Scientists identify possible drug target for acute pancreatitis

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Public release date: 31-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Cody Mooneyhan cmooneyhan@faseb.org 301-634-7104 Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

Bethesda, MDScientists from the Universities of Illinois and California have found that the inflammatory protein interleukin-6 (IL-6) plays a pivotal role in the duration of acute pancreatitis in animal models with this condition. Their report, in the June 2012 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, describes experiments in lean and obese mice that identify the presence of high IL-6 as one of the reasons why the disease is more devastating in obese people.

"The study helps to understand why acute pancreatitis is more prolonged in obese subjects," said Giamila Fantuzzi, Ph.D., the senior researcher of this work, from the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Our data indicate that IL-6 participates in prolonging inflammation in obese mice with acute pancreatitis, but also show that this inflammatory mediator is not the most important factor in determining the severity of the acute response."

To make this discovery, researchers used lean and obese mice that do and do not produce IL-6. They induced acute pancreatitis in all mice and studied them at different times of the disease. Both groups of the lean mice developed mild disease and then promptly recovered. Both sets of obese mice developed more severe disease at its onset. For the obese mice that did not produce IL-6, the course of the disease was much shorter than in the obese mice that did produce IL-6. It is also important to note that obesity leads to elevated levels of IL-6 and other inflammatory proteins.

"There is an increasing awareness that obesity and inflammation are connected," said John Wherry, Ph.D., Deputy Editor of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology. "Not only does this new report demonstrate an important set of interactions between obesity, pancreatitis, and inflammation, but it also identifies the inflammatory pathway, IL-6, which could represent an important new therapeutic target in these settings."

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The Journal of Leukocyte Biology publishes peer-reviewed manuscripts on original investigations focusing on the cellular and molecular biology of leukocytes and on the origins, the developmental biology, biochemistry and functions of granulocytes, lymphocytes, mononuclear phagocytes and other cells involved in host defense and inflammation. The Journal of Leukocyte Biology is published by the Society for Leukocyte Biology.

Details: Maria Pini, Davina H. Rhodes, Karla J. Castellanos, Andrew R. Hall, Robert J. Cabay, Rohini Chennuri, Eileen F. Grady, and Giamila Fantuzzi. Role of IL-6 in the resolution of pancreatitis in obese mice. J. Leukoc Biol. June 2012 91:957-966; doi:10.1189/jlb.1211627 ; http://www.jleukbio.org/content/91/6/957.abstract

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Scientists identify possible drug target for acute pancreatitis

On early Earth, iron may have performed magnesium’s RNA folding job

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Contact: Abby Robinson abby@innovate.gatech.edu 404-385-3364 Georgia Institute of Technology Research News

On the periodic table of the elements, iron and magnesium are far apart. But new evidence suggests that 3 billion years ago, iron did the chemical work now done by magnesium in helping RNA fold and function properly.

There is considerable evidence that the evolution of life passed through an early stage when RNA played a more central role before DNA and coded proteins appeared. During that time, more than 3 billion years ago, the environment lacked oxygen but had an abundance of soluble iron.

In a new study, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology used experiments and numerical calculations to show that iron, in the absence of oxygen, can substitute for magnesium in RNA binding, folding and catalysis. The researchers found that RNA's shape and folding structure remained the same and its functional activity increased when magnesium was replaced by iron in an oxygen-free environment.

"The primary motivation of this work was to understand RNA in plausible early earth conditions and we found that iron could support an array of RNA structures and catalytic functions more diverse than RNA with magnesium," said Loren Williams, a professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech.

The results of the study were published online on May 31, 2012 in the journal PLoS ONE. The study was supported by the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

In addition to Williams, Georgia Tech School of Biology postdoctoral fellow Shreyas Athavale, research scientist Anton Petrov, and professors Roger Wartell and Stephen Harvey, and Georgia Tech School of Chemistry and Biochemistry postdoctoral fellow Chiaolong Hsiao and professor Nicholas Hud also contributed to this work.

Free oxygen gas was almost nonexistent more than 3 billion years ago in the early earth's atmosphere. When oxygen began entering the environment as a product of photosynthesis, it turned the earth's iron to rust, forming massive banded iron formations that are still mined today. The free oxygen produced by advanced organisms caused iron to be toxic, even though it was -- and still is -- a requirement for life.

This environmental transition triggered by the introduction of free oxygen into the atmosphere would have caused a slow, but dramatic, shift in biology that required transformations in biochemical mechanisms and metabolic pathways. The current study provides evidence that this transition may have caused a shift from iron to magnesium for RNA binding, folding and catalysis processes.

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Anatomy of a Parade

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esther rabinowitz

Zionist Bikers: Youth groups and day schools dominate the annual Israel parade in New York. But theres room for bikers, too.

New York Citys Celebrate Israel Parade is one of a kind. An annual Zionist promenade up Manhattans Fifth Avenue, the 47-year-old festival is a Jewish take on the classic New York City ethnic parade. Theres nothing else quite like it in the country. In fact, its probably the biggest annual celebration of Israel in the world, outside of the Jewish state itself.

But what is the parade, besides countless Israeli flags, glad-handing politicians and oceans of day school kids? The Forward has crunched the numbers. A picture emerges of an event that is largely Modern Orthodox, heavily suburban and mostly made up of groups of young people.

This years parade, organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, is scheduled for June 3. The day begins with a Celebrate Israel Run through Central Park at 8 a.m. The parade kicks off at 11 a.m. on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, and will air on local television station WWOR channel 9.

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'Grey's Anatomy' exec: 'There could be more plane crash deaths'

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Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes has said that more characters could perish in the aftermath of last season's plane crash.

Lexie, played by Chyler Leigh, died of her injuries in the season eight finale earlier this month, which closed with Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), Derek (Patrick Dempsey), Cristina (Sandra Oh), Mark (Eric Dane) and Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) still stranded in the wilderness.

ABC / Richard Cartwright

Asked about the fate of the stranded Grey's characters, Rhimes told TV Guide: "Just because you saw people alive at the end of the finale doesn't mean they're going to be alive when the season starts up."

Rhimes previously confessed on Twitter that the finale, which also featured the departure of Teddy (Kim Raver) from Seattle Grace, had been "incredibly hard to write".

"I did not enjoy it," she claimed. "It made me sick and it made me sad.

"[Lexie's death] was a decision that Chyler and I came to together. We had a lot of thoughtful discussion about it and ultimately we both decided this was the right time for her character's journey to end."

Grey's Anatomy cast member Jesse Williams also acknowledged that it "was kind of depressing" to say goodbye to Leigh and Raver.

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Cognitive Code Announces "Silvia For Android" App

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Pre-order the SILVIA for Android App on Kickstarter to experience conversational artificial intelligence on your Android phone.Sherman Oaks, CA (PRWEB) May 31, 2012 Cognitive Code Corporation, a company specializing in practical conversational artificial intelligence technologies, announces the SILVIA for Android personal assistant application. SILVIA for Android features practical integration ...

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Nutrition Enhancement Launches Halal Certified Gelatin-Free Multivitamin

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St Louis, MO (PRWEB) May 31, 2012

Nutrition Enhancement Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of Halal Omega-3 fish oil, has announced the launch of halal certified gelatin-free multivitamin product. Nutrition Enhancement Multivitamin is specially formulated with key nutrients to support the health of both men and women of all ages. The product is equivalent to leading brands in the market, but it is formulated without gelatin. It is the only halal certified multivitamin with 1000 IU of Vitamin D3. The product is designed to support immunity, physical and mental energy, and the health of the heart, breast, prostate, colon, bone, eye, and skin.

Market data shows that people have vitamin deficiencies, especially in vitamin D. Emerging research shows that vitamin D is necessary for optimal health. Issues arise when individuals do not expose to sun (source of vitamin D), particularly Muslim women due to a dress code that involves wearing of the scarf or Hijab. With just a single tablet, this exciting product provides the key nutrients, including 1000 IU Vitamin D3.

Feedback from customers and physicians has been overwhelmingly positive and warmly welcomed. We look forward to the continued expansion of our product portfolio of high quality, safe, and innovative products that meet the needs of health conscious Muslims, said Emad Yasseen, Director of Scientific Affairs.

Nutrition Enhancement Multivitamin is gelatin free and halal certified by Islamic Services of America (ISA). It is challenging today for Muslims to find high quality dietary supplements that meet the Halal guideline. The majority of multivitamins supplements brand contain animal gelatin as shown on the label. Most of the animal gelatins are made from pork by-products. For this reason, many Muslims do not take dietary supplements despite the health benefits. Those that do, are most probably unaware of this, Emad further explained.

About Nutrition Enhancement: Nutrition Enhancement is committed to helping people live healthier lives through science, innovation, and quality. Nutrition Enhancement is an important part of the health and wellness market and dedicated to developing healthy supplements according to Islamic guidelines, in order to meet the needs of health conscious Muslim families. Nutrition Enhancement dietary supplements are manufactured in the USA in a GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) facility in accordance with US Food and Drug Administration. For more information about Nutrition Enhancement's products, please visit http://www.nutritionenhancement.com Contact Information:

Emad Yasseen, Ph.D. Director of Scientific Affairs Nutrition Enhancement P.O. Box 1083 Ballwin, MO 63022-1083

Phone: 636-489-8717 http://www.facebook.com/NutritionEnhancement

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Honoring the fundamental role of microbes in the natural history of our planet

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Public release date: 30-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Courtenay S. Brown csbrown@asmusa.org 202-942-9316 American Society for Microbiology

Inspired by a 2009 colloquium on microbial evolution convened at the Galapagos Islands, a new book from ASM Press, Microbes and Evolution: The World That Darwin Never Saw celebrates Charles Darwin and his landmark publication On the Origin of Species. The editors compiled 40 first-person essays, written by microbiologists with a passion for evolutionary biology, to illuminate how each scientist's thinking and career paths in science were influenced by Darwin's seminal work.

Intended for a general audience, Microbes and Evolution explores how the evidence of microbial evolution deeply and personally affected each scientist. Readers can expect to be surprised and delighted with these intimate viewpoints on the importance of evolutionary principles in the study of a variety of aspects of life science, from taxonomy, speciation, adaptation, social structure, and symbiosis to antibiotic resistance, genetics, and genomics.

"Despite the political rhetoric about evolution, microbes provide compelling examples of natural selectionexamples that affect all of our lives every day. We thought the best way to tell these stories was to ask scientists who work in this field to share their discoveries in a way that explains why they find microbial evolution exciting and important. And along the way, they provide interesting insights into how they think about science, revealing personalities that are as diverse as the microbes they study," say Roberto Kolter of Harvard Medical School who co-edited the book with Stanley Maloy of San Diego State University.

"To celebrate the anniversary of both Darwin's birth and the publication of On the Origin of Species, a select group of microbiologists met in the Galapagos Islands, bent on reconciling modern microbiology with classical evolutionary theory. Their essays, born of this historic gathering, appear here, each written in an erudite yet highly personal style. Consequently, this book is not only highly informative, but a great deal of fun to read. About half of them had something to say about Darwin; the other half, what Darwin would have said about them," says Moselio Schaechter, distinguished professor emeritus, Tufts University School of Medicine; adjunct professor emeritus, Department of Biology, San Diego State University; and, visiting scholar, University of California at San Diego.

Richard Losick, Maria Moors Cabot Professor, at Harvard University, describes Microbes and Evolution as "A breathtaking range of topics are woven together under a common theme that takes the reader from the origin of microbial life to its diversity, from mutualism and competition to efforts to recapitulate evolution, from the diversity of bacterial viruses to 'the smallest and most abundant microorganism in the ocean.'"

"This book is an excellent collection of articles and should be read by everyone working with bacteria (and others as well) or thinking of doing so," says Charles Yanofsky, professor emeritus, Department of Biology, Stanford University.

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Roberto Kolter did his academic training at Carnegie-Mellon University, UC San Diego, and Stanford. Since 1983 he has been a faculty member of Harvard Medical School. A fanatic of food and wine, he enjoys burning those calories off in early morning runs along the Charles River in Boston.

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Skydiggers celebrate their longevity

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Now approaching a quarter-century in existence, Skydiggers are a band that needs little introduction.

The groups 1989 self-titled debut and the still-devastating single A Penny More from their 1992 follow-up Restless long ago earned the bands roots-folk sound a deserved spot in the CanRock canon.

Northern Shore, released last month on the Latent Recordings label, is their eighth studio release and marks the beginning of a new chapter for the group. Its their first recording since 2009s The Truth About Us, a best-of retrospective that doubled as a 20th anniversary celebration of their career. As singer Andy Maize explained on the eve of setting out on the bands latest tour, combing the archives for The Truth About Us allowed the group, whose lineup includes fellow founding members Josh Finlayson (guitar) and Ron Macey (bass), a chance to consider their journey to date.

We went through a lot of old material choosing the songs for that retrospective and that just got us thinking about some of the things that we had done in the past and got us thinking about some of the older songs as well. So I think that part of the new recording was informed by the retrospective, he said.

The collection came about after several years of prodding by music industry executive Kim Cooke, who signed the group to Warner Music Canada in 1994 where they released their third record, Road Radio. Though Skydiggers fans may have initially feared the anthology was intended as a swan song, Maize said the groups future was never in doubt.

We thought that 20 years was worth celebrating and Kim had a big role in putting together the retrospective, but it was never meant to be a farewell or a parting shot. For us, it was rewarding because we got to reflect over what wed done and that definitely helped us to move forward, he said.

For Northern Shore, the band enlisted producer Saam Hashemi, who guided them through an unorthodox recording process that Maize said had the band putting songs to tape in whatever way made sense. That included working up tracks from simple guitar and vocal takes in Finlaysons basement to separate sessions at Blue Rodeos Woodshed recording space and live-off-the-floor recordings made at the Tragically Hips Bathouse studio near Kingston, Ont.

Saams abilities gave us the flexibility to record in different ways, Maize said.

The album is also available in a four-disc deluxe edition that will delight longtime fans, with highlights including the bands original 1988 demo (recorded at Grant Avenue studio in Hamilton) and mid-90s sessions recorded at Chemical Sound in Toronto that were the last to feature founding member Peter Cash until now.

Weve been doing more work with Peter recently, said Maize. We recorded some of his material for Northern Shore, he sings on some of the songs on Northern Shore, so it just seemed like a good way of reconnecting with some of that older material, which we still play live.

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Michael Franke, Coaching Longevity and a Stanley Cup Prediction on Puska on Pucks

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by Denis Puska May 30, 2012 - ECHL (ECHL) Fort Wayne Komets A prediction and preview of the Stanley Cup Championship Series and an interview with the President of the Fort Wayne Komets who will call the ECHL home this fall highlights Episode 42 of Puska on Pucks, The Original Internet Hockey Show.

Join host Denis J. Puska as he spends time with Komets President Michael Franke to discuss the move from the Central Hockey League to the ECHL. Franke will also talk about the new rivalries the Komets will enjoy in the new league.

Coaching Longevity is something that isn't talked about that much anymore. But two coaches still believe that longevity with one team can still be found. Ft. Wayne Komets Head Coach Al Sims and Columbus Cottonmouths Head Coach and General Manager Jerome Bechard have combined for 26 years in the same city. Sims and Bechard will share their thoughts on the cities they have called home for an extended period of time.

The NHL's Stanley Cup final features the Los Angeles Kings and the New Jersey Devils. Puska will have a preview of the final series and his prediction of who will take home the Cup.

The Phoenix Coyotes have come off an outstanding season in the NHL, but there still is speculation regarding their future in Arizona. Puska on Pucks has some information regarding the Coyotes and the ownership situation there.

Ice Chips News and Notes Presented By TST Media has Central Hockey League Awards Results from their annual convention, and how one AHL team the Manchester Monarchs are Crossing Borders and trying to eliminate discrimination on and off the ice.

Listen to new and past episodes of the weekly pod-cast at http://www.puskamediaservices.com under the Puska on Pucks tab. Several other websites also carry the program including the Michigan Regional Sports Network, SPHL Forums and http://www.oursportscentral.com under the OSC Radio link section.

Discuss this story on the ECHL message board... Digg this story Add to Del.icio.us

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer(s), and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

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Longevity the mark at school

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VEEDERSBURG, Ind. Teachers retiring at Fountain Central High School have enjoyed their time with the students and staff.

Dan Halladay, Phil Rash and Dorie Johnson are leaving with more than 30 years at the school. And while Brad Smiths time at Fountain Central is much shorter, he has been in education for 40 years.

I wanted to teach since I was in elementary school, Halladay said. I liked grading, and I liked teaching other kids.

Halladay was involved in coaching, including 10 years with girls basketball, one year in baseball, three years in girls track, 10 years as a football assistant and 10 years with junior high football.

I have really enjoyed it, Halladay said. We have very good community support. We have tons of great people.

He will continue to work with a football officiating crew and umpire girls softball. He also sells sports cards on eBay.

Halladay is proud that four of his former students are now school superintendents.

Many others are pillars of their community, he said. I have lots of friendships from teachers and coaches.

Halladay estimated that 60 percent of his students now are second generation from local families.

Halladay took students to Russia in 1995 and has taken students to Germany four times, a program that continues annually at Fountain Central.

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Milbank: Before GOP clones Reagan genetic flaws must be fixed

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When news broke a vial of Ronald Reagans blood was being auctioned, the price quickly jumped to $30,000 as websites and blogs explored a tantalizing possibility: Did this mean the late president could be cloned?

Before mad scientists got the chance to perform a Dolly-the-Sheep experiment with the 40th president, the seller succumbed to criticism and decided to donate the blood to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. But this should only encourage the cloning speculation because the Gippers DNA is now in the hands of those who would most like to reproduce him: Republicans.

Party officials have been making the pilgrimage to the Reagan Library this year to express their wish to re-create the great man. I believe boldness and clarity of the kind that Ronald Reagan displayed in 1980 offer us the greatest opportunity to create a winning coalition in 2012, vice presidential aspirant Paul Ryan said at the library last week.

Also making the trip were VP hopefuls Marco Rubio and Chris Christie. Like Ronald Reagan, I believe in what this country and its citizens can accomplish, the latter declared. The America I speak of is the America Ronald Reagan challenged us to be.

The man they hope to join on the ticket, Mitt Romney, once boasted he was not trying to return to Reagan-Bush. Now he says the partys standard-bearer should be in the same mold as Ronald Reagan.

But before they go filling that mold by mapping the Reagan genome, Republicans may wish to consider some genetic flaws that party scientists should repair in the cloning process. To make the Reagan clone more compatible with todays Republican Party, a bit of genetic engineering may be in order:

AFL-1: Reagans AFL-1 gene, on the labor chromosome, has a mutation that made him susceptible to workers rights. He said of unions: There are few finer examples of participatory democracy. He said the right to join a union is one of the most elemental human rights. And he said collective bargaining played a major role in Americas economic miracle.

EPA-4: Reagans EPA-4 gene, on the regulatory chromosome, has a protein that can summon anti-industry sympathies. He signed a law establishing efficiency standards for electric appliances and an update to the Safe Drinking Water Act punishing states that didnt meet clean-water standards.

SSA-2 and MDCR-1: These related genes, on the long arm of the retirement chromosome, are problematic. Reagan expanded Social Security in 1983 and imposed taxes on wealthy recipients. He also signed what was at the time the largest expansion of Medicare in its history.

DEBT-1, DEBT-2, DEBT-3: A trio of abnormalities on the fiscal chromosome caused Reagan to increase taxes several times after his initial tax cut, to embrace much higher taxes on investments than current rates and to sign 18 increases in the federal debt limit.

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DNA origami: synthetic tiles can make over 100 shapes

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LEGO, eat your heart out. Blocks of DNA have been programmed to automatically build themselves into nanoscopic structures. Eventually the DNA programmes will be sophisticated enough to churn out minuscule therapeutic devices that work inside the body.

Single-stranded DNA has already proved itself to be a useful addition to the nanotechnologist's toolbox. A very long strand can be intricately folded into complex 3D structures through a process known, appropriately, as DNA origami. These structures could be used to ferry drugs to specific sites in the human body.

But those long strands typically come from a virus, which raises the possibility that the body will attack the structures. Now, Peng Yin and colleagues at Harvard University have designed a similar technology that relies entirely on synthetic DNA. "Our structures could be made to be highly biocompatible," he says.

Instead of folding one long strand of viral DNA, Yin's team designed short synthetic DNA strands that can fold into a small tile, just 7 by 3 nanometres in size. "Each tile acts like a Lego block," he says. Tiles automatically interlock with neighbouring tiles that carry a complementary DNA sequence. This means that with a bit of forward planning, the team could design a complete set of tiles that lock together to create more than 100 shapes - including any letter of the alphabet.

The synthetic DNA shapes could dodge the immune system, buying them more time to shuttle drugs to the right tissue (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature11075).

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DNA origami: synthetic tiles can make over 100 shapes

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DNA designs done faster, cheaper

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B. Wei et al. / Wyss Institute, Harvard

This atomic-force microscopy shows 100 shapes, each created from tiles of DNA strands. Each shape takes up a space measuring 150 by 150 nanometers, or roughly one-thousandth the width of a human hair.

By Alan Boyle

The DNA molecule serves as the code of life, but it also serves as handy building material for nanoscale structures and newly published research shows how patterns as complex as letters, numbers and smiley faces can be created far more cheaply and quickly than previously thought.

Harvard researchers demonstrate the latest twists in this week's issue of the journal Nature. The process involves laying out short segmentsof DNA in a tile-shaped pattern determined by custom-designed chemical bonds. Those single-stranded tiles, in turn, can assemble themselves into larger shapes like Lego blocks, depending on how the bonds attach to one another. Different recipes for mixing the tiles together will produce different shapes.

The researchers Bryan Wei, Mingjie Dai and Peng Yinestimate that the process yielded the desired structure 12 to 17 percent of the time. That yield is far from perfect, but it could be perfectly acceptable for a process involving thousands upon thousands of self-assembling molecules.

The technique updates a construction strategy that was first pioneered in the 1980s. Back then, it took two years to create a 7-nanometer-wide cube from 10 strands of DNA, Caltech's Paul Rothemund and Aarhus University's Ebbe Sloth Andersen observed in a Nature commentary on the research. In contrast, the newly reported results suggest that far more complex shapes, measuring more than 100 nanometers across, could be churned out at an average rate of one per hour. (A human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometers wide.)

Another attractive factor has to do with the cost: An alternate method for creating nanoscale shapes, known as DNA origami, twists one long molecular strand into a desired shape rather than using lots of smaller tiles. But for each different shape, a new set of molecular "staples" has to be synthesized at a cost of roughly $1,000, according to the Nature commentary. The Harvard researchers' method involves creating a $7,000 set of tiles that could theoretically produce 2 X 10^93 shapes. That's a 2 followed by 93 zeros.

In their Nature paper, Wei and his colleagues showed off 100 shapes including the Roman alphabet, numerical digits, punctuation marks, the peace sign, Chinese characters and 10 kinds of emoticons. They made use of a custom-designed computer program to aid in the design of the shapes and control the liquid-handling robot that mixed the DNA ingredients.

"This advance truly brings DNA nanotechnology into the rapid-prototyping age, and enables DNA shapes to be tailored for every experiment," Rothemund and Andersen wrote in their commentary.

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Posted in DNA

Nanodevice manufacturing strategy using DNA 'Building blocks'

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ScienceDaily (May 30, 2012) Researchers at the Wyss Institute have developed a method for building complex nanostructures out of short synthetic strands of DNA. Called single-stranded tiles (SSTs), these interlocking DNA "building blocks," akin to Legos, can be programmed to assemble themselves into precisely designed shapes, such as letters and emoticons. Further development of the technology could enable the creation of new nanoscale devices, such as those that deliver drugs directly to disease sites.

The technology, which is described in the May 30 online issue of Nature, was developed by a research team led by Wyss core faculty member Peng Yin, Ph.D., who is also an Assistant Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. Other team members included Wyss Postdoctoral Fellow Bryan Wei, Ph.D., and graduate student Mingjie Dai.

DNA is best known as a keeper of genetic information. But in an emerging field of science known as DNA nanotechnology, it is being explored for use as a material with which to build tiny, programmable structures for diverse applications. To date, most research has focused on the use of a single long biological strand of DNA, which acts as a backbone along which smaller strands bind to its many different segments, to create shapes. This method, called DNA origami, is also being pursued at the Wyss Institute under the leadership of Core Faculty member William Shih, Ph.D. Shih is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School and the Department of Cancer Biology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

In focusing on the use of short strands of synthetic DNA and avoiding the long scaffold strand, Yin's team developed an alternative building method. Each SST is a single, short strand of DNA. One tile will interlock with another tile, if it has a complementary sequence of DNA. If there are no complementary matches, the blocks do not connect. In this way, a collection of tiles can assemble itself into specific, predetermined shapes through a series of interlocking local connections.

In demonstrating the method, the researchers created just over one hundred different designs, including Chinese characters, numbers, and fonts, using hundreds of tiles for a single structure of 100 nanometers (billionths of a meter) in size. The approach is simple, robust, and versatile.

As synthetically based materials, the SSTs could have some important applications in medicine. SSTs could organize themselves into drug-delivery machines that maintain their structural integrity until they reach specific cell targets, and because they are synthetic, can be made highly biocompatible.

"Use of DNA nanotechnology to create programmable nanodevices is an important focus at the Wyss Institute, because we believe so strongly in its potential to produce a paradigm-shifting approach to development of new diagnostics and therapeutics," said Wyss Founding Director, Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D.

The research was supported by the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University.

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Posted in DNA

DNA match goal missed, woman murdered

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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - A murdered woman's family says a slow system cost their loved one her life.

DNA from a 2005 rape matched Christopher Wallace, but it took several weeks after initial confirmation for charges to be approved. During that time, a Muskegon-area mother of two was murdered in her home -- allegedly by Wallace.

Kalamazoo police investigating the rape pointed the finger at the slow process of getting the DNA analyzed -- a process that took place at the Michigan State Police Crime Lab in Grand Rapids.

MSP says its goal turnaround time on DNA evidence is 30 days.

That would have been enough to lock up Wallace, 34, before the murder, but it didn't happen in this case -- and the reason why boils down to a tight budget.

Police don't doubt now that Wallace should have been in prison for a 2005 rape, but they couldn't arrest him until it was too late for Jennifer Phillips.

"I believe that if they would have had him in prison where he should have been she would still be here," said Jennifer Phillips's sister Mary Phillips.

Jennifer, 37, was strangled to death in her home on Oct. 21, 2011, police say.

"I don't think she gave up until she couldn't try anymore," said Mary.

The holdup in the arrest, Kalamazoo police say, was in the confirmation process the DNA was going through to be checked for a match with the cold case rape.

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Posted in DNA

DNA drawing with an old twist

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Numbers, letters and symbols are some of the 100 or so self-assembled DNA shapes designed by Harvard scientists.

B. Wei, M. Dai, P. Yin/Wyss Inst. for Biologically Inspired Engineering/Harvard University

Scientists have developed a way to carve shapes from DNA canvases, including all the letters of the Roman alphabet, emoticons and an eagles head.

Bryan Wei, a postdoctoral scholar at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and his colleagues make these shapes out of single strands of DNA just 42 letters long. Each strand is unique, and folds to form a rectangular tile. When mixed, neighbouring tiles stick to each other in a brick-wall pattern, and shorter boundary tiles lock the edges in place.

In their simplest configuration, the tiles produce a solid 64-by-103-nanometre rectangle, but Wei and his team can create more complex shapes by leaving out specific tiles. Using this strategy, they created 107 two-dimensional shapes, including letters, numbers, Chinese characters, geometric shapes and symbols. They also produced tubes and rectangles of different sizes, including one consisting of more than 1,000 tiles. Their work is published today in Nature1.

Weis work revitalizes a technique used by Ned Seeman a chemist at New York University and pioneer in the field of DNA nanotechnology. As early as 1991, Seeman moulded short strands of DNA into cubes, tubes and lattices. It was laborious work and limited to small and simple designs2.

In 2006, Paul Rothemund from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena created bigger structures using a technique called DNA origami. He folded a 7,000-letter strand of DNA from the genome of the M13 virus into the right shape, and used around 200 smaller staple strands to hold it in place3.

Since then, long scaffolds have featured in all such work. Wei and his colleagues depart from this tradition. They show that small strands can be combined into large structures without the need for a scaffold, and with acceptable yields (the proportion of strands that assemble into shapes) of 1217%.

This approach clashes with the traditional thinking about tile-based assembly, says Kurt Gothelf, director of the Centre for DNA Nanotechnology at Aarhus University in Denmark. Many scientists assumed that small strands would need to be mixed in very precise ratios to avoid making fused or half-finished structures. It has long been assumed that this sets a limit for the size of structures that can efficiently be assembled in this way, he says.

Peng Yin, also from Harvard Medical School and leader of the study, thinks that the technique works because the strands are slow to assemble, but grow quickly once they start. This means that the shapes have a low probability of touching one another and fusing incorrectly as they begin to take shape.

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DNA drawing with an old twist

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Detecting cancers — from tiny bits of tumor DNA in blood

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When cancer blooms in the body, tiny bits of tumor DNA can be found in the blood. Cancer specialists would love it if these DNA fragments could one day be used in noninvasive diagnostic tests -- liquid biopsies -- that are relatively inexpensive and sensitive. There's a lot of work going on in this area right now.

One team of researchers reported a step toward that goal in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine. They used a strategy that can detect many different mutations in some key genes known to be involved in cancer even though the pieces of DNA from them were present in the blood plasma at low levels. Such a test, they say, would not have to be tailor-made for each cancer patient because it can look at a lot of different mutations at once, and that would make it cheaper and more practical.

The researchers, of Cambridge, England, showed that their strategy could track the progression of disease in advanced ovarian and breast cancer patients fairly accurately. They could see when a patient responded to treatment (plasma levels of key DNA fragments fell) and when they stopped responding to treatment (plasma levels of the DNA fragments started to rise again).

In a case that illustrates how they think their technology could be used, the scientists described a patient whod had tumors in the bowel and ovary. She had surgery, and responded well to it. Five years later, however, she developed a mass in the pelvis and the doctors werent sure which tumor it had come from. It was not biopsied because that was deemed too dangerous, so doctors proceeded with their best bet for a course of treatment and the patient did, in fact, respond to it.

The authors of the paper did an after-the-fact genetic analysis of the patients plasma and tumors. They found that the bowel and ovarian tumors had different genetic mutations in them and that the patients plasma at the time of relapse contained the mutations corresponding to the bowel tumor, not the ovarian tumor. Had these results been available, uncertainty and treatment delays may have been avoided, as well as the risk of prescribing chemotherapy for an inappropriate tumor site, wrote Tim Forshew, of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute, and his colleagues.

There are a variety of ways that such technology could be helpful one day in cancer treatment, the scientists say:

Doctors could see what mutations were behind a patients cancer and when new mutations were added as time went by and the cancer mutated further. Cancer, as its often been said, isnt a single disease: There are many different ways that cells of the body can go rogue and start growing out of control and spreading.

Whats more, analysis of plasma would offer a noninvasive whole body look at all the cancer growing in a persons body. Since cancers mutate and change over time, one tumor in the same body could contain mutations not present in another one. With a plasma screen, bits of DNA from all of them would be floating around and be detected.

Because a test like this could help cancer doctors know just which genes are responsible for Person As cancer versus Person Bs cancer, it might help them decide which drugs and therapies to give a patient. (Some drugs are helpful for some types of cancer and not others.) As new mutations arose, they could change the therapy if appropriate.

Doctors could track how well therapy was working, and test to see if the cancer was returning in patients who had been responding to treatment.

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Detecting cancers -- from tiny bits of tumor DNA in blood

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DNA Sequencing: Emerging Technologies and Applications

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NEW YORK, May 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue:

DNA Sequencing: Emerging Technologies and Applications

http://www.reportlinker.com/p0254559/DNA-Sequencing-Emerging-Technologies-and-Applications.html#utm_source=prnewswire&utm_medium=pr&utm_campaign=Genomics

INTRODUCTION

STUDY OBJECTIVES

BCC's goal in conducting this study is to provide an overview of the current and future characteristics of the global market for industrial enzymes. The key objective is to present a comprehensive analysis of the current market and its future direction in the enzymes market as an important tool for increasing the efficiency and specificity of the products in which the enzymes are used.

This report is an update to the previous report on industrial enzymes and explores the present and future strategies within the industrial enzymes market, which includes the detergent, technical, food and beverages, and animal feed sectors. The improvisation of the market, the setbacks and the needs of the market are discussed in this report. The comparisons, usage, and the advantages and disadvantages of types of enzymes are also portrayed in this report.

A detailed analysis of the enzymes industry structure has been conducted. Revenues are broken down by region. Sales figures are estimated for the five-year period from 2011 through 2016.

Applications for industrial enzymes are also discussed separately in the report, with emphasis of the use in technical enzymes and the food and beverages enzymes. The report also covers significant patents and their allotments in each category.

REASONS FOR DOING THIS STUDY

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DNA Sequencing: Emerging Technologies and Applications

Posted in DNA