Moose Jaw science teacher creates 'Saskatchanaut' for space flight contest

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MOOSE JAW, Sask. - The dream of blasting off into space could actually come true for a science teacher in Moose Jaw, Sask., with some help from his friends.

It sounds like a lofty goal for 37-year-old Stephen Lys, but when a Facebook ad pointed him to an online contest for a trip to space he thought it was too good to pass up.

Now he is in the top 20 Canadian contestants in the Axe Apollo Space Academy contest after creating a Facebook persona called the Saskatchanaut.

He says it's more important to him than just winning a contest for tickets to a rock concert he sees it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

And he's not there yet. First, Lys has to earn enough votes between now and August to make it as one of the top two contestants in all of Canada.

He says that's why he created "the Saskatchanaut."

I thought people would get behind a character more than theyd get behind just some guy, he said.

If Lys is one of the top two votegetters, he will progress to space camp in Orlando, Fla., and if he does well there, he might just end up being chosen to go into space.

The contest is being run by Axe, a company that produces men's grooming products. The space flight will be managed by SXC, a space tourism company.

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Moose Jaw science teacher creates 'Saskatchanaut' for space flight contest

Global Observations to Continue with New NASA Satellite – Video

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Global Observations to Continue with New NASA Satellite
Media hear from NASA and US Geological Survey scientists about the data they #39;ll look to get from the Landsat Data Continuity Mission, LDCM, the satellite due to launch from Vandenberg AFB in California on Feb. 11. t is the eighth satellite in the Landsat series, which began in 1972 and will add to the longest continuous data record of Earth #39;s surface as viewed from space

By: NASAtelevision

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Global Observations to Continue with New NASA Satellite - Video

LDCM A New Era in Earth Observation #LDCM #Nasa #Landsat – Video

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LDCM A New Era in Earth Observation #LDCM #Nasa #Landsat
NASA #39;s Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) is the eighth satellite in the Landsat series, which began in 1972. The mission will extend more than 40 years of global land observations that are critical in many areas, such as energy and water management, forest monitoring, human and environmental health, urban planning, disaster recovery and agriculture. NASA #39;s Launch Services Program will launch the LDCM spacecraft atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. sites.google.com http://www.facebook.com http://www.youtube.com twitter.com

By: James Parks

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LDCM A New Era in Earth Observation #LDCM #Nasa #Landsat - Video

RRM: Mission to the Future Delivers #NASA #CSA #Dextre – Video

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RRM: Mission to the Future Delivers #NASA #CSA #Dextre
Robotic Refueling Mission Robotic refueling is challenging. Before a satellite leaves the ground, technicians fill its fuel tank through a valve that #39;s then triple-sealed and covered with a protective blanket mdash;designed never to be accessed again. RRM paves the way for a future robotic servicing mission by demonstrating that a remote-controlled robot can overcome these obstacles to service and refuel a satellite on orbit. A joint effort between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), this mission will use the station #39;s robotic arm known as Dextre to conduct these experiments. Normally employed for maintenance of the orbiting superstructure, Dextre becomes experimental hardware in RRM, pushing the limits of robotic teleoperation. It #39;s a first step to making routine robotic servicing on orbit a reality. sites.google.com http://www.facebook.com http://www.youtube.com twitter.com

By: James Parks

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RRM: Mission to the Future Delivers #NASA #CSA #Dextre - Video

NASA | RRM: Mission to the Future Delivers the Goods – Video

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NASA | RRM: Mission to the Future Delivers the Goods
Fill #39;er up! That #39;s the promise of robotic refueling on orbit: aging satellites can get a new lease on life from a robotic machine making a service call. Or, at least, the dream of such a system got dramatically closer after NASA #39;s robotic mission success. NASA had an idea, and in a series of extraordinary tests, decided to demonstrate that technologies for servicing satellites in space had evolved to levels of material value. Extending the lifespans of satellites already at work hundreds, even thousands of miles above the Earth, could soon be a reality. In a six-day test at the International Space Station called the Robotic Refueling Mission, they tried out tools and techniques for repairing and refueling satellites without a single astronaut in sight. It #39;s a story with historical roots dating back to the 1980 #39;s, and with RRM #39;s twenty-first century on-orbit success, it shines a light on bold imaginings for a space-faring future that suddenly doesn #39;t seem so far ahead. In this documentary we look at the lifecycle of this extraordinary initiative. This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA #39;s Goddard Shorts HD podcast: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com Or find us on Twitter: twitter.com

By: NASAexplorer

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NASA: Asteroid 2012 DA14 to Safely Pass Earth – Video

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NASA: Asteroid 2012 DA14 to Safely Pass Earth
Asteroid 2012 DA 14 is an object about half the size of a football field in diameter that is going to pass very close to the Earth on February15, 2013. Coming from the south to the north, to actually gets to within 17200 miles of the Earth #39;s surface, and will pass interior to the geosynchronous satellites and the GPS satellites, but there #39;s really no chance of the asteroid hitting the Earth and very little change it will hit a satellite. Unfortunately the answer is no. It #39;s going to be brighter than most asteroids but still is not going to be a naked eye object. The asteroid was discovered by a group of Spanish astronomers in La Sagra observatory in southern Spain. It #39;s going very fast It #39;ll be hard to track and you have to be located in Eastern Europe or in Asia or possibly Australia. An object the size of DA 14 actually impacted the Earth on June 30th 1908. The so-called "Tunguska event." An object about 30or 40 meters came down in the Earth #39;s atmosphere and exploded leveling trees for 820 square miles. The close approach of this object 2012 DA 14 on Feb 15, 2013 is nothing to worry about. Its orbit is very well known. We know exactly where it #39;s going to go and it cannot hit the Earth. 20 years ago, you probably wouldn #39;t have found this object. But now NASA is observing the skies nightly and picking up these objects and we track them for a hundred years into the future and see if any of them make interesting close Earth approaches. Not only because of the threat issue ...

By: projectdeepcover

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NASA: Asteroid 2012 DA14 to Safely Pass Earth - Video

New Discoveries From NASA’s ‘Curiosity’ Rover’s Mars Mission – Video

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New Discoveries From NASA #39;s #39;Curiosity #39; Rover #39;s Mars Mission
Spencer Michels has the story of NASA #39;s newest rover vehicle, aptly named "Curiosity," and its mission to Mars. Curiosity has made some new discoveries, begging the age-old question, does life exist on the red planet?

By: PBSNewsHour

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New Discoveries From NASA's 'Curiosity' Rover's Mars Mission - Video

Lockheed Martin Completes Assembly, Begins Environmental Testing of NASA's Maven Spacecraft

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DENVER, Feb. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] has completed the assembly of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft. The orbiter is now undergoing environmental testing at the company's Space Systems facilities, near Denver, Colo. MAVEN is the next mission to Mars and will be the first mission devoted to understanding the Martian upper atmosphere.

Photo and video of MAVEN: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/news/press-releases/2013/february/lockheed-martin-completes-assembly--begins-environmental-testing.html

During the environmental testing phase, the orbiter will undergo a variety of rigorous tests that simulate the extreme temperatures, vacuum and vibration the spacecraft will experience during the course of its mission. Currently, the spacecraft is in the company's Reverberant Acoustic Laboratory being prepared to undergo acoustics testing that simulates the maximum sound and vibration levels the spacecraft will experience during launch.

Following the acoustics test, MAVEN will be subjected to a barrage of additional tests, including: separation/deployment shock, sine vibration, electromagnetic interference/electromagnetic compatibility (EMI/EMC), and magnetics testing. The phase concludes with a thermal vacuum test where the spacecraft and its instruments are exposed to the vacuum and extreme hot and cold temperatures it will face in space.

"The assembly and integration of MAVEN has gone very smoothly and we're excited to test our work over the next six months," said Guy Beutelschies, MAVEN program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. "Environmental testing is a crucial set of activities designed to ensure the spacecraft can operate in the extreme conditions of space."

"I'm very pleased with how our team has designed and built the spacecraft and science instruments that will make our measurements," said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator from the University of Colorado at Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. "We've got an exciting science mission planned, and the environmental testing now is what will ensure that we are ready for launch and for the mission."

MAVEN is scheduled to ship from Lockheed Martin's facility to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in early August where it will undergo final preparations for launch.

Scheduled to launch in November 2013, MAVEN is a robotic exploration mission to understand the role that loss of atmospheric gas to space played in changing the Martian climate through time. It will investigate how much of the Martian atmosphere has been lost over time by measuring the current rate of escape to space and gathering enough information about the relevant processes to allow extrapolate backward in time.

"This phase of the program is particularly important in that it will provide us with a good assessment of the MAVEN system's capabilities under the simulated extremes of the space environment," said David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Of significance, the spacecraft is entering system level test right on schedule, while maintaining robust cost and schedule reserves to deal with the technical or programmatic surprises that could occur during test or in the run to launch. Tracking on plan is critically important to being ready for launch later this year and the science that MAVEN will deliver one year later."

MAVEN's principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. The university will provide science operations, science instruments and lead Education/Public Outreach. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the project and provides two of the science instruments for the mission. Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colo., built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. The University of California at Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory provides science instruments for the mission. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., provides navigation support, the Deep Space Network and the Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations.

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Lockheed Martin Completes Assembly, Begins Environmental Testing of NASA's Maven Spacecraft

Nasa announces forthcoming asteroid 'near miss'

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The asteroid, known as 2012 DA14, is travelling eight times faster than a rifle bullet, and will move well inside the ring of communications and weather satellites surrounding the planet.

The asteroid will be closest to Earth at 2.24pm EST on Feb 15. It will not be visible with the naked eye, but will be visible in dark skies with binoculars or a small telescope in eastern Europe, Asia and Australia. The best viewing spot will be Indonesia.

Nasa has been passing details to satellite operators, but Dr Yeomans said: "It appears to be passing right in the sweet spot between the GPS satellites and the communications and weather satellites, so it's extremely unlikely any of those satellites will be affected. I don't anticipate any problems."

2012 DA14, which orbits the Earth about once a year, was discovered by astronomers in Spain in February last year. Next week will be its closest ever approach. It is travelling at 17,400mph.

Nasa said an actual collision between Earth and an object the size of 2012 DA14 is estimated to to occur once every 1,200 years.

The last comparable sized object to hit Earth was the 1908 Tunguska event in Russia, which knocked down trees over an area of 800 square miles.

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Nasa announces forthcoming asteroid 'near miss'

NASA to launch powerful Earth-watching satellite

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NASA/VAFB

The payload fairing containing the Landsat Data Continuity Mission spacecraft arrives at Vandenberg Air Force Base's Space Launch Complex-3E where it will be hoisted atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V for launch. Image released Jan 25, 2013.

By Mike Wall, SPACE.com

NASA is gearing up for the Monday launch of an Earth-observation satellite that will continue a celebrated 40-year project to monitor our planet's surface from space.

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission is slated to blast off Monday at 1:02 p.m. EST (1802 GMT/10:02 a.m. PST) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The LDCM satellite is the eighth overall in the Landsat program, which has been scrutinizing Earth from orbit continuously since Landsat 1 launched in 1972.

Mission team members call LDCM the most advanced and capable Landsat spacecraft ever built. It should help the United States and other nations around the world monitor environmental change and better manage their natural resources, they say.

"LDCM will continue to describe the human impact on Earth and the impact of Earth on humanity, which is vital for accommodating seven billion people on our planet," LDCM project manager Ken Schwer, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., told reporters Friday during a prelaunch press briefing. [Photos: The Next Landsat Earth-Observing Spacecraft]

The $855 million LDCM mission is a collaboration between NASA and the United States Geological Survey, which will take over operations after the spacecraft's launch and initial checkouts. At that point, the satellite will be renamed Landsat 8.

Landsat 8 will zip around the Earth at an altitude of 438 miles, using two sensors to study the planet's surface in the visible and infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The SUV-size satellite will achieve full Earth coverage every 16 days, though its work will lower this to once per eight days for the program overall. That's because Landsat 8 will fly eight days behind Landsat 7, which launched in 1999 and recently became the only currently operational Landsat spacecraft. (Landsat 5 retiredrecently after 29 years of service).

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NASA to launch powerful Earth-watching satellite

NASA Poised to Launch Powerful New Earth-Watching Satellite Monday

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NASA is gearing up for the Monday (Feb. 11) launch of an Earth-observation satellite that will continue a celebrated 40-year project to monitor our planet's surface from space.

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission is slated to blast off Monday at 1:02 p.m. EST (1802 GMT/10:02 a.m. PST) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The LDCM satellite is the eighth overall in the Landsat program, which has been scrutinizing Earth from orbit continuously since Landsat 1 launched in 1972.

Mission team members call LDCM the most advanced and capable Landsat spacecraft ever built. It should help the United States and other nations around the world monitor environmental change and better manage their natural resources, they say.

"LDCM will continue to describe the human impact on Earth and the impact of Earth on humanity, which is vital for accommodating seven billion people on our planet," LDCM project manager Ken Schwer, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., told reporters today (Feb. 8) during a prelaunch press briefing. [Photos: The Next Landsat Earth-Observing Spacecraft]

The $855 million LDCM mission is a collaboration between NASA and the United States Geological Survey, which will take over operations after the spacecraft's launch and initial checkouts. At that point, the satellite will be renamed Landsat 8.

Landsat 8 will zip around the Earth at an altitude of 438 miles (705 kilometers), using two sensors to study the planet's surface in the visible and infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The SUV-size satellite will achieve full Earth coverage every 16 days, though its work will lower this to once per eight days for the program overall. That's because Landsat 8 will fly eight days behind Landsat 7, which launched in 1999 and recently became the only currently operational Landsat spacecraft. (Landsat 5 retiredrecently after 29 years of service).

Landsat 8's observations will have a broad range of applications, from illuminating the impacts of climate change to monitoring agricultural output to helping authorities respond to natural disasters, scientists said.

"Landsat data is a global resource, empowering nations to individually monitor and report," said Mike Wulder of the Canadian Forest Service in Victoria, British Columbia. "Further, Landsat data allows us to see what the world looks like, and how it has changed over time."

The weather should be good at Vandenberg during Monday's launch window, officials said, but it hasn't been cooperating today. The mission team wanted to perform some ordnance connections on LDCM's launch vehicle, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, earlier today but were unable to do so because of the threat of lightning.

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NASA Poised to Launch Powerful New Earth-Watching Satellite Monday

Christine Peterson – Nanotechnology – Video

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Christine Peterson - Nanotechnology
Christine Peterson writes, lectures, and briefs the media on coming powerful technologies, especially nanotechnology and life extension. She is Co-Founder and Past President of Foresight Institute, the leading nanotech public interest group. Foresight educates the public, technical community, and policymakers on nanotechnology and its long-term effects. She serves on the Advisory Board of the International Council on Nanotechnology, the Editorial Advisory Board of NASA #39;s Nanotech Briefs, and the Advisory Board of Singularity Institute, and served on California #39;s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Nanotechnology. She has often directed Foresight Conferences on Molecular Nanotechnology, organized Foresight Institute Feynman Prizes, and chaired Foresight Vision Weekends. She lectures on nanotechnology to a wide variety of audiences, focusing on making this complex field understandable, and on clarifying the difference between near-term commercial advances and the "Next Industrial Revolution" arriving in the next few decades. Her work is motivated by a desire to help Earth #39;s environment and traditional human communities avoid harm and instead benefit from expected dramatic advances in technology. This goal of spreading benefits led to an interest in new varieties of intellectual property including open source software, a term she is credited with originating. Wearing her for-profit hat, she chairs the Personalized Life Extension Conference series. In 1991 she coauthored Unbounding the ...

By: Adam Ford

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Christine Peterson - Nanotechnology - Video

The Heart-Mantra Of Medicine Master Buddha (Buddhist Chants: Music For Contemplation

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The Heart-Mantra Of Medicine Master Buddha (Buddhist Chants: Music For Contemplation Reflection)
If you like what you see and here please leave a comment or press the like button. Also please spread good things to your friends. Thanks.

By: #3605; #3632; #3621; #3629; #3609; #3607; #3637; #3623; #3637; #3605; #3632; #3621; #3629; #3609; #3585; #3636; #3609; #3607; #3637; #3623; #3637;

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The Heart-Mantra Of Medicine Master Buddha (Buddhist Chants: Music For Contemplation

Northwestern Medicine® Announces New Glenview Outpatient Center

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Multispecialty center slated to open March 1 to deliver primary care and subspecialty clinical care services

CHICAGO, Feb. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --Northwestern Medicine today announced that on March 1 it will open a new Outpatient Center at 2701 Patriot Boulevard in Glenview, Illinois. At this new center, 20-30 physicians will offer patients a wide range of primary care and specialty clinical services.

"We know that many of our patients travel from far-reaching suburbs to receive care at Northwestern," said Norman Botsford, chief operating officer of Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation (NMFF). "Expanding our outpatient services into the communities where patients live and work alleviates the need to travel into Chicago to receive the Northwestern care they've come to trust and value. And most importantly if inpatient care is ever needed, these locations afford seamless transition into Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital."

The new Outpatient Center is part of previously announced plans to expand access to Northwestern's quality clinical care in the northern suburbs. The Glenview site is one of seven new Northwestern Medicine clinics, five of which have already opened in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood, Evanston, Libertyville, Grayslake and Highland Park, Illinois. Northwestern Medicine will open the seventh clinical site in north suburban Deerfield, Illinois this spring.

Primary care services to be offered at the Glenview Outpatient Center include internal medicine and pediatrics. Specialty services will include cardiology, dermatology, gastroenterology, general surgery, neurology, oncology, ophthalmology, optometry, orthopaedics, otolaryngology, sports medicine and urology. Laboratory and X-ray services will be offered immediately with advanced imaging serviceslike MRI screens and CT scanningto be offered by summer 2013.

A major clinical offering of this site will be Northwestern Immediate Care, which opens late spring. Immediate Care requires no appointment and accepts walk-in, or ambulatory, minor emergencies. It will address emergent ailments like flu and fevers, lacerations, strains and sprains and more. Major injuries and traumas should still be directed to full-service emergency rooms.

"We are excited to expand access to Northwestern Medicine care in surrounding suburban communities like Glenview," said Daniel Derman, MD, vice president, Northwestern Memorial, and president, Northwestern Memorial Physician's Group (NMPG). "This new operational model reflects the collective strengths of Northwestern Medicine. Systematically, primary care can work as a portal into specialty care services where needed, all while offering Immediate Care to address minor emergenciesand, the best part for patients is that it's close to home."

Once fully realized, this expansion will have brought about 100 new primary care physicians and more than 40 specialists from NMPG and NMFF into these suburban locations. All of the physicians will have faculty appointments at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

At the Glenview Outpatient Center, primary and specialty care, and laboratories and imaging will operate Monday through Friday from 8 am to 6 pm. Once open, Immediate Care will operate year-round from 8 am to 8 pm. For more information please visit us online at http://www.northwesternmedicine.org/glenview or call us at (847) 724- GLEN [4536].

About Northwestern Medicine

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Northwestern Medicine® Announces New Glenview Outpatient Center

Shire Regenerative Medicine Initiates Phase 3 Study of ABH001 for Patients with Epidermolysis Bullosa

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SAN DIEGO, February 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPG), today announced the initiation of a Phase 3 study designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of ABH001, its dermal substitute therapy, for the treatment of non-healing wounds in patients with Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), a group of rare genetic skin disorders that begin to manifest at birth or early childhood and occur in approximately 19 per 1 million live births in the US. [i]

"People affected by EB suffer skin blisters and almost constant, acute pain and scarring," said the study's Principal Investigator, H. Alan Arbuckle, MD, Section Head Pediatric Dermatology Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Wound Care Consultant, Epidermolysis Bullosa Center of Excellence, The Children's Hospital, Aurora Colorado. "The current standard of care is daily wound care, bandaging and pain management. I am excited to be involved in testing the efficacy and safety of ABH001 as a potential treatment option for these patients."

ABH001 for EB has been granted an orphan drug designation in the US and EU, and has also received Fast Track designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is aimed at facilitating the development and expediting the review of drugs and biologics that fill an unmet medical need. In addition, the European Medicines Agency's Pediatric Committee has agreed on a pediatric investigation plan for ABH001 for the treatment of EB.

The new Phase 3 study is a multi-site, prospective, randomized, open-label, intra-subject controlled trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of ABH001 to initiate healing and reduce the wound surface area of selected stalled, chronic cutaneous wounds associated with generalized EB. Approximately 20 subjects with generalized EB aged three years and older are planned to enroll in the trial, which is targeted to be conducted in 10 to 15 sites across the US, Europe and Canada. The study will comprise ABH001 applications sufficient to cover the surface area of the wound, applied topically every 4 weeks with protocol-specified dressings until healed or for up to 24 weeks.

"We are excited that Shire Regenerative Medicine has launched this trial," said Brett Kopelan, Executive Director of the Dystrophic EB Research Association of America (DebRA ) and father to a 5-year-old girl with recessive dystrophic EB. "While there is currently no cure for EB, I am encouraged that ABH001 istargeting the chronic wounds that are the hallmark of this disease.I applaud Shire for pushing this forward and look forward to working closely with them as the trial progresses."

"We are very eager to begin evaluating ABH001 as a potential wound treatment option for people with EB. We believe it has the potential to initiate and continue wound healing in this patient population," said Jeff Jonas, MD, President of Shire Regenerative Medicine. "We are committed to developing regenerative medicine solutions that enable people with life-altering conditions to lead better lives, and are encouraged by the fast track and orphan drug designations we have received to further develop this potential therapy for people, most often young children, suffering from this devastating condition."

Shire is also developing an intravenous protein replacement therapy for the treatment of dystrophic EB, which the company's Human Genetic Therapies business recently acquired from Lotus Tissue Repair, Inc. Initiation of this pivotal trial of ABH001 for patients with EB further demonstrates Shire's commitment to developing a portfolio of products targeted toward patients who suffer from this disease.

ABH001 is comprised of allogenic neonatal dermal fibroblasts seeded on a poly(glycolide-co-L-lactide) scaffold, and is currently approved and marketed in the United States as a Class III medical device under the trade name Dermagraft for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers.

About Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB)

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Shire Regenerative Medicine Initiates Phase 3 Study of ABH001 for Patients with Epidermolysis Bullosa

Conference on future of personalized medicine kicks off with a challenge

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By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff

Hundreds of people from hospitals, universities, and industry gathered today at Harvard Medical School to discuss the transformative power of health cares latest buzzword, personalized medicine. But the day began on a combative note.

In a keynote talk at the Personalized Medicine Conference, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist who previously served as a health policy adviser to the Obama administration, called personalized medicine hype, a myth, and unaffordable.

Emanuel, who conceded this wasnt his area of expertise, argued that medicines goal has always been to better target therapies, whether it is choosing the drug to treat a patients specific infection or making a decision about how to treat a cancer patient based on the characteristics of their disease. He showed a slide with his own back of the envelope analysis of a single genetic test to support his argument that personalized medicine isnt significantly extending life and aint saving a dime.

If thats all it means, big deal. Ho hum. Targeting is nothing new, Emanuel said. I dont think thats a revolution.

Emanuels comments spurred lively discussion and disagreement, as well as evidence that contradicted his arguments, such as a 2009 study that showed using a genetic test to target a colon cancer treatment would reduce health care costs.

I disagree completely with Zeke Emanuel, said Dr. John Mendelsohn, past president of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, who discussed that centers expanding efforts in identifying the genetic fingerprints of tumors and targeting treatments.

Dr. John Niederhuber, executive vice president of Inova Health System in Falls Church, Va. said that he agreeed with one key point of Emanuels talk: that personalized medicine was being overhyped, potentially giving patients false hope before the science is ready.

Despite the disagreements, when Emanuel polled the audience about what would be likely to have a larger impact on longevity and reduce medical costs, the audience overwhelmingly voted not for genetic tests or personalized treatments, but for cutting calories, smoking, and other behavioral changes.

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Conference on future of personalized medicine kicks off with a challenge