Novartis receives Piqray approval in Europe the first and only targeted medicine for HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer with a PIK3CA mutation | Small…

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DetailsCategory: Small MoleculesPublished on Thursday, 30 July 2020 13:55Hits: 588

BASEL, Switzerland I July 29, 2020 I Novartis today announced the European Commission (EC) has approved Piqray (alpelisib) in combination with fulvestrant for the treatment of postmenopausal women, and men, with hormone receptor positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 negative (HR+/HER2-) locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer with a PIK3CA mutation after disease progression following endocrine therapy as monotherapy. Piqray is the first and only treatment specifically approved for people with advanced breast cancer whose tumors harbor a PIK3CA mutation, which stimulates tumor growth and is associated with poor response to therapy13.

Piqray is an important new therapy for HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer patients whose tumors have a PIK3CA mutation, and we look forward to making it available in countries across Europe, said Kees Roks, Head Region Europe, Novartis Oncology. Knowledge of PIK3CA status can better equip doctors as they develop a personalized upfront treatment plan for patients. Piqray offers new hope for advanced breast cancer patients with a PIK3CA mutation, who typically face a worse overall prognosis.

This approval follows a positive opinion granted in May by the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) based on the Phase III SOLAR-1 trial showing that Piqray nearly doubled median progression-free survival (PFS) compared to fulvestrant alone1,2. Overall response rate, an indicator of the proportion of patients who experience at least a 30% reduction in overall tumor size (in patients with measurable disease), was more than doubled when Piqray was added to fulvestrant compared to fulvestrant alone1,2. Read more about the positive CHMP opinion and the SOLAR-1 clinical trial results here.

Patients with HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer should be selected for treatment with Piqray based on the presence of a PIK3CA mutation in tumor or plasma specimens, using a validated test. If a mutation is not detected in a plasma specimen, tumor tissue should be tested if available.

About Piqray (alpelisib)Piqray is a kinase inhibitor developed for use in combination with fulvestrant for the treatment of postmenopausal women, and men, with HR+/HER2-, PIK3CA-mutated, advanced or metastatic breast cancer following progression on or after endocrine-based regimen. Piqray is approved in 48 countries, including the US and European member states.

Important Safety Information from the PIQRAY EU SmPC The most common ADRs and the most common grade 3 / 4 ADRs (reported at a frequency >20% and 2%, respectively) were plasma glucose increased, creatinine increased, gamma-glutamyltransferase increased, rash, lymphocyte count decreased, nausea, alanine aminotransferase increased, anaemia, fatigue, lipase increased, decreased appetite*, stomatitis, vomiting*, weight decreased, hypocalcaemia, plasma glucose decreased*, activated partial thromboplastin time prolonged*, alopecia**, diarrhoea, hypokalaemia, hypertension, nausea, creatinine increased, and mucosal inflammation (*<2% grade 3/4 ADRs reported, ** no grade 3/4 ADRs reported).

Piqray can cause serious side effects such as severe hypersensitivity, severe cutaneous reactions, hyperglycaemia, pneumonitis, diarrhoea, and osteonecrosis of the jaw.

The following should be taken into consideration prior to or during treatment with Piqray:

Piqray should be permanently discontinued in patients with serious hypersensitivity reactions.

Piqray should not be initiated in patients with a history of severe cutaneous reactions, should be interrupted if signs or symptoms of severe cutaneous reactions are present, and permanently discontinued if a severe cutaneous reaction is confirmed.

Fasting glucose and HbA1c levels should be monitored frequently in the first 4 weeks of treatment, and patients should be advised of the signs and symptoms of hyperglycaemia.

In case of new or worsening respiratory symptoms, the patient should be evaluated for pneumonitis.

Patients should be advised to notify their physician if diarrhoea occurs.

Caution should be exercised when Piqray and bisphosphonates or denosumab are used together or sequentially. Piqray should not be initiated in patients with ongoing osteonecrosis of the jaw.

The efficacy and safety of Piqray has not been studied in patients with symptomatic visceral disease.

Animal studies suggest that Piqray may cause fetal harm in pregnant women. Therefore, as a precaution, women of childbearing potential should use effective contraception while receiving Piqray during treatment and at least 1 week after stopping treatment. Women should not breast feed for at least 1 week after the last dose of Piqray. Piqray may affect fertility in males and females.

Please download full Summary of Product Characteristics for Piqray here.

About NovartisNovartis is reimagining medicine to improve and extend peoples lives. As a leading global medicines company, we use innovative science and digital technologies to create transformative treatments in areas of great medical need. In our quest to find new medicines, we consistently rank among the worlds top companies investing in research and development. Novartis products reach nearly 800 million people globally and we are finding innovative ways to expand access to our latest treatments. About 109,000 people of more than 140 nationalities work at Novartis around the world. Find out more athttps://www.novartis.com.

Novartis is on Twitter. Sign up to follow @Novartis at https://twitter.com/novartisnewsFor Novartis multimedia content, please visithttps://www.novartis.com/news/media-libraryFor questions about the site or required registration, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

References1. Piqray (alpelisib) Prescribing Information. East Hanover, New Jersey, USA: Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation; May 2019.2. Andr F, Ciruelos E, Rubovszky G. Alpelisib for PIK3CA-Mutated, Hormone-Receptor-Positive Advanced Breast Cancer. N Eng J Med 2019.3. Globocan 2018 (WHO), Cancer Today: Estimated number of new cases in 2018, worldwide, females, all ages_1_ 2018.4. Gheorghe D. Breast Cancer. Decision Resources. July 2017:1-338.5. Tolaney S, Toi M, Neven P, et al. Presented at: 2019 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting; March 29-April 3, 2019; Atlanta, GA.6. Di Leo A, Johnston S, Seok Lee K, et al. Lancet Oncol. 2018;19(1):87-100.7. Moynahan ME, Chen D, He W, et al. Br J Cancer. 2017;116(6):726-730002E8. The Cancer Genome Atlas Network. Comprehensive molecular portraits of human breast tumours. Nature. 2012;490(7418):61-70.9. Sobhani N, Roviello G, Corona SP et al. The prognostic value of PI3K mutational status in breast cancer: a meta-analysis. J Cell Biochem. 2018;119(6):4287-4292.10. Sabine V, Crozier C, Brookes C, et al. Mutational analysis of PI3K/AKT signaling pathway in tamoxifen exemestane adjuvant multinational pathology study. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2014;32:2951-2958.11. Miller TW, Rexer BN, Garrett JT, et al. Mutations in the Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase Pathway: Role in Tumor Progression and Therapeutic Implications in Breast Cancer. Breast Cancer Res. 2011.12. Saal LH, Johansson P, Holm K. Poor prognosis in carcinoma is associated with a gene expression signature of aberrant PTEN tumor suppressor pathway activity. PNAS. 2007;104(18):7564-7569.13. Thomssen, C., et al. (2020, February 10). International Consensus Conference for Advanced Breast Cancer, Lisbon 2019: ABC5 Consensus Assessment by a German Group of Experts. Retrieved June 16, 2020, from https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/505957

SOURCE: Novartis

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Novartis receives Piqray approval in Europe the first and only targeted medicine for HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer with a PIK3CA mutation | Small...

The N-terminal domain of the androgen receptor is at the heart of its action – Baylor College of Medicine News

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The androgen receptor binds to and mediates the effects of the androgenic hormone testosterone in both males and females. In both genders the androgen receptor regulates hair growth and sex drive. In males, it contributes to the development of sexual characteristics and, importantly, it drives the initiation and growth of prostate cancer, the second-leading cause of death in men.

At Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Ping Yi, assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology, and her colleagues strive to achieve a better understanding of how the androgen receptor works in cancer by looking in great detail at the 3-D structure of the receptor.

Previous studies had shown that when the androgen receptor binds to testosterone, the resulting molecular complex travels to the cell nucleus where it interacts with DNA, turning genes on or off as necessary to regulate development and growth, Yi said.

To carry on its activity, the androgen receptor also binds to coactivators and other molecules that promote its gene-regulatory function. However, how all these molecules are put together in a functional complex with the androgen receptor was not known.

To treat prostate cancer effectively, we need to better understand how the androgen receptor works, said co-corresponding author Dr. Bert OMalley, chancellor and former long-time chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular biology at Baylor. In this study, we reveal for the first time the complete 3-D structure of the active, full-length androgen receptor-coactivator complex as it interacts with DNA.

Before this study, researchers only had a partial idea of the 3-D structure of the androgen receptor. They were missing a part called the N-terminal domain, which biochemical evidence suggested might be crucial for its activity. Resolving the complete structure of the receptor would help understand why the N-terminal domain is key to the receptors activity.

Cryo-electron microscopy let us see what the N-terminal domain of the androgen receptor looks like, how the protein is organized and how this and other individual domains contribute to the coactivated protein and its function, said Yi, a member of Baylors Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The researchers discovered that the N-terminal domain at the beginning of the androgen receptor is where the coactivators bind, activating the complex that drives prostate cancer. This finding was in marked contrast with what the same researchers had discovered for the estrogen receptor, which is a major driver of breast cancer.

The androgen and the estrogen receptors belong to the same family of steroid nuclear receptors and share similar 3-D structures. However, despite having general structural similarities, in the estrogen receptor the coactivators bind not to the N-terminal domain at the beginning of the molecule, but to the C-terminal domain at the end of the molecule. This finding has important implications generating drugs for cancer treatment.

The androgen receptor drug inhibitors that are currently available for prostate cancer treatment bind to the C-terminal domain, which we found is not the main interactive site of the androgen receptor, OMalley said. Our work strongly supports further studies to determine the effect that drugs directed at the androgen receptors N-terminal domain have on prostate cancer growth.

Our study provides a starting point to understand what is happening to the androgen receptor molecular machine in prostate cancer, said co-corresponding author Dr. Zhao Wang, assistant professor in the Verna and Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Our findings also generate a broader therapeutic space for the treatment of not only prostate cancer but also related diseases, as well as new information on basic mechanisms of regulation of gene expression.

Interested in learning all the details of this study? Find it in the journal Molecular Cell.

Other contributors to this work include co-first author Xinzhe Yu, Ross A. Hamilton, Hong Shen, Muyuan Chen, Charles E. Foulds, Michael A. Mancini and Steven J. Ludtke, all from Baylor College of Medicine.

This work is supported by NIH-NICHD and grants (HD8818, HD07857 and NIDDK59820, GM080139 and GM121203); DOD W81XWH-15-1-0536; CPRIT grant (RP150648); the Robert Welch Foundation (Q-1967-20180324 and BCM BMB department seed funds). Further support was provided by NCI Cancer Center Support Grant P30CA125123 (BCM Monoclonal Antibody/Integrated Microscopy Core/Recombinant Protein Expression Core Facility) and the Cryo-EM supported by Advanced Technology CPRIT Cryo-EM/ET Core (1RP190602) at BCM.

By Ana Mara Rodrguez, Ph.D.

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Neanderthal Gene Linked to Increased Pain Perception | Present – Explica

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Neanderthal life was not easy. Ice age hunter-gatherers barely survived throughout western Eurasia, hunting mammoths, bison, and other dangerous animals.

Now, a pioneering study of its genome, published in Current Biology, reveals that, despite their harsh existence, Neanderthals had a biological predisposition to perceive pain more intensely. Evolutionary geneticists discovered that these ancient human relatives carried three mutations in a gene that codes for the NaV1.7 protein, which transmits painful sensations to the spinal cord and brain. They also showed that, in a sample of British citizens, those who had inherited the Neanderthal version of NaV1.7 often feel more pain than others.

For me, it is a first example of how we started to get a possible idea about Neanderthal physiology taking current people as transgenic models as a reference, says Svante Pbo, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who led the study. with Hugo Zeber of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

A protein related to pain perception

The researchers have had access to only a few Neanderthal genomes, and most of them have been sequenced at low resolution. This has made it difficult to identify mutations that occurred after their lineage separated from that of todays humans, between 500,000 and 700,000 years ago. But in recent years, Pbo and his team have obtained three high-quality Neanderthal genomes from DNA found in caves in Croatia and Russia. This has allowed them to identify mutations that were surely very common in Neanderthals, but are very rare in humans today.

Mutations in a gene called SCN9A which codes for the NaV1.7 protein persisted because all Neanderthals had three mutations that altered the shape of the protein. The finding of the mutated form of the gene in both sets of chromosomes in the three Neanderthals indicates that it was common in all their populations.

NaV1.7 acts on the nerves in the body, controlling the extent to which pain signals are transmitted along the spinal cord to the brain. They have described it as a kind of volume control, which determines the amount of pain transmitted by nerve fibers, says Zeberg. Some people who have extremely unusual gene mutations that turn off the protein do not feel pain, while other changes may predispose people in question to suffer from chronic pain.

To investigate how mutations may have altered Neanderthal nerves, Zeberg introduced his version of NaV1.7 in frog eggs and human kidney cells useful model systems for characterizing the proteins that control nerve impulses. The protein was more active in cells that had all three mutations than in cells that had not undergone those changes. In nerve fibers, this could lower the threshold from which a painful signal would be transmitted, says Zeberg.

He and Pbo then searched for humans with the Neanderthal version of NaV1.7. About 0.4 percent of participants in the Britains biobank, a database of the genomes of half a million Britons, who claimed to have painful symptoms, had a copy of the mutated gene. No one had two, as was the case with Neanderthals. Participants with the mutated version of the gene were 7 percent more likely to experience pain in their daily lives than people without it.

Sensitive Neanderthals

It is a beautiful job, because it shows how some aspects of Neanderthal physiology can be reconstructed by studying modern humans, says Cedric Boeckx, a neuroscientist who works at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies in Barcelona, Spain. In a 2019 study, Boeckx noted three other proteins involved in pain perception that are different in modern humans and Neanderthals. Those changes may be evidence of differences in resilience between the two species, Boeckx says.

Pbo and Zeberg caution that their findings do not necessarily mean that Neanderthals would have felt more pain than modern humans. The sensations transmitted by NaV1.7 are processed and modified in the spinal cord and in the brain, which also contributes to the subjective experience of pain.

Gary Lewin, a neuroscientist at the Max Delbrck Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, points out that Neanderthal variants have little influence on the function of NaV1.7 let alone other mutations that are associated with chronic pain. It is hard to imagine why a Neanderthal would want to be more sensitive to pain, he adds.

It is not clear if the mutations evolved because they were beneficial. Neanderthal populations were made up of few individuals and their genetic diversity was low conditions that can help harmful mutations persist. But Pbo believes that change smells like a product of natural selection. So he plans to sequence the genomes of about a hundred Neanderthals, which could help provide some answers.

In any case, pain is adaptive, says Zeberg. It is not particularly bad to feel pain.

Ewen Callaway

Reference: A neanderthal sodium channel increases pain sensitivity in present-day humans, by H. Zeberg et al., In Current Biology, published on July 23, 2020.

Article translated and adapted by Research and Science with permission from Nature Research Group.

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Headaches, memory loss and extreme fatigue among long-lasting symptoms of COVID-19 – The Owensboro Times

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Graphic by Owensboro Times

Four months into the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., people that tested positive for COVID-19 are still experiencing life-changing effects.

Bathing, cooking or washing clothes have become challenging tasks for some survivors, and patients seemingly recovered from the virus have returned to the hospital weeks later with a stroke or heart attack.

Theyre noticing that walking upstairs is hard when they used to be a runner, said Dr. Rebecca Dutch, virologist and chair of the University of Kentuckys Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, who is helping coordinate the universitys COVID-19 research.

These long-term symptoms are happening widely across the globe and are affecting both younger and older adults. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested, based on a new survey, that COVID-19 can result in prolonged illness in young adults without underlying chronic medical conditions.

About one-third of adults with positive outpatient test results and about one in five adults aged 18-34 with no chronic medical conditions had not returned to their usual state of health two or three weeks after testing.

Data from the COVID Symptom Study app, created by researchers at Kings College London, revealed that about 10 percent of the nearly four million people contributing to the app had effects lasting more than four weeks.

Its becoming clearer that there are long-term residual effects, said Dr. Todd Rice, a critical care medicine specialist and pulmonologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who has been treating COVID-19 patients since early March.

Muscle aches, difficulty breathing, headaches, difficulty concentrating, memory loss and coughs have been widely reported lingering symptoms. There have also been accounts of heart palpitations, night sweats, hair loss and rashes.

Chronic fatigue is possibly the most common debilitating impact, and it seems to be more prolonged than what has been previously seen from viral infections.

This just seems to go on much longer, said Rice, who has patients that contracted the virus in March that are still not recovered. It just wears people out. They just dont have energy.

There have also been reports of young children developing a post-inflammatory syndrome, called multisystem inflammatory syndrome, after contracting the virus. It affects multiple organs, such as the kidney, liver, heart, lungs and brain, and can cause symptoms like breathing problems, confusion and delirium, according to Rice, who added that it was rare in adults.

Anybody can get it. Anybody can get really, really ill, and anybody can get these long-term effects from it, Rice said. If youre young, and have 50 years left in your life, youre going to want to avoid this so you dont have 50 years of lingering effects.

COVID-19 impacts many parts of the body. For most individuals, the effects might appear as a fever, cough or loss of smell. But there could also be abdominal pain, diarrhea, or swelling in the fingers or toes.

When you get millions of people infected, even if something is quite a rare event, you will start to see it, Dutch said.

But further investigation is needed to understand the long-term symptoms, how prevalent they are and whats causing them. Research is also needed to help determine how to prevent the symptoms or lessen and shorten the duration of effects.

The hard part is that its likely that the treatments will need to be done before the lingering symptoms start, Rice said, as opposed to addressing the symptoms after they appear.

Research indicates that the long-lasting symptoms could be from damage to the body during the illness or an immunological response after the initial disease.

Its possible that some symptoms could result from a lingering viral infection. Most patients test negative several weeks after contracting the virus, but there have been rare cases of people testing positive for several months.

With limited data and observations, many questions remain unanswered.

Were just now starting to understand these longer-term effects, Rice said. What are the real long-term effects, a year or two down the road? We dont know yet.

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Imaging accreditation org RadSite announces new CMO, and other recent radiology job changes – Health Imaging

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Radiology Partners president steps down

Jay Bronner, Rad Partners first-ever CMO announced Wednesday that he will be stepping down as president of the El Segundo, California, imaging provider.

When I joined RP, my colleagues and I aspired to build the leading radiology practice in the country, he said in a statement. Now, reflecting on everything thats been accomplished, Id say weve achieved that goal in many ways.

As of this month, Bronner moved into a part-time position, and said he is not seeking a new position elsewhere. The imaging giant also said it will be evaluating the vacated role over the next few months.

Radiology Business has more on the recent decision.

ACR names new director of policy institue

The American College of Radiology named Elizabeth Y. Rula, PhD, the new executive director of the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute. She will oversee Neiman HPIs efforts to advance evidence-based imaging policy, the ACR announced earlier this month.

Rula has more than a decade of healthcare leadership experience, most recently as executive director of research and thought leadership at Tivity Health. She succeeds Danny Hughes, PhD, who led the institute since its beginnings in August 2012. Read more here.

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Coronavirus Many specialists now advocate the usage of masks: The protecting impact is giant and statistically important – Pledge Times

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Finland there is a heated debate about face masks. With most of the Nordic countries, Finland is one of the few places in the world where no general face mask recommendation or compulsion has been issued.

Of the Nordic countries, Iceland said on Thursday that it would tighten measures against the spread of the coronavirus. For the first time in Iceland, a mask obligation will be introduced on public transport, domestic flights, ferries and hairdressing salons.

The new restrictions will take effect on Friday and will last for at least two weeks.

Most countries in the world has introduced a mask compulsion or at least a recommendation to use a mask in public places to combat a coronavirus pandemic.

In June, the World Health Organization (WHO) changed its recommendation on the use of the mask. The WHO now recommends the mask for use in public transport, workplaces and grocery stores, for example.

Finland no general mask recommendation or compulsion has been issued throughout the period of the coronavirus epidemic. In healthcare, masks are used, and by individual actors such as the airline Finnair and University of Tampere, have prescribed mask packs.

The Government has not issued a general recommendation on the use of a face mask. In the fight against the coronavirus epidemic, the Finnish government recommends, among other things, keeping safety gaps, coughing up a sleeve or handkerchief, washing hands diligently and paying attention to people at risk.

The position of the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) has not changed during the epidemic. THLs website still reads, there is no evidence that extensive use of the mask in healthy individuals would help reduce infections.

Also, according to the WHO, scientific research still does not clearly show how much the widespread use of masks by ordinary people would be. However, the recommendation was amended because experience has been gained in different countries with the benefit of the mask, especially when it is not possible to maintain safety distances.

Finland mask recommendation or coercion has been put down especially for such situations. Assistant Chief Physician, Department of Infectious Diseases, Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District (Hus) Eeva Ruotsalainen recalls that safety gaps do not work, for example, on public transport.

Thats when the face mask provides protection to prevent the spread of the epidemic, as the disease mainly spreads by inhalation. Therefore, a face mask is able to combat the epidemic. I recommend it in congestion areas and I also hope for a national recommendation, especially if the incidence of the disease starts to increase, says Ruotsalainen.

Huss director of diagnostics Lasse Lehtonen is on the same lines as the Swede.

I think the recommendations of the WHO and the European Office of Communicable Diseases are good and up-to-date. They recommend using masks in situations where distances cannot be maintained. It is justified to use them in public transport, for example. In Finland, it would be good to practice it on trains, buses and metros.

However, Lehtonen is not any proponent of mask coercion.

They should be available and a social pressure should be created where they would just start to be used. With people now returning to work, its pretty hard to keep their distance on the subway and buses. In that sense, the mask recommendation would be quite justified, says Lehtonen.

On Friday Hanna Ollila and Liisa Laine wrote in HSs Guest Pen writing that their study found that face shields reduce the risk of a respiratory infection by a third.

The protective effect is large and statistically significant. Masks are most useful when combined with safety gaps and hand washing. Ollila and Laine write.

We propose that a mask recommendation be introduced in Finland, especially in areas of active epidemics and in public transport, together with good hand hygiene, avoidance of close contact and testing and tracing.

Ollila is a team leader at the Finnish Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Helsinki and a researcher at Stanford University in the United States. Laine is a postdoctoral researcher at the Leonard Davis Institute of the University of Pennsylvania, USA.

Virus Infectious Status has remained stable in Finland. During the last follow-up week (20-26 July), 51 cases were reported to the Communicable Diseases Register, THL. During the week, an average of four thousand coronavirus tests were performed per day.

Number of tests has risen since June.

Assistant Professor of Threatening Infectious Diseases at the University of Helsinki Tarja Sironen stated In an interview with HS last weekthat although the situation is good in Finland, it is still bad in the world.

Once the borders are open, it is clear that there will be more cases. Maybe it would be good to learn how to use a mask, get them at home and watch how the situation changes, Sironen estimates.

According to Husin Lehtonen, the mask recommendation is also about educating the attitude of the population:

Finland does not have the same attitude to the use of masks as, for example, in Asian countries. Its a new thing for us, but we also learned to use our hands quickly and we would certainly learn masks if we just started practicing, says Lehtonen.

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Astronomers Say "Megaripples" Are Moving Across the Surface of Mars – Futurism

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Researchers have found evidence of gigantic waves of sand, often referred to as megaripples, slowly moving around on the surface of Mars, as Science reports.

Megaripples arent unique to Mars; they can be found in deserts back here on Earth as well. But the Red Planets colossal sand dunes, believed to have formed hundreds of thousands of years ago, could be a sign that winds on Mars are even stronger than previously believed.

In a paper published last month in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, the team suggests that megaripples may be migrating thanks to small grains of sand knocking into larger grains, dragging them into motion.

The new research goes against current atmospheric models that largely suggest winds couldnt be strong on Mars enough to move these mega sand structures. In other words, a thin atmosphere may allow for surprisingly strong winds.

Using images taken by NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the international team of scientists had a closer look. By focusing on two sites near the Martian equator, they analyzed a total of 1,100 megaripples.

Scientists previously believed that these megaripples on the Red Planet were first formed a long time ago, when a thicker atmosphere allowed for much heavier winds, and were now stationary.

But to their astonishment, they found that the megaripples do in fact appear to move albeit at the slow paceof roughly 10 centimeters per Earth year. According to Science, thats about as fast as megaripples in the Lut Desert in Iran.

The surprising takeaway: Winds could be strong enough after all, despite the thin Martian atmosphere. A past climate with a denser atmosphere is not necessary to explain their accumulation and migration, the team concluded in their paper.

And thats bad news for future astronauts visiting the Red Planet, as windy conditions could end up messing with habitats and solar panels.

Nonetheless, its an astonishing new discovery about our planetary neighbor.

We can now measure processes on the surface of another planet that are just a couple times faster than our hair grows, Ralph Lorenz, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, who was not involved in the study, told Science.

READ MORE: Giant waves of sand are moving on Mars [Science]

More on Mars: NASAs Next Rover Will Bring First-Ever Microphone to Mars

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Astronomers Say "Megaripples" Are Moving Across the Surface of Mars - Futurism

Amazon And Tesla Versus 885 Cheap Stocks – Forbes

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Mr. $74 billion

Have hot Nasdaq NDAQ giants gotten too hot? Maybe its time for small, boring companies to catch up.

It has been a glorious time for big, glamorous companies. The Vanguard Growth fund, which owns favorites like Microsoft MSFT , Amazon AMZN and Tesla TSLA , has delivered a 25% return over the past year.

It has been a rotten time for small and uninteresting companies. The 12-month return for Vanguard Small-Cap Value, which mostly owns slow-growing outfits that you have never heard of, is -15%.

You expect value companies to go in and out of favor and small companies to go in and out of favor. Either could beat or lag the market a little. But this is a 40-point differential. The divergence in returns between large growth and small value is freakish.

It is possible that big growth stocks have gotten too expensive and small value stocks too cheap. If you want to make a bet that this is the case, you would move money out of big growth stocks and into the shares of small companies trading at low multiples of earnings or book value. Youd be fighting the tape. But you might be vindicated in a big way over the next several years.

Fair warning: Fans of value investing, myself included, have been predicting its resurgence for quite a while, and have come away disappointed time and again. Research Affiliates, a money manager in Newport Beach, California, sums up their despair in a recent white paper. Value has been underperforming growth since 2007, says the report, an extraordinarily long losing streak.

Only part of this underperformance is related to the earnings disappointments of value companies like oil producers. Most of it, say the papers authors (among them, RA founder Robert Arnott), can be blamed on the ever-larger premiums the market bestows on growth companies. Indeed, the disparity in valuation between growth and value is at an historical extreme, near the 100th percentile level.

No question that Tesla deserves to be trading at a higher multiple of its book value than Bank of America BAC . But how much higher? The price/book ratios for these two are 27 and 0.9. Quite the spread.

At some price point good companies cease to be good investments, and unattractive companies cease to be bad investments. The Research Affiliates analysis suggests that we have reached that point, that its time to favor value.

The size factor, another driver of stock market performance historically, is also acting out of character. Over long stretches in the past century, small-company stocks have beaten big-company ones. But that pattern is now disrupted. In the past decade small stocks have lagged the big-company S&P 500 index.

Time for the little stocks to catch up? Research Affiliates thinks so. The market seers there are a bit pessimistic about U.S. equities, but less pessimistic about small companies than big ones. They project an annual 4.7% return, including dividends, on small stocks (2.7% after inflation), 2.5% on big ones (0.5% after inflation).

The last 13 years have been utterly baffling to academic researchers, who thought they had it all figured out. There were certain factors, they theorized, that led to excess returns. Value was one and small size another.

For both of these factors, there was a persuasive explanation. It was possible for value stocks to do better than growth stocks over the long haul because investors, with vivid memories of stars like Amazon and not such lasting memories of flops like Webvan, overpaid for growth. The theory on the small stocks winning out over time is that they are risky and illiquid and so investors have to be rewarded for putting up with them.

Buy small, buy valueit worked for a long while. Kenneth R. French, a professor at Dartmouths business school and a prominent theorist about factor investing, publishes performance data for subsets of the market. In one of his tables the stock universe is carved into five subsets of size (measured by market capitalization) and five quintiles of value (measured by price/book ratios). Take a look at the stocks falling in both the smallest cap group and the highest value (lowest price/book) quintile. If you had bought these and constantly updated your portfolio you would have, in the span of 80 years ended in December 2006, turned $1 into $420,000.

On paper, that is. No one did this, and anyone who tried would have confronted bid/ask spreads cutting deeply into the supposed returns. (Those little value companies had tiny capitalizations, making it expensive to get in and out of positions.) Still, even allowing for the theoretical nature of this exercise, one concludes that there must have been something powerful going on with these size and value factors.

The 42,000,000% return comes to an annualized 17.6%, just about double the 9.4% seen in the diagonally opposite corner: big companies trading at high price/book ratios. A high price/book ratio doesnt equate to growth precisely, but its a good proxy. It would have meant buying Coca-Cola KO rather than some casket company.

And then, beginning in 2007, the tables turned. In the 13 calendar years since, big growth has walloped small value, 11.5% a year to 5.3%.

Maybe small values 80-year streak was a fluke, irrelevant to a digital economy. In which case you ignore it.

Or maybe theres something eternal at work, and small value is aching to reassert itself. There are two good ways to bet on this. Both are cheap funds, my favorite things to buy.

One is Vanguard Small Cap Value, ticker VBR. With this portfolio you are bypassing Amazon at 141 times annual earnings and Tesla at 217 times. Instead you own Sonoco Products SON , which costs 17 times earnings and is a leader in reels and spools. You own Steel Dynamics STLD , which costs 13 times and gets its dynamism from bundled scrap. You own 883 other stocks. Net of securities lending income, the funds expenses come to 0.02% of assets annually.

The other is a small-company fund with a more subdued tilt to value: Schwab Fundamental U.S. Small Company Index, ticker SFSNX. The index, designed by Arnotts Research Affiliates, weights 939 companies not by their market values but by a combination of three fundamentals: cash flow, sales and distributions (the sum of dividends and buybacks). Rather than exclude fast growers it just gives them a smaller spot than they would command in the usual market-value-weighted fund. Holdings include Range Resources RRC , a money-losing natural gas producer, and CoreLogic CLGX , a massager of real estate data. This funds expenses, net of sec lending, run to 0.19% annually.

Both of these funds failed to keep up with the bull market of the past decade. I expect them to outperform a weaker stock market in the coming decade.

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Amazon And Tesla Versus 885 Cheap Stocks - Forbes

Finally Today’s Tim arrives in virus-free holiday haven – Noosa News

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Today Show weatherman Tim Davies has not been under a rock all his life but he admitted to being a first timer to Noosa as he live-crossed to the nation from Main Beach with a backdrop to cure any COVID-19 lockdown blues.

It makes my job really easy, you dont need to say too much, said the veteran journo, you just let the pictures sell it. We certainly did that this morning.

Tim and his crew had mail-order perfect Queensland winter conditions for his first of a three-day stay organised with the help of Tourism Noosa to feature Noosa River tomorrow and the hinterland Thursday.

This is my very first time to Noosa as I said to someone this morning on the boardwalk, he said.

She kind of looked at me as if I had three heads she wanted to know if I had been living under a rock or something.

Today Show's Tim Davies about to thrill ride and meet dolphins at Sunshine Beach.

Ive done other parts of the Sunny Coast, but Ive never made my way to Noosa but its been one of those places on the bucket list and its good to finally get here.

He said Laguna Bay presented perfectly for the TV viewers without a breath of wind.

We had a drone up and there were gasps coming from the control room from everyone back in wet old Sydney, Tim said.

They were very jealous.

The morning featured some beach yoga, and Tim hung out with a couple of local icons we had the Mercers (lifesaving father and daughter talents Darren and Jordan) down there so that was nice.

Another guest was master surfboard shaper turned Noosa councillor Tom Wegener, while Peter Kurivita of the Noosa Beach House dropped in to cook a pretty special breakfast of baked eggs that were unreal.

On arrival Monday he broke the ice with a Noosa Ocean Rider induction on the water at Sunshine Beach.

We had a huge pod of dolphins come past and they were flapping around us. It was just incredible, Tim said.

Today Show weatherman Tim Davies receives some surfboard shaping history lessons from Cr Tom Wegener.

Unlike some southerners Tim had no hassles when it came to arriving in Noosa, because he has been basically a Queensland refugee cooling his heels here for weeks as part of a Today Show directive.

This was after he had earlier this year gone into a two-week quarantine forced by returning to Australia after a skiing holiday just before the international borders closed.

That was 10th/11th March when COVID really started to take hold. We were in the third flight that landed in Sydney but ScoMo had ordered only home isolation at that stage, Tim said.

You have to take it seriously, my biggest concern now is complacency.

Queensland is COVID-free, but thats not excuse to be shaking hands and high-fiving, you just never know whos snuck over that border.

Tim said hes been in Queensland for three-and-a-half-weeks after arriving in Cairns on assignment when his boss called from Sydney telling him to stay north for the foreseeable future.

Im here for a while, I have no idea how long that will be.

Hell gratefully accept being a temporary Queenslander providing he does not have to wear the Maroon jersey.

After leaving the Hastings St precinct, Tim and his crew were headed up to Double Island Point four-wheel driving to take in the Coloured Sands.

Its magic job to have. I hope to sustain it as long as I can, because living out of a suitcase on the road does take a toll after a while, Tim said.

Its not always about glamour, but it is such a blessing to be able to get out and meet people and hear their stories, and showcase different regions.

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Finally Today's Tim arrives in virus-free holiday haven - Noosa News

Faculty/staff honors: Women in engineering network nod, winning magazine article on geologic hazards and refugees and two national genetics society…

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Health and medicine | Honors and awards | UW and the community | UW Notebook

July 28, 2020

Recent honors to University of Washington faculty and staff members have come from the Women in Engineering ProActive Network, Association Media & Publishing and The American Society of Human Genetics.

Sociologist Elizabeth Litzler honored by national network promoting women in engineering

Elizabeth Litzler

The Women in Engineering ProActive Network, or WEPAN, has given its 2020 Founders Award to Elizabeth Litzler, UW affiliate assistant professor of sociology and director of the UW Center for Evaluation & Research for STEM Equity.

The award, one of several given annually, is given to a network member who exemplifies the spirit of the WEPAN founders through her extraordinary long-term service to the organization.

The network is a national professional society that uses research and best practices to promote the inclusion of women in the field of engineering. Its members work to connect advocates across North America to increase the participation, retention and success of women and other under-represented groups in engineering from college to executive leadership.

Litzlers and other 2020 WEPAN awards will be presented at the networks next annual conference, planned for January 2021.

* * * Article by Joseph Wartman, Will Pollock of civil and environmental engineering wins award from media group

Joseph Wartman

Professor Joseph Wartman and doctoral student Will Pollock of the UW Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering have won a silver EXCEL Award from Association Media & Publishing for a feature magazine article they co-wrote on geologic hazard risks toSyrian and other refugees.

Their non-technical article was titled No Place to Flee and was published in November 2019 in the American Geophysical Unions journal EOS. Wartman is the H.R. Berg Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

Association Media & Publishing AM&P for short gives out annual bronze, silver and gold EXCEL Awards for books, digital media, journals, magazines, newsletters, newspapers and promotional content. The awards recognize excellence and leadership in association media, publishing, marketing and communications.

* * *

UW Medicines Mary-Claire King, Peter Byers honored by American Society of Human Genetics

The American Society of Human Genetics has honored two UW Medicine faculty members Dr. Mary-Claire King and Dr. Peter Byers with 2020 awards.

Mary-Claire King

King was chosen to receive the societys 2020 William Allan Award, which recognizes substantial and far-reaching scientific contributions to human genetics. The award is named for one of the first American physicians to extensively research human genetics and hereditary diseases. The award comes with a $25,000 prize.

King is the American Cancer Society Professor of Medicine and Genome Sciences, and an affiliate member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Network.

The societys president, Anthony Wynshaw-Boris of Case Western University, praised King for providing insight into the existence of the gene she named BRCA1, and changed our understanding of cancer prevention and treatment. Read more from the UW Division of Medical Genetics.

Peter Byers

The genetics society, also called ASHG, chose Byers for its 2020 Victor A. McKusick Leadership Award, which is given annually for exemplary leadership and vision by promoting genetics and genomics knowledge in the broader scientific community.

The award, which comes with a $10,000 prize, recognizes the importance of Byers research on the molecular pathogenesis of inherited disorders of connective tissue, and for his leadership in nearly all facets of the societys work. Byers has served as the societys president and editor of its American Journal of Human Genetics. Read more on the UW Division of Medical Genetics website.

The society was founded in 1948 and its 8,000 members include researchers, academics, clinicians, laboratory practice professionals, genetic counselors and nurses. The awards will be presented at the next annual meeting, to be held virtually and not yet scheduled.

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Faculty/staff honors: Women in engineering network nod, winning magazine article on geologic hazards and refugees and two national genetics society...

ENCODE3: Interpreting the human and mouse genomes – Science Codex

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Scientists around the world have access to a rich trove of information through the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE)--annotated versions of the human and mouse genomes that are vital for interpreting their genetic codes. In the July 29, 2020 issue of the journal Nature, an international consortium of approximately 500 scientists reports on the completion of Phase 3 of an ongoing project, an achievement 20 years in the making that will help reveal how genetic variation shapes human health and disease.

[Watch "ENCODE: Encyclopedia Of DNA Elements": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3V2thsJ1Wc%5D

Funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute, ENCODE launched in 2003, soon after the human genome was first sequenced. Its researchers are developing a comprehensive catalog of the human and mouse genomes' functional elements--dense arrays of protein-coding genes, non-coding genes, and regulatory elements. Thousands of researchers worldwide have taken advantage of ENCODE data, using it to shed light on cancer biology, cardiovascular disease, human genetics, and other topics.

"When the first draft of the human genome was completed . . . it became immediately clear that while we had the primary sequence of the genome, or we had a draft of it . . . we needed to have an annotation for the genome," says Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Thomas Gingeras, whose team has been contributing to the ENCODE project since its inception. "We knew where the genes were located. Where the regulatory mechanisms and loci were located was significantly underdeveloped."

In Phase 3, researchers took advantage of the latest genetic technologies to glean data from biological specimens and deeply investigate the regulatory regions outside of genes, where most of the genome's person-to-person variation lies. Their data identifies some 900,000 candidate regulatory elements from the human genome and more than 300,000 from the mouse, which can be explored through ENCODE's new online browser.

Gingeras's team is investigating genome elements that instruct cells about how and when to transcribe DNA sequences into RNA. In a companion publication to the ENCODE report, a team led by Gingeras and collaborator Roderic Guig at the Centre for Genomic Regulation detail work identifying molecular fingerprints that can be used to identify five groups of human cells. "Our work redefines, based on gene expression, the basic histological types in which tissues have been traditionally classified," Guig says.

Those findings are now available through the ENCODE database. Meanwhile, the project has begun its fourth phase, employing new technologies and investigating additional cell types. Gingeras notes:

"This encyclopedia is a living resource. It has a beginning but really no end. It will continue to be improved, and grown, as time goes on."

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ENCODE3: Interpreting the human and mouse genomes - Science Codex

Revealing the intrinsic functioning of human and mouse genomes – Tech Explorist

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The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) Consortium is a universal coordinated effort of research groups funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). The objective of ENCODE is to make a comprehensive parts list of functional elements in the human genome, including elements that work at the protein and RNA levels, and regulatory elements that control the cells and conditions where a gene is active.

The project will detail how the human genome functions. Recently, the project completed its latest phase- scientists have added millions of candidate DNA switches from the human and mouse genomes. These genomes appear to control when and where genes are turned on, and a new registry that assigns a portion of these DNA switches to useful biological categories.

It also provides the latest visualization tools to help in the use of ENCODEs large datasets.

NHGRI Director Eric Green, M.D., Ph.D. said,A major priority of ENCODE 3 was to develop means to share data from the thousands of ENCODE experiments with the broader research community to help expand our understanding of genome function. ENCODE 3 search and visualization tools make these data accessible, thereby advancing efforts in open science.

To evaluate the potential functions of various DNA locales, ENCODE specialists considered biochemical procedures that are normally connected with the switches that regulate genes. This biochemical methodology is an effective method to investigate the whole genome wholly and quickly.

This strategy assists with finding regions in the DNA that are candidate functional elements DNA regions that are anticipated to be practical components dependent on these biochemical properties. Candidates would then be able to be tested in further experiments to distinguish and portray their useful roles in gene regulation.

Elise Feingold, Ph.D., scientific advisor for strategic implementation in the Division of Genome Sciences at NHGRI and a lead on ENCODE for the institute, said,A key challenge in ENCODE is that different genes and functional regions are active in different cell types. This means that we need to test a large and diverse number of biological samples to work towards a catalog of candidate functional elements in the genome.

During the recently completed third phase of ENCODE, scientists performed almost 6000 experiments in several biological contexts- 4,834 in humans and 1,158 in mice- to enlight details of the genes and their potential regulators in their respective genomes.

Scientists studied developing embryonic mouse tissues to comprehend the timeline of various genomic and biochemical changes that occur during mouse development.

Scientists analyzed how chemical modifications of DNA, proteins that bind to DNA, and RNA (a sister molecule to DNA) interact to regulate genes. Results from ENCODE 3 also help explain how variations in DNA sequences outside of protein-coding regions can influence the expression of genes, even genes located far away from a specific variant itself.

Brenton Graveley, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences at UCONN Health, said,The data generated in ENCODE 3 dramatically increase our understanding of the human genome. The project has added tremendous resolution and clarity for previous data types, such as DNA-binding proteins and chromatin marks, and new data types, such as long-range DNA interactions and protein-RNA interactions.

As a new feature, ENCODE 3 scientists created a resource detailing different kinds of DNA regions and their corresponding candidate functions. A web-based tool called SCREEN(link is external) allows users to visualize the data supporting these interpretations.

The projects latest results were published in Nature, accompanied by 13 additional in-depth studies published in other major journals.

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Revealing the intrinsic functioning of human and mouse genomes - Tech Explorist

Maternal Immune Activation Causes Schizophrenia-like Behaviors in the Offspring through Activation of Immune-Inflammatory, Oxidative and Apoptotic…

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Schizophrenia is a complex neuropsychiatric disorder, influenced by a combined action of genes and environmental factors. The neurodevelopmental origin is one of the most widely recognized etiological models of this heterogeneous disorder. Environmental factors, especially infections during gestation, appear to be a major risk determinant of neurodevelopmental basis of schizophrenia. Prenatal infection may cause maternal immune activation (MIA) and enhance risk of schizophrenia in the offspring. However, the precise mechanistic basis through which MIA causes long-lasting schizophrenia-like behavioral deficits in offspring remains inadequately understood. Herein, we aimed to delineate whether prenatal infection-induced MIA causes schizophrenia-like behaviors through its long-lasting effects on immune-inflammatory and apoptotic pathways, oxidative stress toxicity, and antioxidant defenses in the brain of offspring. Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into three groups (n=15/group) and were injected with poly (I:C), LPS, and saline at gestational day (GD)-12. ExceptIL-1, plasma levels ofIL-6, TNF-, and IL-17A assessed after 24h were significantly elevated in both thepoly (I:C)- and LPS-treated pregnant rats, indicating MIA. The rats born to dams treated with poly (I:C) and LPS displayed increased anxiety-like behaviors and significant deficits in social behaviors. Furthermore, the hippocampus of the offspring rats of both the poly (I:C)- and LPS-treated groups showed increased signs of lipid peroxidation, diminished total antioxidant content, and differentiallyupregulated expression of inflammatory (TNF, IL6, and IL1), and apoptotic (Bax, Cas3, and Cas9) genes but decreased expression of neuroprotective (BDNF and Bcl2) genes. The results suggest long-standing effects of prenatal infections on schizophrenia-like behavioral deficits, which are mediated by immune-inflammatory and apoptotic pathways, increased oxidative stress toxicity, and lowered antioxidant and neuroprotective defenses. The findings suggest that prenatal infections may underpin neurodevelopmental aberrations and neuroprogression and subsequently schizophrenia-like symptoms.

PubMed

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Maternal Immune Activation Causes Schizophrenia-like Behaviors in the Offspring through Activation of Immune-Inflammatory, Oxidative and Apoptotic...

Podcast: The ancient war between genes and disease – Genetic Literacy Project

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Geneticist Dr Kat Arney takes a look at the ancient war between our genes and the pathogens that infect us, looking back thousands of years to the Black Death and before, all the way through to our very latest foe.

One of the most curious things about COVID-19 the disease caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus thats causing so much trouble is the wide variation in how it affects different people, from being a very serious or even fatal illness, through a range of strange symptoms like skin rashes or diarrhea as well as the cough, fever and loss of smell, which vary in their severity. And there are some lucky people who seem to catch the virus but have no symptoms at all. So, do these differences lie in our genetics? Or are their other factors at play?

To find out, Kat speaks with consultant geriatrician Dr Claire Steves from Kings College London. Shes part of a team of researchers analysing data from the COVID Symptom Study app, originally built by health science company ZOE to survey some of the thousands of identical and non-identical twins involved in the TwinsUK cohort study. The app now has more than 4 million users in the UK, US and Sweden, and is providing valuable insights into the key symptoms of COVID-19 and how they affect different people.

COVID-19 is just the latest in a long string of outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics that have ravaged humanity over the years. Christiana Scheib, head of the ancient DNA research facility at the University of Tartu, Estonia, is looking at much older plagues including the Black Death to discover how underlying genetic variations may have contributed to susceptibility to disease. By studying ancient remains from many burial sites in the Cambridge area, shes piecing together a picture of the past to understand how these people lived and died.

Finally, Kat talks to Lucy Van Dorp from University College London, who is studying how the human genome has co-evolved over millennia alongside the pathogens that infect us. Although it may seem strange to be studying ancient diseases in todays modern era, particularly when weve got a brand new pandemic to worry about, her work to trace the spread, movement and migration of humans and their pathogens is essential for understanding the spread of outbreaks today, including COVID-19.

Full transcript, links and references available online at GeneticsUnzipped.com

Genetics Unzipped is the podcast from the UK Genetics Society, presented by award-winning science communicator and biologist Kat Arney and produced by First Create the Media. Follow Kat on Twitter @Kat_Arney, Genetics Unzipped @geneticsunzip, and the Genetics Society at @GenSocUK

Listen to Genetics Unzipped on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts

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Podcast: The ancient war between genes and disease - Genetic Literacy Project

BNGO Stock Price: BioNano Genomics Inc. retreats, starts week in the red – FXStreet

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NASDAQ:BNGO fell on Monday, despite more news that should keep investors bullish on the healthcare company. The stock price dropped8.64% to finish the trading session at $0.8131 per share, nearly wiping out the 14% rise from Friday of last week. BioNano briefly touched a low of $0.78before finishing out strong, climbing back above $0.80 to end the day. Surprisingly, there was a higher than average volume trading throughout the day, which is another relatively positive sign for investors who have remained loyal to the company.

The micro-cap healthcare sector produced another mixed day of results, even as the Nasdaq rebounded from the mini correction to end last week. BioNano Genomics Inc. rivals Pacific Biosciences of California (NASDAQ: PACB) rose on Monday, despite a Zacks Consensus Estimate report that Wall Street is expecting a 43.8% year over year decline in revenues. Other industry companies like Progenity Inc. (NASDAQ:PROG), Predictive Oncology Inc. (NASDAQ:POAI)and Precipio (NASDAQ:PRPO) all remained relatively flat.

Earlier on Monday, a report from Oppenheimer stated that 5-Star healthcare analyst Kevin DeGeeter doubled down on his stock price upgrade, giving BioNano an 'Outperform' rating and a new price target of $1.50 per share. While this is lower from his price target earlier in the year of $1.83, investors should still feel optimistic that there is quite a bit of sentiment on Wall Street that Bionano Genomics Inc. has a bright future on coronavirus vaccine development. Along with their usual work in human genetics, BioNano has been in the news recently for its work in discovering commonalities in the genetic variants of young male patients who had severe cases of COVID-19.

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BNGO Stock Price: BioNano Genomics Inc. retreats, starts week in the red - FXStreet

Pitt’s School of Public Health welcomes students with opera about obstetrician who championed hand-washing – TribLIVE

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With uncertainty hanging over the campus during the pandemic, the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health was kicking around socially distanced ideas of how to welcome students back.

Thats when the school hit upon the notion that a screening of a modern opera about the father of sanitation in medicine would be a perfect midsummer event.

On Wednesday evening, Pitt is holding a virtual watch party featuring a performance of a music-theater opera called Semmelweis. Its about an outspoken 19th-century Hungarian obstetrician, Ignaz Semmelweis, who said doctors could prevent the spread of germs by washing their hands. While it would seem like an obvious idea, Semmelweis was attacked for it.

The work, which was produced by the Budapest Operetta Theatre and Bartok Plusz Opera Festival, was created by American composer Raymond J. Lustig, Irish-American librettist Matthew Doherty and Hungarian director Martin Boross.

The presentation of the recorded performance begins at 6:30 p.m. followed by a live question-and-answer session with Lustig and Matt Gray, director of American Opera Projects.

The School of Public Health has new students scheduled to start in the fall and we decided that we needed to interact with them with some actual programming in the summer in light of whats going on, said Cindy Bryce, a Pitt associate professor of health policy and management and associate dean for student affairs at the School of Public Health. We thought the Semmelweis performance would be perfect for a virtual get-together.

In true operatic tradition, Semmelweis life story is both inspiring and tragic. Much like his contemporaries, English physician John Snow and French biologist Louis Pasteur, Semmelweis was known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures.

During the mid-19th century, childbed fever was common in hospitals, including Vienna General Hospital where Semmelweis worked in the obstetrical clinic. The clinics doctors wards had a 10% mortality rate, three times the mortality rate of midwives wards.

Realizing that doctors hands were infected as they came straight to the delivery room from other work such as autopsies, Semmelweis urged the practice of hand washing with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847.

Semmelweis published a book about his findings and hand washing reduced the mortality rate to below 1%. But some doctors were offended by the idea that they should have to wash their hands and rejected it.

Prior to Semmelweis, if you were a cultured, educated physician in all the major centers of Europe, you did whatever you wanted when it came to child birth, said Dr. David N. Finegold, the Pitt professor of human genetics who proposed the Semmelweis opera showing. You could come from a post-mortem examination and without washing your hands, deliver a baby. With the institution of hand-washing, the mortality rate dropped dramatically. But Semmelweis was ridiculed for that.

Semmelweis died in 1865 after being institutionalized for a nervous breakdown.

You can imagine the urgency he must have felt, pushing extra hard to get people to listen to him and getting extra frustrated when people didnt, said Lustig, the composer.

Lustig explained that the incentive for denial was very strong among 19th-century doctors.

Semmelweis was directly pointing to the doctors hands as the cause of many hundreds of thousands of deaths over the years. I empathize with Semmelweis but I also empathize with those who must have found it incredibly hard to accept what he was trying to tell people, that their own hands had been the cause of deaths, Lustig said.

And Lustig sees parallels between what happened in Semmelweis time and what American society is going through during the current pandemic.

We see it today, all the time people sort of wanting to continue a certain behavior because if they can continue it, it must never have been the cause. Therefore they have nothing to worry about.

Finegold said some comparisons can even be made between Semmelweis and infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Fauci is politically correct, Finegold said. Semmelweis stood up for whats right and didnt have to be as politically correct to retain his position. He recognized the problem and was able to implement things that might make it better and they did. Fauci knows what will make it better and says it but he doesnt have the power (to implement things).

Lustig said he was inspired to compose Semmelweis by imagining what he must have gone through.

Thats really what went into our work is trying to understand what its like to be that person thats got this piece of news that nobody wants to hear, this very negative light bulb that went off in his head, and dealing with trying to convince people and at the same time to turn the ship as quickly as possible before many more women and their babies die on his watch, Lustig said.

He must have been haunted and every day that went by that he couldnt convince people must have been torture for him.

Tonights event is open to anyone who is interested. To register for the Semmelweis watch party, go to publichealth.pitt.edu/semmelweis.

Paul Guggenheimer is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Paul at 724-226-7706 or pguggenheimer@triblive.com.

Categories:Coronavirus | Editor's Picks | Education | Health | Local | Allegheny

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Pitt's School of Public Health welcomes students with opera about obstetrician who championed hand-washing - TribLIVE

88-Year Old Daniel Smith, Son Of Slave, Tells His Story – Moguldom

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Written by Ann Brown

Jul 30, 2020

Daniel Smith, 88 , is the living son of a slave a historical rarity. Growing up, Smith heard stories of the whipping post, lynching trees and the wagon wheel passed down from his father.

His father, Abram Smith, spoke of life in Virginia, where he had been born into slavery on a plantation during the Civil War. He was a child laborer after the war, The Washington Post reported.

According to the 1870 census, Abram Smith was a boy laborer. With nowhere to go, many newly freed slaves remained where they were and continuedto be mistreated.

Earlier this month, a sweeping survey of more than 50,000 peoples DNA was unveiled. The research uses the enduring genetic legacy of the transatlantic slave trade to illuminate its atrocities, The Smithsonian reported.

The study was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. It layers genetic data with historical records detailing enslaved Africans place of abduction and eventual destination in the Americas, The New York Times reported.

Smiths father lived through the traumas of slavery, until slaves were emancipated. Long after leaving Massies Mill, Va., Abram Smith moved up North as a young man in his 20s. He later married a woman who was decades younger than him and fathered six children. Daniel was the fifth, born in 1932 when Abram Smith was 70. Daniel has one other sibling Abe, 92 still alive.

Daniels father died in 1938. Daniel created his own history. He was a medic in the Korean War and a hometown hero who rescued a man from a flood. Of course, he experienced violence and racism. While working as a foot soldier in the fight for civil rights, he was chased on a dark road by white supremacists in Alabama. Smith was there when a young John Lewis roused the crowd at the March on Washington and linked arms with activists in Selma as they marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Just before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Daniel Smith moved to the Washington, D.C. area. He and his first wife raised their two children in Bethesda, Md. He became a federal worker promoting health and education and fighting poverty. He retired in 1994. By 2006 he had remarried again. His second wife, Loretta Neumann, was white.

Even though Abram Smith spent his youth enslaved and later worked as a janitor in a factory, he still had hope for the country. I remember my father and mother saying Its a free country. You can do anything you want, you can be anything you want, and they believed it, Smith said.

And even though his father worked for a few dollars a day, Abram Smith ran a strict household. His children had to be the hardest workers, have the best manners, and be the brightest, too. When the siblings asked why they were so superior, their parents replied, Because you are the children of A.B. Smith. Their father forbade them to play with some poor Black children in town. We were poor as church mice, but we were better because my father said we were better, Daniel Smith recalled.

There was a reason for Abram Smiths strictness. Slavery was still a deep memory for him and he passed down the stories to his kids. Daniel remembers one in particular involving a wagon wheel.

When the slave master accused a man on the plantation of an unspecified offense, and the man denied it, the owner said, Youre lying to me, and had the man and his whole family line up in the winter in front of a wooden wagon wheel, Smith said. The slave owner ordered the man to kneel and lick the wheels metal rim. His tongue stuck to the wheel. He was only able to get loose by pulling away and losing part of his tongue.

Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 73: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin makes the case for why this is a multi-factor rebellion vs. just protests about George Floyd. He discusses the Democratic Partys sneaky relationship with the police in cities and states under Dem control, and why Joe Biden is a cop and the Steve Jobs of mass incarceration.

We just listened, and whatever came out of his mouth, thats what we heard, Daniel Smith said of his fathers stories.

From his fathers stories, Daniel said he understood racism as a child. As an adult, he experienced it and fought against it. And now, he said he sees the spirit for civil rights again with the Black Lives Matter protests.

Daniel Smith said he feels society under Trump has gone backward back toward slavery almost to the point where it could happen again.

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88-Year Old Daniel Smith, Son Of Slave, Tells His Story - Moguldom

A Genetic Mutation Reveals How the SARS-CoV-2 Virus Strikes – Technology Networks

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Current observations suggest that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 causes severe symptoms mainly in elderly patients with chronic disease. However when two pairs of previously healthy young brothers from two families required mechanical ventilation at the intensive care unit in rapid succession, doctors and researchers at Radboud University Medical Center were inclined to consider that genetic factors had a key role in compromising their immune system. Their research identified the gene TLR7 as an essential player in the immune response against SARS-CoV-2. A finding with potentially major consequences for understanding and possibly treatment of COVID-19.

During the wave of COVID-19 patients that flooded Dutch hospitals in the first half of 2020, two young brothers became seriously ill with the SARS-CoV-2 virus and had to be mechanically ventilated in the ICU. One of them died from the consequences of the infection, the other recovered. The severe course of disease in otherwise healthy young brothers was a relatively rare occurrence, especially because the virus mainly affects the elderly. This observation triggered the curiosity of an attentive physician from the MUMC+ department of clinical genetics. She contacted her colleagues in Nijmegen who then investigated why these two young brothers were so severely affected.

Genetic factors

"In such a case, you immediately wonder whether genetic factors could play a role," says geneticist Alexander Hoischen. "Getting sick from an infection is always an interplay between - in this case - the virus and the human immune system. It may be a mere coincidence that two brothers from the same family become so severely ill. But it is also possible that an inborn error of the immune system has played an important role. We investigated this possibility, together with our multidisciplinary team at Radboudumc."

One X-chromosomeAll genes (collectively called the exome) of both brothers were sequenced, after which the investigators combed through the data searching for a possible shared cause. Cas van der Made, PhD student and resident at the department of Internal Medicine: "We mainly looked at genes that play a role in the immune system. We know that several of these genes are located on the X-chromosome, and with two brother pairs affected X-chromosomal genes were most suspicious. Women carry two X-chromosomes, while men possess a Y-chromosome apart from the X. Therefore, men have only one copy of the X-chromosomal genes. In case men have a defect in such a gene, there is no second gene that can take over that role, as in women."

Gene identification

That search quickly revealed mutations in the gene encoding for the Toll-like receptor 7, TLR7 for short. There are multiple TLR-genes, which belong to a family of receptors with an important role in the recognition of pathogens (such as bacteria and viruses) and the activation of the immune system. Hoischen: "A few letters were missing in the genetic code of the TLR7 gene. As a result, the code cannot be read properly and hardly any TLR7 protein is produced. TLR7 function has so far never been associated with an inborn error of immunity. But unexpectedly we now have an indication that TLR7 is essential for protection from this coronavirus. So it seems that the virus can replicate undisturbed because the immune system does not get a message that the virus has invaded. Because TLR7, which must identify the intruder and subsequently activate the defense, is hardly present. That could be the reason for the severity of the disease in these brothers."

Additional confirmation

Then, quite unexpectedly, the doctors and researchers at Radboudumc come across another pair of brothers who have fallen seriously ill with COVID-19. Again, they are both under 35 years of age. Both of them were also in the ICU for mechanical ventilation. "Then the question of the role of genetics became even more obvious." says Hoischen. "We also investigated the genetic code of these two brothers, again via the 'rapid-clinical exome' method. This time we saw no deletion, no loss of letters, but a single spelling mistake of one DNA-letter of the TRL7 gene. The effect on the gene is the same, however, because these brothers also do not make sufficient functional TLR7 protein. Suddenly we had four young people with a defect in the same gene, all of whom had fallen seriously ill from the SARS-CoV-2 virus."

Essential role in the defense

Van der Made and colleagues have investigated the consequences of improper functioning of the TLR7 receptor. "Once activated, TLR7 triggers the production of so-called interferons, signaling proteins that are essential in the defense against virus infections," says van der Made. "This immune response is perhaps all the more important in the fight against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, because we know from the literature that the virus has tricks to reduce the production of interferons by immune cells. When we mimic an infection with the coronavirus, we see that immune cells of the patients without properly functioning TLR7 hardly respond, and that minimal amounts of interferons are produced. These tests make it clear that the virus appears to have free rein in people without properly functioning TLR7 because it [the virus] is not recognized by the immune system."

Consequences

"Due to the serious illness of four brothers in two families, so serious that it cost one of the young men his life, we have discovered this condition," says Hoischen. "It seems to be a very specific abnormality, an immunodeficiency, which is mainly related to this coronavirus. None of the four men have previously suffered from immune-related diseases. It is the first time that we can connect a clinical phenomenon so strongly with TLR7."

"This discovery not only provides us with more insight into the fundamental workings of the immune system, but it may also have important consequences for the treatment of severely ill COVID-19 patients," says Frank van de Veerdonk, immunologist and infectiologist. "The substance interferon can be given as a therapy. It is currently being investigated whether administering interferon in COVID-19 can indeed help."

Reference:

Caspar I. van der Made et al, Presence of Genetic Variants Among Young Men With Severe COVID-19, JAMA (2020). DOI: 10.1001/jama.2020.13719

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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A Genetic Mutation Reveals How the SARS-CoV-2 Virus Strikes - Technology Networks

Hyatt Or Choice Hotels: Which Stock Should You Choose As Travel Demand Recovers? – Forbes

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SAN FRANCISCO, UNITED STATES - 2020/01/23: A view of the Grand Hyatt hotel logo seen at one of their ... [+] hotels. (Photo by Alex Tai/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Hyatt stock (NYSE: H) has declined by close to 40% since early February after the WHO declared the coronavirus disease a global health emergency, while Choice Hotels CHH stock (NYSE: CHH) has fared slightly better and lost only 20% of its value. Lockdown measures and social distancing norms have significantly affected the travel & tourism industry across the world. More so, the hotel occupancy rates have fallen off the cliff triggering fears of a prolonged downturn for the sector. Royalty or franchise fees, which are charged as a percentage of third-party hotel revenues, contribute a major chunk of both hotel operators earnings. In fact, Choice Hotels franchising business contributes 97% of the total revenues. While the expansion of the total room portfolio is a key factor supporting earnings growth, Trefis believes that Hyatt is likely to gain more with the recovery in travel demand as compared to Choice Hotels primarily due to a low current valuation multiple (EV/EBITDA).

Our conclusion is based on our detailed dashboard analysis, Is Choice Hotels Expensive Or Cheap vs. Hyatt Hotels? wherein we compare trends in key metrics for the two hotel companies over the years to determine their relative valuations under the current circumstances. We summarize parts of this analysis below.

Why Has Choice Hotels Outperformed Hyatt Over Recent Months?

Choice Hotels EV/EBITDA based on 2019 earnings has declined from over 18x in 2019 to 15.4x currently, while Hyatts multiple has declined from 14.6x to about 9.5x. The steeper decline in Hyatts multiple can be mostly attributed to its lower EBITDA margin.

However, Choice Hotels multiple still appears high, considering that the companys revenues and margins also face the same systemic risk of a prolonged slump in travel demand compared to Hyatt. Notably, Hyatts EV/EBITDA is at the lowest level in the past three years but, Choice Hotels EV/EBITDA is around the same level seen at the end of 2017 - hinting that a market correction could happen if travel restrictions are not eased due to the second wave of the pandemic.

But How Long Will The Hotel Industry Remain Under Pressure?

The expected timeline for recovery in global economic conditions, and in travel demand, hinge on the broader containment of the coronavirus spread. Our dashboard forecasting US Covid-19 cases with cross-country comparisons analyzes expected recovery time-frames and possible spread of the virus. Further, our dashboard -28% Coronavirus crash vs. 4 Historic crashes builds a complete macro picture and complements our analyses of the coronavirus outbreaks impact on a diverse set of Choice Hotels multinational peers, including Hilton and Hyatt. The complete set of coronavirus impact and timing analyses is available here.

As travel demand remains subdued, are Covid-19 Treatment Stocks a better bet? We highlight the stock performance of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals REGN , Gilead Sciences GILD , Amgen AMGN , and Alexion Pharmaceuticals in another dashboard.

See allTrefis Price EstimatesandDownloadTrefis Datahere

Whats behind Trefis? See How Its Powering New Collaboration and What-Ifs ForCFOs and Finance Teams |Product, R&D, and Marketing Teams

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Hyatt Or Choice Hotels: Which Stock Should You Choose As Travel Demand Recovers? - Forbes

Jamaica Inn to reopen to guests today | News – Breaking Travel News

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Renowned Ocho Rios hotel Jamaica Inn is reopening today.

As guests return to the property, every aspect of their experience has been enhanced with new health and safety procedures and initiatives as part of the Pinwheel of Safety Protocols.

Developed in accordance with guidelines set forth by the Centres for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) and mandates from Jamaicas tourism product development, the new policies address everything from sanitising baggage upon arrival to non-queuing and limited contact check-in and-out processes, among other measures.

With new housekeeping policies in place to ensure cleanliness and sanitisation, such as a Diamond Clean seal of approval sticker, guests will enjoy spacious and comfortable accommodations in Jamaica Inns suites.

At the same time, the resorts one-and two-bedroom cottages and beach bungalows are especially suited for extra seclusion, privacy and social distancing.

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Voters at the World Travel Awards consider Jamaica Inn the Caribbeans Leading Luxury All Suite Resort.

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Jamaica Inn to reopen to guests today | News - Breaking Travel News