history of late-onset AD toward testing for disease risk factors and what motivates them to undergo genetic testing.

###

About the Journal

Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published 10 times per year in print and online that reports on all aspects of genetic testing, including molecular and biochemical based tests and varied clinical situations; ethical, legal, social, and economic aspects of genetic testing; and issues concerning effective genetic counseling. Tables of contents and a free sample issue may be viewed on the Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 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 Human Gene Therapy and OMICS. 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 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available at Mary Ann Liebert, Inc..

See the original post here:
Do people want to know if they are at risk for Alzheimer's disease?

Public release date: 10-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

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

New Rochelle, NY, July 10, 2012Improving access to health care for minority women of childbearing age could improve pregnancy outcomes and reduce racial differences in infant mortality, according to an article in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Women's Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jwh.

Infant mortality rates for non-Hispanic blacks and other minorities are much higher than for non-Hispanic whites. Better preconception heath care for women is a promising strategy for reducing racial disparities in reproductive health outcomes. This may include reducing behavioral risk factors such as smoking, obesity, and excessive drinking. It could also involve greater access to preventive care and preconception and reproductive counseling.

The article "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Preconception Risk Factors and Preconception Care" by Clark Denny, PhD and colleagues, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta, GA), estimated the prevalence of five risk factors for negative pregnancy outcomes in more than 54,600 women ages 18-44 years. They found that more than half of the women had at least one risk factor and nearly 20% of women had two or more risk factors.

An accompanying Editorial, "Forthcoming Changes in Healthcare Financing and Delivery Offer Opportunities for Reducing Racial Disparities in Risks to Reproductive Health" by Anne Dunlop, MD, MPH and Darcie Everett, MD, MPH, Emory University School of Medicine (Atlanta, GA), highlights changes in health care policy, financing, and delivery that will expand coverage, emphasize prevention, and improve access to preconception and reproductive health care for lower-income Americans.

"Clearly, there is a need for better preconception health care, particularly among high-risk groups, in order to improve pregnancy outcomes and reduce racial disparities," says Editor-In-Chief Susan G. Kornstein, MD, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Women's Health, Executive Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women's Health, Richmond, VA, and President of the Academy of Women's Health.

###

About the Journal

Journal of Women's Health, published monthly, is a core multidisciplinary journal dedicated to the diseases and conditions that hold greater risk for or are more prevalent among women, as well as diseases that present differently in women. The Journal covers the latest advances and clinical applications of new diagnostic procedures and therapeutic protocols for the prevention and management of women's healthcare issues. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Journal of Women's Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jwh. Journal of Women's Health is the Official Journal of the Academy of Women's Health.

Link:
New CDC study on racial disparities in infant mortality published in Journal of Women's Health

Public release date: 10-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 x2156 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, July 9, 2012Genetic tests exist to identify risk for the rare inherited form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to predict susceptibility to the more common, late-onset form of AD, but do people want to know, and how do they react? The answers can be found in the article published in Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The article is available free on the Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers website.

"This article addresses a major disease of tremendous impact on increasing numbers of people and documents the large psychological component that physicians and genetic counselors must be ready to address." says Kenneth I. Berns, MD, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers, and Director of the University of Florida's Genetics Institute, College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL.

In the article "To Know or Not to Know: An Update of the Literature on the Psychological and Behavioral Impact of Genetic Testing for Alzheimer Disease Risk," B. Rahman and a team of researchers from Australia review the latest studies on whether people at risk for early-onset familial AD want to know their genetic profile and actually undertake testing, and how they tend to respond to the results. They also evaluate the attitudes of the general population and people with a family history of late-onset AD toward testing for disease risk factors and what motivates them to undergo genetic testing.

###

About the Journal

Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published 10 times per year in print and online that reports on all aspects of genetic testing, including molecular and biochemical based tests and varied clinical situations; ethical, legal, social, and economic aspects of genetic testing; and issues concerning effective genetic counseling. Tables of contents and a free sample issue may be viewed on the Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 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 Human Gene Therapy and OMICS. 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 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available at Mary Ann Liebert, Inc..

Continued here:

Do people want to know if they are at risk for Alzheimer's disease?

Public release date: 10-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 x2156 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, June 3, 2012 Remote presence robots are used in intensive care units (ICUs) to help critical care physicians supplement on-site patient visits and maintain more frequent patient interactions. Physicians who employ this technology to supplement day-to-day patient care strongly support the positive clinical and social impact of using robots, according to a report published in Telemedicine and e-Health, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The article is available free on the Telemedicine and e-Health website.

"The integration of robotics in healthcare adds value to patient care and management of an individual's health," says Charles R. Doarn, MBA, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal and Research Professor of Family and Community Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Ohio.

The survey article entitled "Utilization of Robotic 'Remote Presence' Technology within North American Intensive Care Units" was conducted by investigators at InTouch Health (Santa Barbara, CA) and the Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine (Baltimore), found that most of the physicians utilizing robotic remote presence in the ICU were more senior staff who specialized in critical care medicine. The authors report that all survey respondents intend to continue using the technology and believe that it improves patient care and patient and family satisfaction.

###

About the Journal

Telemedicine and e-Health is an official journal of the American Telemedicine Association, the Canadian Telehealth Forum of COACH, and the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth. Edited by Ronald C. Merrell, M.D., Professor of Surgery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, and Charles Doarn, MBA. Telemedicine and e-Health is the leading international, peer-reviewed journal combining medicine, telecommunications, and information technology. Published 10 times a year in print and online, the Journal covers telemedicine applications that are playing an increasingly important role in health care and provides tools that are indispensable for home health care, remote patient monitoring, and disease management. It encompasses not only rural health and battlefield care, but nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and maritime and aviation applications. A sample table of contents and free issue may be viewed on the Telemedicine and e-Health website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 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 Population Health Management and Journal of Laparoendoscopic Surgery and Advanced Surgical Techniques. 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 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available online at the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. website.

Link:

Can robots improve patient care in the ICU?

Public release date: 10-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

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

New Rochelle, NY, July 10, 2012Improving access to health care for minority women of childbearing age could improve pregnancy outcomes and reduce racial differences in infant mortality, according to an article in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Women's Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jwh.

Infant mortality rates for non-Hispanic blacks and other minorities are much higher than for non-Hispanic whites. Better preconception heath care for women is a promising strategy for reducing racial disparities in reproductive health outcomes. This may include reducing behavioral risk factors such as smoking, obesity, and excessive drinking. It could also involve greater access to preventive care and preconception and reproductive counseling.

The article "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Preconception Risk Factors and Preconception Care" by Clark Denny, PhD and colleagues, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta, GA), estimated the prevalence of five risk factors for negative pregnancy outcomes in more than 54,600 women ages 18-44 years. They found that more than half of the women had at least one risk factor and nearly 20% of women had two or more risk factors.

An accompanying Editorial, "Forthcoming Changes in Healthcare Financing and Delivery Offer Opportunities for Reducing Racial Disparities in Risks to Reproductive Health" by Anne Dunlop, MD, MPH and Darcie Everett, MD, MPH, Emory University School of Medicine (Atlanta, GA), highlights changes in health care policy, financing, and delivery that will expand coverage, emphasize prevention, and improve access to preconception and reproductive health care for lower-income Americans.

"Clearly, there is a need for better preconception health care, particularly among high-risk groups, in order to improve pregnancy outcomes and reduce racial disparities," says Editor-In-Chief Susan G. Kornstein, MD, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Women's Health, Executive Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women's Health, Richmond, VA, and President of the Academy of Women's Health.

###

About the Journal

Journal of Women's Health, published monthly, is a core multidisciplinary journal dedicated to the diseases and conditions that hold greater risk for or are more prevalent among women, as well as diseases that present differently in women. The Journal covers the latest advances and clinical applications of new diagnostic procedures and therapeutic protocols for the prevention and management of women's healthcare issues. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Journal of Women's Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jwh. Journal of Women's Health is the Official Journal of the Academy of Women's Health.

See the original post here:

New CDC study on racial disparities in infant mortality published in Journal of Women's Health

Public release date: 10-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: John Sterling jsterling@genengnews.com 914-740-2196 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, July 9, 2012More than half (52%) of the companies comprising the tissue engineering (TE) and stem cell industries are revenue-generating, compared to about 21% four years ago, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN). Of those companies, 31% have commercial products and 21% are service-based; another 30% have products in clinical trials, according to the current issue of GEN.

The GEN article is based on interviews with leading tissue engineering researchers and on the findings of a landmark paper ("Progress in the Tissue Engineering and Stem Cell Industry, Are we there yet"), which appears in Tissue Engineering: Part B, Volume 18, Number 3, 2012, published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

"Like many other biotechnologies, tissue engineering has experienced an up and down history," said John Sterling, Editor in Chief of GEN. "But with numerous technical advances moving the field forward combined now with rising revenues, this segment of bioresearch is really taking off."

The industry itself is beginning to attain profitability, with sales revenues reaching $3.5 billion and industry spending approaching $3.6 billion. The 2012 analysis by a group led by Robert Langer, Sc.D., one of the authors of the paper in the Liebert journal, reported a nearly threefold increase in commercial sales for TE and stem cell products and services compared to the previous four-year period. Furthermore, the number of companies selling products or offering services increased more than twofold to 106.

The GEN article also notes that Tissue Engineering has formed an industry council for the purpose of helping to guide the evolution of the industry and to create strategic initiatives aimed at overcoming some of the R&D, manufacturing, and regulatory challenges facing the industry.

Among the companies interviewed for the GEN article are Organogenesis, Cytograft Tissue Engineering, Scintellix, and Humacyte.

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For a copy of the July issue of GEN, please call (914) 740-2146, or email: pbartell@genengnews.com

Read the rest here:

GEN reports on growth of tissue engineering revenues

Two postings back, I promised a commenter called Sierkovitz that I would discuss epigenetics. This is an important subject with major implications for understanding natural genetic engineering in evolution. So here is the first of at least three related blogs.

"Epigenetics" literally means "over or above genetics." It refers to hereditary changes in genome expression that do not involve alteration of DNA sequences.

Contemporary ideas about epigenetics have two independent historical sources that have subsequently merged in a remarkably satisfying way. The first source was theorizing about cell differentiation and morphogenesis by Conrad "Hal" Waddington, one of the most imaginative and penetrating mid-20th-century geneticists. Waddington realized that a heritable control process was necessary for cells with the same genome to form tissues containing different kinds of cells. In 1942 he called this the "epigenotype," meaning a higher-level regime placed over the genome during development so that different sequences could be expressed in distinct cell types.

The second source of epigenetic ideas came from observations on DNA packaging in the cell. The DNA in our cells would be over 6 feet in length if stretched out, but the nucleus is only about 1 ten-thousandth of an inch across. Clearly, our genomes are densely compacted to fit in such a small volume. Moreover, the packing has to be highly organized so that replication, transcription, chromosome movements, and all other genome functions proceed smoothly.

The historical reality is that cytogeneticists (literally, cell geneticists) had been observing DNA compaction since the 19th century through their microscopes. They described various forms of "chromatin" (i.e., colored material) along the length of chromosomes. The prefix "chroma-" refers to the coloration of chromosomes by various stains used to make them visible. Normal staining was called "euchromatin" (i.e., "true" chromatin), and darker staining was called "heterochromatin" (i.e., "different" chromatin).

Using distinguishable chromatin regions in her maize stocks, the pioneer cytogeneticist Barbara McClintock and her student Harriet Creighton were the first to demonstrate that chromosome physical structure corresponds to a genetic linkage map. From studying what was initially considered a marginal phenomenon in genetics, "position effect variegation," geneticists came to understand that differences between eu- and heterochromatin had a profound impact on genome expression.

Today, we understand that the molecular basis of DNA compaction into chromatin provides the epigenetic control system that Waddington first postulated in the 1940s. The way the chromatin forms regulates how accessible the chromosomal DNA is to proteins and RNA molecules that carry out replication, transcription, repair, recombination, natural genetic engineering, and attachment of protein motors and filaments for moving the genome within the nucleus.

During cell differentiation and development, distinct cell types "index" different regions of the genome into expressed and unexpressed chromatin domains. Thus, the set of encoded functions can be "canalised" (Waddington's term, with British spelling) into those appropriate for each specialized cell type. There are special signals and processes that punctuate the genome for formation into chromatin domains that may span a significant number of separate coding regions.

DNA in chromatin is modified chemically and compacted in two ways:

Cells control chromatin structure exquisitely. They have a chromatin formatting and reformatting system that is a wonder of molecular signaling and control. There are arrays of specialized "chromatin-formatting" enzymes that add or remove methyl groups from the DNA and other enzymes that add or remove various chemical groups from specific amino acids in the "tails" of the histones that peak out from the nucleosomes. These covalent (stable) chemical modifications of the DNA and the histones constitute an intricate code that the cell can read to determine the accessibility status of the underlying DNA, independently of its sequence.

Read this article:

James A. Shapiro: Epigenetics I: Turning a DNA Packaging Problem Into a Developmental Control System

Public release date: 3-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Evan Lerner elerner@upenn.edu 215-573-6604 University of Pennsylvania

PHILADELPHIA Finding biocompatible carriers that can get drugs to their targets in the body involves significant challenges. Beyond practical concerns of manufacturing and loading these vehicles, the carriers must work effectively with the drug and be safe to consume. Vesicles, hollow capsules shaped like double-walled bubbles, are ideal candidates, as the body naturally produces similar structures to move chemicals from one place to another. Finding the right molecules to assemble into capsules, however, remains difficult.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have now shown a new approach for making vesicles and fine-tuning their shapes. By starting with a protein that is found in sunflower seeds, they used genetic engineering to make a variety of protein molecules that assemble into vesicles and other useful structures.

Daniel A. Hammer, Alfred G. and Meta A. Ennis Professor of Bioengineering, graduate student Kevin Vargo and research scientist Ranganath Parthasarathy of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science conducted the research.

Their work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"To our knowledge, this is the first time a vesicle has been made from a recombinant protein," Hammer said.

Recombinant proteins are the products of a well-established technique that involves introducing a designed gene sequence into a host organism in most cases, the bacterium E. coli in order to get that organism to make a protein it would not normally produce.

Hammer's group worked for nearly a decade to find a protein that was biocompatible, could be produced through recombinant methods and, most important, could be induced to form vesicles.

"The molecule we identified is called oleosin," Hammer said. "It's a surfactant protein found in sunflower and sesame seeds."

See the article here:

Penn engineers convert a natural plant protein into drug-delivery vehicles

ScienceDaily (July 3, 2012) oxic chemicals wreak havoc on cells, damaging DNA and other critical molecules. A new study from researchers at MIT and the University at Albany reveals how a molecular emergency-response system shifts the cell into damage-control mode and helps it survive such attacks by rapidly producing proteins that counteract the harm.

Peter Dedon, a professor of biological engineering at MIT, and colleagues had previously shown that cells treated with poisons such as arsenic alter their chemical modification of molecules known as transfer RNA (tRNA), which deliver protein building blocks within a cell. In their new paper, appearing in the July 3 issue of Nature Communications, the research team delved into how these modifications help cells survive.

The researchers found that toxic stresses reprogram the tRNA modifications to turn on a system that diverts the cell's protein-building machinery away from its routine activities to emergency action. "In the end, a stepwise mechanism leads to selective expression of proteins that you need to survive," says Dedon, senior author of the Nature Communications paper.

The findings offer insight into not only cells' response to toxins, but also their reactions to all kinds of stimuli, such as nutrients or hormones, Dedon says. "We're proposing that any time there's a stimulus, you're going to have a reprogramming [of tRNA] that causes selective translation of proteins you need for the next step in whatever you're going to do," he says.

Lead author of the paper is recent MIT PhD recipient Clement Chan. Other MIT authors are postdocs Yan Ling Joy Pang and Wenjun Deng and research scientist Ramesh Indrakanti. Authors from the University at Albany are Thomas Begley, an associate professor of nanobioscience, and research scientist Madhu Dyavaiah.

A new role for RNA

Transfer RNA is made of 70 to 90 ribonucleotide building blocks. After synthesis, the ribonucleotides usually undergo dozens of chemical modifications that alter their structure and function. The primary job of tRNA is to bring amino acids to the ribosomes, which string them together to make proteins.

In a 2010 paper, Dedon and colleagues exposed yeast cells to different toxic chemicals, including hydrogen peroxide, bleach and arsenic. In each case, the cells responded by uniquely reprogramming the location and amount of each tRNA modification. If the cells lost the ability to reprogram the modifications, they were much less likely to survive the toxic attack.

In the new study, the researchers focused on a particular tRNA modification, known as m5C, which occurs when cells encounter hydrogen peroxide, a chemical produced by white blood cells.

They first discovered that this modification occurs predominantly in one of the tRNAs that carry the amino acid leucine. Every amino acid is encoded by three-letter sequences in the genome called codons. Each tRNA corresponds to one amino acid, but most amino acids can be coded by several tRNA sequences. For example, leucine can be coded by six different genome sequences: TTA, TTG, CTT, CTC, CTA and CTG.

Go here to read the rest:

Genetic 911: Cells' emergency systems revealed

ScienceDaily (July 3, 2012) Finding biocompatible carriers that can get drugs to their targets in the body involves significant challenges. Beyond practical concerns of manufacturing and loading these vehicles, the carriers must work effectively with the drug and be safe to consume. Vesicles, hollow capsules shaped like double-walled bubbles, are ideal candidates, as the body naturally produces similar structures to move chemicals from one place to another. Finding the right molecules to assemble into capsules, however, remains difficult.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have now shown a new approach for making vesicles and fine-tuning their shapes. By starting with a protein that is found in sunflower seeds, they used genetic engineering to make a variety of protein molecules that assemble into vesicles and other useful structures.

Daniel A. Hammer, Alfred G. and Meta A. Ennis Professor of Bioengineering, graduate student Kevin Vargo and research scientist Ranganath Parthasarathy of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science conducted the research.

Their work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"To our knowledge, this is the first time a vesicle has been made from a recombinant protein," Hammer said.

Recombinant proteins are the products of a well-established technique that involves introducing a designed gene sequence into a host organism -- in most cases, the bacterium E. coli -- in order to get that organism to make a protein it would not normally produce.

Hammer's group worked for nearly a decade to find a protein that was biocompatible, could be produced through recombinant methods and, most important, could be induced to form vesicles.

"The molecule we identified is called oleosin," Hammer said. "It's a surfactant protein found in sunflower and sesame seeds."

Surfactants are soap-like chemicals that have two distinct sides; one side is attracted to water and the other is repelled by it. They can make many structures in solution but making vesicles is rare. Most often, surfactants make micelles, in which a single layer of molecules aggregates with the water-loving part on the outside and the water-hating part on the inside. Micelles have a limited ability to carry drugs. Vesicles, in contrast, have two walls aligned so the two water-hating sides face each other. The water-loving interior cavity allows the transport of a large payload of water-soluble molecules that are suspended in water. Since many drugs are water soluble, vesicles offer significant advantages for drug delivery.

The team systematically modified oleosin to find variants of the molecule that could form vesicles. Getting oleosin to take this complex shape meant selectively removing and changing parts of oleosin's gene sequence so that the corresponding protein would fold the way the researchers wanted after it was produced by the E.coli.

Read more here:

Natural plant protein converted into drug-delivery vehicles

Toxic chemicals wreak havoc on cells, damaging DNA and other critical molecules. A new study from researchers at MIT and the University at Albany reveals how a molecular emergency-response system shifts the cell into damage-control mode and helps it survive such attacks by rapidly producing proteins that counteract the harm.

Peter Dedon, a professor of biological engineering at MIT, and colleagues had previously shown that cells treated with poisons such as arsenic alter their chemical modification of molecules known as transfer RNA (tRNA), which deliver protein building blocks within a cell. In their new paper, appearing in the July 3 issue of Nature Communications, the research team delved into how these modifications help cells survive.

The researchers found that toxic stresses reprogram the tRNA modifications to turn on a system that diverts the cell's protein-building machinery away from its routine activities to emergency action. "In the end, a stepwise mechanism leads to selective expression of proteins that you need to survive," says Dedon, senior author of the Nature Communications paper.

The findings offer insight into not only cells' response to toxins, but also their reactions to all kinds of stimuli, such as nutrients or hormones, Dedon says. "We're proposing that any time there's a stimulus, you're going to have a reprogramming [of tRNA] that causes selective translation of proteins you need for the next step in whatever you're going to do," he says.

Lead author of the paper is recent MIT PhD recipient Clement Chan. Other MIT authors are postdocs Yan Ling Joy Pang and Wenjun Deng and research scientist Ramesh Indrakanti. Authors from the University at Albany are Thomas Begley, an associate professor of nanobioscience, and research scientist Madhu Dyavaiah.

A new role for RNA

Transfer RNA is made of 70 to 90 ribonucleotide building blocks. After synthesis, the ribonucleotides usually undergo dozens of chemical modifications that alter their structure and function. The primary job of tRNA is to bring amino acids to the ribosomes, which string them together to make proteins.

In a 2010 paper, Dedon and colleagues exposed yeast cells to different toxic chemicals, including hydrogen peroxide, bleach and arsenic. In each case, the cells responded by uniquely reprogramming the location and amount of each tRNA modification. If the cells lost the ability to reprogram the modifications, they were much less likely to survive the toxic attack.

In the new study, the researchers focused on a particular tRNA modification, known as m5C, which occurs when cells encounter hydrogen peroxide, a chemical produced by white blood cells.

They first discovered that this modification occurs predominantly in one of the tRNAs that carry the amino acid leucine. Every amino acid is encoded by three-letter sequences in the genome called codons. Each tRNA corresponds to one amino acid, but most amino acids can be coded by several tRNA sequences. For example, leucine can be coded by six different genome sequences: TTA, TTG, CTT, CTC, CTA and CTG.

See original here:
Genetic 911: Study examines how cells exploit gene sequences to cope with toxic stress

ScienceDaily (July 3, 2012) oxic chemicals wreak havoc on cells, damaging DNA and other critical molecules. A new study from researchers at MIT and the University at Albany reveals how a molecular emergency-response system shifts the cell into damage-control mode and helps it survive such attacks by rapidly producing proteins that counteract the harm.

Peter Dedon, a professor of biological engineering at MIT, and colleagues had previously shown that cells treated with poisons such as arsenic alter their chemical modification of molecules known as transfer RNA (tRNA), which deliver protein building blocks within a cell. In their new paper, appearing in the July 3 issue of Nature Communications, the research team delved into how these modifications help cells survive.

The researchers found that toxic stresses reprogram the tRNA modifications to turn on a system that diverts the cell's protein-building machinery away from its routine activities to emergency action. "In the end, a stepwise mechanism leads to selective expression of proteins that you need to survive," says Dedon, senior author of the Nature Communications paper.

The findings offer insight into not only cells' response to toxins, but also their reactions to all kinds of stimuli, such as nutrients or hormones, Dedon says. "We're proposing that any time there's a stimulus, you're going to have a reprogramming [of tRNA] that causes selective translation of proteins you need for the next step in whatever you're going to do," he says.

Lead author of the paper is recent MIT PhD recipient Clement Chan. Other MIT authors are postdocs Yan Ling Joy Pang and Wenjun Deng and research scientist Ramesh Indrakanti. Authors from the University at Albany are Thomas Begley, an associate professor of nanobioscience, and research scientist Madhu Dyavaiah.

A new role for RNA

Transfer RNA is made of 70 to 90 ribonucleotide building blocks. After synthesis, the ribonucleotides usually undergo dozens of chemical modifications that alter their structure and function. The primary job of tRNA is to bring amino acids to the ribosomes, which string them together to make proteins.

In a 2010 paper, Dedon and colleagues exposed yeast cells to different toxic chemicals, including hydrogen peroxide, bleach and arsenic. In each case, the cells responded by uniquely reprogramming the location and amount of each tRNA modification. If the cells lost the ability to reprogram the modifications, they were much less likely to survive the toxic attack.

In the new study, the researchers focused on a particular tRNA modification, known as m5C, which occurs when cells encounter hydrogen peroxide, a chemical produced by white blood cells.

They first discovered that this modification occurs predominantly in one of the tRNAs that carry the amino acid leucine. Every amino acid is encoded by three-letter sequences in the genome called codons. Each tRNA corresponds to one amino acid, but most amino acids can be coded by several tRNA sequences. For example, leucine can be coded by six different genome sequences: TTA, TTG, CTT, CTC, CTA and CTG.

View post:
Genetic 911: Cells' emergency systems revealed

In February last year, The New York Times published an interview with my University of Chicago colleague Janet Rowley. Janet is deservedly famous for finding a repeated chromosome rearrangement in certain types of leukemia. This was one of the earliest indications that genome changes in cancer cells do not occur randomly.

In the interview, Janet explained how she discovered this particular chromosome change, now called the "Philadelphia Chromosome." She was just looking through the microscope, motivated by her curiosity to know more about these tumor cells.

Janet pointed out that she might well not be able to repeat her discovery in today's scientific environment. She was practicing what she called "observationally driven research." Today, she said, granting agencies don't support that kind of work. "That's the kiss of death if you're looking for funding today. We're so fixated now on hypothesis-driven research that if you do what I did, it would be called a 'fishing expedition,' a bad thing."

In other words, you have to know what kind of result to expect before the funding agencies will give you money to look for it. Surprises are not fundable. But "surprise" is just another word for "discovery." As Janet put it, "I keep saying that fishing is good. You're fishing because you want to know what's there."

Let's look at how we would "fish" for complex genomic novelty through natural genetic engineering. I can think of two approaches. There will definitely turn out to be more.

One approach was included in my book. The idea was to do interspecific hybridization with a well-characterized organism, like the mustard weed Arabidopsis, and follow what happens with the genetically unstable hybrid progeny.

We know that interspecific hybridization and genome duplication lead to high levels of genomic and phenotypic variation. DNA sequencing has found evidence of genome duplication at many critical points of evolutionary divergence, especially in plants. There is a fine Scientific American article by the famous 20th-century evolutionist G. Ledyard Stebbins entitled "Cataclysmic Evolution," which describes how hybridization between two wild grasses can recreate the origin of flour wheat.

The hybrid progeny can be followed, and those plants that develop significant new traits, such as flower patterns, can then be analyzed. Sequencing the whole Arabidopsis genome in a short time is now feasible. The sequence data will let the Arabidopsis genome speak for itself in telling us how the new traits evolved.

We can then look for multiple changes that show signs of coordination in the underlying natural genetic engineering events. Such coordinated events might be insertions of the same or related mobile elements at distinct locations in the genome or the addition of the same domains to more than one protein in the network responsible for development of the novel trait.

The second "fishing" approach to asking how a novel feature can evolve would use a microbe, as suggested in the previous blog on experimental evolution. In this case, however, the changes would not be pre-targeted to a number of different sites in the genome.

Read the original here:

James A. Shapiro: Experimental Evolution II: More Ways to Watch Natural Genetic Engineering in Real Time

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Lean pork: It's genetic