Future Islands, Pusha T Added to Toronto's NXNE Lineup

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Future Islands, Pusha T and AraabMUZIK top the bill for Torontos North By Northeast (NXNE), the fully-integrated music, film and interactive conference that celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

Other performers for the June 13-22 showcase event include Jacques Greene, Autre Ne Veut, Tobacco, Evian Christ, 100s, The Joel Plaskett Emergency, Felice Brothers, Alejandro Escovedo, Kirin J Callinan, Zeus, Crystal Stilts and Typhoon.

To help celebrate its big milestone, organizers will offer priority access for NXNE wristband and badge holders for the 2,752-capacity Massey Hall, which will host three nights of concerts featuring Spiritualized, tUnE-yArDs, Rhye, Kelela, The Barr Brothers and others.

This years confab also offers guests access to a Vice Island satellite party on Lake Ontario and a host of venues across town.

NXNE badges and wristbands are available online at nxne.com/tickets. For the full list of performers, visit nxne.com/artists.

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Future Islands, Pusha T Added to Toronto's NXNE Lineup

Aging in the Digital Era: How New Technologies Can Impact Care – Research on Aging – Video

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Aging in the Digital Era: How New Technologies Can Impact Care - Research on Aging
Visit: http://www.uctv.tv/) What can technology do to change the way we deal with the aging process? Ipsit Vahia, MD examines the role of technology in late life, the impact of communication...

By: University of California Television (UCTV)

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Aging in the Digital Era: How New Technologies Can Impact Care - Research on Aging - Video

Health care law not quite yet what the doctor ordered for Democrats

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An agent from Sunshine Life and Health Advisors helps sign people up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act in Miami. Although 8 million have signed up, new polls show the health care law remains a net negative for many Americans. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Today in the Morning Line:

Back to October: After the news of the 8 million health care sign-ups, Democrats last week were feeling a little better about their prospects for the midterm elections. Polls out this week remind them of reasons to worry. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday has less dire numbers than the ABC News/Washington Post poll released Tuesday, showing President Barack Obamas approval and health care ratings at six-month highs, but they still arent great for the presidents party. Mr. Obamas approval is up three points to 44 percent and his favorability ratings are now a net-positive 44 percent to 41 percent for the first time since early October (before the health care website debacle). He appears to have put the skids on the potential slide into an approval rating in the 30s like George W. Bush suffered at this time in his presidency. The health care law remains a net-negative 36 percent to 46 percent, which is actually a slight improvement from last month. Democrats are taking some solace in 48 percent saying the health law is either working well or needs minor modifications versus 49 percent who say it needs a major overhaul or should be eliminated. Thats up from 40 percent to 47 percent in December. The congressional ballot, however, shows Democrats and Republicans tied at 45 percent. As we pointed out Tuesday, Democrats generally have to do better than that to make gains in the House, especially because of the GOP tilt of the playing field. And among the voters with the highest interest in the midterms, Republicans lead by 15 points, 53 percent to 38 percent. Overall, its like the difference between from being five runs down, to one or two, Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who helps conduct the poll, told NBCs Mark Murray.

The importance of young voters: Speaking of Democrats with lower interest in the election, a Harvard Millennials poll released Tuesday showed young voters interest lagging even behind 2010. Thats a big potential potential problem for Democrats, because young voters, like women and minority voters, are a key plank for them to win elections. And just like minority voters, young voters are less likely to turn out in midterms. For example, as a share of the electorate, voters age 18 to 29 were seven points lower in the 2010 midterms than the 2012 presidential election. And they voted less Democratic in 2010 than 2012.

Obama, Democrats coordinate minimum wage push: President Obama and congressional Democrats will team up Wednesday to call for raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour, part of the partys broader push to highlight economic inequality ahead of the November election. The president is scheduled to address the issue from the White House at 3:10 p.m. ET, which will likely come after a Senate vote to advance a wage hike proposal. Like previous attempts, that effort is expected to fail due to GOP opposition. In advance of the presidents remarks, House Speaker John Boehners office is pushing back on Democratic claims about the economic benefits of a wage hike. They point to the Congressional Budget Office estimate that raising the minimum wage could cost the economy 500,000 jobs. Democrats, of course, will tout the same report, which also shows that 900,000 people would be lifted out of poverty. By the way, Hawaii late Tuesday voted to raise the states minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. And this will play in at least one key state Arkansas, which will have a minimum wage increase on the ballot that incumbent Sen. Mark Pryor backs.

Immigration reform in 2014? Nevermind: Less than a week after mocking fellow GOP lawmakers for their refusal to tackle immigration reform during a speech in Ohio, Speaker Boehner looked to clean up what he called a misunderstanding over his comments. At a closed-door meeting Tuesday, Boehner assured his colleagues there is no secret conspiracy to jam through an immigration plan this year. Boehner also told reporters that some people misunderstood what I had to say, and he again blamed the lack of trust in the president as the main obstacle to getting legislation passed. The comments would appear to take the wind out of the sails of those hoping to move forward with an overhaul this year. The odds were always long in an election year, but Boehners comments last week, combined with his earlier statement that he was hell-bent on passing reform this year and some GOP rank-and-file voicing support for action, made it seem like there was movement in that direction. Louisiana Rep. John Fleming told the NewsHour that Boehner doubled down on the partys existing position, which is that Republicans would not move forward until the president gets right with this. But Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who is leading the GOP effort behind the scenes, said he thought most lawmakers wanted to fix the problem. After Tuesdays public and private comments from Boehner, its hard to see that happening before November.

Quote of the day: Today, 50 Cents is a singing group. Am I right about that? Sen. Barbara Boxer, on the Senate floor (not in da club), talking about earning $.50 per hour as a teenager during remarks Tuesday in support of raising the federal minimum wage

Daily Presidential Trivia: On this day in 1789, George Washington took office as the first U.S. president. How many people ran against Washington & what percentage of the vote did he receive? Be the first to Tweet us the correct answer using #PoliticsTrivia, and youll get a Morning Line shout-out. A belated congrats to Graham Morris (@GrahamHMorris) for guessing the right answer to Mondays trivia question.

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Health care law not quite yet what the doctor ordered for Democrats

Prostate cancer and blood lipids share genetic links

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Apr-2014

Contact: Scott LaFee slafee@ucsd.edu 619-543-6163 University of California - San Diego

Numerous studies have suggested a relationship between cardiovascular disease risk factors and prostate cancer. A new study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues in Norway, significantly refines the association, highlighting genetic risk factors associated with low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and triglycerides as key players and identifying 17 related gene loci that make risk contributions to levels of these blood lipids and to prostate cancer

The findings, published in the April 30, 2014 online issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology, provide new insights into the pathobiology of prostate cancer and may point to novel therapies to lower blood lipid levels that might help prevent prostate cancer the second most common cause of cancer death among American men.

The research team, headed by senior authors Anders M. Dale, PhD, professor in the departments of radiology, neurosciences and psychiatry at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, and Ole Andreassen, professor of psychiatry at Oslo University, applied a genetic epidemiology method to assess statistics from multiple genome-wide association studies, looking for genetic overlap between the phenotypes for prostate cancer and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors. In the case of the latter, they specifically investigated triglycerides, LDL and high density lipoprotein cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, body mass index, waist-hip ratio and type 2 diabetes.

The researchers also examined enrichment of single nucleotide polymorphisms bits of DNA that vary among individuals associated with prostate cancer and CVD risk.

LDL cholesterol and triglycerides displayed a strong association with prostate cancer.

"It's fair to say that risk relationships of various sorts have been proposed between prostate cancer and cardiovascular disease, although not comorbidity per se," said co-author Ian G. Mills, PhD, of the University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital in Norway. "There is a lack of consistency across cohorts, however, in size and direction of effects, depending on cardiovascular risk factor considered. The significant risk association with LDL cholesterol and triglycerides versus the other traits at a genetic level was novel and unexpected."

Mills said the identification of 17 pleiotropic loci specific sites in the genome which may affect the expression of a number of genes and influence a range of biological pathways, in this case affecting both prostate cancer and cardiovascular disease risk was a key finding. He said the loci provide clues to the common regulatory elements that affect expression of disease-related genes. They may be incorporated into future disease risk test panels. And they might, ultimately, help shape "genetically stratified dietary or chemoprevention studies repurposing clinically approved drugs that regulate blood lipid levels" to alter the risk of developing prostate cancer, he said.

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Prostate cancer and blood lipids share genetic links

Diagnosis of childhood TB could be improved by genetic discovery

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Apr-2014

Contact: Gail Wilson gail.wilson@imperial.ac.uk 44-020-759-46702 Imperial College London

A distinctive genetic 'signature' found in the blood of children with tuberculosis (TB) offers new hope for improved diagnosis of the disease.

TB is very difficult to diagnose in children and is often recognised late when the child is already critically ill and the disease has spread from the lungs to the brain or other organs. Now an international team of researchers has shown that the disease can be identified in over 80 percent of cases by looking at 51 specific genes in the blood of affected children.

The researchers hope the findings published on 30 April in the New England Journal of Medicine could be used to develop a cheap, quick and effective diagnostic test.

Lead researcher, Professor Michael Levin, Director of the Wellcome Centre for Clinical Tropical Medicine at Imperial College London, explained: "We urgently need better methods to diagnose TB in children, so treatment can be started earlier and to avoid unnecessary treatment of children who are wrongly diagnosed. The symptoms of TB in children are common to many other childhood diseases, and the standard tests used on adults are not effective in children. Although the disease is treatable, thousands of children still die each year due to late diagnosis and many more are left with damage to their brain, bones and lungs."

The study funded through the EU and carried out at Wellcome Trust-supported units in Africa looked at over 2,800 children admitted to hospitals in South Africa, Malawi and Kenya with symptoms of TB. The researchers identified those who had proven TB and those in whom TB was excluded as the cause of the child's illness.

Blood samples from the South African and Malawian children were examined to see which genes were activated or suppressed in those with the disease. The researchers found that TB could be distinguished from other diseases by looking at just 51 genes from over 30,000 in the human genome and seeing whether they were activated or suppressed. This information was used to give a single TB risk score for each child which, when tested in the Kenyan patients, accurately diagnosed over 80 percent of the children with TB.

Professor Levin said: "It has taken seven years and the combined efforts of clinicians and scientists in the UK, Africa and Singapore to identify this gene signature of childhood TB. What we now need is collaboration from biotechnology and industrial partners to turn these findings into a simple, rapid and affordable test for TB that can be used in hospitals worldwide."

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Diagnosis of childhood TB could be improved by genetic discovery

James Wilson, M.D., Ph.D. receives Pioneer Award

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Apr-2014

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

New Rochelle, NY, April 30, 2014James M. Wilson, MD, PhD (University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia) has dedicated his research and medical career to developing gene therapy and the vectors needed to deliver genes into cells for the treatment and cure of inherited diseases. In recognition of his leadership and accomplishments, Dr. Wilson has received a Pioneer Award, bestowed by a blue ribbon panel*, from Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. Human Gene Therapy is commemorating its 25th anniversary by honoring the leading 12 Pioneers in the field of cell and gene therapy and publishing a Pioneer Perspective by each of the award recipients. The Perspective by Dr. Wilson is available on the Human Gene Therapy website.

In his essay "Genetic Diseases, Immunology, Viruses, and Gene Therapy," Dr. Wilson traces the path, motivating factors, and mentors and colleagues that led him from his early work identifying the mutations responsible for the devastating childhood disease Lesch-Nyhan syndrome (LNS) to the exploration of novel techniques and molecular tools for transferring therapeutic genes first into animals and then into humans. Since joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania more than 20 years ago, much of his research has focused on the development of adenoviral and adeno-associated viral vectors as vehicles for gene delivery.

Noting that the commercialization of gene therapy is still in its infancy, Dr. Wilson states that "We are entering a remarkable era of gene therapy research that will accelerate its development and lead to a number of commercial products across a spectrum of diseases." His laboratory has made seminal contributions to the basic biology of vectors and the development of current generation vector technologies that have enabled others to successfully move into the clinic.

"Dr. Wilson strongly deserves this accolade as an HGT pioneer of gene and cell therapy," says Deputy Editor George Dickson, BSc, PhD, University of London, Surrey. "His unparalleled contributions to the adenoviral and AAV vector fields over more than 25 years have been profound and seminal. Vectors from Dr. Wilson's lab at the University of Pennsylvania have been distributed around the globe, and are bearing fruit in viral vaccine and viral gene therapy areas spanning a plethora of disease targets."

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*The blue ribbon panel of leaders in cell and gene therapy, led by Chair Mary Collins, PhD, MRC Centre for Medical Molecular Virology, University College London selected the Pioneer Award recipients. The Award Selection Committee selected scientists that had devoted much of their careers to cell and gene therapy research and had made a seminal contribution to the field--defined as a basic science or clinical advance that greatly influenced progress in translational research.

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James Wilson, M.D., Ph.D. receives Pioneer Award