West Ottawa boys track & field wins stunning relay at OK Red meet

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The West Ottawa boys track & field team didnt win the OK Red Conference meet Friday but turned some heads, nevertheless.

The Panthers stunned East Kentwood by winning the 4x200-meter relay in a photo finish, moving all the way up from the eighth seed.

Austin Vasquez, Cristian Ramirez, Ato Condelee and James Lacy finished in 1 minute, 31,.89 seconds, beating East Kentwood by seven hundredths of a second.

That is the first time we had all of those guys run it together, West Ottawa coach Craig Kingma said. That race was solid guts. They held off everyones anchors.

West Ottawa finished sixth in the boys meet with 49 points. East Kentwood won (190.5).

The West Ottawa girls finished seventh with 31 points. Rockford won (162).

Condelee was the lone individual conference champion for the Panthers, winning both the long jump (22 feet, 7 3/4 inches) and the high jump (6-4).

I feel pretty good, but I know I can go higher, Condelee said.

He teamed with Vasquez, Ramirez and Lacy to take third in the 4x100 relay (44.32). The four earned all-conference honors.

Ramirez took fifth in the 200 meters (23.3).

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West Ottawa boys track & field wins stunning relay at OK Red meet

Losing heads while salmon fishing

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Friday, May 11 2012, 1:12 pm

The following questions were asked on the California Department of Fish & Game (DFG) website:

Question: I was wondering if it's mandatory to have to give up my salmon heads when the volunteer fish checkers come around to measure my fish? I thought it was my choice.

Answer: Yes, it's mandatory. The surveyors at the dock collecting heads are not volunteers but are paid, trained and educated biologists, and anglers in possession of a salmon with a clipped adipose fin are required to relinquish the head to these Department of Fish and Game (DFG) employees (Fish and Game Code, section 8226).

Section 8226 reads: "(a) ... any person in possession of a salmon with a missing adipose fin, the small, fleshy fin on the back of the fish between the back fin and the tail, upon request by an authorized agent or employee of the department, shall immediately relinquish the head of the salmon to the state, at no charge, for recovery of any coded-wire tag. The head may be removed by the fish owner or, if removed by the official department representative, the head shall be removed in a manner to minimize loss of salmon flesh and the salmon shall immediately be returned to the rightful owner. (b) It is unlawful to intentionally conceal, cull or release into the waters a salmon with a missing adipose fin that it is otherwise legal to possess."

Question: My daughter has a red-shouldered hawk that frequents her deck in San Rafael. The hawk seems to enjoy scanning from the railing for critters it might like to eat. This bird appears to have a silver tag on its right leg just above the claw but I can't read the writing. I was wondering if DFG or any agencies that you know of have a tagging program for hawks?

Answer: Yes, there are numerous researchers both in and outside of California that capture and mark birds. According to Department of Fish and Game (DFG) Raptor Biologist Carie Battistone, identification bands should be reported to the Bird Banding Lab (BBL) (www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl), administered by USGS. If someone sees a marked bird, such as this red-shouldered hawk, they can report it by accessing BBL's website and clicking the "Report a Bird Band or Marked Bird" link. This national program allows researchers to study bird movement (dispersal and migration patterns), survival, population trends and more.

Many bands are reported when a bird is recaptured or dies. Reading the band number can be hard, but not impossible, on live birds. In addition to silver bands, researchers also use color bands which tend to be much easier to identify and report.

Question: If an area is posted "closed to fishing," like the stretch of the Feather River between the green bridge in Oroville and the fish hatchery, is it still OK to use crayfish traps there? Or are crayfish traps considered "fishing"?

Answer: No, you cannot use crayfish traps there. According to DFG Lt. Sam Castillo, in this particular area the law says, "Closed to all fishing all year" (California Code of Regulations Title 14, section 7.50(b)(68)(A)). The law is inclusive of all species and is not specific to just trout and salmon. Some other no-fishing areas will allow for the take of amphibians, fresh water clams, crayfish and lampreys under CCR Title 14, section 7.50(a)(2), but this isn't one of them.

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Losing heads while salmon fishing

Obama to talk mortgages in Reno, Romney heads to North Carolina, plus more to watch for this weekend in politics

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After an evening of fundraising in Los Angeles at George Clooney's house that brought in nearly $15 million, President Barack Obama will touch down in Reno, Nev., on Friday to meet with a local family and talk about creating jobs and restoring middle class security. He is expected to call on Congress to cut red tape and allow homeowners who have been paying their mortgage on time to refinance at ...

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Morning Mail: Red Sox fan wears bag on head, starts social media storm

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Yep, Boston has lost eight of its past 10 and is 12-19, in last place in the AL East. Its enough to make long-time Red Sox fans wear bags on their heads at Fenway. And thats what one fan did and now hes trending on Twitter, due mostly to the (false) report that he was thrown out of the stadium by the team for wearing the bag.

Meet Jon OHara, 25, known this morning as Bag Guy. The lifelong Red Sox fan from New Hampshire (who happens to be a standup comedian) became so disgusted with Bostons start to the 2012 season that he donned a paper bag for Thursdays game. His bag attire was caught on camera, and quickly hit social media. Then Bag Guy disappeared from his seat in the seventh inning, with many believing that he was tossed from the stadium by Sox security. This caused him to start trending to Twitter, at #FreeBagGuy.

OHara did several interviews following the game, and gave the real story.

I had it on until the sixth inning when someone behind me yelled out how long are you going to have that bag on your head. I said the whole game hopefully, and he said can you take it off? I paid $100 for the seat and cant see first base. I turned around and said I paid $4 and took the bag off.

Far from being mad at Bag Guy, Red Sox staff actually seemed amused.

They were all actually nice about it, OHara said of the Red Sox staff. The ushers were all laughing really hard. On the way out, they were shaking my hand and were like we hope to see you again.

So, will he see Bag Guy again at Fenway?

I probably wont for one reason. I was lucky to go to last nights game. My son is due any day, so Ill probably be taking games off to raise him, said OHara.

We may have seen the last of Bag Guy, but his legend will never die.

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Morning Mail: Red Sox fan wears bag on head, starts social media storm

Latest Update on New Space Station Crew on This Week @NASA – Video

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11-05-2012 14:29 Activities for new Expedition 31 crewmembers, Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka, NASA Flight Engineer Joe Acaba and Flight Engineer Sergei Revin include a pre-launch fit check in a Soyuz capsule at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the raising of flags outside the Cosmonaut Hotel crew quarters and launch to the orbiting laboratory to meet up with NASA Astronaut Don Pettit, Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Andre Kuipers of the European Space Agency. Also, SpaceX continues its preparations for the planned May 19 launch of the Falcon 9 rocket and unmanned Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station, new findings about the asteroid Vesta by NASA's DAWN spacecraft and more!

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Latest Update on New Space Station Crew on This Week @NASA - Video

NASA Asian-American History Month Profile — Daphne Dador – Video

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11-05-2012 14:32 Daphne Dador joined NASA as a Legislative Affairs Specialist at the Office of Legislative & Intergovernmental Affairs (OLIA) at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, in September 2010. OLIA's mission is to provide executive leadership, direction, and coordination of all communications and relationships related to legislative issues between NASA and the US Congress, state and local government, and space-related associations and citizen's groups. As an active member of the space community, Daphne has volunteered with a variety of national and international space-related organizations such as Women in Aerospace, the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, the International Space University-DC-Alumni Group, the Space Generation Congress, and Yuri's Night. In 2004, she founded the George Washington University Space Society. Committed to representing the space community and its needs Daphne hopes to inspire the next generation of space professionals. She is a native northern Californian and a second-generation Filipino-American.

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NASA Asian-American History Month Profile -- Daphne Dador - Video

NASA's new carbon-counting instrument leaves the nest

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ScienceDaily (May 12, 2012) Its construction now complete, the science instrument that is the heart of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) spacecraft -- NASA's first mission dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide -- has left its nest at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and has arrived at its integration and test site in Gilbert, Ariz.

A truck carrying the OCO-2 instrument left JPL before dawn on Tuesday, May 9, to begin the trek to Orbital Science Corporation's Satellite Manufacturing Facility in Gilbert, southeast of Phoenix, where it arrived that afternoon. The instrument will be unpacked, inspected and tested. Later this month, it will be integrated with the Orbital-built OCO-2 spacecraft bus, which arrived in Gilbert on April 30.

Once technicians ensure the spacecraft is clean of any contaminants, the observatory's integration and test campaign will kick off. That campaign will be conducted in two parts, with the first part scheduled for completion in October. The observatory will then be stored in Gilbert for about nine months while the launch vehicle is prepared. The integration and test campaign will then resume, with completion scheduled for spring 2014. OCO-2 will then be shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., in preparation for a launch as early as the summer of 2014.

"The OCO-2 instrument looks great, and its delivery to Orbital's Gilbert, Ariz., facility is a big step forward in successfully launching and operating the mission in space," said Ralph Basilio, OCO-2 project manager at JPL.

OCO-2 is the latest mission in NASA's study of the global carbon cycle. Carbon dioxide is the most significant human-produced greenhouse gas and the principal human-produced driver of climate change. The original OCO mission was lost shortly after launch on Feb. 24, 2009, when the Taurus XL launch vehicle carrying it malfunctioned and failed to reach orbit.

The experimental OCO-2 mission, which is part of NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder Program, will uniformly sample the atmosphere above Earth's land and ocean, collecting more than half a million measurements of carbon dioxide concentration over Earth's sunlit hemisphere every day for at least two years. It will do so with the accuracy, resolution and coverage needed to provide the first complete picture of the regional-scale geographic distribution and seasonal variations of both human and natural sources of carbon dioxide emissions and their sinks-the places where carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and stored.

Scientists will use OCO-2 mission data to improve global carbon cycle models, better characterize the processes responsible for adding and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and make more accurate predictions of global climate change.

The mission provides a key new measurement that can be combined with other ground and aircraft measurements and satellite data to answer important questions about the processes that regulate atmospheric carbon dioxide and its role in the carbon cycle and climate. This information could help policymakers and business leaders make better decisions to ensure climate stability and retain our quality of life. The mission will also serve as a pathfinder for future long-term satellite missions to monitor carbon dioxide.

Each of the OCO-2 instrument's three high-resolution spectrometers spreads reflected sunlight into its various colors like a prism, focusing on a different, narrow color range to detect light with the specific colors absorbed by carbon dioxide and molecular oxygen. The amount of light absorbed at these specific colors is proportional to the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Scientists will use these data in computer models to quantify global carbon dioxide sources and sinks.

OCO-2 is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Orbital Sciences Corporation, Dulles, Va., built the spacecraft and provides mission operations under JPL's leadership. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

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NASA rover contest gets set for showdown

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NASA / JPL-Caltech

An artist's conception shows NASA's Curiosity rover zapping a rock during a sampling operation on Mars. Laser-zapping is not a requirement for the robots entered in a NASA-backed $1.5 million contest.

By Devin Coldewey

Mark June 16 on your calendar, interplanetary robot fans: Thats when autonomous rovers will face off in NASA's $1.5 million Sample Return Robot Challenge at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.

The challenge, one of several that NASA is sponsoring, was announced back in July 2010 but a purpose-built autonomous robot isn't a simple thing to create, so it has taken nearly two years to collect and vet the entrants.

The challenge, in brief, is to create a compact (1.5 cubic meters, 175 pounds) robot that can navigate varied terrain, find and collect certain items, and return them safely to the base. But it must do this without the use of GPS or any "Earth-based" systems, such as a compass or Internet connection, which naturally would not be available on celestial bodies other than our own. Furthermore, the robot can't use air cooling, ultrasonic rangefinders or a number of other techniques that wouldn't be workable in an airless environment.

There are both private and public teams: Groups from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Waterloo have both made the final 11, and the rest are start-up companies such as SpacePRIDE from South Carolina and True Vision Robotics from Atascadero, Calif. Six of the teams are based in California, while the rest are scattered around the US and Canada.

The teams' robots will be unmanned and on their own once deployed, but they won't be going in completely blind. As would likely be the case on a real planetary mission, NASA is providing satellite imagery of the area, compete with topographic information and points of interest:

NASA / WPI

Topographic map of the competition's terrain

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NASA rover contest gets set for showdown

NASA Greenlights SpaceX ISS Visit for May 19

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SpaceX on Friday confirmed that NASA has greenlighted May 19 as the launch date for the first privately funded cargo mission to the International Space Station following a series of delays.

The launch of a SpaceX Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida is scheduled for 4:55 a.m. ET, a SpaceX spokesperson said. NASA Television will start broadcasting the event at 3:30 a.m., she added.

Already months behind schedule, a launch date scheduled for this past Monday was cancelled last week as SpaceX and the U.S. space agency raced to test the Dragon capsule's software systems. If the May 19 launch is again delayed for some reason, a backup plan is to lift off on May 22, a SpaceX spokesperson told PCMag earlier.

"SpaceX and NASA are nearing completion of the software assurance process, and SpaceX is submitting a request to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for a May 19 launch target," SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham said earlier in the week. "Thus far, no issues have been uncovered during this process, but with a mission of this complexity we want to be extremely diligent."

In what will be the second demonstration launch for SpaceX in NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Once in orbit, the automated Dragon capsule, carrying cargo for the orbiting space lab, will berth with the ISS if it passes a systems check.

"The primary objectives for the flight include a flyby of the space station at a distance of approximately 1.5 miles to validate the operation of sensors and flight systems necessary for a safe rendezvous and approach," Brost Grantham said. "The spacecraft also will demonstrate the ability to abort the rendezvous. Once these capabilities are successfully proven, the Dragon will be cleared to berth with the space station."

Fourth Time's the Charm?

The unmanned test flight was originally scheduled for April 30, then pushed back to May 3 before NASA and SpaceX settled on a date a few days later in May. SpaceX, run by PayPal and Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk (pictured), plans to conduct manned flights to the ISS by 2015 as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program.

After the May 7 date was cancelled, the company's launch plans were constrained because the Russian space agency is scheduled to take three new ISS astronauts to the space station on May 15. Any attempt by SpaceX to send its Dragon capsule to the ISS after this Thursday must wait for the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to safely dock at the space station.

If and when the ISS rendezvous does happen, crew aboard the space station will use the space station's robotic arm to dock the capsule, which will be carrying about 1,150 pounds of cargo for delivery to the orbiting lab. Then the SpaceX Dragon is supposed to take on a 1,455-pound payload to bring back to Earth.

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NASA Greenlights SpaceX ISS Visit for May 19

NASA's Space Launch System carries deep space potential

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ScienceDaily (May 12, 2012) NASA's Space Launch System is on track to give America the launch vehicle it will need to send humans deeper into space than ever before, the program's manager said May 8.

Speaking to the National Space Club during a luncheon near NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Todd May, SLS program manager, said an uncrewed test flight of the Orion spacecraft in 2014, SLS mission in 2017 and a 10- to 14-day mission with astronauts going to the moon and back in 2021 will leave the nation in a position to explore as far as it wishes.

"By that point, you'll have the capability to go anywhere in the solar system people want to go," May said. May leads a team of engineers and designers at NASA's Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "The ultimate goal is to put human boots on Mars."

Kennedy designers also are at work to make a place for the SLS to be assembled and launched from. Launch Pad 39B has seen significant changes and the Vehicle Assembly Building is undergoing modernizations to host the 36-story-tall SLS. Also, the mobile launcher that will hold the rocket and its servicing connections already has conducted a test at the pad.

A test version of the Orion capsule is inside the Operations and Checkout Building at Kennedy and the spacecraft that will make the first test flight into space is expected in a couple of months. It will undergo final assembly at Kennedy before being mounted atop a Delta IV rocket for a mission without astronauts aboard to test the spacecraft's systems and heat shield.

There's a lot going on," said Scott Colloredo, chief architect of the Ground Systems Development and Operations Program. "Whenever you see hardware moving in the direction of the launch pad, that's always significant."

Many elements of the SLS itself already are in testing, including the engines and solid rocket boosters that will give the rocket about 8 million pounds of thrust at launch, 10 percent more than the Saturn V.

NASA already has an inventory of space shuttle main engines that will be used to power the core stage. "The propulsion elements are in really good shape," May said. "Sixteen space shuttle main engines, that's a good head start."

The SLS also will use solid rocket boosters like the shuttle, but the SLS versions will be five segments instead of four.

The core stage, which will hold the fuel tanks for the main engines, is early in its design but still is on schedule. Like the space shuttle external tanks, the core stage will be built at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana. The SLS stage is about 15 feet longer than the shuttle's external tank, and it will be shipped to Kennedy on the Pegasus barge, another element shared with the shuttle.

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NASA's Space Launch System carries deep space potential

NASA unplugs last space shuttle, Endeavour

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NASA pulled the plug on its last powered space shuttle Friday, 20 years after it flew its first mission.

Space shuttle technicians working inside Orbiter Processing Facility-2 (OPF-2) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida powered down Endeavour, the youngest of the retired fleet's orbiters, at 9:58 a.m. EDT as they moved forward with preparations for the winged spacecraft's museum display.

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This September, NASA will mount Endeavour on top of a modified Boeing 747 carrier aircraft and ferry it to Los Angeles for its exhibit at the California Science Center.

NASA's youngest shuttle Built after the loss of the Challenger orbiter in 1986, the shuttle Endeavour was largely assembled from spare parts pre-fabricated during the development of its sister ships Discovery and Atlantis. Endeavour's first mission, STS-49, lifted off in May 1992.

NASA retired its shuttle fleet in July 2011, and the remaining orbiters are all headed to museums. While the agency is currently using Russian spacecraft to transport its astronauts to low-Earth orbit, U.S. commercial vehicles are planned to take over this taxi service by 2017. [ NASA's Shuttle Program in Pictures ]

"The whole thing shutting down is a shame," Dan Brandenstein, Endeavour's first commander, told collectSPACE.com just a few hours after he visited his former spaceship last Saturday. "It is good that they are saving them as museum artifacts, but you have three vehicles that are still good flying machines going on a post or in a display case."

Endeavour was the last of NASA's retired shuttle fleet to go permanently dark. Discovery, which was delivered to the Smithsonian in April, was powered down for a final time on Dec. 16, 2011. Atlantis, which is destined for display just down the road from its processing facility at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, was shut down the following week on Dec. 22.

Endeavour flew its 25th and final mission, STS-134, a year ago this month. The 16-day mission to the International Space Station launched on May 16, 2011.

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NASA unplugs last space shuttle, Endeavour

Nanotechnology for Cleaning Blood

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Category: Science & Technology Posted: May 11, 2012 09:40AM Author: Guest_Jim_*

Whoever first had the idea for the lithography system used to produce modern integrated circuits, probably did not think their invention would be used to clean a person's blood. As reported by the American Institute of Physics, researchers at MIT and the National University of Singapore have created a device that cleans infections from the blood. The key was using margination, a natural phenomenon that separates parts of the blood.

As your blood flows through your blood vessels, white blood cells and bacteria move towards the wall of the vessel, while the red blood cells flow through the middle. The researchers decided to try making a device that replicates this effect. By etching microfluidic channels just 20 micrometers (millionths of a meter: m) by 20 m into a polymer chip, the researchers successfully removed at least 80% of the E. coli bacteria, yeast, and other inflammatory components from a blood sample.

Potentially this technology could be used to treat sepsis, a dangerous and systemic inflammatory response to blood infections. First small-scale in vivo animal tests have to be successful, but this is definitely a promising and interesting way to clean ones blood.

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Nanotechnology for Cleaning Blood

Pair of molecular biologists receive Albany Medical Center Prize

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By Record Staff newsroom@troyrecord.com Twitter.com/troyrecord

Molecular biologist Robert Roeder, left, and James Darnell Jr., right, will share the $500,000 Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research for their pioneering research on how cells express their genetic information. (AP Photo)

ALBANY Two molecular biologists who performed pioneering research on how cells express their genetic information were awarded the annual Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research.

James E. Darnell Jr. and Robert G. Roeder will share $500,000, the largest award in medicine and science in the United States. The prize was established in 2000 by the late Morris "Marty" Silverman, a New York City businessman who wanted to encourage health and biomedical research.

Darnell discovered "RNA processing" in human cells at the Massachusetts Institute in 1963 while studying messenger RNA, which is the template for protein synthesis. Roeder broke ground in the field of gene transcription in animal cells as a University of Washington graduate student in 1969.

"By helping to define how cells grow, replicate, and become specialized, these two scientists have allowed countless other scientists and physicians to explore new ways to fight disease including viruses, heart disease, anemia and autoimmune disorders," James J. Barba, president and chief executive officer of Albany Medical Center, said in March with the award was announced.

Roeder heads the biochemistry and molecular biology lab at The Rockefeller University in New York City, where Darnell is emeritus faculty.

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Pair of molecular biologists receive Albany Medical Center Prize

Two Molecular Biologists Get $500K Medical Prize

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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) Twomolecularbiologistsare being awarded the annual AlbanyMedicalCenterPrizein Medicine and Biomedical Research.

James Darnell Jr. and Robert Roeder will receive theprizeduring a ceremony Friday and will share $500,000, the largest award in medicine and science in the United States. The two men performed pioneering research on how cells express their genetic information.

Roeder heads the biochemistry andmolecularbiology lab at The Rockefeller University in New York City, where Darnell is emeritus faculty.

The two winners were announced in March.

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Two Molecular Biologists Get $500K Medical Prize

2 molecular biologists from NYC to share $500K medical prize for pioneering research on cells

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The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION

By: The Associated Press

11/05/2012 1:10 PM | Comments: 0

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Molecular biologist James Darnell Jr., speaks after being awarded the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research in Albany, N.Y., on Friday, May 11, 2012. Darnell shares the $500,000 prize with Robert Roeder for their pioneering research on how cells express their genetic information. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

ALBANY, N.Y. - Two molecular biologists have been awarded the annual Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research.

James Darnell Jr. and Robert Roeder received the prize during a ceremony Friday and will share $500,000, the largest award in medicine and science in the United States. The two men performed pioneering research on how cells express their genetic information.

Roeder heads the biochemistry and molecular biology lab at The Rockefeller University in New York City, where Darnell is emeritus faculty.

The two winners were announced in March.

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2 molecular biologists from NYC to share $500K medical prize for pioneering research on cells

Lab21 Unveils New Molecular Analysis Services at Greenville Site

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CAMBRIDGE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Lab21, the global specialist in personalized medicine and clinical diagnostics, is pleased to announce that routine analysis of clinical samples has begun from Lab21 Inc.s new CLIA laboratory in Greenville, South Carolina.

The first assays in the test menu include a new Human Papillomavirus (HPV) High Risk and HPV 16 and 18 Genotyping Service. Using the Roche COBAS 4800 HPV Genotyping test, Lab21 can identify high risk patients and differentiate those patients with HPV 16 and HPV 18 Genotypes. The Lab21 service launches concurrently with new guidelines for the prevention and early detection of cervical cancer which were recently issued by the American Cancer Society (ACS), the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (ASCCP), and the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP).

Michael Bolick, President, Lab21 Inc said Over recent months we have grown the Greenville team and worked closely with local clinicians to prioritize the menu of tests required by local hospitals. The final validation of these assays and the receipt of our first patient samples are the culmination of Lab21s strong team work internationally. Our colleagues from the UK have developed best practices in molecular diagnostic testing that we have transferred, along with key individuals, into our US operations.

Lab21 Inc is focused on the provision of molecular diagnostic testing services in oncology and infectious disease. Launch of these services will include KRAS, EGFR and BRAF mutation analysis, HIV viral resistance and tropism and viral load assays. This follows Lab21s recent launch of the Clinical Genomics Center at ITOR, a hospital based cancer research organization located in Greenville, South Carolina. It is planned that through the partnership with ITOR, Lab21 will develop new companion diagnostic assays required to accompany new drug therapies.

Ken Morgan, Vice President Operations, Lab21 Inc said We welcome our new Laboratory Manager, Susan Foster, and Clinical Sequencing Group Leader, Jeremy Stuart to Lab21 Inc who are two very experienced clinical testing professionals from market leading companies. During the next 12 months we intend to grow our core team in Greenville rapidly as we add new test menu and launch our own companion diagnostic assays.

END

About Lab21

Lab21 is a global leader in personalized healthcare. It provides diagnostic products and services and supports blood bank screening, medical diagnostics and drug discovery. Lab21 customers include international healthcare providers, pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies. The Products division of Lab21 manufactures immunodiagnostic kits and reagents that are distributed internationally and is focused on infectious diseases for the blood-banking and clinical markets. Our clinical services operations have a growing test portfolio providing companion diagnostics and high technology molecular assays. Lab21's corporate offices are based in Cambridge, UK and Greenville, South Carolina, with a GMP manufacturing site in Cambridge and other manufacturing facilities in Newmarket, Camberley, Manchester and Bridport. Website: http://www.lab21.com

About the new guidelines for the prevention and early detection of cervical cancer

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Lab21 Unveils New Molecular Analysis Services at Greenville Site