Insilico Medicine signs deal to advance use of AI in discovering new drugs – Technical.ly Baltimore

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Insilico Medicine has a new agreement with a British investors biotech company that will result in the companys platform being used to develop new compounds for use in drugs that treat aging and age-related diseases.

The startup, which is based at ETCs Eastern campus, signed a deal with Juvenescence AI,according to a press release. As a result, the two companies have a drug development agreement under the title Juvenescence AI Limited. Along with the deal, Juvenescence made an investment into Insilico Medicine. The amount was not disclosed.

Insilico applies machine learning to the process of drug discovery. As founderAlex Zhavoronkov told Technical.ly Baltimore, the companys platform is designed to use deep learning techniques to analyze how a compound will affect cells. This process is currently determined through trials.

We are excited by the potential for AI to streamline the longest and most costly portions of the drug development cycle: clinical trials, Juvenescence Chairman Jim Mellon said in a statement. With Insilico Medicines help, we hope Juvenescence AI will both develop therapeutics that treat the diseases that plague all of us as we age and eventually treat the aging process itself.

With the deal, Juvenescence AI will license several compound families from Insilico.

Stephen Babcock is Market Editor for Technical.ly Baltimore and Technical.ly DC. A graduate of Northeastern University, he moved to Baltimore following stints in New Orleans and Rio Arriba County, New Mexico. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Baltimore Fishbowl, NOLA Defender, NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune and the Rio Grande Sun.

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Insilico Medicine signs deal to advance use of AI in discovering new drugs - Technical.ly Baltimore

From Medicine to Modern Ag, GMOs Continue to Improve Our World – HuffPost

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And interestingly, that same day, the Times also ran a story with this headline: Climate-Altering Gases Spiked in 2016, Federal Scientists Report. Citing the recently released National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Annual Greenhouse Gas Index, the story reported global emissions of greenhouse gases that lead to warming, primarily driven by the burning of fossil fuels and other human activity, increased 40 percent between 1990 and 2016.

Sometimes, the importance of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) just hits you over the headif you only connect the dots.

The first story reported that the Food and Drug Administration appears poised to open an exciting new front in the war against cancer by approving the first gene therapy to enter the [U.S.] market. The therapy requires removing millions of a patients T-cells a type of white blood cell often called soldiers of the immune system and genetically engineering them to kill cancer cellsthe altered T-cells are then dripped back into the patients veins, where they multiply and start fighting the cancer.

Miraculous results have already been achieved with leukemia patients with hopeless cases, the story reported. Now scientists are preparing to use it against other cancers, including multiple myeloma and an aggressive form of brain tumor.

In the second article, there was no mention of GMOs yet, in my opinion, theyre very much a part of the story (and could even be a bigger part in the future if we let them).

As the global climate changes, farmers are already feeling the impacts all over the world. The prospect is for those impacts only to grow. More heat, more drought, more floods, more and different insects and other pests, more salinized water all these are barreling down on us, according to the scientific consensus.

GMOs are one of the best tools we have to fight back. Theyve already given us crops that are more drought- and pest-resistant. Now in the pipeline are GM crops that can do an even better job of withstanding the harsher conditions that Nature seems prepared to offer us while increasing the amount of food farmers produce on each acre of land. And as the global population continues its rapid increase to nearly 10 billion by 2050 the case for fully deploying these tools becomes even more compelling.

Its also important to note that in addition to increasing production yields, GM crops are actually helping to reduce agricultures impact on the environment. Between 1996 and 2015, productivity gains through biotechnology saved 430 million acres of land from plowing and cultivation. By reducing the need to till the soil, GMOs over the past 20 years have reduced carbon dioxide emissions from farm operations by 26.7 billion kilogramsan amount equivalent to taking about 12 million cars off the road for one year. GM crops also reduced the spraying of crop protection products by 619 million kilograms, a global reduction of 8.1%.

But will we continue to deploy new GMO crop technology? Or will the use of GMOs in agriculture continue to be demonized by some so that government regulators or the public themselves will reject them? In the United States today, the gap between how scientists perceive the safety of GMO crops (88 percent believe safe) and how the public perceives that safety (37 percent believe safe) is the largest opinion difference between the public and scientists on any scientific issue that the Pew Research Center measures.

Yet surprisingly when it comes to making medicines, concerns about GMOs never really took root, and efforts by critics to fan fears just havent worked. Consider again the Times story about the advent of gene therapy. A single paragraph refers to the challenges of maintaining quality control and consistency as the therapy is scaled up. Otherwise the role of genetic engineering is treated in such a matter-of-fact way that a reader could easily overlook it.

And thats consistent with the track record for GMOs in medicine. For example, the insulin used to treat millions suffering from the near-epidemic disease of diabetes has been produced with genetically modified organisms for 40 years. How many people know that or would care if they did? A few years ago, GMO critics did try to make them worry but fortunately the effort flopped. The public seems to understand that genetic modification is a safe, effective and much-needed technology for developing new medical treatments. I find it ironic that several outspoken celebrities who criticize GMO crops have had their lives significantly improved by GMO insulin.

GMOs are used in many other kinds of medicines too, as well as in vaccines and vitamins, largely without notice or concern (although vaccines face plenty of opposition on other scientifically baseless grounds). And their role in other areas of our lives will continue to grow as well. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), for instance, scientists are using genetically engineered viruses to produce more environmentally friendly lithium batteries. These GM batteries are made without the solvents needed to produce the current technology and have the potential to one day power hybrid cars.

Environmental bioremediation is another area showing promise. Some day in the not-too-distant future, well likely see various kinds of waste being eaten by genetically engineered bacteria.

There are many more examples, but the point should be clear. GMOs, despite having been vilified in agriculture, have already emerged as hugely positive tools for us and our planet in the 21st century. It doesnt make sense for us to accept the technology as safe in some areas, but not in others. As global warming increases, lets hope we finally resolve the contradictions in our attitudes toward genetic modification and embrace this technologys possibilities for feeding the world and helping the environment too.

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From Medicine to Modern Ag, GMOs Continue to Improve Our World - HuffPost

University of Missouri medical school expansion continues with new building – Columbia Daily Tribune

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By Tess Vrbin Columbia Daily Tribune

The north side of the University of Missouri School of Medicines newest addition provides a direct view of Jesse Hall. UM System President Mun Choi said the iconic administrative building is a testament to our commitment to Missouri, the university and all future MU medical students that will use the new Patient-Centered Care Learning Center.

Choi was one of several speakers at the grand opening of the facility. Construction took two years and the facility is part of a $42.5 million expansion project a decade in the making. The project also includes a clinical campus in Springfield, the result of a partnership between MU and two Springfield health systems, CoxHealth and Mercy.

Both additions to the medical school have allowed it to incrementally raise its class size by one-third, from 96 to 128 since 2014. The Springfield campus will host 64 third- and fourth-year students, the additional 32 from each class, by 2020. The Association of American Medical Colleges has called for all medical schools to increase enrollment by 30 percent to address the nationwide shortage of physicians.

AAMCs most recent report about physician supply and demand predicts a shortfall of between 34,600 and 88,000 by 2025. This projection has dropped from a maximum of 90,400 since 2015 and 130,600 since 2010. Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development shows that in 2013, the U.S. ranked 31st out of 35 countries in terms of medical graduates and 24th out of 28 countries in terms of physicians per 1,000 people.

The shortage is most striking in rural areas because most physicians live in cities. American Medical Association president David Barbe said that as vice president of regional operations for Mercy in Springfield, he is responsible for recruiting physicians at Mercys many rural practices in southwest Missouri. He is embarrassed about the large amount of open positions within the network, particularly among primary care physicians, he said.

The MU School of Medicines Rural Track Pipeline Program recruits students from rural areas and trains them in rural communities throughout the state, said program co-founder Weldon Webb, who is also the associate dean for the Springfield clinical campus implementation.

The clinical campus started hosting students last summer, and it is located between CoxHealth and Mercy. CoxHealth president and CEO Steve Edwards said the partnerships between the two competing health systems once seemed unlikely. He compared them to the longstanding rivalry between MU and the University of Kansas.

Patrick Delafontaine, dean of the medical school, said many of the physicians at both systems work as faculty at the clinical campus. He also said the program creates a very strong potential for the development of more medical residencies in Springfield, which will increase the physicians chance of staying in the area.

According to previous Tribune reporting, MU sought student input during the medical school expansion process, and students wanted a social area, more light, more power outlets and other amenities. Second-year medical student Alex Katubig said she and her classmates no longer will have to attend lectures and do laboratory work in the basement of MUs Sinclair School of Nursing now that the Patient-Centered Care Learning Center has opened. She said the basement has no windows and much less lab space than the new facility. Student collaboration is important to the medical curriculum, Katubig said, and the more spacious and inviting building encourages that.

tvrbin@columbiatribune.com

573-815-1713

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University of Missouri medical school expansion continues with new building - Columbia Daily Tribune

USC admits receiving complaints, disciplining former medical school dean linked to drug use – Los Angeles Times

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USC President C.L. Max Nikias revealed late Friday that the university had received complaints and imposed disciplinary measures against the then-dean of its medical school, who a Times investigation found took drugs and associated with criminals and drug abusers.

In a letter to the campus community, Nikias wrote that Dr. Carmen Puliafito had been the subject of various complaints during nearly a decade as the dean of the Keck School of Medicine. Nikias said Puliafito received disciplinary action and professional development coaching.

Nikias also provided new details about Puliafitos final months in the job before he resigned in the middle of the Spring 2016 term.

In 2015, USC Provost Michael Quick put Puliafito on notice for being disengaged from his leadership duties, the president said.

On March 11, 2016, two USC employees notified Provost Quick that Dr. Puliafito seemed further removed from his duties and expressed concerns about his behavior, Nikias wrote.

The Provost consulted with me promptly and, as a result, confronted Dr. Puliafito. He chose to resign his position on March 24, 2016, and was placed on sabbatical leave.

The Times Editorial Board

The presidents letter was released hours after The Times provided USC with findings about Puliafitos behavior during his tenure heading the medical school.

It comes amid an outpouring of anger and questions about USCs handling of Puliafito, a Harvard-trained ophthalmologist.

Full Coverage: An overdose, a young companion, drug-fueled parties: The secret life of a USC med school dean

The Times report last week described how Puliafito kept company with a circle of criminals and drug addicts and used methamphetamine and other drugs while serving as the dean. Photos and videos reviewed by The Times showed Puliafito, 66, and his friends, who were in their 20s and 30s, partying in 2015 and 2016.

The images include some in which Puliafitos companions are seen holding drug paraphernalia during an after-hours visit to the deans office at USCs Health Sciences Campus in Boyle Heights.

One member of Puliafitos circle was a 21-year-old woman who overdosed in his presence at a Pasadena hotel three weeks before he abruptly quit as dean.

Alex J. Berliner / Associated Press

Dr. Carmen Puliafito

Dr. Carmen Puliafito (Alex J. Berliner / Associated Press)

Last week, Puliafitos successor as dean, Dr. Rohit Varma, told a gathering of scores of students that USC had found no evidence, particularly, of that phone call.

But Tuesday evening, a crisis management specialist representing USC, Charles Sipkins, said that Nikias office did receive an anonymous call about Puliafitos presence at the hotel overdose. However, the anonymous report did not reach senior administrators, Sipkins said.

About three months after Puliafito stepped down, Nikias and other USC leaders hosted a catered reception for the former dean and praised his leadership of the medical school. Puliafito continued to accept new patients at campus clinics and represented the university at events, including a Keck-sponsored course at a Pasadena hotel earlier this month.

The Times made repeated inquiries over the last 15 months about Puliafito, in some cases describing information reporters had gathered about the dean and the overdose.

USCs leaders never responded to the inquiries. Numerous phone calls were not returned, emails went unanswered and a letter seeking an interview with Nikias to discuss Puliafito was returned to The Times by courier, unopened. The courier also delivered a letter of complaint from Brenda Maceo, USCs vice president for public relations and marketing, who said the reporter had crossed the line by visiting the Nikias home to deliver the letter.

On Friday, Nikias wrote that in the fall of 2016 a communications staff member received an unsubstantiated tip about a Pasadena hotel incident.

He described a confrontation by administrators: When we approached Dr. Puliafito about the incident, he stated a friends daughter had overdosed at a Pasadena hotel and he had accompanied her to the hospital.

The president also said that last March, The Times did provide the university with detailed questions about, and a copy of a 911 recording from the Pasadena hotel incident. The recording was immediately referred to a committee that assesses clinical competency, the Hospital Medical Staff, Nikias said.

That body determined that there were no existing patient care complaints and no known clinical issues, the president said.

After The Times investigation was published on July 17, Nikias said the Hospital Medical Staff had reopened its investigation. The Medical Board of California also launched an investigation into Puliafito based on the newspapers report, a spokeswoman confirmed.

Nikias said in his letter that after The Times published its story, the university learned that two receptionists in the presidents office received a call in March 2016 from a blocked number.

The caller, who insisted on anonymity, raised concerns about an incident in a Pasadena hotel involving Dr. Puliafito. Neither receptionist found the claims or the caller credible, and so the information was not elevated and did not reach a senior administrator, Nikias wrote.

Needless to say, we have already put into place a new system that documents and records all incoming calls to the presidents office.

USC announced last week that it hired a former federal prosecutor who works for a law firm with close ties to the university to investigate the affair. Puliafito has been barred from the campus and from any association with USC.

ALSO

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USC admits receiving complaints, disciplining former medical school dean linked to drug use - Los Angeles Times

Med Beat: Med school welcomes new class – Roanoke Times (blog)

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The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine welcomed its eighth class this week.

Every year, I am impressed by the quality of our incoming class and this year is no exception, said Dean Cynda Johnson, in a news release. Each student is competitive for medical school on paper based on their academic achievements, but they also have diverse backgrounds, which is something we strive for to enrich their learning experience.

-- Women outnumber men for the first time. Of the 42 students, 22 are women.

-- One-third come from Virginia. Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia tied with both sending five of their graduates to the med school.

-- Other schools with more than one student: Georgetown University, Haverford College, University of California San Diego and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

-- Most popular undergraduate majors: biology, neuroscience and biochemistry.

-- 20 percent have graduate degrees.

-- 4,403 people applied for the 42 slots.

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Med Beat: Med school welcomes new class - Roanoke Times (blog)

Teamwork produces soap box derby world title for Liberty teen – Times Herald-Record

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Daniel Axelrod Times Herald-Record @dan_axelrod

LIBERTY If you cant beat em, join em. Thats what the father-son soap box derby racing team of Joe and Morgan Van Keuren thought about Brianna Roth and her twin sister, Brooke. Morgan, 16, couldn't quite beat the 15-year-old sisters in the Town of Libertys annual Memorial Day soap box derby races.

Together, theyre champions. On July 22, Brianna used Morgans old car to win the super stock car title at the 80th FirstEnergy All-American Soap Box Derby World Championship in Ohio.

It taught me a lot about racing, sportsmanship, teamwork, always shaking your competitors hands, always trying your best. Even the one year I finished close to last (in Liberty race), I still had a good attitude, said Brianna, who hopes to become a physical therapist.

Morgan, who lives in Liberty, was Briannas crew chief. The families worked together in the twins White Sulphur Springs basement, to shave time off the derby racer tightening bolts, aligning the car, adjusting its wheels and cables.

We were shocked when Brianna won, said Joe Van Keuren, who added how proud he was of Morgan and Brianna for their teamwork and sportsmanship. It was just surreal seeing Morgan jump into the arms ofBrianna's stepfather after the race.

Following regional wins, 80 racers qualified for the super stock car division world championship. When Brianna beat them, the All-American Soap Box Derby Association retired her car and presented a Super Bowl-like ring, a giant trophy and a $3,000 college scholarship.

So, was Brianna scared hurtling down a hill in a tiny racing car at 30 mph?

No, I was thinking of a new cell phone, said Brianna, whose stepfather, Mike, likely didnt think hed be buying her the new iPhone, with an unlimited data plan, he promised if she won.

Brianna, Morgan, and Brooke, who attend Liberty High School, werent the only ones united by racing.

Soapbox derby racing has helped unify Liberty, while becoming a cottage industry, since CarolVanDenberg,of Hillside Greenhouses & Flower Shop, started a local race in 2011.

Briannas mother, Melissa, a math teacher at Liberty Middle School, ended up dating and marrying the schools tech teacher, Mike Diehl, after he recruited her daughters to race.

Local parents and children have formed racing teams, including the Barn Buddies Racing Group. They've pooled resources and expertise on cars that can cost $1,000 each for assembly kits, paint jobs and custom-made metal weights.

The local school bus firm, painters, iron works, printers, t-shirt makers, a collision shop and other companies have pitched in to keep the kids cars safe, fast and spiffy.

And the Town of Liberty has facilitated the local derby and promoted Briannas win.

Its unbelievable Brianna won, VanDenberg said. Absolutely nobody knows where Liberty, N.Y. is Now, we have a world champion. Who wouldve thunk it?

daxelrod@th-record.com

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Teamwork produces soap box derby world title for Liberty teen - Times Herald-Record

Liberty Twp. man thanks businesses for their care with veterans – Hamilton Journal News

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LIBERTY TWP.

The modest white house with an American flag-studded garden and a sign warning visitors that This Home is Protected by a U.S. Veteran might not have been the most obvious place for an awards ceremony, but it fit the occasion: retired Navy Chief Petty Officer Leonard Koebbes recognition of two Liberty Twp. businessmen whose help enabled him to move into the home they were standing in.

I just wanted to pay life forward like they did for me, Koebbe said. I wanted to let Liberty Twp. know theres good businessmen in the area. I wanted to thank them.

Koebbe served in the military for 24 years, including fighting in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He said he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, so when he decided to buy a house in the area he wanted to make the transition easy, because I dont deal with stress very well.

He asked his brother Steve Koebbe, who owns Koebbe Auto Tech in Liberty Twp., to recommend an honest realtor, and was referred to Huff Realty Senior Sales Vice President Scot Avery.

According to Koebbe, Scots dedication to me was unfailing, and he did a lot of research and backend work to make the search process as easy as possible.

With Averys help, Koebbe found a house in Liberty Twp. that had recently been remodeled but still fell within Koebbes price range, making it seem, according to Avery, too good to be true.

After Koebbe bought the house, he discovered some problems with the houses heating and cooling system, and went back to Avery for help. Avery referred him to another businessman in his network, Tri-State Heating and Cooling President Keith Adams.

Adams said that he likes to hire veterans, including the technician who visited Koebbes new home, and knows about some of the struggles that they can be faced with throughout their life, so I always try to make sure that they I am very aware of things that are going on with the veterans.

After assessing the house, Koebbe said, Adams repaired the air conditioning at minimum to no cost.

Koebbe doesnt think that he would have had the rapport or the trust that I had working with these guys with other professionals. Thanks to the honesty and integrity he recognized them for, Koebbe and his black lab are now happily settled into their new home.

Koebbe presented each of the men recently with plaques, thanking them for Supporting & Honoring Veterans, complete with a picture of a bald eagle in front of an American flag.

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Liberty Twp. man thanks businesses for their care with veterans - Hamilton Journal News

Starz Orders ‘The Rook’ From ‘Twilight’s’ Stephenie Meyer … – Variety – Variety

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Starz has given a series order to the drama thriller The Rook from Twilight saga author Stephenie Meyer, Lionsgate, and Liberty Global.

The series marks Liberty Globals move into original drama in partnership with Lionsgate. The supernatural spy thriller will be executive produced by Meyer and Stephen Garrett (The Night Manager).

Playwrights and screenwriters Sam Holcroft (Rules for Living) and Al Muriel (Precious & Rich) have adapted the 2012 novel by Daniel OMalley for TV. Garrett will serve as showrunner under his Character 7 banner. The project was previously set up at Hulu.

Liberty Global, the international cable arm of John Malones empire, has been looking to expand its original production activity. It owns a small stake in Lionsgate and its CEO, Mike Fries, sits on the studios board of directors. Malone was also the major shareholder in Starz, which Lionsgate acquired last year.

Based on the novel by Daniel OMalley, Rook will follow a young woman who wakes up in a London park suffering amnesia and surrounded by bodies, all wearing latex gloves. As she attempts to uncover her past and her role as head of Britains supernatural secret service, she discovers she has peculiar abilities, all while being pursued by paranormal adversaries.

Starz boss Chris Albrecht announced the series Friday at its presentation at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Beverly Hills.

We are thrilled to add the talents of Stephen Garrett and Stephenie Meyer to our creative family and forge our partnership with the Lionsgate Television Group and Liberty Global, he said. The Rook is instantly addictive from the very first scene and introduces what we believe will be one of the most fascinating and thrilling female protagonists on television.

Liberty Global signaled its intention to move into original drama with four projects coming through All3Media, the U.K. production group it half-owns. The Rook is the first and will launch internationally at the same time as in the U.S.

Liberty Global chief programming officer Bruce Mann said The Rook was an important step in its scripted strategy.

We want shows that are distinctive and have a European sensibility, he told Variety. Its a shiny drama from a U.S. studio with a universal story, based in the U.K. with a strong female lead. We think it will travel really well.

Liberty Global will carry the show in the countries where it has cable platforms. Lionsgate will distribute the show in the rest of the world.Liberty Global is the largest international cable group, with services including Virgin Media in the U.K., Unitymedia in Germany, and UPC in the Netherlands. These will carry The Rook as an on-demand offering.

The Rook is a major premium property driven by an amazing creative team, and its not only a terrific addition to the Starz platform but the perfect series to launch a content alliance with our friends at Liberty Global, said Lionsgate Television Group chairman Kevin Beggs and Jim Packer, Lionsgates president of Worldwide Television & Digital Distribution.

(Pictured: Stephenie Meyer)

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Starz Orders 'The Rook' From 'Twilight's' Stephenie Meyer ... - Variety - Variety

Police: Family stops man who tried to grab girl near Liberty Park … – KUTV 2News

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Austin officials were surprised by a campaign that left park trees decorated with condoms -- all in an attempt to raise awareness for HIV protection. (Photo: KUTV)

(KUTV) Salt Lake police arrested a man who is accused of attempting to kidnap a young girl near Liberty Park.

A family was at a playground with their 5-year-old daughter around 10:14 p.m. Thursday when a man approached then and inquired about the girl, a police report said.

The man then ran toward the girl in what appeared to be an effort to grab her. Family members were able to catch the suspect before he reached the girl, a police report released Friday morning said.

The family held the suspect until police arrived.

Authorities identified the suspect as 36-year-old Steven Montoya. He is being held in jail on suspicion of attempted kidnapping.

Jail documents were not yet available for Montoya. This story will be updated with more information when it becomes available.

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Police: Family stops man who tried to grab girl near Liberty Park ... - KUTV 2News

With $400000 grant, Liberty City gets a Village for homeless disabled veterans – Miami Herald

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Miami Herald
With $400000 grant, Liberty City gets a Village for homeless disabled veterans
Miami Herald
All of Liberty Village's units will be for those who earn 60 percent or less of the area median income (AMI), with select numbers of units reserved for lower AMI percentages. To ensure manageable housing, the rent will be 30 percent of each veteran's ...

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With $400000 grant, Liberty City gets a Village for homeless disabled veterans - Miami Herald

Virginia Tech sets future football schedules; adds games with BYU, Liberty, ODU and VMI – Richmond.com

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ROANOKE Virginia Tech will play another opponent from the West after its latest schedule addition, agreeing to a home-and-home series with BYU in 2026 and 2030.

The Hokies made the announcement Friday along with several scheduling additions, which included adding six more games with Old Dominion, five with Liberty and one with VMI.

The BYU game is the biggest, however, the first meeting between the schools in football. The Hokies will host the Cougars in Blacksburg on Sept. 26, 2026, before making a return trip to Provo, Utah, on Sept. 14, 2030.

Although the Hokies have traditionally stuck to the East Coast and Midwest in their nonconference games, this will be the second time theyll venture out into the Mountain Time Zone in the next 15 years. Tech previously scheduled a home-and-home with Arizona that will require a trip in 2029.

Though an independent, BYU joins Penn State, Michigan, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Maryland and Rutgers as Power 5-level schools on Virginia Techs schedule from now until 2036. The Hokies also play Notre Dame seven times during that span.

The new ODU agreement adds games in each season from 2026-2031, with the even numbered years in Blacksburg and odd numbered years in Norfolk. The Hokies and Monarchs already had seven games on the schedule through 2025, starting with the programs first football meeting in Blacksburg this year on Sept. 23. ODU is in its fourth year in the Football Bowl Subdivision and is a member of Conference USA.

The Hokies will play Liberty six times from now until 2030. The schools had a previously scheduled 2020 game in Blacksburg. Tech will make two trips to Lynchburg to play the Flames in 2022 and 2030, while Liberty will come to Blacksburg three more times in 2027, 2028 and 2029. The games in 2022 and 2027 will take place Nov. 19 and 20, respectively, presumably before the traditional late-season game against Virginia.

Liberty has begun its transition from the Football Championship Subdivision to be an FBS independent. The Flames will be full FBS in 2019.

VMI also joins the schedule for the first time since 1984. The Keydets will travel to Lane Stadium for a game Sept. 5, 2026. Despite the layoff, Techs 79 meetings against VMI are the second most of any opponent behind Virginia. The Hokies are 49-25-5 in the series.

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Virginia Tech sets future football schedules; adds games with BYU, Liberty, ODU and VMI - Richmond.com

POLICE CALLS IN GIRARD, LIBERTY, HUBBARD – Youngstown Vindicator

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Published: Sat, July 29, 2017 @ 12:00 a.m.

POLICE CALLS

A summary of recent criminal activity in Girard, Hubbard and Liberty:

GIRARD

July 23

Menacing: Officers answered a call regarding several neighbors in the 200 block of Church Hill Road threatening one another.

Theft by deception: A Squaw Creek Drive man told authorities that after having received a pop-up solicitation on his laptop computer for computer repairs, he paid $299 for the supposed fixes that never took place. In addition, the victim was instructed to pay an additional fee with gift cards before realizing it was a scam.

Harassment: A Gary Avenue woman reported having received a sexually explicit call.

July 24

Menacing: An Illinois Avenue woman reported a motorist launched into a diatribe as he accused her of breaking his car window while she mowed her front lawn.

Criminal mischief: A man noticed eggs had been tossed at his car when he returned to his Lincoln Avenue residence.

Stolen property: A charge of receiving stolen property was pending against a woman after a man reported his $140 cellphone missing when he had set it down while hiking along an access road. The woman reportedly got her two young children in a scheme to sell the mans phone back to him for $150, police alleged.

July 25

Domestic violence: A 14-year-old Girard boy was charged with the crime after his brother alleged that during an argument, the teen had pushed him into a chimney, leaving a scrape on the accusers upper right arm.

July 26

Arrests: While responding to a possible fight in the 300 block of Hazel Avenue, police filed disorderly-conduct charges against Ashley L. Yauger, 22; Kiawaun A. Ferrell, 25; and Jenny E. Dove, 38, all of Hazel Street, Girard, along with Samantha N. Dionisio, 23, of Westview Avenue, Hubbard, and Jasmine L. Tuck, 24, of Washington Avenue, Hubbard. As officers conducted their investigation, all five again got into a heated argument with one another, a report showed.

HUBBARD

July 21

Theft: A Church Street woman discovered a $100 mountain bike missing from her porch.

Theft: An electronic tablet and $10 were removed from a vehicle in the 500 block of Center Street.

July 22

Breaking and entering: Someone entered Hubbard Coal & Supply, 828 N. Main St., then took a $200 chain saw and an undisclosed sum of money.

Theft: Officers received a complaint that someone has been stealing money that a family places atop a loved ones tombstone in a cemetery off Oakdale Avenue.

July 23

Disorderly conduct: A charge was pending against a 58-year-old Ashtabula man after an officer who stopped at a state Route 304 gas station alleged the man repeatedly yelled a series of obscenities at him, which also caused a scene, after having been advised several times to desist.

July 24

Arrest: A traffic stop near North Main and Walnut streets led to the arrest of Eric J. Razum, 33, of Mahoning Avenue Northwest, Warren. He was wanted on a warrant charging failure to appear in court.

Arrest: Struthers police transferred custody of Thomas J. Nagle, 34, to Hubbard authorities. Nagle, of Smithfield Street, Struthers, was wanted on a charge of failure to appear in court.

July 25

Arrest: John W. Valentine Jr. of Darr Avenue, Farrell, Pa., was charged with operating a vehicle impaired after an off-duty police officer reported having seen a motorist driving erratically on North Main Street. Valentine had a 0.214 blood-alcohol content, which is more than double Ohios 0.08 legal intoxication limit, a report showed.

July 26

Criminal mischief: A rock was used to break a pickup trucks rear window in the 200 block of Hillcrest Avenue. Damage was estimated at $250.

Arrest: A vehicle check in the 2400 block of North Main Street resulted in the arrest of William A. Howard of Broadway Avenue, Masury, who was wanted on a felony warrant from Brookfield accusing him of failing to appear in court on a burglary charge.

LIBERTY

July 22

Arrest: After responding to a break-in at a residence in the 3100 block of Hadley Avenue, police took Kurtis D. Townsend of Murray Hill Avenue, Liberty, into custody. Townsend, 18, was wanted on a warrant charging receiving stolen property.

Robbery: A gunman in his 30s wearing a tan vest and jeans fled from Home Savings and Loan, 3500 Belmont Ave., with a bag containing an undisclosed amount of money.

Arrest: While responding to a disturbance in the 30 block of Trumbull Court, authorities took into custody Cassandra Santiago, 23, of Trumbull Court, Liberty, on a disorderly-conduct charge. Santiago continued to scream obscenities at three people to goad them into a fight, despite having been asked to cease, a report said.

Drugs: Police on Church Hill Road pulled over and arrested Leroy Alexander III, 23, of Madison Avenue, Youngstown, on one felony count each of trafficking in marijuana and possession of criminal tools. Two large jars of suspected marijuana, a digital scale and a box of plastic bags in a backpack were found, a report stated.

Arrest: Officers in the 2700 block of Belmont Avenue took custody of William Brown IV, 47, of North Osborn Avenue, Youngstown, who was wanted on a Girard Municipal Court warrant.

July 23

Citations: Authorities responded to a complaint regarding two intoxicated people in the 200 block of Perni Lane before issuing minor-misdemeanor citations charging Jennifer L. Nestor, 42, of Marianna Pa., and Jason T. Paternoster, 43, of Finleyville, Pa., with disorderly conduct. The manager of a nearby hotel alleged the couple had been engaged in sexual activity with each other in a field in view of the establishment, and that they had caused several other disturbances, a report said.

July 24

Incident: A woman reported that while on vacation, her former husband had entered her Colonial Drive home and took an iPhone.

Recovered property: A Girard woman reported finding her Honda Civic in Mansfield after it had been taken from a home in the 4500 block of Park Avenue.

Theft: The manager of a Holly Drive apartment complex reported a 9mm handgun missing from a desk drawer.

Drugs: A traffic stop in the 4200 block of Belmont Avenue resulted in drug-abuse charges against Leeana D. Shaulis, 19, of Holland Avenue, Liberty, and Brian K. Walker, 26, of Stewart Avenue, Liberty. Found were a small bag of suspected marijuana and a white envelope containing several pills determined to be Tramadol, an over-the-counter drug commonly used to treat moderate to severe pain, for which Shaulis admitted having no prescription, authorities alleged.

July 25

Damage: Police assisted Girard authorities in finding a vehicle that reportedly was driven by someone who had been in an argument with another motorist. The car was found at a residence in the 3000 block of Northgate Drive with a bullet hole in its rear tailgate and a spent slug on the bumper, a report showed.

Theft: A Jefferson Court woman found out someone without authorization had removed money from her bank account and placed it in her daughters account before making three withdrawals from the latter that totaled $400.

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POLICE CALLS IN GIRARD, LIBERTY, HUBBARD - Youngstown Vindicator

Spirits light, power dim on Ocracoke, Hatteras Islands – WRAL.com

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Buxton, N.C. Repair crews had their first look Friday at a damaged cable that caused a power outage on the Outer Banks.

Residents have been in the dark since Thursday morning, when a construction crew working on the new Bonner Bridge inadvertently cut a transmission cable. Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency Thursday evening for the communities, and authorities asked all non-residents to leave Ocracoke Island

Dare County issued a mandatory evacuation order for Hatteras Island Friday evening due to the power outage. The county said the growing uncertainty to when the power will be restored has created safety issues. The order includes Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco and Hatteras. Visitors are asked to leave the island by 6 a.m.

Laura Ertle, a spokeswoman for Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative, said employees of the Roanoke, Virginia-based company that erected the cable on the original Bonner Bridge in 1995 would dig up the cable and assess the damage before any estimate on a fix could be made.

"Once they get here and put eyes on it, then we'll have a really better sense of what we're looking at in terms of repair time," she said.

If the necessary materials are on hand, repairs could take several days, Ertle said. If the items are not available locally, repairs could take weeks.

Gov. Roy Cooper on Thursday declared a state of emergency, lifting weight restrictions for equipment needed to restore power or supply food, fuel and other necessities to those affected.

This declaration will allow us to move much needed resources through the state as quickly as possible to help restore the power to Ocracoke and Hatteras Islands, Cooper said in a statement.

An estimated 10,000 tourists saw their vacation plans were blacked out by the evacuation order. Through Friday, the North Carolina Department of Transportation estimated that a little more than 2,400 people and 893 cars had left Ocracoke Island.

Austin Wicker, visiting Ocracoke Island from Charlotte, kept his spirits light even when the power went out.

"It's always worth the drive just for 10 minutes of that view," he said.

Those who remained were asked to limit their use of electricity no air conditioning, no dishwashers, no television while CHEC worked to deploy portable generators and planned to fix the damage.

Jeff Morey was in the minority Friday afternoon, headed back to Ocracoke. A year-round resident, he had left to pick up generators and fans to sustain himself and neighbors through the outage.

Corey Kick and family were roaming on a golf cart on Hatteras Island, looking for open signs, and finding few.

"We have been out here since last Saturday glamping at the Hatteras Sands Campground until the power went out, and we're actually camping, which wasn't what we planned for, but it's been okay," Kick said.

Only full-time residents can go back on the islands. Richard Waldrop said he will be making the best of it.

"We'll be boating and beaching and staying out of the house," he said. "We've got a generator in the back."

It is unknown when repairs will be completed and power will be restored on the islands. Local officials said it could be weeks.

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Spirits light, power dim on Ocracoke, Hatteras Islands - WRAL.com

Surrounded: Stories from NH’s Islands – New Hampshire Public Radio

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New Hampshire Public Radio
Surrounded: Stories from NH's Islands
New Hampshire Public Radio
Surrounded: Stories from New Hampshire's Islands explores the history, culture and landscapes of the Granite State's islands and the people who live or visit there, from the Seacoast to the Lakes Region to the Connecticut River.

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Surrounded: Stories from NH's Islands - New Hampshire Public Radio

IN PHOTOS: Exploring 3 Greek islands in one day – ABS-CBN News

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ATHENS, Greece Just like the Philippines, Greece has a lot of islands, and it can be hard to decide where to go.

The capital of Athens is the main international gateway to the Greek islands. The most popular of these are Santorini, Mykonos, and Crete, which are accessible by plane or ferry.

Each island has its unique allure, from picturesque seascapes to good food. But if you only have a few days to spend in Greece, its best to go on a cruise to three Saronic islands.

Hydra, Poros, and Aegina are popular destinations for island hopping among both tourists and locals. These three islands can be explored in just one day, with cruises running daily from Athens.

Hydra (pronounced as eed-ra) is the most beautiful of the three, primarily because it remains blissfully free of vehicles. Its cobblestone streets are only traversed by humans and donkeys and there are no big hotels, making the island feel stuck in a time warp.

Poros has a lively waterfront adorned with shops and cozy cafes, while pistachio is king in the tranquil island of Aegina (pronounced as ey-gina).

Here are some photos from the Greek islands of Hydra, Poros and Aegina, which ABS-CBN News visited as part of a media tour organized by the budget airline Scoot.

The departure point of the cruise is Kallithea, a municipality in south Athens. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

We boarded the Evermore Cruises ship at 8 a.m., with Hydra the farthest of the three islands as our first stop. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

Three hours later, we reached the charming island of Hydra. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

Homemade ice cream is a must-try in Hydra. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

Cars are not allowed in Hydra, only donkeys and boats. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

Those who wish to travel Hydra without walking can hire a water taxi. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

One of the many Instagram-worthy spots in Hydra. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

One of the many Instagram-worthy spots in Hydra. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

Dine with a view at this restaurant in Hydra. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

A cannon points to the sea at Hydra. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

We left Hydra at 12:55 p.m. to head to the second island, Poros. We were welcomed by this restaurant after our one-hour trip. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

Poros looks similar to Hydra, but the tourism infrastructure here is well-developed. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

Poros has a lot of small cafes, most of them serving waffles. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

This chalkboard in front of a restaurant shows it caters mainly to local visitors with its colorful Greek letters. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

After a 50-minute stop at Poros, we departed for Aegina, the largest and most populated of the three islands. The trip took a little over an hour. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

Aegina is best known for its pistachios, which are said to be among the best in the world. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

Different products with pistachios are on display at one of the many shops in Aegina. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

A cat takes a nap beside a basket of slippers in Aegina. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

The island of Aegina, just like Hydra and Poros, is best explored on foot. Karen Flores, ABS-CBN News

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IN PHOTOS: Exploring 3 Greek islands in one day - ABS-CBN News

Ireland’s Islands: A second-generation islander returns – Irish Times

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Home for Jenny OHalloran was once 18,000km away, when she was one of many young Irish emigrants rearing her first-born in New Zealand. Now home feels somewhat different, as she lives 20km by sea from south Connemara, on the largest of the Aran Islands.

Having spent five years living in New Zealand, she noticed a change in atmosphere when she first stepped off the ferry at Cill Rnin pier two years ago. She and her Kiwi husband David, a marine biologist, had decided to join Blath na Mara, the seaweed business her father Mirtn Conceanainn established on Inis Mr in 2002.

Here I was, a second-generation islander returning and yet the gentle questions about how I was settling in lasted a good six months and more, she recalls.

As the weeks and months passed, and she gave birth to their second child, she began to understand the nature of the questions a bit more. Her relatives and neighbours still remembered how her father had left the island and reared his family in Co Waterford.

Inis Mr may be a tourism poster child, with all the 21st-century trappings of fast food, parking meters and an ATM, but it is also the limestone landscape of writers Liam OFlaherty and Mirtn Direin, where the next meal could have been a currach landing away.

There is still a strong memory even now of the impact of young people leaving, and so there was a mixture of excitement and almost apprehension on our behalf, OHalloran says. There is a real sense that people care about how we are getting on. Thats not something you get in Avondale in Auckland, or a suburb of Dublin.

Its an easy tourism sell: White sandy beaches, towering cliff faces, turquoise seas, history, heritage, culture all abound, Filte Ireland states in its effusive introduction to 30 islands on the Wild Atlantic Way.

With little crime, no high-rise living, no traffic jams and no city smog, the marketing image is always idyllic, and copywriters can draw on the long line of artists, poets, novelists and film-makers who have been spellbound by the archaeology, language, music and literature.

More than two decades ago, in their introduction to The Book of Aran (Tr Eolas), Anne Korff, JW OConnell and John Waddell noted that no one would want Aran and its neighbours to become quaint time capsules, or cultural theme parks. Yet they noted that the very elements required for development, such as improved transport links, could prove to be a magnet for mass tourism, and as such was a double-edged sword.

Theres a sense of that already with the Irish language on the Gaeltacht islands. Recent census figures for use of Irish as a daily language of communication outside the school system show it is in decline.

Irish-language activist and academic Donncha hEallaithe notes a fall of 11 per cent in daily use of Irish on the three Aran Islands, Inis Mein, Inis Mr and Inis Orr, where the percentage of active daily Irish speakers has fallen from 63 per cent of the population (over three years of age) in 2011 to 57 per cent in 2016. On a positive note, OHallorans husband David was one of 20 pupils at an adult Irish-language class during the past winter on Inis Mr.

The five per cent drop in Irish-language use on Arranmore, Co Donegal, is due to population decrease, hallaithe says, and there has been an eight per cent drop on Cape Clear off west Cork. Donegals Tory island is the most Irish-speaking island with 75 per cent claiming to use the language on a daily basis outside the schools.

Island populations have never kept pace with population growth levels on the mainland. Dr Peter Gill, Clare Island resident and professor emeritus of education at Swedens University of Gvle, points out that there was an average decline in population of 77 per cent on 11 offshore islands, from Donegal to Cork, between 1841 and 2011. This slowed to 53 per cent between 1992 and 2015, he says.

Co-op managers Cathy N Ghoill and Paddy Crowe on two of the three Aran islands, and Comhdhil Oilein na hireann (Irish Island Federation) chairman Simon Murray on north Galways Inishbofin know well the challenges involved in maintaining population levels.

In a small community, relying on sea transport, costs are always higher, they say. Start-up businesses need high-speed broadband to compete. Schools require numbers to stay open, prompting Mayos Inishturk to appeal for more residents.

Tourism is seasonal, weather dependent, and dominated by day trippers in the case of rainn Mhr. Water supply can be subject to restrictions, and Inis Orr is currently reliant on tanker deliveries. The southernmost Aran island, which is now rivalling Inis Mr levels in attracting tourists, with some 200,000 visitors annually, has been lobbying for years for a new pier. A recent Marine Casualty Investigation Board report highlighted its safety risks.

Farming and fishing are subject to EU directives, from habitat to fish-stock protection. More ambitious Aran skippers requiring deep water have moved boats into Ros-a-Mhl in Connemara. Small-scale island fishermen such as John OBrien in Donegal have struggled, after refusing to surrender wild salmon licences when the ban on driftnetting was introduced in 2007.

OBrien turned down the States 18,900 compensation offer, and his battle was documented by French film-maker Loc Jourdain in A Turning Tide in the Life of Man/ I mBal na Stoirme, a film for TG4. Originally from Inishboffin, off Donegal. OBriens increasing political awareness led him to advocate the idea of heritage licences for fishing, tied to a cultural link to an area.

This concept, now backed by Sinn Fin, was recognised by an Oireachtas subcommittee on fisheries. It published a report in early 2014 advocating a number of measures to support the marine economy in coastal and offshore communities.

One of those Oireachtas committee members, amon Cuv, is still regarded as a hero on many islands for his efforts to improve transport services and infrastructure during his time as Fianna Fil minister for community, rural and Gaeltacht affairs from 2002 to 2010.

However, as if to be punished for that, Aran Islanders have experienced uncertainty in the past three years over both air and ferry services. The Governments chief whip Joe Mc Hugh, who was the junior minister handling the air service contract, has now been given responsibility for islands again.

Simon Murray of the Irish Island Federation points out that the Governments obsession with value for money belies the return that islands give the State in cultural, heritage and tourism terms. The islands costs the State around 13 million annually, he says, adding that essential services are treated as a sort of charity by some State bodies, rather than taxpayers rights.

His federation is constantly wrestling with a lack of joined-up thinking at official level such as the situation highlighted by this newspaper three years ago where a change in Health Service Executive management resulted in cutbacks in primary care, and over-expenditure on helicopter flights for patients who were precluded from travel on fixed-wing flights.

Observing the struggles further north along the coast have been the residents of the west Cork islands, who now have their own integrated development strategy.

Bere Island representative John Walsh says that the strategy was pioneered by Cork County Development Board official Breeda Murphy and her colleagues, who recognised the importance of islands working as a group, and also recognised that local authorities could play a positive role.

The west Cork strategy for its seven inhabited islands acknowledges the key principles identified in the last major government report for offshore communities, published in 1996. These include recognising the special economic, social and cultural contribution that offshore islands make, and promoting a partnership approach between island communities and State agencies.

Some State agencies work far better than others, and much of this is to do with boots on ground. Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) is currently administering a 12 million programme to support projects approved by its Fisheries Local Area Development groups. A separate project by BIM may also prove crucial to the survival of a Mayo community. The agency, which withdrew its controversial application in December 2015 for a finfish farm off Inis Orr in Galway Bay, is preparing an aquaculture licence application for a 4,000 tonne certified organic salmon farm close to Inishdalla, an uninhabited island southeast of Inishturk.

Dr Gill, who acknowledges his initial opposition to plans for the Clare Island salmon farm, says the project could be vital for his neighbouring community. He has studied the trend towards gentrification on some parts of the west coast, with housing prices being distorted by the second-home market. The gentrification trend is rampant on Swedish islands, he says.

Second-home ownership, along with planning restrictions and increasing income disparities, has become a factor on some Irish islands. The OHallorans had some difficulty in finding rented accommodation on their return. However, Dr Gill says that Clare Island has successfully avoided gentrification because the fish farm has sustained employment, which has, in turn, kept up primary-school class levels.

He argues that primary schools are a vital life force on islands, transcending the normal school-community relationship. Research he published last year found that pupils in rural and island schools can often perform as well, or sometimes better academically, as their peers in urban schools.

In Scandinavia, islands are very important for the self-image of a people proud of Viking links, Dr Gill says. There is a symbolic value in having inhabited islands as part of an island nation. If the Government is to take one step, it is to recognise the importance of the island school, he says.

Murray hopes that for Inishturks sake the Government takes its situation, and that of other islands, seriously. My parents witnessed the death [in October 1960s] of Inishark, just a half mile across the water from here, he says. When an island population leaves like that, it can never be replaced. All the particular way of speaking, living and making music in that community is lost.

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Ireland's Islands: A second-generation islander returns - Irish Times

Refugees on Greek islands at risk as NGOs withdraw services – Irish Times

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Refugees and migrants arriving on Lesbos after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey. Mdecins Sans Frontires says two-thirds of mental-health patients on Lesbos were victims of violence before arriving in Greece. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

Pregnant women, children and disabled asylum seekers stuck on the Greek islands are at risk of losing vital services as funding for charities in the area draws to a close next week, volunteers and human rights activists have warned.

On Monday the majority of European emergency funding for NGOs working on the Greek islands will come to an end as the Greek government takes over the management of support services for asylum seekers. Volunteers and activists on the islands have warned that supports for vulnerable refugees are at risk of ending when the Greek government assumes responsibility next week.

The development comes as the aid agency Mdecins Sans Frontires says the health and well-being of the most vulnerable on the islands is at risk due to a grossly deficient screening system and policies aimed at returning as many people as possible to Turkey.

The charity says two-thirds of mental health patients on the island of Lesbos were victims of violence before arriving in Greece, while about half of the women presenting at clinics for gynaecological consultations have been victims of sexual violence. With the number of sea arrivals to Lesbos quadrupling in June, MSF said the system for screening and identifying vulnerable people had broken down.

Rob Moloney, an Irish volunteer with Lesvos Solidarity, an open refugee camp which provides legal, medical and psychological support for refugees, says conditions on the island have deteriorated significantly since his last visit to Greece in December 2016.

Mr Moloney says there are increasing reports of torture and police brutality inside the Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, one of Greeces biggest, which he says is inaccessible to most NGOs. He has also witnessed brutal police tactics, including the use of teargas, against refugee protestors.

Despite EU attempts to stem the flow of asylum seekers arriving in Europe through the introduction of the EU-Turkey deal in March 2016, Mr Moloney sayss that hundreds continue to put their lives at risk each day by crossing the Aegean Sea.

This problem hasnt ended we had another boat with 100 people arrive this morning, Mr Moloney told The Irish Times, speaking on the phone from Lesbos. People are still coming here seeking refuge but as a result of the EU-Turkey deal theyre stuck on an island that many consider an open air prison.

Michael Raber, who co-founded the Swiss Cross Help charity with his wife after their holiday to Greece in 2015, says a lack of planning by the Greek government in its takeover of management of services will only further isolate the most vulnerable.

One of the main problems is identifying vulnerable people who were tortured, pregnant women, children and newborns. These people need to be identified because they have the right to leave the island.

In 2016 these people still hoped the European public would see them on TV and react. They believed that when the cameras showed up Europeans would do something. Now that illusion is gone. Europe is stripping these people of their freedom.

A spokesman for the European Commission said it was working to ensure no sector was left unfunded on the islands and that the needs of asylum seekers remained covered during the changeover in funding and management. He said the commission was aware of the Greek authorities use of teargas during riots at the Moria camp and that all staff, some children women and families were evacuated.

The commission and the EU agencies are working with the Greek authorities every day to support them to improve the reception conditions on the islands and to speed up the asylum procedures, he said. The commission has also provided substantial financial support to the Greek authorities to establish hotspots, provide accommodation, food, medical care, legal support and improve the security of the facilities on the islands.

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Refugees on Greek islands at risk as NGOs withdraw services - Irish Times

US Scientists Just Edited a Human Embryo for the First Time. (Yes, People Are Freaking Out.) – Mother Jones

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Heres what you need to know.

Kate HarloeJul. 28, 2017 1:35 PM

Ben Birchall/Associated Press

For the first known time in the United States, scientists used a gene-editing technique called CRISPR to modify early-stage human embryos, according to a report published Wednesday in MIT Technology Review.

Since the development several years ago ofCRISPR, a tool that allows scientists to change sequences of DNA within a cell, scientists have speculated about its potential to free families of genetic disease or stop the spread of other diseases like malaria, among other possibilities. But the technology also raises major ethical questions.

Heres a quick rundown of the latest breakthroughand how it could change the way we think about humanreproduction and, well, humans themselves.

How did the experiment work?

According to MIT Technology Reviews report, a team of researchers at Oregon Health & Science University, led by geneticist Shoukhrat Mitalipov, used CRISPR to correct disease-causing genes in human embryos. Its not yet clear whether these were viable embryosembryos that could, theoretically, grow into humans.

A wide range of diseaseslike Huntingtons, sickle-cell anemia, and Tay-Sachs, for exampleare caused by mutations in genes. Its also not clear what genes Mitalipov and his team edited in their experiment. But regardless, it appears that their study was successful in a couple ways: First, they reportedly edited a greater number of embryos than scientists had in previous studies. Second, Mitalipov and his team claim they did so without causing as manyerrors as previous scientists.

CRISPR has been used to edit human embryos a few times before; Chinese scientists did it in March. But in prior experiments, scientists ran into problems when CRISPR edits were taken up only by some of the cells in an embryo. This is called mosaicism:it means that the child that develops from the embryo could still inherit the disease that scientists tried to edit away.

According to MITs report, Mitalipov reduced the occurrence of mosaicism and seemed to largely avoid off-target edits (another kind of CRISPR error, wherein scientists accidentally alter a gene other than the one they aim to change).

Why is this important?

A couple reasons. First, its the only known attempt to use CRISPR to edit human embryos in the United States. More on the legality of that below.

Second, if this attempt really was successful, its big news for people whose families carry genetic disease. In theory, using this technique, scientists could edit not just our offspring, but our offsprings offspring. This is called human germline editing. When scientists edit the DNA in an embryo, the changes will theoretically be inherited by each successive generation, permanently fixing the germlinethe genetic inheritanceof a family.

This seems ethically complex.

Right. The ethics and laws surrounding human germline editingare murky. Scientists in favor of human germlinemodification often argue that the techniquewill help us reduce the occurrence of genetic diseases.

But criticsdisagree.This is just not needed for preventing inheritable disease, said Marcy Darnovsky, Executive Director of the Center for Genetics and Society. There are [other techniques that] can already be used safely to prevent the births of children with serious genetic diseases in almost every case. One example of such a technique is preimplantation diagnosis, commonly referred to as PGD, which allows parents to screen embryos for certain disease-causing genes before implanting them through in vitro fertilization (IVF). But its not always effectiveif someone carries two copies of a defective gene, for example, all their embryos would carry that gene, as well.

Darnovsky also worries about safety. Despite whatever the claims are about safety, [like] no mosaicism, we still dont know if that would mean its safe to create a new human being and anyone who tried it would be taking an enormous and unacceptable risk with that future persons life.

Another concern: Right now, scientists aresupposed to stick to editing disease-causing genes. But the technology opens up the possibility of editing genes for enhancementallowing parents to edit for certain kinds of physical and behavioral characteristics in their children. Darnovsky worries that this would usher in an era of genetic discrimination. That would be layering new forms of inequality and discrimination onto the ones we already live with, she said.

Is this legal?

Probably.In 2015, Congress passed a law forbidding the Food and Drug Administration from reviewing applications for germline editing of human embryos, meaning no clinical trials can move forward with FDA funding. We dont yet knowhow Mitalipov funded his project, but assuming it was funded privately, its perfectly legal.

That wouldnt be the case in many other countries. The Center for Genetics and Society reports that over 40 countries, including most with established biotech sectors, have established legal prohibitions on germline modification for human reproduction. An international treaty also prohibits it. The United States has no such policy.

Whats next?

Well know more once the study is released, but its worth noting that in February of this year, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy published a report that said human germline editing could be permitted in the future. It outlined criteria for germline editing, recommending that it only be used for disease prevention. The authors of the report wrote that editing for the enhancement of human traits and capacities should not be allowed at this time. But the report didnt eliminate the possibility of editing for enhancement in the future.

Reactions to the report were mixed. Some experts, like Darnovsky, feel that human germline modification should not be done for any purpose. But in an interview with Science, Eric Lander, president and founding director of MIT and Harvards Broad Institute, a genomics research center, said he thought the report struck the right balance of optimism and caution. They want to put friction tape on the slope so the slope isnt slippery, Lander said. Whether and for how long the tape will hold is an open question.

Mother Jones is a nonprofit, and stories like this are made possible by readers like you. Donate or subscribe to help fund independent journalism.

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US Scientists Just Edited a Human Embryo for the First Time. (Yes, People Are Freaking Out.) - Mother Jones

A race is underway to repair our hearing with medicine – TechCrunch

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On any bustling city street, in the middle of the afternoon, its probably the case that half or more people are wearing earbuds, while the rest are abiding the noise pollution all around them. No one thinks twice about it, either.

The reality is that from a very young age, our hearing is now under assault.Little wonder that one in eight people in the United States aged 12 years or older has hearing loss in both ears, based on standard hearing examinations. By age 65, one in three people has hearing loss.

The problem will only grow as more people flock to city centers. According to recent United Nations data, roughly 54 percent of the worlds population lives in urban areas right now, and that number is expected to hit 66 percent by 2050, meaning cities could take in another 2.5 billion people, accounting for population growth.

With any luck, in our lifetimes, potentially soon, even, some of this hearing loss will be fixable not with hearing aids or cochlear implants, which arent available to everyone and dont work for a high percentage of people anyway. Scientists think instead that the combination of human genetics and single cell expression profiling has brought us to the point where medicine can help fix hearing. In fact, there are right now a small number of outfits quietly racing to develop the first approved drug for hearing loss, and if, like us, you live with a playlist unspooling in your ears part of each day, you should be rooting for them to succeed.

Some are further along than others, as a recent Xconomy piece observed. San Diego-basedOtonomyhas a drug for swimmers ear that could be approved this year. Meanwhile,Auris Medical, a Swiss biotech whose tinnitus candidate last year failed to beat a so-called dummy therapy in a Phase 3 trial, is currently working on other hearing loss conditions.

Both Otonomy and Auris Medical are publicly traded, but they have peers (and rivals) in the still-private world. Two young startups to watch they have strong founders and top venture backing on their side areFrequency Therapeutics and Decibel Therapeutics, both based in Boston.

Decibel Therapeutics was incubated by the powerhouse investment firm and incubator Third Rock Ventures. Along with SROne (a venture fund that counts GlaxoSmithKline as its sole investor), Third Rock provided the company with $52 million to get started in 2015, and it more recently raised an undisclosed amount of funding from GV.

Anthony Philippakis, a venture partner at GV who led the deal, says one aspect of Decibel that excited him is its portfolio approach, with some of its focus on single cell genomics, some on human genetics, some on direct-to-patient clinical trials and some on generating phenotypic data about the hearing system. (Philippakis seems to have embraced a portfolio approach to his own work. In addition to working with GV, hes a cardiologist at Brigham and Womens Hospital, and the chief data officer at Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.)

As Decibels CEO, Steve Holtzman explains of the companys modus operandi: If you make investments in a broad discovery and translational medicine platform for drug discovery not just take a shot on goal with a single drug or assay you have a better chance to dominate the space.

Indeed, Holtzman who is focused first on hearing loss in millennials but who has ambitions to tackle hearing loss across the age spectrum says Decibel is working on drugs to reduce against drug toxicity [which can cause hearing loss], drugs to repair hair cells [in the inner ear] , drugs that are looking at other aspects of hearing that may involve the [central nervous system], and drugs focused on regeneration [versus just cellular repair].

Our play is much broader than that of any other firm, adds Holtzman, who has worked in the biotech industry for roughly 30 yearsand helped co-found the company with Third Rock.

Holtzman doesnt mention Frequency Therapeutics specifically, but its probably no coincidence that Frequency which recently raised $32 million in Series A led by CoBro Ventures, an investment firm formed by tech entrepreneur Marc Cohen and his brother Alain is taking a rather different approach.

The vision for the company started three years ago, says CEO David Lucchino. Bob Langer, a renowned biomedical engineer at MIT, had teamed up with peer Jeffrey Karp of Harvard Medical school on research showing that cells in the inner ear theyre called progenitor cells, and each of us is born with a fixed number of them could potentially be manipulated to create new inner ear cells.

Why thats important: these inner ear hair cells absorb sound and convert it to electrical impulses.

Frequencys lead program is focused on treating chronic hearing loss by regenerating cochlear hair cells with combinations of easily made drug molecules. But one challenge, among many, is whether this growth can happen in vivo. Why no one yet knows: Langer and Karps earlier findings involved human cochlear tissue that had been removed from a 40-year-old, whod had to have it removed in order for surgeons to get to a tumor.

Though the researchers witnessed an encouraging response from the tissue after dosing it with drugs, shooting medicine directly into someones ear and getting it to grow new cells is a giant leap from that starting point. Lucchino acknowledges, too, that determiningwhat amount of medicine to inject, or how often to inject it, would present a whole new host of other obstacles to overcome.

Given the various unknowns, its perhaps no surprise that Lucchino who worked as a venture capitalist with Polaris Partners before founding an earlier biosciences company 10 years ago says Frequency plans to focus on more than hearing eventually.

Its our first focus, but we view ourselves as a next-generation regenerative medicine player. And hearing is a wonderful place for us to start.

Either way, Frequency might find encouragement in other initiatives that are making meaningful strides. For example, two projects similarly involving endogenous cells (meaning already present in the body), are now in clinical development at the Swiss company Novartis.

The programs which came out of the small-molecule regenerative program of Scripps Research Institute of La Jolla, Calif. are focused on other areas, including treating multiple sclerosis and gastrointestinal problems. Some academics see the approach as potentially very powerful, however. If only it works. Stay tuned.

The rest is here:

A race is underway to repair our hearing with medicine - TechCrunch

Scientists Crispr the First Human Embryos in the US (Maybe) – WIRED

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As powerful as the gene-editing technique Crispr is turning out to beresearchers are using it to make malaria-proof mosquitoes , disease-resistant tomatoes, live bacteria thumb drives , and all kinds of other crazy stuffso far US scientists have had one bright line: no heritable modifications of human beings.

On Wednesday, the bright line got dimmer. MIT Technology Review reported that, for the first time in the US, a scientist had used Crispr on human embryos.

Behind this milestone is reproductive biologist Shoukhrat Mitalipov, the same guy who first cloned embryonic stem cells in humans. And came up with three-parent in-vitro fertilization . And moved his research on replacing defective mitochondria in human eggs to China when the NIH declined to fund his work. Throughout his career, Mitalipov has gleefully played the role of mad scientist, courting controversy all along the way.

Yesterdays news was no different. Editing viable human embryos is, if not exactly a no-no, at least controversial. Mitalipov and his colleagues at Oregon Health and Science University fertilized dozens of donated human eggs with sperm known to carry inherited disease-related mutations, according to the Tech Review report. At the same time, they used Crispr to correct those mutations. The team allowed the embryos to develop for a few days, and according to the original and subsequent reports a battery of tests revealed that the resulting embryos took up the desired genetic changes in the majority of their cells with few errors. Mitalipov declined to comment, saying the results were pending publication next month in a prominent scientific journal.

Big if true, as the saying goes. Mitalipovs group never intended to implant the eggs into a womb, but the embryos were clinical quality and probably could have survived implantation. That makes this only the second time scientists anywhere have edited viable embryosif thats indeed what Mitalipov did. Maybe this news is important enough to make it to the popular press without a peer-reviewed, published paper, but without one its impossible to be definitive on what Mitalipov actually did versus what hes claiming to have done.

Lets say its all real. Is it creepy? Maybe. But its also legalat least in Oregon, where embryo research is kosher as long as it doesnt involve federal funding. Officials at OHSU confirmed that the work took place there, and that it met the universitys Institutional Review Board criteria for safeguarding the rights and welfare of subjects involved in human researchpresumably the donors of the eggs and sperm, in this case. No one on the outside knows which exact genetic tweaks the researchers actually made or how safe the procedure was. Tech Review was light on details.

That lack of transparency could turn into a real problem. These are special cells and they should have special considerations given to them if youre going to Crispr them, says Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell researcher at UC Davis who wrote a book on designer babies called GMO Sapiens . Knoepfler worries that incautious work like this could lead to political backlash against Crispr more broadly, like what happened to stem cell research in the 2000s under George W. Bush. We dont have an unlimited amount of time to talk about these things and figure them out, Knoepfler says. This stuff is moving at warp speed and we need to get our act together on establishing guidelines that are much clearer about what is OK and what isnt.

Not that scientists havent tried. In February the National Academy of Sciences produced a report with its first real guidelines for Crispr research. It did not go so far as to place a moratorium on gene editing of the human germlinemodifications that a persons offspring could inheritthough it did suggest limitations. Scientists are only supposed to edit embryos to prevent a baby from inheriting a serious genetic disease, and only if the doctors meet specific safety and ethical criteria, and if the parents have no other options.

Those obstacles arent insurmountable, and a particularly slippery slope winds between them. At the Aspen Ideas Festival last month, UC Berkeley biologist Jennifer Doudna , one of the people who discovered Crispr, stressed the need for a unified policy on germline editing before scientists really start doing it. Once that begins, I think it will be very hard to stop, she said. Itll be very hard to say, Ill do this thing but not that thing. And at that point, who decides?

In the US, itll probably be the federal government. Congress has already banned federal funding for the human testing of gene-editing techniques that could produce modified babies. That provision is tucked into an appropriations rider that has to be renewed each year, so its an annually moving target. Congress has also barred the US Food and Drug Administration from even considering clinical trials of embryo editing. But even if those laws did change, the FDAs approval process for these kinds of technologies is among the strictest in the world. They would require years and years of animal studies before the first test embryo could conceivably be conceived.

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The UK Just Green-Lit Crispr Gene Editing in Human Embryos

For this to be something other than just a reckless person doing something crazy, were looking at least a decade and maybe more of safety testing, says Hank Greely, a law professor and bioethicist at Stanford. In countries with laxer laws, it could happen soonerlike, say, China , where scientists have reported three attempts at using Crispr to modify human embryos.

The first two studies used genetically defective embryos that could never come to term, but the most recent, published in March, used viable embryos. And while all three studies produced mixed results, Crispr was most successful at repairing faulty genes in the normal embryos. Experiments are also moving forward in Sweden and the UK that use Crispr to knock out different genes in viable embryos to study effects on development.

Still, dont panic . Modifying embryos that are never going to be implanted is not close to the boundary, Greely says. Doing it in embryos you might want to implant is real close to the boundary and shouldnt be done without any discussion. But thats not what Mitalipov did. Maybe. All the institutions apparently involved with the research refused to comment citing an embargo, which would make sense if there were an embargo to break. There wasn't, according to Antonio Regalado, who covers genetics for Tech Review but didn't write this story. Consider it instead just a good new-fashioned leak.

If you think of viable-embryo Crispr research as a journey and not a destination, right now scientists all over the world are on the same path. But at some point the road will fork: Someone will implant an engineered embryo into a human womb. The work coming out of China and Mitalipov's lab has this implied assumption that someday it will wind up being used heritably in humans, Knoepfler says. And I think that requires a unique obligation for being more open about it. Mitalipov's research is not a good start.

Continued here:

Scientists Crispr the First Human Embryos in the US (Maybe) - WIRED