Skylit Medical Announces Chairmanship of David F. Hale

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La Jolla, CA (PRWEB) September 16, 2014

Skylit Medical announces the formation of the corporation under the Chairmanship of David F. Hale. The company is dedicated to providing personal, private, UV therapy for patients with psoriasis, eczema and vitiligo. Their devices will be used in patient homes but can connect wirelessly to a dermatologist, clinic, managed care organization or telehealth platform.

Mr. Hale was previously a CEO of Hybritech, and has since led several successful startups as Chairman. These companies include Santarus, Inc., which was acquired by Salix in 2014 for $2.6 billion, Micromet, which was acquired by Amgen for $1.16 billion and Skinmedica, which was acquired by Allergan in 2012 for $350 million.

Skylit was founded by Martyn Gross, a psoriasis patient, and is headquartered at EvoNexus, a Commnexus Incubator, in La Jolla, California. Previously, the company graduated from StartR Accelerator at UCSD and is a member of the inaugural class of Founder.org.

The Executive Team represents extensive experience in the medical field. As CFO, Kathy Scotts credentials include completing billions of dollars in acquisitions, mergers, and restructurings with RA Capital Advisors. Remo Moomiaie, Ph.D., is Skylit's Chief Innovation Officer and co-founder, and has invented several medical devices after being trained as a surgeon at Yale School of Medicine. Andre Gamelin, Vice President of Research and Development, formerly at Masimo Corporation and Carefusion, has 24 years of experience engineering innovative electro-mechanical and electro-optical products, primarily in the medical device field.

Skylit Medicals vision includes providing access to clinical phototherapy for any patient who needs it. The company is developing an innovative UVB phototherapy device and service that includes safety and control mechanisms like no other treatment for psoriasis, vitiligo and eczema patients.

Mr. Gross founded the company as a patient with mild psoriasis who was disappointed with the treatments offered to him. The most effective therapy for me involved taking 4-5 hours out of my week to visit a phototherapy clinic for about one minute of treatment, Mr. Gross stated. My Health Savings Account was drained after a couple months, and I was stuck with topical steroids that didnt work or biologics that, for me, were too extreme. Thats why I created Skylit Medical. There are 44 million people in the US who can use this device at home with their family or watching TV rather than taking time off work to visit a clinic.

An integral component of the new device will be its ability to sync wirelessly with a care provider.

For more information or to request access to investor's materials, you can visit their website at https://SkylitMedical.com.

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Skylit Medical Announces Chairmanship of David F. Hale

Three Gold, One Silver Awarded to World Travel Holdings Brands in Prestigious 2014 Travel Weekly Magellan Awards

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Wilmington, MA (PRWEB) September 16, 2014

World Travel Holdings and three of its brands including Villas of Distinction, CruiseOne and Cruises Inc. have been recognized again this year by Travel Weekly for their industry leadership, creative consumer marketing campaigns, innovative website design and exceptional training. Three gold and one silver rankings were awarded as part of the publications annual Magellan Awards program.

Our teams of dedicated marketing and training professionals are continually looking at innovative ways to enhance our interactions with villa customers and develop our franchisees and independent contractors, said Jeff Tolkin, co-chairman/CEO for World Travel Holdings. I am proud that we can deliver a remarkable experience to our customers through the teams creative and inspiring initiatives, and to see them recognized for the extraordinary work they do. This kind of innovation helps our CruiseOne franchisees, Cruises Inc. affiliates, and travel agents who buy from Villas of Distinction maximize their sales.

Villas of Distinction, a full-service premier luxury villa provider, won three gold awards. The first award in the Hospitality category gave Villas of Distinction gold for its status in the villa rental market as a leading luxury villa provider that creates unique experiences through unmatched expertise, dedicated concierges and extensive inventory making planning a villa vacation as effortless as the vacation itself. The second award in the Advertising/Marketing Campaign category recognized the companys marketing campaign, USVI Dine & Drive that gives customers booking any of Villas of Distinctions more than 100 total villas in St. Croix, St. John or St. Thomas up to $400 in restaurant credit and a free rental car. And the third gold award was in the Website category for Villas of Distinctions comprehensive, refreshed and elegant website redesign that brings to life the beauty of its villa offerings and destinations through large vibrant images while improving the experience of researching a villa vacation for those who visit the site.

CruiseOne and Cruises Inc., one of the nations top home-based travel retail networks, received a silver award in the Training Program category for The Learning Center, a robust online learning management system providing new and seasoned vacation specialists ongoing educational opportunities which can be completed at their own pace. It has more than 10 certification programs and more than 400 training modules including product courses covering itineraries, cruise lines and land vendors; technology tips for the My Cruise Control proprietary booking engine; sales soft skills training; and introductory-level refresher classes.

Travel Weeklys annual Magellan Awards recognize the travel industrys leaders and are judged on a 10-point performance scale. Nominees are chosen based upon appeal, design and functionality by top travel industry professionals. This is the fifth consecutive year in a row that CruiseOne & Cruises Inc. have been awarded Magellan Awards and the fourth consecutive year in a row for Villas of Distinction.

For more information on World Travel Holdings and any of its brands please visit http://www.WorldTravelHoldings.com. World Travel Holdings is currently hiring virtual travel agents. For more information on joining this award-winning team, please visit the World Travel Holdings careers page.

About World Travel Holdings World Travel Holdings is the world's leading cruise agency and award-winning leisure travel company with a portfolio of more than 40 diverse brands. In addition to owning some of the largest brands distributing cruises, villas, hotels, resort vacations and luxury travel services, World Travel Holdings has a vast portfolio of licensed private label partnerships comprised of top leisure travel providers, almost every U.S. airline, leading hotel brands and prominent corporations. The company also operates a top-rated travel agency franchise and the country's original host agency. Its global presence includes operating multiple owned and private label cruise and vacation brands in the United Kingdom. World Travel Holdings has offices in Long Island, NY, Wilmington, Mass., Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando, Fla., Virginia Beach, Va., and Chorley, United Kingdom. For more information, visit WorldTravelHoldings.com.

About Villas of Distinction Villas of Distinction, as part of World Travel Holdings, is a full-service premier luxury villa provider with an extensive portfolio of thousands of privately-owned villas in more than 50 luxurious destinations including the Caribbean, Mexico, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Belize, Italy, France, Greece, Spain, Thailand, Croatia, the Continental United States and many private Islands. For nearly 25 years, Villas of Distinction and its team of expert concierges have been helping travelers find their perfect vacation home without a membership fee. The company takes pride in offering customized vacations to meet every imaginable need, with most villas featuring private pools, butlers, maids and chefs. http://www.VillasofDistinction.com.

About CruiseOne and Cruises Inc. CruiseOne and Cruises Inc. are part of World Travel Holdings, the worlds largest cruise retailer. CruiseOne is a Franchise opportunity, and Cruises Inc. is an independent business opportunity; both business models provide a work from home opportunity to those interested in becoming a part of the exciting travel industry. With a mission of delivering a remarkable experience, both companies offer their customers the lowest possible pricing on vacations. For more information on CruiseOne, visit http://www.CruiseOneFranchise.com. Like CruiseOne on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/CruiseOneFranchise, and follow us on Twitter at @CruiseOneBiz. For more information on Cruises Inc., visit http://www.SellCruises.com and like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/SellCruises.

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Three Gold, One Silver Awarded to World Travel Holdings Brands in Prestigious 2014 Travel Weekly Magellan Awards

Trials and tribulations of stem cell therapy

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Edgar Irastorza was just 31 when his heart stopped beating in October 2008.

A Miami property manager, break-dancer and former high school wrestler, Irastorza had recently gained weight as his wife's third pregnancy progressed. "I kind of got pregnant, too," he said.

During a workout one day, he felt short of breath and insisted that friends rush him to the hospital. Minutes later, his pulse flatlined.

He survived the heart attack, but the scar tissue that resulted cut his heart's pumping ability by a third. He couldn't pick up his children. He couldn't dance. He fell asleep every night wondering if he would wake up in the morning.

Desperation motivated Irastorza to volunteer for a highly unusual medical research trial: getting stem cells injected directly into his heart.

"I just trusted my doctors and the science behind it, and said, 'This is my only chance,'" he said recently.

Over the past five years, by studying stem cells in lab dishes, test animals and intrepid patients like Irastorza, researchers have brought the vague, grandiose promises of stem cell therapies closer to reality.

Stem cells broke into the public consciousness in the early 1990s, alluring for their potential to help the body beat back diseases of degeneration like Alzheimer's, and to grow new parts to treat conditions like spinal cord injuries.

Progress has been slow. The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, an early supporter of stem cell research, pulled its financial backing two years ago, saying that it preferred to invest in research that was closer to providing immediate help for Parkinson's disease patients.

But researchers have been slowly learning how to best use stem cells, what types to use and how to deliver them to the body - findings that are not singularly transformational, but progressive and pragmatic.

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Trials and tribulations of stem cell therapy

Scientists create therapy-grade stem cells using new cocktail to reprogram adult cells

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4 hours ago Stem cells. Credit: Nissim Benvenisty - Wikipedia

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed a new cocktail that is highly effective at coaxing adult cells to become quality pluripotent stem cells.

Regenerative medicine is a new and expanding area that aims to replace lost or damaged cells, tissues or organs through cellular transplantation. Because stem cells derived from human embryos can trigger ethical concerns, a good solution is reprogramming adult cells back to an embryo-like state using a combination of reprogramming factors.

The resulting cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), could be used to replace those lost to damage or disease. However, scientists have discovered that the process of reprogramming adult cells can introduce genetic abnormalities that limit the cells' usefulness in research and medicine.

To make iPSCs, scientists expose adult cells to a cocktail of genes that are active in embryonic stem cells. iPSCs can then be coaxed to differentiate into other cell types such as nerve or muscle. However, the standard combination of factors used to reprogram cells leads to a high percentage of serious genomic aberrations in the resulting cells. (The reprogramming factors are Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and Mycknown collectively as OSKM).

Now researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed a new cocktail of reprogramming factors that produce high-quality iPSCs. Dr. Yosef Buganim, at the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada in the Hebrew University's Faculty of Medicine, worked with scientists at the lab of Whitehead Institute founding member Rudolf Jaenisch, a professor of biology at MIT.

The researchers reasoned that changing the reprogramming factors could reprogram the adult cells in a more controlled way and yield high-quality iPSCs. Working with mouse cells, Dr. Buganim and research scientist Styliani Markoulaki used bioinformatic analysis to design a new cocktail of reprogramming factors (Sall4, Nanog, Esrrb, and Lin28, known collectively as SNEL).

Their results showed that the interaction between reprogramming factors plays a crucial role in determining the quantity and quality of resulting iPSCsand that a different combination of reprogramming factors can in fact produce a much higher quality product.

The new SNEL cocktail created fewer colonies of iPSCs, but approximately 80% of those produced passed the most stringent pluripotency test. This is highly preferable to the traditional OSKM cocktail, which produces a large number of colonies but the majority of which fail the pluripotency test.

Dr. Buganim hypothesizes that SNEL may reprogram cells better than OSKM because it does not rely on the master regulators Oct4 and Sox2, which might activate part of the adult cell genome. According to Buganim, the research demonstrates the effectiveness of bioinformatics tools in producing high quality iPSCs.

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Scientists create therapy-grade stem cells using new cocktail to reprogram adult cells

Sam Harris – ‘Waking Up’ A Guide To Spirituality Without Religion – Video

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Sam Harris - #39;Waking Up #39; A Guide To Spirituality Without Religion
Sam Harris is the man and he is back. He #39;s making the rounds for his latest book #39;Waking Up #39;, and he #39;s delivering interviews like this along the way. His abi...

By: Atheism-is-Unstoppable

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Sam Harris - 'Waking Up' A Guide To Spirituality Without Religion - Video

I AM …Happy! – Anon I mus …(Very Important Video On Spirituality & Happiness) – Video

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I AM ...Happy! - Anon I mus ...(Very Important Video On Spirituality Happiness)
A MUST SEE FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN UNDERSTANDING THE MEANING OF LIFE, SPIRITUALITY, NON DUALITY, HAPPINESS AND LOVE In the beginning there was .... *I do not own the music and/or images...

By: Isabelle Dodd

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I AM ...Happy! - Anon I mus ...(Very Important Video On Spirituality & Happiness) - Video

Deep Attention Practice: The Experiential Heart Sutra (Spirituality, Nonduality, Advaita) – Video

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Deep Attention Practice: The Experiential Heart Sutra (Spirituality, Nonduality, Advaita)
The Heart Sutra is quite famous. It is chanted in Buddhist monasteries, temples, halls and homes by millions every day. This video will help you to know and live the Heart Sutra in your own...

By: Fred Davis

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Deep Attention Practice: The Experiential Heart Sutra (Spirituality, Nonduality, Advaita) - Video

THE DESTITUTE: A DISCUSSION ON THE SPIRITUALITY OF POVERTY | Mufti Abdur-Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Video

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THE DESTITUTE: A DISCUSSION ON THE SPIRITUALITY OF POVERTY | Mufti Abdur-Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera
Title: THE DESTITUTE: A DISCUSSION ON THE SPIRITUALITY OF POVERTY Mufti Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera delivers his lecture at the Turath Destitute Book Launch held at SOAS University, Russell...

By: Turath Publishing

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THE DESTITUTE: A DISCUSSION ON THE SPIRITUALITY OF POVERTY | Mufti Abdur-Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera - Video

Dr Chris Perkins, Selwyn Cetre for Ageing and Spirituality

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Eldernet Gazette

Liam Butler interviews Dr Chris Perkins, Director, Selwyn Cetre for Ageing and Spirituality

16 September 2014

Dr Chris Perkins, MB ChB (Otago) FRANZCP, Diploma of Professional Ethics (Auckland) leads The Selwyn Centre for Ageing and Spirituality. She has been a psychiatrist for older people since 1992, and currently works as a locum in addition to her role as Director of the Selwyn Centre for Ageing and Spirituality.

Dr Perkins is also author of the book: Dementia: What you need to know: A guide for People with Dementia, and their Caregivers (Random House 2013)

Dr Perkins why did the Selwyn Foundation establish The Selwyn Centre for Ageing and Spirituality?

The Selwyn Foundation established The Selwyn Centre for Ageing and Spirituality, as New Zealand's voice for the spiritual needs of older people.

The Selwyn Centre for Ageing and Spirituality has three key areas of focus:

Education

Research

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Dr Chris Perkins, Selwyn Cetre for Ageing and Spirituality

The new Institute for Spirituality and Social Justice launches with a weekend of lectures and meditations

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09/16/14

Xavier launches the Institute for Spirituality and Social Justice, a new program that focuses on the integration of knowledge, spirituality and social engagement, with a weekend of events including a lecture presentation by Xavier Professor Emeritus of Theology Paul Knitter and a day of guided meditations from Buddhism. The weekend begins Friday, Sept. 26, and runs through Sunday, Sept. 28, offering a unique event each day.

The Institute for Spirituality and Social Justice offers intensive graduate degrees, comprehensive certificate programs and one-day programs, workshops and retreats. All are designed to cultivate depth of thought, imagination and critical skills in a world challenged by violence, social inequity and environmental instability.

The Institutes programming is designed to challenge, inspire and encourage (members) to understand deeply the resources of our spiritual traditions in ways that empower you toward more purposeful action, said Gillian Ahlgren, director of the Institute.

The launch weekend begins on Friday, Sept. 26, when Paul Knitter presents Lessons Gleaned from a Life of Faith in Bellarmine Chapel at 7:00 p.m. Knitter, former Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture at Union Theological Seminary, shares his story of interfaith dialogue and how to walk the fine line between staying faithful to ones own beliefs while remaining open to others.

On Saturday, Sept. 27, the Institute hosts Active Compassion: Meditations for an Engaged Spirituality, which adapts guided meditations from Buddhism to encourage compassion and fight against cynicism. The meditations take place in the Conaton Board Room from 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Space is limited, so please call 513-745-2894 to reserve a spot.

The final event on Sunday, Sept. 28, is Contemplation in Action: A Jesuit Model for Globally Responsible Interreligious Dialogue at 7:00 p.m. in the Cintas Center. The lecture focuses on the Jesuit model for interfaith dialogue and how it can be used today to promote new forms of interreligious engagement.

All events over the launch weekend are free and open to the public. Visit the Institute's web pages to learn more about the program.

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The new Institute for Spirituality and Social Justice launches with a weekend of lectures and meditations

Is Atheist Awe A Religious Experience?

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Falls at Letchworth State Park in New York. iStockphoto hide caption

Falls at Letchworth State Park in New York.

"Where were you?" my beloved asked as I walked through the door caked in mud and sweat. "I was communing with my gods," I responded and proceeded to tell her about the exquisite hike I'd had that morning in New York's Letchworth State Park (the Grand Canyon of the East).

Earlier in the day, looking down the rim of a canyon cut over thousands of years by the Genesee River, I felt a profound sense of awe that cut me to the quick. But in that sense of awe, was I communing with anything extending beyond just a particular state of my neurons? My joke about the gods aside, was there anything religious about the feeling I, an atheist, felt looking across that vast expanse of river, stone and still blue air?

During the last week we've been having a fascinating conversation here at 13.7 on exactly this topic of atheists and awe and science and religion.

Barbara King started us out using two books she'd recently finished to dispel the notion that atheists can't feel awe. She further argued that it's an experience that need have nothing to do with the "sacred" but can be a pure response to science's own unpacking of the world's richness. Then, Tania Lombrozo picked up the ball by looking at psychological research showing how the feeling of awe has two characteristics: an experience of vastness and the need for an accommodation with that experience. Both the religious and non-religious have this experience of vastness, she argued. The real difference between them arises with how the subsequent accommodation is accomplished.

Marcelo Gleiser then drew from the ancient Greeks to explore how reason could be a gateway to a profound sense of spirituality but only if that sense eschews mysticism. In this way, Marcelo argued we might "rid spirituality of its supernatural prison." Alva No finished the week taking a different path. In his meditation on the limits of rationality, he argued it's imperative to see meaning and value as real in and of itself, something perhaps rationality can't do.

I loved the insights in all of these posts and am thankful to my colleagues for pushing me in my own thinking. If there's one word I'd emphasize in my response to their discussions it would be this:

Experience. Experience. Experience.

OK, that was three words. But like my moment standing at the edge of Letchworth's deep cliffs, I believe that it's experience that should come first and foremost in our discussions of awe. In fact, it is exactly that emphasis on what happens in experience that makes awe a proper pivot point for deeper discussions of science and spirituality.

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Is Atheist Awe A Religious Experience?

Gonzales: Spirituality for persons with autism spectrum disorder

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TEACHING your child with autism the concept of faith and religion can be a very challenging task. For one, teaching them something that is not concrete can be very difficult for them to understand. Abstract things that one cannot see or touch are hard to teach, even to normal kids.

Secondly, bringing them to the place of worship or the church can be physically demanding. For example, when a child is hyperactive and cannot sit down or becomes noisy during the mass or worship, the parents may find it hard to contain or restrain the child. The tendency is to feel embarrassed that other people may not be able to concentrate on their praying, or the parents themselves cannot focus on their own praying.

Sometimes, the best option is not to bring the child to church.

Despite the difficulties of teaching a child the concept of faith and religion, we all wish that children with autism are able to participate in the religious activities of the family. As a parent, when should you and how can you involve the whole family to develop spirituality in your child with autism?

When my son with ASD was still a year old, we experienced difficulties in bringing him to church. We do know that children under the spectrum have problems with sensory integration. My son cries throughout the mass because the crowd overwhelmed him as well as the sounds all around. We had to take turns in carrying him to pacify him. We had to continue bringing him to church until he got used to the routine and was able to tolerate large crowds and various auditory and visual inputs. The problem did not stop there. When he was already able to walk, we had to deal with his tendency to roam and explore the church surroundings. We had to adjust our seating to the sides or corner of the church so as not to distract other churchgoers. We progressed to the stage when he can already tolerate sitting down for the duration of the mass by allowing him to eat bits of food and to drink. This was understandable for a toddler, but not appropriate for a young boy or a teenager, so we gradually decreased his eating inside the church. Finally, we found a simple miracle that allowed us to hear mass in the most normal way. We discovered that since he likes music, his attention and sitting span was longer when we were seated near the church choir. I cannot forget that day when, for the first time, we were able to join other families in praying The Lords Prayer while holding hands inside the church. It was truly an answered prayer.

Since we belong to the Catholic Church, we guided our son to experience going through catechism and receiving the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. My sons teachers at ILLC Davao also helps in nurturing spiritual well-being by introducing religious concepts in class, complemented with actual visits to the church and facilitating requests of some parents for assistance in receiving the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.

Today, our son is our familys constant reminder to go to church every Sunday. His attachment to schedules and routines has been put to a great advantage. We had to go to the same church at the same time every Sunday, with variations allowed from time to time.

We cannot discuss how deep his understanding about faith or religion is. What is important to us is that he is mainstreamed with the religious activities of the family and we really feel the meaning of the adage that a family that prays together, stays together.

(Jane Ann S. Gonzales is a mother of a youth with autism. She is an advocate/core member of the Autism Society Philippines and Directress of the Independent Living Learning Centre (ILLC) Davao, a centre for teenagers and adults with special needs. For comments or questions, please email janeanngonzales@yahoo.com)

Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on September 17, 2014.

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Gonzales: Spirituality for persons with autism spectrum disorder

Lay Buddhist Tries to Collect Debt, Abbot Slashes Her to Death

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There must have been some bad karma between Yu Shuimei, a lay female disciple of Buddhism in Jiangxi Province, and her Abbot, who went unnamed in media reportshe slashed her to death in his temple after she went asking about a debt.

The killing took place at the Guangfu Temple in a village at Wuning County of Jiujiang City, according to Jiangxi Television.

On the evening of Sept. 13, Ms. Yu, 59, accosted the abbot and only monk at the temple about a debt he owed her. She was next seen lying on the ground in a pool of her own blood, the abbot standing over her with a knife, according to her son-in-law, Li Daorong, who heard the screams. Blood marks and handprints were found on the ground around her body, indicating a struggle.

The abbot, who was not named, had reportedly owed Ms. Yu 7,000 yuan ($1,138)an old debt, according to Li.

Li Daorong, the son-in-law, said he was waiting for Yu outside the monastery when he heard her cries. They had previously entered the temple together where she had broached the debt issue; Li then left. When he went back in, he saw the body.

The suspect was arrested by local police, who say they are investigating the matter.

The case has shocked many in China, highlighting growing concerns about social breakdown and moral collapsein this case that a Buddhist monk, whose life is supposed to be dedicated to cultivating compassion and spiritual enlightenment, seems to be guilty of murder in cold blood. Buddhism strictly forbids the taking of any life.

Being a monk nowadays in China is just a career. During work they seem to be good. After work they gamble, hire prostitutes, and even swindle and steal, said Liyuanquanquan, an Internet user, on Sina Weibo, Chinas version of Twitter.

Rumors of sex scandals involving Chinese who identify themselves as Buddhist monks have surfaced many times in recent years.

In 2011, Shi Yongxin, the abbot of Shaolin Temple in Henan province, was attacked in an online post, which claimed that he held at least $3 billion in deposits in overseas bank accounts, and owned villas in the United States and Germany. The allegations, which were said to have come from disciples at the temple but were not confirmed, said he maintained an affair with a celebrity and relations with a student at Peking University with whom he had a child. The temple denied the claims, but Shi canceled his appearances at several significant Buddhist activities in China during the following year.

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Lay Buddhist Tries to Collect Debt, Abbot Slashes Her to Death