Genetics Society of America's GENETICS Journal Highlights

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Newswise Bethesda, MDJune 14, 2012 Listed below are the selected highlights for the June 2012 issue of the Genetics Society of Americas journal, GENETICS. The June issue is available online at http://www.genetics.org/content/current. Please credit GENETICS, Vol. 191, JUNE 2012, Copyright 2012.

Please feel free to forward to colleagues who may be interested in these articles.

ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS

APL-1, the Alzheimers amyloid precursor protein in Caenorhabditis elegans, modulates multiple metabolic pathways throughout development, pp. 493507 Collin Y. Ewald, Daniel A. Raps, and Chris Li A hallmark of Alzheimers disease is the deposition of senile plaques, whose major component is the beta-amyloid peptide, which is a cleavage product of the amyloid precursor protein (APP). The function of APP and its cleavage products is still unclear. This article reports that the Caenorhabditis elegans APP-related protein APL-1 has multiple functions during development, including modulating the insulin pathway.

Population genetics models of local ancestry, pp. 607619 Simon Gravel Genomes are mosaics of chromosomal tracts that originate from a finite number of ancestors. These mosaics, which are shaped by historical migration patterns, are key to understanding genomic diversity in complex populations. This article presents gene flow models for inferring migration history using such patterns. When applied to HapMap African-American (ASW) data, a two-epoch migration model agrees with the data better than the commonly used single-migration model.

Synaptic polarity depends on phosphatidylinositol signaling regulated by myo-inositol monophosphatase in Caenorhabditis elegans, pp. 509521 Tsubasa Kimata, Yoshinori Tanizawa, Yoko Can, Shingo Ikeda,Atsushi Kuhara, and Ikue Mori Lithium relieves bipolar disorder by inhibiting the evolutionarily conserved enzyme myo-inositol monophosphatase (IMPase), which is essential for polarized localization of synaptic molecules. These authors show that mutations in two enzymes that degrade membrane phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) suppress the synaptic defects of IMPase mutants and confer resistance to lithium treatment. These results provide the first in vivo evidence that lithium impairs neuronal PIP2 synthesis through inhibition of IMPase.

Analysis of Cryptococcus neoformans sexual development reveals rewiring of the pheromone-response network by a change in transcription factor identity, pp. 435449 Emilia K. Kruzel, Steven S. Giles, and Christina M. Hull Gene regulatory networks evolve, sometimes radically. This article describes the pheromone response network of the human pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans. The authors map transcriptional regulatory changes that occur during sexual development leading to the discovery of a key cis-regulatory element and its binding protein. The resulting regulatory architecture could not have been predicted based on comparative sequence analyses.

A non-Mendelian MAPK-generated hereditary unit controlled by a second MAPK pathway in Podospora anserina, pp. 419433 Herv Lalucque, Fabienne Malagnac, Sylvain Brun, Sbastien Kicka,and Philippe Silar There are many ways to produce a prion, and this article describes yet another one. The Podospora anserina PaMpk1 MAP kinase signaling pathway can generate C, a hereditary unit resembling prions. These authors show that another MAP kinase pathway, PaMpk2, controls the generation of C by activating PaMpk1, revealing unexpectedly complex regulation of a prion-like trait.

Allopolyploidization lays the foundation for evolution of distinct populations: Evidence from analysis of synthetic Arabidopsis allohexaploids, pp. 535547 Starr C. Matsushita, Anand P. Tyagi, Gerad M. Thornton, J. Chris Pires, and Andreas Madlung Allopolyploidycarrying complete chromosome sets of at least two different specieshas been seen as a mechanism for instant speciation. This article shows that different somatic cells of the same neoallopolyploid individual can exhibit different karyotypes, and that somatic mosaics can persist in subsequent generations. The authors characterize and quantify aneuploidy over seven generations in several sibling lines of a synthetic allopolyploid. Their results suggest that this phenomenon has the potential to lead not only to instant speciation but also to instant radiation.

The nearly neutral and selection theories of molecular evolution under the Fisher geometrical framework: Substitution rate, population size, and complexity, pp. 523534 Pablo Razeto-Barry, Javier Daz, and Rodrigo A. Vsquez This article puts forth that nearly neutral evolution cannot explain the high rate of fixations driven by positive selection found in DNA sequences. The authors use Fishers geometrical model (FGM) to simulate evolution from biologically interpretable distributions of mutations. They find that nearly neutral and selection scenarios predict molecular patterns different from previous models. In a selective scenario in the FGM, evolutionary rate depends not on population size, but rather on the complexity of organisms and mutation size.

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Genetics Society of America's GENETICS Journal Highlights

Genome-Wide Search May Provide Early-Warning System

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By John Lauerman - 2012-06-14T16:00:01Z

Screening the genomes of healthy people may give important clues about their cancer risk, according to a study that suggests advanced DNA technology might be employed early in a patients health assessment.

Among 572 people who underwent a broad analysis, 12 were found to have genes that put them or their children at elevated risk of dangerous tumors, according to the report from researchers at the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. Eight of the participants had no family history of cancer that doctors normally look to for signals of heightened susceptibility to malignancies, the study said.

The research, released today by the American Journal of Human Genetics, highlights the role that sequencing machines made by Illumina Inc. (ILMN) and Life Technologies Corp. (LIFE) may play in alerting healthy individuals to their risk of disease. The machines can decipher swaths of human DNA in hours, giving massive amounts of information about inherited traits.

The current medical approach for finding susceptibility to disease requires that you or your family members have the condition or have died of it, said Leslie Biesecker, chief of the genetics disease research branch at the Human Genome Research Institute, in a telephone interview. This suggests that it doesnt have to be that way, that we can find susceptibility before all that suffering.

Bieseckers study, called ClinSeq, sequences all the genes in participants DNA to find clues to health and disease. About 1 percent of the human genome, the reproductive code found in each cell, is composed of genes, which are the blueprints for making proteins.

The researchers screened 37 genes in participants DNA for changes that have been linked to cancers. The screen yielded 334 variants of potential clinical importance, most of which were associated with unknown cancer risk.

Eight participants were found to have gene mutations that significantly elevated their risk. Seven had changes in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that sometimes appear in families affected with high rates of breast and ovarian cancer, the study said.

Another participant had a mutation in a gene called SDHC, which has been linked to head and neck tumors that sometimes cause severe nerve damage. This person, along with three of those with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, had no family history of the cancers related to these genes.

This demonstrates that theres fairly high frequency of useful information that one can gain from the whole exome or whole genome, said Robert Nussbaum, chief of the division of medical genetics at the University of California, San Francisco.

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Genome-Wide Search May Provide Early-Warning System

European geneticists condemn use of testing to establish 'racial purity'

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Public release date: 14-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Mary Rice mary.rice@riceconseil.eu European Society of Human Genetics

The use of genetic testing to establish racial origins for political purposes is not only scientifically foolish, but also unethical and should be condemned, the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG) said today (Thursday June 14). The society, which promotes research in basic and applied human and medical genetics and ensures high standards in clinical genetic practice, said that the use by a member of parliament from the Hungarian far-right Jobbik party of a genetic test to attempt to prove his 'ethnic purity' was ethically unacceptable.

The company Nagy Gn scanned 18 positions in the MP's genome for variants that it said were characteristic of Roma and Jewish ethnic groups and concluded that Roma and Jewish ancestry could be ruled out.

Professor Joerg Schmidtke, President of ESHG, said on behalf of the Executive Board: "This is a gross distortion of the values of genetic testing, which is intended to be used to diagnose disease rather than to claim racial purity. In addition, the test proves nothing; it is impossible to deduce someone's origins from testing so few places in the genome. I am sure that clinical geneticists worldwide will join me in condemning this scandalous abuse of a technology that was developed to help the sick, rather than to promote hatred."

Professor Bla Melegh, President of the Hungarian Society of Human Genetics added: "We were shocked to hear that a laboratory authorised to carry out genetic analysis for diagnostic purposes carried out such a test. Not only does it not serve a diagnostic purpose, but it has been used to create tension between people of different ethnic origins. We are asking the Hungarian government to prosecute the company concerned under the 2008 law on genetics, and to take action to ensure that similar abuse of genetic testing cannot take place in our country in future."

The 2012 European Genetics Conferences in Nuremberg, Germany (June 23-26) will provide a further opportunity for the ESHG to denounce such an unethical perversion of genetic science, and insist, at the same time, on the importance of genetic testing in the medical or scientific context of good practice.

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European geneticists condemn use of testing to establish 'racial purity'

Does Coventry Health Care Miss the Grade?

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Posted June 14, 2012

Courtesy of Motley Fool

By Seth Jayson

Margins matter. The more Coventry Health Care (NYSE: CVH ) keeps of each buck it earns in revenue, the more money it has to invest in growth, fund new strategic plans, or (gasp!) distribute to shareholders. Healthy margins often separate pretenders from the best stocks in the market. That's why we check up on margins at least once a quarter in this series. I'm looking for the absolute numbers, so I can compare them to current and potential competitors, and any trend that may tell me how strong Coventry Health Care's competitive position could be.

Here's the current margin snapshot for Coventry Health Care over the trailing 12 months: Gross margin is 23.3%, while operating margin is 6.5% and net margin is 4.7%.

Unfortunately, a look at the most recent numbers doesn't tell us much about where Coventry Health Care has been, or where it's going. A company with rising gross and operating margins often fuels its growth by increasing demand for its products. If it sells more units while keeping costs in check, its profitability increases. Conversely, a company with gross margins that inch downward over time is often losing out to competition, and possibly engaging in a race to the bottom on prices. If it can't make up for this problem by cutting costs -- and most companies can't -- then both the business and its shares face a decidedly bleak outlook.

Of course, over the short term, the kind of economic shocks we recently experienced can drastically affect a company's profitability. That's why I like to look at five fiscal years' worth of margins, along with the results for the trailing 12 months, the last fiscal year, and last fiscal quarter (LFQ). You can't always reach a hard conclusion about your company's health, but you can better understand what to expect, and what to watch.

Here's the margin picture for Coventry Health Care over the past few years.

Source: S&P Capital IQ. Dollar amounts in millions. FY = fiscal year. TTM = trailing 12 months.

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Does Coventry Health Care Miss the Grade?

The Supreme Court’s health-care innovation moment

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The Supreme Courts decision on the Affordable Care Act could have a profound effect on health-care innovators. (Jacquelyn Martin - AP) The Supreme Court could rule on the Affordable Care Act the health-care law spearheaded by President Barack Obama any day now.

Nearly all eyes, in the media at least, are on the High Court, and there is no shortage of speculation as to when the ruling will come down and how the justices decision could impact the future of the health-care industry. Its not just health-care insurers, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies that could be impacted by a potential change to or a complete strike-down of the law, the Supreme Court ruling will also impact the new generation of tech companies that are fundamentally changing how we think about health care.

If the Supreme Court does not strike down the law, the clear winners will be the tech innovators. These individuals are among those at the forefront of navigating the nations complex health-care system. Call this The Health care IT Scenario. Its one in which VCs shift their attention to companies that help health-care providers slash costs, digitize their medical records and streamline the payment process to insurers.

Take, for example, Castlight, a Silicon Valley company that just raised a $100 million round of venture capital one of the largest deals in the history of health-care IT. The goal of Castlight is to bring transparency to health-care costs by making it possible for employees to compare the cost and quality of a wide range of tests and procedures.

On the other hand, if the Supreme Court strikes down all or parts of the Affordable Care Act, there would be an opening for Mitt Romney's health-care vision to take root. As Romney outlined in a campaign speech Tuesday, he would use private sector tactics to transform health care into a "consumer market much like the tire, automobile or air filter markets. That vision may not sound sexy (Its time to rotate the tires, dear!). But it hints that the future of health-care innovation might shift to low-cost, high-quality medical devices that help us maintain good health and diagnose diseases and disorders. In their book Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think, Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler outline some of the "zero-cost diagnostics" that are reducing the cost of complex hospital tests to a couple of bucks.

There is another way, though, in which the health-care innovation landscape could stand to change, and it is potentially even more compelling: The tighter coupling of health care and mobile technology. Sometimes referred to as "mobile health" (mHealth), this third way requires thinking of health care as something that does not occur in a hospital environment, but as something that occurs in the palm of your hand via Web-enabled devices.

The mHealth movement, from a global perspective, is one of the most exciting trends in the health-care space for its ability to bring health-care coverage to people who previously did not have it. It has even resulted in a $10 million prize competition to develop the first medical tricorder. As areas like artificial intelligence heat up and as mobile operating systems become increasingly powerful, its easy to imagine a future in which the capabilities of IBMs Watson are available as a diagnostic medical app, iPhones are transformed into medical devices such as ECGs, and medical data can be transmitted to doctors in real-time from digital devices hooked to your body.

Heres hoping that the Supreme Court ruling does not impact the ability of Internet innovators who are fundamentally transforming how we think about medicine to continue with their groundbreaking new ideas. Faced with the prospect of health care as a "big, government-managed utility" or as a neighborhood tire and automobile parts shop, Ill take my chances with the innovators of Silicon Valley.

View Photo Gallery:The World Economic Forums Global Agenda Council on emerging technologies released its top 10 emerging technology trends for the year.

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The Supreme Court’s health-care innovation moment

Is One Company About to Lock Up the Electronic Medical Records Market?

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Will Silicon Valley lead health care's next revolution -- or miss it?

Reuters.

(Editor's Note: the following commentary was co-authored with Tory Wolff, a founding partner of Recon Strategy, a healthcare strategy consulting firm in Boston.)

Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors have never quite been able to figure out health, and they know it.

For years, the clever technology fixes dreamed up by engineers have largely failed to take hold, their well-conceived rationality no match for the complexity of medical care, the persistence of clinical habit, and the counter-intuitive impact of existing incentives. Many of the Valley's most audacious VCs have become leery of the space, electing instead to pursue innovation elsewhere.

The new battlefield is on the technologists' home turf: information systems for electronic medical records (EMRs). Will this time be different? Are technology entrepreneurs finally ready to disrupt medicine?

Here's the context (please see our last commentary, available here, for more details). Most of the nation's largest and most prestigious medical centers seem headed towards a relatively closed health information system, driven by a single dominant private company, Wisconsin-based Epic, which excels at the near-flawless, customized installation of their client-server platform in big hospitals.

While Epic is meticulously working its way through the largest hospitals, the long tail of stand-alone ambulatory practices operate largely on a jumbled mess of EMRs, using many emerging vendors (such as AthenaHealth and PracticeFusion) with a multi-tenant model, similar to salesforce.com.

Since medical care as a whole is consolidating, the basic question is whether emerging EMR vendors will gain enough traction and offer enough capability to enable stand-alone practices to remain independent. Or will platform fragmentation put unaffiliated practices at such a competitive disadvantage that they'll be even more motivated to join up with larger hospital systems (the most important of which will rely upon Epic)?

What makes Epic particularly interesting is that its success seems to fly in the face of how so many of us -- Silicon Valley technologists in particular - have come to view innovation; it also contrasts with the much-celebrated, widely accepted strategy of open innovation.

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Is One Company About to Lock Up the Electronic Medical Records Market?

Elderly Prisoners Need Better Medical Care, According to Report

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UCSF-led Finding Calls for Policy Changes for Underprepared Prison System

Newswise Soaring numbers of older, sicker prisoners are causing an unprecedented health care challenge for the nations criminal justice system, according to a new UCSF report.

As the American penal system confronts a costly demographic shift toward older prisoners, the authors call for an overhaul in health care practices for elderly inmates who disproportionately account for escalating medical expenses behind bars. The recommendations include screening for dementia among prisoners, improved palliative care, and standard policies for geriatric housing units for infirm inmates.

The article will be published online June 14, 2012, in the American Journal of Public Health.

The report outlines nine policy recommendations that emerged from a gathering last year of 29 national experts in prison health care, academic medicine, nursing and civil rights.

The recommendations promote cost-effective quality care for older prisoners, said lead author Brie Williams, MD, a UCSF associate professor of medicine in the division of geriatrics.

A first step is to focus on these nine priority areas in order to set the stage for collaboration among the many disciplines involved in older prisoner health care, Williams said.

From 2000 to 2009, the countrys prison population grew by 16 percent, and the number of older prisoners 55 years or older increased nearly 80 percent.

As a result, prisons are increasingly challenged to provide care to older inmates with a litany of chronic medical conditions including diabetes, heart failure, cognitive impairment and end-stage liver disease. Many older inmates also suffer from infectious diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis C. With higher rates of disability in general, older prisoners cost approximately two to three times as much as younger inmates.

Prisoners have a right to timely access to an appropriate level of care for serious medical needs, the authors said in the report. Yet criminal justice health care systems are underprepared to provide cost-effective quality care for older adults.

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Elderly Prisoners Need Better Medical Care, According to Report

MPR News Primer: Federal health care law

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by Paul Tosto, Minnesota Public Radio

June 13, 2012

St. Paul, Minn. The U.S. Supreme Court will rule soon if all or part of President Obama's landmark 2010 health care law is unconstitutional. Here's a look at the law, the Court's review and what's at stake.

Controversy dogged the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act before President Obama signed the bill in March 2010. It was almost a given that it would fall in the Supreme Court's lap.

The law dramatically changed many aspects of the nation's health care system. The changes, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation:

Republicans and Democrats have battled for years over the law's future costs to individuals and employers, and its requirement that citizens buy health insurance or pay a penalty.

That requirement is one of the key pieces the Supreme Court has under constitutional review.

Key questions NewsHour Supreme Court analyst Marcia Coyle told PBS the justices agreed to decide several questions about the health care law:

Leavitt Partners, a health care consulting firm led by former Utah Republican Gov. Michael Leavitt, has a very readable infographic forecasting the politics of the potential Supreme Court decision. An example:

No matter how the Supreme Court rules, some of the nation's largest health insurers say they'll keep pieces of the Affordable Care Act in place. That includes the nation's largest insurer, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group Inc.

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MPR News Primer: Federal health care law

More government won't fix health care

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Any day now, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on whether the Obamacare insurance mandate is constitutional. Seems like a no-brainer to me. How can forcing me to engage in commerce be constitutional?

But there's a deeper question: Why should government be involved in medicine at all?

Right before President Obama took office, the media got hysterical about health care. You heard the claims: America spends more than any country $6,000 per person yet we get less. Americans die younger than people in Japan and Western Europe. Millions of Americans lack health insurance and worry about paying for care.

I have the solution! said Obama. Bigger government will give us more choices and make health care cheaper and better. He proceeded to give us that. Bigger government, that is. The cheaper/better/more choices part not so much.

Costs have risen. More choices? No, we have fewer choices. Many people lost coverage when companies left the market.

Because Obamacare requires insurance companies to cover every child regardless of pre-existing conditions, WellPoint, Humana and Cigna got out of the child-only business. Principal Financial stopped offering health insurance altogether 1 million customers no longer have the choice to keep their insurance.

This is to be expected when governments control health care. Since state funding makes medical services seem free, demand increases. Governments deal with that by rationing. Advocates of government health care hate the word rationing because it forces them to face an ugly truth: Once you accept the idea that taxpayers pay, individual choice dies. Someone else decides what treatment you get, and when.

At least in America, we still have some choice. We can pay to get what we want. Under government health care, bureaucrats will decide how long we wait for our knee operation or cataract surgery ... or if we get lifesaving treatment at all.

When someone else pays for your health care, that someone else also decides when to pull the plug. The reason can be found in Econ 101. Medical care doesn't grow on trees. It must be produced by human and physical capital, and those resources are limited. Politicians can't repeal supply and demand.

Call them death panels or not, a government that needs to cut costs will limit what it spends on health care, especially on people nearing the end of life. Medical ethicists have long lamented that too much money is spent in the last several months of life. Given the premise that it's government's job to pay, it's only natural that some bureaucrat will decide that 80-year-olds shouldn't get hip replacements.

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More government won't fix health care

SalutarisMD Announces Positive Case Report of a New Investigational Wet AMD Therapy at ARVO

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DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Positive results from a trial of episcleral brachytherapy to treat Wet Age-related Macular Degeneration (Wet AMD) were presented today at the ARVO Drug and Gene Delivery to the Back of the Eye Conference. The case reported was drawn from a Phase 1 study to assess the safety of this new investigational therapy for the leading cause of vision loss and blindness. Salutaris Medical Devices, Inc. (SalutarisMD) developed the device and sponsored the study.

Presented was the clinical course of a 78 year-old man newly diagnosed with Wet AMD who experienced substantial improvement in visual acuity and required no additional anti-VEGF injections throughout one-year follow-up; visual acuity in the study eye demonstrated a gain in Best Corrected Visual Acuity (BCVA) of +13 ETDRS letters, with no sign of subretinal hemorrhage, fluid or macular edema, and resolution of the Pigmented Epithelial Detachment (PED) present at study enrollment.

Co-author, Dr. Laurence Marsteller, Chief Operating Officer, SalutarisMD, cautioned, "While the results presented are not intended to be extrapolated for statistical significance, this promising case report from the Phase 1 trial supports the need for additional research to confirm our preliminary observations."

The poster presentation included details of the device and the sub-Tenon episcleral approach to delivering brachytherapy that avoids adverse effects of more invasive approaches. The SalutarisMD device is designed to enable retina specialists to administer a practical procedural therapy that can be performed in the same clinical environment as current anti-VEGF injections: a physician's office or other outpatient setting under local anesthesia, in approximately 15 minutes. The intraocular space is never violated. Episcleral placement allows for consistent, stable and repeatable control of the distance to the target tissue. Utilizing this minimally invasive technology, the retina specialist delivers precise, lesion-specific, localized tissue treatment.

"What is most intriguing about the study is that the application of radiation is done through the posterior sclera, thus avoiding the need for vitreous surgery," said Dr. Reid Schindler, principal investigator of the study, a clinical ophthalmologist and retina specialist with Retina Specialists of Southern Arizona, and clinical associate professor, University of Arizona Department of Ophthalmology.

Michael Voevodsky, President and CEO of SalutarisMD, said, "It was a privilege to have the SalutarisMD technology presented at this prestigious gathering. We believe our investigational therapy for treating Wet AMD has the potential to improve the quality of life for persons suffering from this debilitating disease. We are excited about the prospect of conducting additional clinical trials to further test our approach and its ability to positively effect clinical outcomes."

The purpose of the ARVO Conference,Drug and Gene Delivery to the Back of the Eye: from Bench to Bedside, "is to share cutting edge science, based on drug product development principles among a diverse group of participants" and it focuses "on topics related to current and emerging technologies for drug/gene delivery for the treatment of diseases of the back of the eye," according to the event description.

Caution: Investigational Device. Limited by Federal Law to Investigational Use in the United States.

About SalutarisMD

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SalutarisMD Announces Positive Case Report of a New Investigational Wet AMD Therapy at ARVO

Futurist Takes Look, uh, Into the Future #insightscon

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At the Pitney Bowes Insights Conference (#InsightsCon) this week in New Orleans, MSNBC commentator and "Futurist-in-Residence" at The New York Times, Mike Rogers, gave his thoughts on what the future of technology might hold for the average person.

He said that if you look back eight years ago to 2004, there was no iPhone, a 24" LCD TV cost about $3000 and Facebook existed only at Harvard. Now, iPhones are driving an explosion of mobile apps, 24" LCD TVs cost about $200, and Facebook has nearly 900 Million users.

Rogers said that two primary things will make progress faster in the next eight years. Moore's Law will continue to impact the speed of data processing and people will adopt technology faster than they used to. He also said that three things will become more pervasive:

The last item is most interesting. Essentially, Rogers believes that we will all develop "digital personalities" that will "carry us as we move through the virtual world." Digital personalities, he said, are the derivatives of social networks. So, how we represent ourselves in the future may depend on a digital persona. While I'm not sure that differs tremendously from our online profiles on Facebook or LinkedIn, the social networks today seem to be more static. That is, your personal information doesn't change unless you change it. I believe he is suggesting that there will be more dynamic interaction with the virtual world.

Lastly, he believes that our mobile devices will become more intelligent and the they will be personal concierges ... a more advanced version of Apple's Siri. The devices will not only tell us when we have our next appointment but will capture the frequency with which we visit places and make recommendations based on past personal preferences. For example, let's say you arrive late to work three times in the past week. Your mobile device might suggest to you that you rise earlier or take a different route to work. To me, this sounds less like "big brother" and more like "nagging mom."

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Futurist Takes Look, uh, Into the Future #insightscon

White House, federal agencies and US industries team for ‘US Ignite’ program

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The US Federal Government is teaming with almost 100 partners to improve America's broadband Internet with "US Ignite," a new program that seeks to make it cheaper and easier for broadband construction in the USA - as well as the creation of apps and services to take advantage of that new Internet.

The future of broadband Internet in America is about to catch fire. Announcing a new initiative entitled US Ignite, President Obama today signed an executive order to lower broadband costs and increase the speed of broadband network installation through federal property while also taking the lead in a new partnership that aims to create a new wave of service that take advantage of state-of-the-art, programmable broadband networks running up to 100 times faster than todays Internet.

The partnership, also called US Ignite, describes itself as an initiative to promote US leadership in developing applications and services for ultra-fast broadband and software-defined networks by foster[ing] the creation of novel applications and digital experiences that will transform healthcare, education and job skills training, public safety, energy, and advanced manufacturing. So far, so election year promises, right? But, according to Ignite Executive Director Sue Spradley, its more than just empty sloganeering and suitably vague futurism.

Today, in Cleveland, Ohio there are families receiving medical care to which they wouldnt otherwise have access through advanced telemedicine built on a new and flexible ultra-fast network. In Chattanooga, Tenn., a dozen new startups are building new applications for everything from improved transportation to disaster response to a smart energy-grid by taking advantage of the citys gigabit-to-the-home fiber optic network, Spradley is quoted as saying in the press release announcing the partnership. The future of technology as many think about it, is possible today. And through US Ignite, well be helping to deploy advanced applications for Americans everywhere.

Ignite already has almost 100 partners, ranging from 60 national research universities to 25 cities across America, as well as big name companies like Comcast, Cisco and HP. Also onboard is Mozilla, which has launched its own Mozilla Ignite site, a collaboration with the National Science Foundation thatll issue up to $500,000 in grant money to third party developers looking to devise and develop innovative apps in one of five areas (Advanced manufacturing, clean energy and transportation, eduction and workforce technologies, healthcare, and public safety).

Of course, this development would be moot if people didnt have the Internet access to take advantage of it, which is where todays executive order comes in. The order will make broadband construction up to 90 percent cheaper along Federal roadways and property, as well as push those agencies managing said properties the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Interior, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs as well as the US Postal Service to offer broadband carriers a single approach across the board to leasing assets to facilitate broadband deployment. By connecting every corner of our country to the digital age, we can help our businesses become more competitive, our students become more informed and our citizens become more engaged, President Obama is quoted as saying in a White House statement.

Will a faster, better Internet make America a faster, better country? Or will we all just find that its even easier to lose hours in front of Netflix?

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White House, federal agencies and US industries team for ‘US Ignite’ program

Freedom Continue to Win, Beat Washington in Series Opener

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June 14, 2012 - Frontier League (FL) Florence Freedom FLORENCE, KY - The Florence Freedom stretched their win streak to five games as they began a three game series with the Washington Wild Things with an 8-4 victory.

RHP Sean Gregory made his 5th start of the season and earned his second win of the year, as he went seven innings, allowing four runs on seven hits with four strikeouts. His counterpart, Washington's RHP Casey Barnes, was handed his second loss of the year by giving up seven runs on eight hits in 5.2 innings.

Unlike what the Freedom have seen the past few ballgames, the opposition took an early lead as the Wild Things scored four times off Gregory in the first two innings, including three runs off four hits in the 1st. The Freedom did not score or record a hit until the 3rd, when SS Junior Arrojo was hit by his 6th pitch of the year, and later scored on a 3B Chris Curley single.

Florence cut their deficit down to one in the 4th inning when C Jim Jacquot scored on a double by RF Peter Fatse, who also came around to score on a LF Ryan Skellie groundout. It was not until the 6th inning, however, that Florence took the lead with a two-run homer by Skellie, his first long ball as a professional. Malloy also launched a two-run shot later in the inning to make the score 7-4.

After a rough start, Gregory settled down nicely and allowed just one hit after the 2nd inning, including sitting Washington down in order in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th innings. In the bottom of the 7th, the Freedom added to their lead as Curley hit his 7th homer of the year off RHP Alan Gatz, a solo home run to left center field.

RHP Brandon Mathes came in for relief and pitched a scoreless 8th and 9th, while allowing one hit with three strikeouts. With the victory, the Freedom are now 12-4 at the Home of the Florence Freedom.

Florence looks to increase their winning streak to six games tomorrow at 7:05, as RHP Alec Lewis (2-2) will go head-to-head with Washington's RHP Gary Lee (1-2) at the Home of the Florence Freedom.

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Freedom Continue to Win, Beat Washington in Series Opener

Major blow to eugenics compensation plan

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RALEIGH (WTVD) -- There's been a major blow to victims of the state's eugenics program, who had reason to expect compensation this summer. It now looks like that may not happen.

"I think it's a shameful, shameful day," said Rep. Alma Adams, (D) Guilford County. "We talk the talk. We don't walk the walk."

Adams, like so many others in the State House, thought the state was going to compensate living victims of North Carolina's Eugenics Program. Members of the House put up a bill that would give victims $50,000 each. It also put $11 million in their budget to pay for it.

However, that all came crashing down in the State Senate Wednesday.

"What happened is the Democrats tied eugenics to a tax increase," said President Pro-tem Sen. Phil Berger.

Berger said many Republicans in his chamber don't support the payout and the $11 million wasn't included in their budget. So Democrat Clark Jenkins, of Edgecombe County, tagged it on to an amendment, which failed.

"Once a measure is a defeated measure in the Senate, it's not eligible for consideration at a later date," said Berger.

"My understanding is it was not in the House budget," said Jenkins. "I was trying to bring some attention to it on the Senate side and so, I failed. The leadership did not want it in there."

Lawmakers said it may still be possible to get it done. But now, however, it's a much longer road.

"The maneuver the Ds attempted on the floor makes it much less likely it occurs," said Berger.

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Major blow to eugenics compensation plan

CFT: Star recruit Henry decommits from Georgia

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As of a few weeks ago, the idea of a four-team playoff seemed almost inevitable. There was a model (four teams) and what sounded like a general consensus on a couple of important items, such as where the games would be played (semifinals within the bowl system; championship game bid out) and how the field would look (not conference champions-only).

But Dennis Dodd saw the writing on the wall. So did Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. There were too many issues to resolve and not enough time to do so the deadline was originally June 20 without someone hurting themselves. So, someone(s) in todays BCS meeting probably had a meltdown that morphed into a Lewis Black-like tirade that morphed into the following decision:

The BCS committee will present options plural to the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee on June 26instead of providing just one option. Supposedly, theyll take it from there. I think. Maybe.

Our job is just to narrow and refine the options, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said.

What Scott is really saying is that the 11 conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrickdidnt want the responsibility anymore. So, the BCS committee decided to dump the job on the group that was going to approve/decline a decision anyway.

Here, you take it. No tag-backs!

We made progress in our meeting today to discuss the future of college footballs post-season, a statement from the BCS read. We are approaching consensus on many issues and we recognize there are also several issues that require additional conversations at both the commissioner and university president levels.

We are determined to build upon our successes and create a structure that further grows the sport while protecting the regular season. We also value the bowl tradition and recognize the many benefits it brings to student-athletes.

We have more work to do and more discussions to have with our presidents, who are the parties that will make the final decisions about the future structure of college footballs post-season.

Conveniently, thechair of thePresidential Oversight Committee, Virginia Tech President Charles Steger, also issued the following statement earlier today saying the group is up to the task:

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CFT: Star recruit Henry decommits from Georgia

Lake of the Ozarks' beaches open for use

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As temperatures continue to rise this summer, Missourians can escape the heat by visiting one of Missouri State Parks 17 open swimming beaches for a day of fun in the water.

Once again, weekly water sampling showed that all state parks beaches met their weekly water quality standards as set by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, and will be open and welcoming visitors.

From Watkins Mill State Park near Kansas City to Finger Lakes State Park in the middle of the state to Lake Wappapello State Park in the southeast area to many places in between including the Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri State Parks provide refreshing aquatic opportunities that are a convenient drive for most Missourians.

The beaches at Lewis and Clark State Park in Buchanan County remains closed for continuing repairs related to last years flooding, and Trail of Tears State Park in Cape Girardeau County remains closed while staff complete work on the lakes dam.

The department samples the water at all designated beaches in the state park system weekly during the recreational season to determine suitability for swimming. The sample test results indicate a snap shot of the water quality taken at the beaches at a specific time; however, a single sample does not provide an overall sense of the water quality in the lake where the beach is located.

Visitors to Missouri State Parks are able to sign up to receive free electronic notices about the status of state park beaches by visiting the departments website at http://bit.ly/HlSnaG. In addition, visitors may continue to check the state park beach status on the departments website at http://bit.ly/MoStateParksBeachStatus as well as mostateparks.com.

Missouri's state parks and historic sites offer something to suit everyone's taste - outdoor adventure, great scenery and a bit of history. With Missouri's 86 state parks and historic sites, the possibilities are boundless. For more information about Missouri State Parks, a division of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, visit mostateparks.com.

For more information, call 573-751-1010.

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Lake of the Ozarks' beaches open for use

Top Kyiv beaches for fun in the sun

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Taking a swim in the great Dnipro River, with a view of the golden domes of Orthodox Church is one of the sublime pleasures of Kyiv and the hardy who brave its beaches and less than pristine waters.

This year, inspectors have given their stamp of approval to the water and sand at many of the citys beaches, but municipal authorities have expressed concerns about foreign visitors exposing themselves to danger if they decide to swim with a bellyful of cheap Ukrainian alcohol.

But for the confident and adventurous souls, here are some of the most popular spots in the city to enjoy the sun, swim or at least paddle in the ancient Dnipro River.

Central Beach on Trukhaniv Island

This is one of the citys most popular beach destinations. You can get there by crossing the Pedestrian Bridge from centrally located Poshtova. A good chunk of the beach will become a camping site for Swedish fans, but a section on the left of the bridge will remain accessible to anyone.

Dovbychka, or the Nudist Beach

This place is the best reachable by bicycle or a long 45-minute walk through the depths of Trukhaniv Island. The beach has no infrastructure to offer; beachgoers are expected to ditch swimsuits on arrival.

Hydropark, a heaving heaven

Hydropark is a convenient island reachable by the metro stop by the same name. It is full of beaches, cafes and other amusement park activities. Among the beaches: Youth Beach, Childrens Beach and Venice Beach that is favored by bodybuilders for its free workout gear. There are public and private beaches. This is one of the most popular and accessible places for tourists unfamiliar with the river.

Extreme Sports at Chortoriy in Peoples Friendship Park

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Top Kyiv beaches for fun in the sun

High bacteria counts close South Shore beaches

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High bacteria counts close South Shore beaches

Seven beaches in Quincy, including Wollaston, and one each in Hull, Marshfield and Duxbury have been closed for health reasons.

The residents' beach in Duxbury was shut down on Thursday for the first time in nine years of testing when bacteria counts soared to 38 times the maximum recommended for swimming, our news partners The Patriot Ledger reported.

Delano Beach in Quincy was 60 times the limit, many times higher than its worst reading ever. Orchard and Rhoda beaches were slightly over the limit.

Wollaston Beach was closed for the second time since testing began last month. Although bacteria limits are within safe limits, swimming is prohibited as a precaution.

Urban beaches are often closed after significant rain because of contamination washing into the water.

The A Street beach on the ocean side of Hull was four times the limit.

Re-testing is in progress and results are expected on Friday.

Green Harbor Beach in Marshfield was also closed on Wednesday, but its bacteria levels were not available.

Testing has not yet begun on beaches in Hingham, Scituate and Kingston. Plymouth Beach is the only one in Plymouth that is being tested.

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High bacteria counts close South Shore beaches