Inside the Galapagos Islands Giant Tortoise Rehab Effort

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For the first two years of their lives, tortoises are kept in protective pens to avoid predators. Photo: Jeffrey Marlow

Youre sailing from the Spice Islands across the open ocean to the South American port of Guayaquil, your financial motives rooted somewhere along a broad spectrum of morality and lawfulness. Several months have passed, and food stores and morale are low. Fortunately, you know a spot that will save the day, a cluster of rocky islands jutting out of the east Pacific near the equator.

For centuries, the Galapagos Islands have been a convenience store for ocean-going journeys, the resident Giant Tortoises serving as the perfect solution to the constant challenge of acquiring fresh meat at sea. These enormous beasts could handle the rigors of shipboard life and could be harvested at any time. Ships throughout the 18th-20th centuries would stop at the Galapagos, herd dozens of tortoises onto the decks, and sail off, assured of a reliable protein source for the remainder of their journey. At one point, an American whaling vessel lost track of a captive tortoise, which ambled out of the hold two and a half years later in Nantucket. Befuddled onlookers promptly killed it and made a stew.

And so, slowly but surely, the Giant Tortoise population was decimated. By the mid-1900s, conservationists began to recognize the problem, just as the increasing rate of international tourism and commerce was introducing another mortal threat to the species.

This one came in the form of fire ants, a voracious invasive species with a taste for baby tortoise. Within 20 minutes of hatching, says naturalist Ernesto Vaca, they swarm and make the baby tortoise disappear. Other human-transported pests, like rats, dogs, and cats, have developed similar dietary proclivities. With the species now facing a genuine threat to its survival, the Centro de Crianza was founded on Isabela Island, and conservationists went into crisis mode, airlifting tortoises with helicopters and initiating a breeding program.

It took a while to develop effective breeding techniques, but today, the Centro boasts a near-perfect success rate from egg to teenage tortoise. The rescue program continues in full force, as the habitat surrounding Isabela Islands many dome-shaped volcanoes have been deemed unsafe for tortoises because of the fire ant threat. Employees and volunteers venture into the dense forest to retrieve tortoise eggs, which are then placed into computer-controlled incubators back at the Centro. The sex of the fledglings is determined by egg incubation temperature above 37.5 C leads to females, below produces males allowing the Centro to generate its ideal ratio of 60% females and 40% males. Just before hatching, the eggs are buried in sand to simulate natural conditions and ensure that baby tortoises can dig upward and outward, a capability that bodes well for future robustness. Until the young tortoises are two years old, theyre placed in cages to offer protection against rats. By five, theyre in open-air enclosures, having received microchips that will track their movements once released into the wild.

And that, after all, is the ultimate goal, to repopulate the Galapagos with one of its most iconic species. Already, several hundred adults have been reintroduced to Espanola, an island particularly hard-hit by wave of threats over the decades. But the long-term prognosis is murky, especially as the invasive species that predate upon tortoises continue to grow in numbers. One option is to bolster the invasive species eradication efforts; another is that the animals will merely live the first few years of their lives in controlled conditions. But for now, the stabilization of the Giant Tortoise population is a victory in itself, a promising example of how conservation efforts can bring an organism back from the brink. As human impact on the unique Galapagos ecosystems increases, the model of tortoise rehab may prove useful in protecting other species from extinction, allowing the islands to maintain their unique treasure trove of biodiversity.

Homepage image: Antje Schultner/Flickr

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Inside the Galapagos Islands Giant Tortoise Rehab Effort

DNA looping damage tied to HPV cancer, researcher discovers

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It's long been known that certain strains of human papillomavirus (HPV) cause cancer. Now, researchers at The Ohio State University have determined a new way that HPV might spark cancer development -- by disrupting the human DNA sequence with repeating loops when the virus is inserted into host-cell DNA as it replicates.

Worldwide, HPV causes about 610,000 cases of cancer annually, accounting for about five percent of all cancer cases and virtually all cases of cervical cancer. Yet, the mechanisms behind the process aren't yet completely understood.

This study, recently published in the journal Genome Research and reviewed in The Scientist, leveraged the massive computational power of the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) systems. The researchers employed whole-genome sequencing, genomic alignment and other molecular analysis methods to examine ten cancer-cell lines and two head and neck tumor samples from patients -- each sequence comprising the three billion chemical units within the human genetic instruction set.

"Our sequencing data showed in vivid detail that HPV can damage host-cell genes and chromosomes at sites of viral insertion," said co-senior author David Symer, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular virology, immunology and medical genetics at Ohio State's Comprehensive Cancer Center -- Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC -- James).

"HPV can act like a tornado hitting the genome, disrupting and rearranging nearby host-cell genes," he said. "This can lead to overexpression of cancer-causing genes in some cases, or it can disrupt protective tumor-suppressor genes in others. Both kinds of damage likely promote the development of cancer."

The study's first author Keiko Akagi, Ph.D., a bioinformatics expert and research assistant professor of molecular virology, immunology and medical genetics at OSUCCC -- James, utilized the computational capabilities of OSC's HP-built Intel Xeon cluster. The 8,300+ cores of the Oakley Cluster offer Ohio researchers a total peak performance of 154 teraflops -- tech speak for making 154 trillion calculations per second -- and OSC's Mass Storage System provides them with more than 2 petabytes of storage.

"We observed fragments of the host-cell genome to be removed, rearranged or increased in number at sites of HPV insertion into the genome," said co-senior author Maura Gillison, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine, epidemiology and otolaryngology and the Jeg Coughlin Chair of Cancer Research at OSUCCC -- James. "These remarkable changes in host genes were accompanied by increases in the number of HPV copies in the host cell, thereby also increasing the expression of viral E6 and E7, the cancer-promoting genes."

Cancer-causing types of HPV produce two viral proteins, called E6 and E7, which are essential for the development of cancer, but are not alone sufficient to cause cancer. Additional alterations in host-cell genes are necessary for cancer to develop, which is where the destabilizing loops might play a significant role; genomic instability is a hallmark of human cancers, including the HPV virus.

"Our study reveals new and interesting information about what happens to HPV in the 'end game' in cancers," Symer says. "Overall, our results shed new light on the potentially critical, catastrophic steps in the progression from initial viral infection to development of an HPV-associated cancer."

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DNA looping damage tied to HPV cancer, researcher discovers

Daniel J. Rader, MD, Named as Chair of the Department of Genetics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University …

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Newswise PHILADELPHIA - Daniel J. Rader, MD, a widely recognized international leader in the human genetics of lipoprotein biology and cardiovascular disease, has been named the new chair of the Department of Genetics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been a faculty member at Penn for 20 years and is currently the chief of the Division of Translational Medicine and Human Genetics and the Edward S. Cooper, MD/Norman Roosevelt and Elizabeth Meriwether McLure Professor of Medicine.

As a prominent physician-scientist, Dr. Rader will bring his robust knowledge of genetic approaches to improving health to guide the department of Genetics into an era where genes play a role in our strategies to prevent and treat a broad array of diseases, said J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD, Executive Vice President for the Health System and Dean of the Perelman School of Medicine. His long record of leadership in the classroom, the exam room, and the lab will be invaluable to the department and overall genetics research at Penn.

Dr. Rader holds multiple leadership roles at Penn Medicine. In addition to heading the Division of Translational Medicine and Human Genetics within the Department of Medicine, he also serves as Associate Director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT).

He co-directs the new Penn Medicine BioBank, an integrated, centralized resource for consenting, collecting, processing, and storing DNA, plasma/serum, and tissue for human genetics and translational research. This venture is a cornerstone of Penn Medicines efforts in human genetics and translational and personalized medicine. Dr. Rader also has key relationships with Penns Cardiovascular Institute (CVI) and Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism (IDOM).

In his research program, Dr. Rader has used human genetics and model systems to elucidate novel biological pathways in lipoprotein metabolism and atherosclerosis. His lab discovered and characterized the enzyme endothelial lipase, demonstrated its effects on high density lipoproteins (HDL) in mice, and then found that loss-of-function mutations in the gene cause high levels of HDL in humans. He is among the worlds leaders in using both humans and model systems to dissect the functional genomics of human genetic variants associated with plasma lipid traits as well as coronary heart disease.

He has had a long interest in Mendelian disorders of lipoprotein metabolism and has a strong translational interest in development of novel therapies for these disorders. He was involved in the identification of the molecular defect in a rare genetic disorder causing very low levels of low density lipoproteins (LDL), which spurred the development of inhibitors of this protein to reduce levels of LDL. Indeed, when one such drug was abandoned by a pharmaceutical firm, he went on to oversee its development for the orphan disease homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH), characterized by extremely high levels of LDL and heart disease in childhood. This decade-long endeavor led to FDA and European approval of lomitapide, the first effective medication for the treatment of HoFH.

Dr. Rader has received numerous awards as a physician-scientist, including the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Clinical Scientist Award in Translational Research, the Bristol Myers Squibb Cardiovascular Research Award, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Distinguished Clinical Investigator Award, the Jeffrey M. Hoeg Award for Basic Science and Clinical Research from the American Heart Association, the American Heart Associations Clinical Research Prize, and the Clinical Research Forums Distinguished Clinical Research Award. He has been elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation and to the Association of American Physicians. In 2011, he received one of the nations highest honors in biomedicine when he was elected to the Institute of Medicine.

Dr. Rader has also received many awards for his outstanding teaching activities. At the Perelman School of Medicine, he has received the William Osler Patient Oriented Research Award, as well as the Donald B. Martin Outstanding Teacher Award and the Outstanding Faculty Award from the Department of Medicine. Along with these accolades, Dr. Rader has been honored by Philadelphia magazine, which has named him to its Top Docs honor roll every year since 2002.

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Daniel J. Rader, MD, Named as Chair of the Department of Genetics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University ...

Refining language for chromosomes

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When talking about genetic abnormalities at the DNA level that occur when chromosomes swap, delete or add parts, there is an evolving communication gap both in the science and medical worlds, leading to inconsistencies in clinical and research reports.

Now a study by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) proposes a new classification system that may standardize how structural chromosomal rearrangements are described. Known as Next-Gen Cytogenetic Nomenclature, it is a major contribution to the classification system to potentially revolutionize how cytogeneticists worldwide translate and communicate chromosomal abnormalities. The study will be published online April 17, 2014 in The American Journal of Human Genetics.

"As scientists we are moving the field of cytogenetics forward in the clinical space," said Cynthia Morton, PhD, BWH director of Cytogenetics, senior study author. "We will be able to define chromosomal abnormalities and report them in a way that is integral to molecular methods entering clinical practice."

According to the researchers, advances in next-generation sequencing methods and results from BWH's Developmental Genome Anatomy Project (DGAP) revealed an assortment of genes disrupted and dysregulated in human development in over 100 cases. Given the wide variety of chromosomal abnormalities, the researchers recognized that more accurate and full descriptions of structural chromosomal rearrangements were needed.

The nomenclature proposed by Morton and her team goes beyond uncovering chromosomal abnormalities under a microscope to focusing on the unique molecules that are the building blocks of DNA -- nucleotides.

"Cytogeneticists compare karyograms, or pictures of chromosomes, to identify chromosomal abnormalities," said Morton. "In the current system available, we are able to describe certain characteristics of chromosomes, such as chromosome band levels. What we have developed is a new system for describing chromosomal abnormalities at a much more precise level."

"Currently, most DNA sequencing reports only provide nucleotide numbers of the breakpoints in various formats based on the reference genome sequence alignment," said Zehra Ordulu, MD, BWH Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine, lead study author. "But there are other important characteristics of the rearrangement -- including reference genome identification, chromosome band level, direction of the sequence, homology, repeats, and nontemplated sequence -- that are not described."

The proposed system addresses these characteristics and builds upon the International System for Human Cytogenetic Nomenclature, which is the current official classification system used to describe structural chromosome rearrangements.

To enable use and implementation of the proposed system, the researchers are developing an online tool called "BLA(S)T Output Sequence Tool of Nomenclature," or BOSToN. The tool works by aligning nucleotide sequences to reference human genome sequence. After processing the genetic information, the end result is the Next-Gen Cytogenetic Nomenclature that researchers and clinicians can then incorporate into their reports.

"BOSToN will reduce errors in sequence assessment and save time in generating nomenclature," according to Morton, "both of critical importance in the clinical setting."

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Refining language for chromosomes

Refining the language for chromosomes

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

17-Apr-2014

Contact: Marjorie Montemayor-Quellenberg mmontemayor-quellenberg@partners.org 617-525-6383 Brigham and Women's Hospital

Boston, MA When talking about genetic abnormalities at the DNA level that occur when chromosomes swap, delete or add parts, there is an evolving communication gap both in the science and medical worlds, leading to inconsistencies in clinical and research reports.

Now a study by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) proposes a new classification system that may standardize how structural chromosomal rearrangements are described. Known as Next-Gen Cytogenetic Nomenclature, it is a major contribution to the classification system to potentially revolutionize how cytogeneticists worldwide translate and communicate chromosomal abnormalities. The study will be published online April 17, 2014 in The American Journal of Human Genetics.

"As scientists we are moving the field of cytogenetics forward in the clinical space," said Cynthia Morton, PhD, BWH director of Cytogenetics, senior study author. "We will be able to define chromosomal abnormalities and report them in a way that is integral to molecular methods entering clinical practice."

According to the researchers, advances in next-generation sequencing methods and results from BWH's Developmental Genome Anatomy Project (DGAP) revealed an assortment of genes disrupted and dysregulated in human development in over 100 cases. Given the wide variety of chromosomal abnormalities, the researchers recognized that more accurate and full descriptions of structural chromosomal rearrangements were needed.

The nomenclature proposed by Morton and her team goes beyond uncovering chromosomal abnormalities under a microscope to focusing on the unique molecules that are the building blocks of DNAnucleotides.

"Cytogeneticists compare karyograms, or pictures of chromosomes, to identify chromosomal abnormalities," said Morton. "In the current system available, we are able to describe certain characteristics of chromosomes, such as chromosome band levels. What we have developed is a new system for describing chromosomal abnormalities at a much more precise level."

"Currently, most DNA sequencing reports only provide nucleotide numbers of the breakpoints in various formats based on the reference genome sequence alignment," said Zehra Ordulu, MD, BWH Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine, lead study author. "But there are other important characteristics of the rearrangementincluding reference genome identification, chromosome band level, direction of the sequence, homology, repeats, and nontemplated sequencethat are not described."

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Refining the language for chromosomes

Public Health Research@Maryland 2014: Affordable Care Act Implementation – Video

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Public Health Research@Maryland 2014: Affordable Care Act Implementation
Affordable Care Act Implementation: Intended and Unintended Consequences for Public Health Chair: Stephen B. Thomas, PhD, Maryland Center for Health Equity, ...

By: University of Maryland School of Public Health

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Public Health Research@Maryland 2014: Affordable Care Act Implementation - Video

Health care's ills worry leaders

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FORT WAYNE The short-term prognosis for health care providers is gloom and doom.

Costs are high and rising. Incomes are falling. Fewer students can afford medical school or want to become primary-care physicians. The federal government is botching its oversight of private health insurance and reducing its reimbursements to doctors.

Those were among views expressed Wednesday during a group discussion led by two lawmakers who are also physicians.

Unless medical providers become more engaged in the politics of health care, were going to get run over by a truck by Washington, D.C., by CMS and by the rest of the government, Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-8th, warned at the gathering at Lutheran Hospital. CMS is the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Bucshon, who represents southwest Indiana, and state Rep. Tim Brown, R-Crawfordsville, visited Lutheran Hospital as part of their two-week Hoosier Healthcare Tour.

Brown, chairman of the Indiana House Ways and Means Committee, is an emergency physician. Bucshon is a cardiothoracic surgeon from Evansville.

The dozen people taking part in the Fort Wayne session included local doctors, health administrators, an insurer and Allen County Commissioner Nelson Peters. Some spent much of the 90-minute meeting lamenting requirements and costs of the federal Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, which stipulates that people must obtain health insurance or pay penalties.

Bucshon has voted many times to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But he said he does not want to return to letting insurers deny coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

The good parts of the law that are there, and there are some, OK, are going to sustain in the long term. And the parts of the law that are clearly not working will be repealed and replaced with something different, Bucshon predicted.

For one thing, care providers should offer more pricing information to consumers, the second-term congressman said.

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Health care's ills worry leaders

Long-Term Health-Care Funding

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New E-Book, Help on the Way, Explores

Long-Term Health-Care Funding

Chris Orestis, senior health-care advocate and CEO of Life Care Funding, (http://ebook.lifecarefunding.com/), has published a new free e-book, Help on the Way, which details the slowly unfolding crisis happening now in the United States: a Silver Tsunami of aging Americans with no way to pay for long-term care.

Since 2011, 10,000 baby boomers a day are turning 65 retirement age. But many dont have enough money to retire, much less to pay for long-term health care if they should require it. Theyre joining 40 million older seniors.

Unfortunately, as we age were more likely to suffer a disease or disability that requires daily care giving, which can be expensive, says Orestis, a former insurance industry lobbyist. Faced with that, many people cancel their life insurance policies in order to qualify for Medicaid or to save on premiums.

What I have been educating consumers for years about and address in my book is something that the insurance industry has kept secret for decades because they profit from the cancellations: Your policy can be used to pay for long-term health care such as home care, assisted-living or nursing home expenses.

Orestis, who has been lobbying state Legislatures to make the public aware of their legal right to use this option, says seniors can sell their policy for a substantial percent of its death benefit value and put the money into an irrevocable fund designated specifically for their care.

In Help on the Way, Orestis explains the legalities of a senior using their life insurance policy to stay in control of their care; facts about Medicare and Medicaid eligibility; the forms of care that can be covered; and dangerous liabilities that can affect unsuspecting families of seniors, among other topics.

About Chris Orestis

Chris Orestis, nationally known senior health-care advocate and expert is CEO of Life Care Funding, which created the model for converting life insurance policies into protected Long-Term Care Benefit funds. His company has been providing care benefits to policy holders since 2007. A former life insurance industry lobbyist with a background in long-term care issues, he created the model to provide an option for middle-class people who are not wealthy enough to pay for long-term care, and not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid.

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Long-Term Health-Care Funding

Residents weigh in on the future of health care

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Kawartha Lakes This Week

(KAWARTHA LAKES) If Ottawa listens to the little guys, there could be positive changes to health care.

And, thanks to the proactive efforts of health-care teams across Canada, the federal government will know what the public wants.

About 100 residents of the City of Kawartha Lakes, Brock Township and Haliburton attended public consultations held in recent months as the Canada Health Accord comes up for renewal this year.

OUR OPINION: The Public Has The Answers To The Future Of Health Care

The results were released in a special report Health Care Accord 2014 - The Future of Canadian Health Care on Tuesday (April 15).

The Accord is the agreement by which federal health care funding is given to the provinces. It is a 10-year agreement last negotiated in 2004.

That year, the federal government committed to an increase of health-care funding of six per cent per year. In 2011, the government announced that funding at that rate will continue until 2017. At that point any increase will be tied to economic growth, but not lower than three per cent annually. Funding will be calculated for each province/territory, based on its economic performance each year.

Mike Perry, executive director of the City of Kawartha Lakes Family Health Team, agrees the results are eye-opening.

It is clear people want quality, publicly-funded health care and are willing to pay for it, he said. If anything, they want it enhanced.

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Residents weigh in on the future of health care