Pacific Islands Forum To Continue Dialogue, Engage With Fiji

Posted on by

SUVA, Feb 15 (Bernama) -- The Pacific Islands Forum's Ministerial Contact Group concluded its two-day visit to Fiji on Saturday, saying the visit is consistent with the mandate of Pacific Islands Forum leaders to continue a dialogue and engage with Fiji.

The group said it welcomes "significant progress" made by Fiji since it last visited in April last year, including "important and significant efforts" to prepare for elections by Sept 30 this year, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Welcoming the progress Fiji has made towards elections and a return to parliamentary democracy, the ministers agreed to recommend to forum leaders that Fiji be invited to participate in PACER (Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations) Plus negotiations and forum trade ministers' meetings at the ministerial level," the statement said.

It said the ministers discussed with the forum secretary general steps for welcoming Fiji's full participation in the forum, following Fiji's September election in accordance with the spirit and intent of the Biketawa Declaration.

The Ministerial Contact Group is chaired by New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully and includes Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop, who visited Fiji for the first time since taking up the post, and ministers from Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Fiji has been suspended from the Pacific Islands Forum since May 2009 after the 2006 coup, by which the country's current Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, a naval officer, took power.

The Fijian government has pledged to hold a general election by the end of September this year, and Bainimarama has said he will resign as commander of the military forces to prepare for the upcoming general election.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) Plus negotiations "offer an opportunity to help Pacific Islands Forum countries benefit from enhanced regional trade and economic integration".

Pacific Islands Forum leaders launched negotiations on PACER Plus at their 40th meeting in August 2009.

Fiji is currently not a participant in the PACER Plus negotiations.

View original post here:

Pacific Islands Forum To Continue Dialogue, Engage With Fiji

Islands Free listening, videos, concerts, stats and …

Posted on by

Islands is an indie rock band formed in 2005 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and currently based in Los Angeles, California

Hailing from Montreal, Canada, Islands is a 6 piece band founded in 2005 by The Unicorns co-founder/songwriter Nick Thorburn (often performing as Nick Diamonds) and drummer JAime Tambeur. Following the untimely disbandment of The Unicorns as they teetered on the brink of breaking through, Islands debut release entitled Return to the Sea, with its quirky sounds and refreshing, catchy melodies includes collaborations with members of Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade. This debut picks up where The Unicorns left off and takes the music to new heights without departing from The Unicorns unique if sometimes peculiar appeal.

Islands plays beautiful pop melodies, intertwined with elements of afro-pop, hip hop, and indie rock, among others. One of the main gimmicks of the band is the recorder brought over from The Unicorns, which is prominently featured in the song Jogging Gorgeous Summer. Nick Diamonds rules over the band with an iron fist. Other members include: Patrice Agbokou, Aaron Harris, Alex Chow, Sebastian Chow, and Patrick Gregoire. Return to the Sea, their rookie effort, was released on April 4th, 2006 on the brand new label, equator records, and rough trade in the uk. Digital Distribution handled by Alpha Pup.

On May 20, 2008, Islands released its second album, Arms Way, on Anti- Records.

On September 22, 2009 Islands released their third full length album, Vapours.

See the rest here:

Islands Free listening, videos, concerts, stats and ...

Interactive map of human genetic history revealed

Posted on by

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

13-Feb-2014

Contact: Clare Ryan clare.ryan@ucl.ac.uk 44-020-310-83846 University College London

The interactive map, produced by researchers from Oxford University and UCL (University College London), details the histories of genetic mixing between each of the 95 populations across Europe, Africa, Asia and South America spanning the last four millennia.

The study, published this week in Science, simultaneously identifies, dates and characterises genetic mixing between populations. To do this, the researchers developed sophisticated statistical methods to analyse the DNA of 1490 individuals in 95 populations around the world. The work was chiefly funded by the Wellcome Trust and Royal Society.

'DNA really has the power to tell stories and uncover details of humanity's past.' said Dr Simon Myers of Oxford University's Department of Statistics and Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, co-senior author of the study.

'Because our approach uses only genetic data, it provides information independent from other sources. Many of our genetic observations match historical events, and we also see evidence of previously unrecorded genetic mixing. For example, the DNA of the Tu people in modern China suggests that in around 1200CE, Europeans similar to modern Greeks mixed with an otherwise Chinese-like population. Plausibly, the source of this European-like DNA might be merchants travelling the nearby Silk Road.'

The powerful technique, christened 'Globetrotter', provides insight into past events such as the genetic legacy of the Mongol Empire. Historical records suggest that the Hazara people of Pakistan are partially descended from Mongol warriors, and this study found clear evidence of Mongol DNA entering the population during the period of the Mongol Empire. Six other populations, from as far west as Turkey, showed similar evidence of genetic mixing with Mongols around the same time.

'What amazes me most is simply how well our technique works,' said Dr Garrett Hellenthal of the UCL Genetics Institute, lead author of the study. 'Although individual mutations carry only weak signals about where a person is from, by adding information across the whole genome we can reconstruct these mixing events. Sometimes individuals sampled from nearby regions can have surprisingly different sources of mixing.

'For example, we identify distinct events happening at different times among groups sampled within Pakistan, with some inheriting DNA from sub-Saharan Africa, perhaps related to the Arab Slave Trade, others from East Asia, and yet another from ancient Europe. Nearly all our populations show mixing events, so they are very common throughout recent history and often involve people migrating over large distances.'

Read the rest here:

Interactive map of human genetic history revealed

Sunrise health care firm aims to cut Medicaid costs

Posted on by

Sunshine Health, a Sunrise managed health-care company that was a big winner in Florida's long-term care contracts last year, is doubling its workforce in South Florida to provide services to low-income seniors and the disabled.

The company said it is on a mission to provide improved health care to the low-income and disabled communities at a reduced cost to government.

Preventative care is the key, said Chris Paterson, chief executive for Sunrise-based Sunshine Health.

"We try to identify members who will need more help than others," he said.

Sunshine Health, which also provides other Medicaid services, has a total of 215,000 residents under its care in the state, with one-third of them in South Florida.

In 2013, the company bid and won contracts for 10 of the 11 regions in the state, including Broward and Palm Beach counties. It will share in providing long-term care for the approximately 90,000 residents eligible for Medicaid services.

In total, Sunshine has won $16 billion worth of contracts over five years to provide medical assistance and long-term care to Florida's Medicaid population, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration said.

To expand its services, Sunshine Health is hiring up to 800 nurses, social workers and other health care professionals in South Florida. They will be mostly in the field providing services such as nursing, medication management or physical therapy.

Another 600 specialists for Cenpatico, a behavioral and foster care company owned by the same parent firm, will be hired over the next six months, the company said.

Sunshine Health uses a cost-reduction model for providing health-care services developed by parent firm Centene Corp., which operates in nearly 20 states. The St. Louis-based Fortune 500 company is known for its proprietary database called "Centelligence" that helps predict the likelihood a patient will need costly hospital or emergency care.

View original post here:

Sunrise health care firm aims to cut Medicaid costs

How Health Care ETFs Can Strengthen Your Portfolio

Posted on by

NEW YORK (FMD Capital Management) -- Health care has been on a major hot streak for well over a year now. The combination of our aging population and strong demand for medical services has boosted the prices of health care stocks to fantastic levels. When you think about the path of Obamacare, shifting demographic trends, and future innovation in drugs and procedures, it becomes clear that the outlook in this sector is very bright.

There are a variety of ways that you can capitalize on the rising trend of health care companies in this country. Many people prefer to choose individual stocks because of their research and belief in a specific businesses outlook. My preferred choice is to select a basket of stocks that offer access to a wide swath of industries that are focused in multiple areas.

There is no easier way to do this than through a low-cost exchange-traded fund. However, picking the right exchange-traded fund is all about understanding the underlying holdings, fees, and index construction in order to successfully navigate this crowded field. It is important to understand what you own and how it will adapt to changing market conditions.

The most widely held ETF in this sector is the Healthcare Select Sector SPDR (XLV), which contains 56 large-cap companies primarily engaged in the pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and medical provider fields. XLV controls nearly $9 billion in total assets and charges a modest expense ratio of just 0.16%. In 2013, this ETF gained 41.21%, which handily beat the 32.13% return of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY).

See original here:

How Health Care ETFs Can Strengthen Your Portfolio

New director for rural health care collaboration

Posted on by

Western Washington Rural Health Care Collaborative has hired a new permanent executive director, announced Rene Jensen, CEO of Summit Pacific Medical Center and Chairwoman of the Western Washington Rural Health Care Collaborative.

Holly Greenwood started in the position Jan. 1. She previously held a part-time contracted position through CHOICE Regional Health Network.

The Western Washington Rural Health Care Collaborative has been in existence since 2003 and currently consists of 12 Critical Access Hospitals, all separately governed serving rural areas in Washington State. It has been the recipient of several federal grants and has deployed grant funds to their hospitals, helping provide access to specialists and specialty care.

Since Sept. 2012, Greenwood has served a dual role as the Executive Director for Western Washington Rural Heath Care Collaborative and as deputy director of CHOICE Regional Health Network. Under her leadership the Collaborative has expanded from 10 to 12 hospitals and has undertaken several new key initiatives, including assuming the lead for joint contracting and negotiating for 19 PHD hospitals, Health Information Exchange and actively supporting the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

Considering the results of the last year and the work ahead, it only made sense to secure all of Hollys time moving forward, Jensen said.

Link:

New director for rural health care collaboration

Health care provides fruitful career pathways

Posted on by

Topics: employment, jobs news

HEALTH care remains one of the largest employment sectors in the country, and based on past growth and future demand, should remain so for the foreseeable future.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures place more than 1.4 million workers in the sector as at November last year - an increase of more than 45,000 in the preceding 12 months.

While demand for healthcare professionals will remain strong in regional and metropolitan areas, rural and remote locations will likely see greater demand - or at least greater difficulty in filling positions, due to the isolated nature of the regions.

However, as rural generalist Matthew Van Gent has learned, working in a rural location makes for a very rewarding professional and personal journey.

Matthew works as a senior medical officer (provisional fellow) in Roma, as part of Queensland Health's Rural Generalist Pathway.

Matthew said he and his wife had found the move to Roma simple.

"It's just a seven-minute walk to work, and my wife and I have more time to relax and appreciate life," he said.

Which isn't to say practising rural medicine is laidback or boring. Far from it.

"The learning opportunities in Roma are incredible, I'm remunerated very generously, and the responsibility and demands of this job obliterate any thoughts of boredom or complacency," Matthew said.

See the article here:

Health care provides fruitful career pathways

Swathi Rao PA-C, an Indianapolis Clinician, Graduates to Become a Part of the Elite Group of Certified Practitioners …

Posted on by

Swathi Rao PA-C, an Indianapolis Clinician, Graduates to Become a Part of the Elite Group of Certified Practitioners by the Institute for Functional Medicine

Swathi has chosen to focus her expertise in Functional medicine for many timely reasons. According to Federal Way, WA; February 10, 2014: "Of total healthcare costs in the United States, more than 75% is due to chronic conditions." Functional medicine incorporates the latest in genetic science and systems biology, and also enables health care practitioners to practice proactive, predictive, and personalized medicine while empowering patients to take an active role in their own health.

As a graduate of The Institute for Functional Medicines Certification Program (IFMCP), Swathi Rao is uniquely trained in the functional medicine model to identify and treat the root causes of chronic disease. In order to achieve the designation of IFM Certified Practitioner, Swathi has completed 7 onsite training seminars and passed stringent written and case study evaluations.

Swathi joins an elite group of 124 practitioners who are among the first graduates of IFMs Certification Program.

About Swathi Rao PA-C Swathi is a Physician Assistant who works at Excell for Life Family Care & Pediatrics. She obtained her Physician Assistant Degree at Buter University and her Bachelors at Indiana University. To arrange an interview with Swathi please contact: Samantha Crispin, 317-660-0888 ext. 205, scrispin@excellforlife.com

About The Institute for Functional Medicine The Institute for Functional Medicine believes that good health and vitality are essential to the human spirit. The mission of IFM is to serve the highest expression of individual health through widespread adoption of functional medicine as the standard of care.

Functional medicine is a personalized, systems-oriented model that empowers patients and practitioners to achieve the highest expression of health by working in collaboration to address the underlying causes of disease. The primary drivers of the chronic disease epidemic are the complex daily interactions among an individuals genetics, environment, and lifestyle choices. Functional medicine addresses these underlying causes of disease and equips healthcare practitioners to help their patients manage this complex, interconnected web. For more information, please visit: http://functionalmedicine.org/.

About Functional Medicine The rising rates of chronic disease are creating a huge burden on the economy and the current health care system is not adequately addressing the problem. Conventional health care is rooted in an acute-care model focused on rapid diagnosis and long-term pharmaceutical interventions. Functional medicine is a model for 21st century health care that focuses on identifying and addressing the underlying causes of chronic disease by recognizing that each patient is biochemically unique, a product of the continuous interaction between their genes, their environment, and their lifestyle choices. Only by finding the specific causes of each patients disease and providing treatment that is individualized to that patient will we be able to reverse the epidemic of chronic disease.

More here:

Swathi Rao PA-C, an Indianapolis Clinician, Graduates to Become a Part of the Elite Group of Certified Practitioners ...

CRISPR is the technology that could allow researchers to perform microsurgery on genes

Posted on by

Precise and easy ways to rewrite human genes could finally provide the tools that researchers need to understand and cure some of our most deadly genetic diseases.

Over the last decade, as DNA-sequencing technology has grown ever faster and cheaper, our understanding of the human genome has increased accordingly. Yet scientists have until recently remained largely ham-fisted when theyve tried to directly modify genes in a living cell. Take sickle-cell anemia, for example. A debilitating and often deadly disease, it is caused by a mutation in just one of a patients three billion DNA base pairs. Even though this genetic error is simple and well studied, researchers are helpless to correct it and halt its devastating effects.

Now there is hope in the form of new genome-engineering tools, particularly one called CRISPR. This technology could allow researchers to perform microsurgery on genes, precisely and easily changing a DNA sequence at exact locations on a chromosome. Along with a technique called TALENs, invented several years ago, and a slightly older predecessor based on molecules called zinc finger nucleases, CRISPR could make gene therapies more broadly applicable, providing remedies for simple genetic disorders like sickle-cell anemia and eventually even leading to cures for more complex diseases involving multiple genes. Most conventional gene therapies crudely place new genetic material at a random location in the cell and can only add a gene. In contrast, CRISPR and the other new tools also give scientists a precise way to delete and edit specific bits of DNAeven by changing a single base pair. This means they can rewrite the human genome at will.

It is likely to be at least several years before such efforts can be developed into human therapeutics, but a growing number of academic researchers have seen some preliminary success with experiments involving sickle-cell anemia, HIV, and cystic fibrosis (see table below). One is Gang Bao, a bioengineering researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who has already used CRISPR to correct the sickle-cell mutation in human cells grown in a dish. Bao and his team started the work in 2008 using zinc finger nucleases. When TALENs came out, his group switched quickly, says Bao, and then it began using CRISPR when that tool became available. While he has ambitions to eventually work on a variety of diseases, Bao says it makes sense to start with sickle-cell anemia. If we pick a disease to treat using genome editing, we should start with something relatively simple, he says. A disease caused by a single mutation, in a single gene, that involves only a single cell type.

In little more than a year, CRISPR has begun reinventing genetic research.

Bao has an idea of how such a treatment would work. Currently, physicians are able to cure a small percentage of sickle-cell patients by finding a human donor whose bone marrow is an immunological match; surgeons can then replace some of the patients bone marrow stem cells with donated ones. But such donors must be precisely matched with the patient, and even then, immune rejectiona potentially deadly problemis a serious risk. Baos cure would avoid all this. After harvesting blood cell precursors called hematopoietic stem cells from the bone marrow of a sickle-cell patient, scientists would use CRISPR to correct the defective gene. Then the gene-corrected stem cells would be returned to the patient, producing healthy red blood cells to replace the sickle cells. Even if we can replace 50 percent, a patient will feel much better, says Bao. If we replace 70 percent, the patient will be cured.

Though genome editing with CRISPR is just a little over a year old, it is already reinventing genetic research. In particular, it gives scientists the ability to quickly and simultaneously make multiple genetic changes to a cell. Many human illnesses, including heart disease, diabetes, and assorted neurological conditions, are affected by numerous variants in both disease genes and normal genes. Teasing out this complexity with animal models has been a slow and tedious process. For many questions in biology, we want to know how different genes interact, and for this we need to introduce mutations into multiple genes, says Rudolf Jaenisch, a biologist at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge Massachusetts. But, says Jaenisch, using conventional tools to create a mouse with a single mutation can take up to a year. If a scientist wants an animal with multiple mutations, the genetic changes must be made sequentially, and the timeline for one experiment can extend into years. In contrast, Jaenisch and his colleagues, including MIT researcher Feng Zhang (a 2013 member of our list of 35 innovators under 35), reported last spring that CRISPR had allowed them to create a strain of mice with multiple mutations in three weeks.

Genome GPS

Continued here:

CRISPR is the technology that could allow researchers to perform microsurgery on genes

Biotech start-up Voyager Therapeutics uses new gene therapy to attack diseases – Boston.com

Posted on by

By Callum Borchers/Globe Staff/February 12, 2014

A Cambridge biotechnology company launching Wednesday is taking aim at Parkinsons disease and ALS with a new gene therapy that deliberately infects patients with a virus.

The firm, Voyager Therapeutics, plans to use a class of viruses known as adeno-associated viruses as carriers to deliver vital proteins to the brain. Intentional infection may be counterintuitive, but the viruses used in the therapy are harmless to humans, making them ideal vehicles for moving proteins throughout the body, without troublesome side effects.

Boston venture capital firm Third Rock Ventures considered Voyagers research so promising that it invested $45 million to get the company off the ground, an unusually big bet on such an early stage life sciences firm.

Were just convinced that these viruses are going to be incredibly important delivery vehicles to different parts of the body and make a big difference in a lot of very serious disorders, said Third Rock cofounder Mark Levin, who will serve as Voyagers interim chief executive during the companys start-up phase.

The investment in Voyager marks Third Rocks latest foray into genetic medicine and the treatment of rare diseases. Bluebird bio of Cambridge, another gene therapy company in its portfolio, raised more than $100 million in an initial public stock offering last June. Bluebird is working on a treatment to slow the progression of a genetic brain disorder called childhood cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy, or CCALD.

In November, Third Rock joined two other venture firms in putting a combined $43 million behind a Cambridge start-up called Editas Medicine, which is developing a technique to edit faulty genes, such as those that cause Huntingtons disease and sickle cell anemia.

The investments reflect a broader belief among the scientific community that gene therapy could be the key to effectively treating some of the worlds most challenging disorders. Gene therapy techniques typically involve replacing a mutated gene with a healthy version or turning off a gene that causes disease.

Voyager plans to use adeno-associated viruses as carriers for both techniques. To treat Parkinsons, for instance, Voyager will use viruses to deliver a missing protein. For ALS, the viruses will help shut down a harmful protein.

Expecting gene therapy to produce cures for rare diseases might be unrealistic, Levin said, but the idea is to make a dramatic difference in patients lives.

View post:

Biotech start-up Voyager Therapeutics uses new gene therapy to attack diseases - Boston.com