Wipro arm signs strategic alliance with Israel Aerospace Industries – ETtech.com

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Coinciding with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Israel, Wipro Infrastructure Engineering on Wednesday announced a strategic alliance with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to make composite aerostructure parts and assemblies in India for the global market.

"We will set up a manufacturing facility in Bengaluru with IAI to make composite structures for global aircraft makers and tier-1 suppliers as per the defence offset guidelines of the Indian government," said the subsidiary of Wipro Enterprises Ltd.

The Bengaluru-based Wipro Enterprises is a global hydraulic solutions provider and a separate entity of the global software major's group. The facility would also supply the parts to IAI for meeting its compliance requirements.

As aerospace industry is strategic, the subsidiary had set up an aerospace actuator making facility in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) at Devanahalli on the city's outskirts in 2013.

In 2016, it acquired H.R. Givon Ltd, an Israeli-based maker of metallic parts and assemblies for the aerospace industry. "The acquisition of Givon helped us to expand our product portfolio in aerostructure parts and assemblies, global footprint and forge customer relationships," recalled the statement.

The Kiryat Bialik-based Givon has three manufacturing plants, including two in Israel and one in the US. "The partnership with IAI will strengthen our presence in the aerospace sector and standing for global OEMs and help us explore opportunities in key markets," said Wipro Engineering Chief Executive Pratik Kumar in a statement.

IAI's commercial aircraft group General Manager Shlomi Karako said the partnership with Wipro arm was important as India was a major strategic customer of the Israeli aeropace and defence company.

"We will assist Wipro in building its composite facility with our knowhow and technologies as part of the Indian government's 'Make in India' initiative and expand it later," said Karako in the statement.

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Wipro arm signs strategic alliance with Israel Aerospace Industries - ETtech.com

StandardAero Aims to Buy Airbus’ Vector Aerospace – Rotor & Wing International

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Vector Aerospace wiring. Photo courtesy of Vector

StandardAero plans to buy Airbus Vector Aerospace in a yet-to-be-valued transaction that could combine the operations of the global maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) service providers, the latter company said today.

Scottsdale, Arizona-headquartered StandardAero said it has entered into exclusive negotiations with Airbus to buy Vector, which the parent has been working to sell for more than 18 months. StandardAero said Vector produced revenues of $704.8 million in 2016. The exclusive negotiations are between StandardAero Aviation Holdings and Airbus SE.

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StandardAero said any acquisition deal would be subject to consultations with a workers council and customary approvals like regulatory clearances.

In June 2011, Vector was acquired by Eurocopter Holdings, a subsidiary of aerospace and defense giant (and Airbus predecessor) EADS for a reported price tag of more than $600 million. Moves following the acquisition included the transfer of EADS engine MRO holding, SECA, to Vector Aerospace. But Airbus has been streamlining and consolidating its operations, selling businesses to focus on core aerospace and defense activities. Vector has been on the list of operations to be sold since late 2015.

A successful takeover would make StandardAero an MRO giant. It is owned by the private equity firm Veritas Capital, which acquired the company two years ago for a reported price of $2.1 billion. StandardAero employs more than 3,500 in a dozen major facilities in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and has 13 more regional service and support centers. Its services include MRO for rotorcraft and aircraft engines, auxiliary power units and components, major airframe alterations and other services, FAA-authorized avionics capabilities, comprehensive engineering services, custom exterior and interior aircraft design, completion and paint.

Vector employs about 2,200 people in 22 locations across Canada, the U.S., the U.K., France, Kenya, South Africa, Australia and Singapore. It provides support for turbine engines, components and fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft.

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Dancers prepare to shake it for a purpose – The Advocate

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The nine dancers who signed up for Dancing for a Cause are fine-tuning their dance steps and making the last-minute adjustments to their costumes.

They'll bring their sambas, jives and rumbas to the stage 7 p.m. Saturday at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center 4-H Building.

The event raises money for the Arc of East Ascension, a nonprofit that provides services for disabled residents in the parish.

The Arc Executive Director Norma Dukes said the dancers have worked hard to prepare a great show.

"We want to encourage people to come out and see for themselves, said event organizer Sharon Morris. "It's all about fun and supporting the Arc of East Ascension.

Dancing for a Cause is modeled after the hit ABC show "Dancing with the Stars."

The lineup includes Jackie Baumann, chief engineer with the city of Gonzales; Trevor Gautreaux, assistant vice president and branch manager of Neighbors FCU; Jackie Tisdell, public information officer for Ascension Parish public schools; Terri Kaaihue, a community liaison with Life Source Hospice; Tasheba York Leblanc, owner and manager of Triple Threat Dance Studio; Cheryl Mercedes, WAFB anchor; Malcolm Carter, plant manager at The Scotts Company; Craig A. Stevens, owner of Genesis 360 Construction; and Louis LeFebvre III, dentist and owner of Main Street Dental Care.

Ascension Clerk of Court Bridget Hannah and Ascension schools Superintendent David Alexander will emcee the fundraiser. Sheriff Jeff Wiley is the honorary chairman.

Special performances will be provided by Center Stage Performing Arts Academy, Triple Threat Dance studio and by dancers from the Arc.

The doors open at 6 p.m., and the show starts at 7 p.m.

It's not too late to pick up tickets. Tickets are $30 in advance at the Arc's office, 1122 S.E. Ascension Complex Blvd., Gonzales. Call (225) 621-2000. Tickets will be available at the door for $35 and VIP seats are $75 in advance and $80 at the door.

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Lock Your Meds campaign combats prescription abuse among youths – The Advocate

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A media campaign launched by Ascension public schools and Capital Area Human Services is raising awareness of prescription drug abuse among teens.

Lock Your Meds is part of a national campaign including posters, a parent brochure, a public service announcement for radio and television and social media ads, a news release said. Local pharmacies and doctors offices are participating in the campaign, created by the National Family Partnership.

National data indicates 6.5 million people age 12 and older have abused prescription drugs, and 66 percent of youths older than 12 who abuse such drugs obtain them from friends and family, a news release said.

"Our latest data shows 4 percent of 10th-graders and 6 percent of 12th-graders in Ascension Parish admitted to abusing prescription drugs. It is even happening to 1 percent of sixth-graders right here in our community," Ascension public schools Superintendent David Alexander said. "The goal of this campaign is to bring awareness to parents and guardians about this problem and to encourage them to limit access to prescription drugs in their homes."

Learn more about the campaign and download materials at apsb.org/page/lock-your-meds. Those interested in partnering with Ascension Public Schools on the campaign can call Coordinator of Student Services Linda Lamendola at (225) 391-7272.

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Ascension Athletics for July 6, 2017 – The Advocate

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Gauthier & Amedee loses to Southland 2-0

In American Legion baseball, Gauthier & Amedee lost a hard-fought game to the Houma-based squad 2-0. The loss to the Southland Hogs forces the Wombats to compete in this weeks eight-team Southeast Regional at Kirsch Rooney Stadium in New Orleans. The top two teams from this regional will return to Kirsch Rooney the following week to compete in the American Legion state tournament.

Gauthier & Amedee (17-4-1) and Southland (11-4) finished district play with 3-3 records against each other that forced a winner-take-all contest with very similar results as the regular season. The game pitted G&As Dwain Guice, of St. Amant, against Southlands Gabe Gravois, of E.D. White. The two pitchers were locked in a scoreless pitchers duel throughout five innings.

Gravois only allowed three base runners until the bottom of the fifth inning. The Wombats Preston Thrash, of East Ascension, lined a single to left field and Dutchtowns Cameron Crawford followed with a two-out single. Southland went to their bullpen and Blake Freeman came in and struck out EAs Noah Fontenot to end the inning.

The Hogs took advantage of a fielding error in the top of the sixth inning to score their two runs. A sacrifice bunt was successful and intentional walk by the Wombats put runners on first and second. The next pitch was a wild pitch that moved the runners to second and third base. Gravois (2 for 3) used his bat as well as his arm and stroked a two-run single up the middle just out of the reach of a diving Thrash with the infield playing in.

Donaldsonvilles 9-and-under Cal Ripken All Stars went on another tear and captured the state championship last weekend in St. Charles. Donaldsonville went 4-0 in the tournament and previously won the district tourney without a loss and stayed unbeaten during tournament play.

Donaldsonville scorched East Feliciana 16-2 in the finals and outscored its opponents 54-15 in the four games they played in the tournament. Donaldsonville last won the 9-and-under state championship in 2011.

Donaldsonville's Camille LeBoeuf was selected the state MVP. Congratulations to the players and coaches on a successful season. Special thanks to the parents and fans for their support during the season.

When I think back to my teen days, the words surfs up first make me think of folks on the West Coast, especially California, heading to the beach to catch some waves. The Beach Boys come to mind as well. Heck, they own nine of the top 100 surfing songs, including the all-time No. 1 hit, Surf City.

One of my favorite animated movies from 2007 is Surfs Up featuring Cody Maverick, a 17-year-old rock hopper penguin who has wanted to be a professional surfer ever since a visit from surf legend Zeke "Big Z" Topanga when he was a young teen. He entered a surfing competition that was held in Hawaii.

But really, when I hear the word surf, it brings an instant photo to my mind of the beach down at Grand Isle or Elmers Island. Clear and calm waters teeming with speckled trout, redfish, white trout and lots of unexpected species lures the angler who is not faint of heart.

With a little preparation and information one could enjoy a morning doing a little wade fishing, enjoying the outdoors and probably have the opportunity to catch a few fish for dinner. Well help you accomplish this if you read on.

Lets talk preparation first. A fishing license is needed, so if youre a resident or a visitor to Louisiana, visit wlf.louisiana.gov and you can get what you need online. Your feet need protecting, so a good pair of beach shoes is a must. There are inherent dangers anywhere you wade, so the shoes can keep you from a benign crab bite or a medical incident.

The beach is associated with swimsuits and shorts, but I prefer using long pants while wade fishing to protect my legs from incidental contact with gulf creatures. That is a personal preference. But pockets go a long way in bringing extra tackle with you. Too many trips back to the bank gets tiring and cuts down on fishing time.

A fishing shirt with pockets serves the same purpose as the pants: some protection and more storage in the pockets. Short sleeves are fine. Head cover is important as well, so anything from a ball cap to a wide-brim fishing hat will do. An enterprising angler will hang a few top water baits on the hats to add to their tackle package. Sunscreen all exposed skin; the water magnifies the suns rays, and theres no need to come out of the water cooked.

Now that were dressed for the occasion, lets get to the tools of war. Keep everything as simple as you can.

A medium spinning rod with a spinning reel and 12- to 15-pound test monofilament line is a good choice for the novice or less-experienced angler. Its easy to cast and will work in windy conditions. A bait caster is fine for the experienced angler and affords more accurate casts, although thats not usually a factor while fishing in open water.

Live or natural bait seems like a good tactic, and using it does offer some advantages to the range and amount of fish you catch. To me, the pitfalls outweigh the advantages. Live bait has to be kept alive. Floating bait buckets are readily available and reasonably priced, but keeping the shrimp, minnows or croakers alive is not so easy. You end up with lots of dead bait and some of it jumps out of your hand, gets away and the fish get a free meal.

Natural bait or dead bait (bait shrimp is the most popular) attracts many trash fish. Among them are hard head catfish that have poison in their fins and usually ends up in a hospital visit if you get stuck with one while trying to remove the fish and release it. The risk is just not worth it.

Artificial bait is the way I like to go. There are a lot fewer complications involved with this route in execution for wade fishing in the surf. The choice of types is a somewhat different matter, so well keep it as simple as we can.

Top water is one of my favorite methods to catch any fish. If youre making an early morning trip, theres no better way to get started than trying them on top. Get there right at daybreak to start your fishing before you even step into the water. Big specks like to hug the shore before sunrise to feast on the bait fish thats in the shallows.

The simplest rig that will be easy to cast, change lures and easy to remove the hook from the fish is a lead head jig. A 3/16- or 1/4-ounce, unpainted head is the best size to use and the range of plastic baits that you can fish with in almost unending.

Cocahoe minnows and sparkle beetles are the most popular.

Basic colors should be determined by water clarity. If the water is dingy, dark colors with a chartreuse tail will usually work the best. Black, purple or dark blue will work well under those conditions. As the water gets clearer, change to a color that is a little more translucent (see through) like avocado, smoke or glow.

The new, modern colors that are popular cant be figured out by name but they work. Electric chicken, new penny, opening night, chicken on a chain, blue moon, lemon/lime I guess you get the picture.

OK, weve gotten the right tackle, made a cast, and we got a feisty speckled trout on the end of the line. Hes shaking his head, trying to throw the hook. Im in the water, hes in the water how am I going to land it, and what will I do if I get it off the hook?

Holding the rod in one hand, then grabbing the fish with the other (which Ive tried) usually ends up with about a 98 percent loss rate. Invest in a reasonably priced trout net with a clip that attaches to a belt loop and has a retractable lanyard. You can stretch it out, dip the fish and it returns to your side for the next victim. Pliers are a must, as well. Removal of the hook or hooks will be impossible without them 50 percent of the time.

Long stringers with a float on one end are an option to store the fish until a trip to the shore is needed to ice them down. The only problem with this is fish dangling in the water that a fish a little farther up the food chain can find them and try to eat. My preference is a floating basket that has a long rope that can be attached to a belt loop. This results in less opportunity for other stuff to eat your catch.

South Louisiana offers three spots to wade fish without having a boat. All are located off of La. 1 South. Port Fourchon is the first spot on that route. It is not as easily accessed as the other two but that might afford a less crowded spot.

Next down the line is Elmers Island. This one is a state-owned land that is easily accessed by vehicle. Unless theres been some untimely weather, one could drive down the beach and pick your spot. Grand Isle is just down the road: 7 miles of well-kept beach with a state park at the end of the road.

I know this is a lot of information to take in and process, but this is it in a nutshell. Take one rod and reel youre comfortable with, a floating basket, a retractable lanyard net, a top water bait or two, a few jug heads and some plastic baits in assorted colors and youll be set for a great experience wading with the fish. It just doesnt get any better than that.

Lyle Johnson, a writer and host of the Ascension Outdoors cable TV show, covers sports and the outdoors for The Ascension Advocate. He can be contacted at reelman@eatel.net or ascension@theadvocate.com.

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Corporate Challenge on July 14 kicks off 20th annual Volunteer Ascension School Tools Drive – The Advocate

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Volunteer Ascensions 20th annual School Tools Drive kicks off July 14 with the Corporate Challenge.

All parish businesses, industry, organizations and local municipalities are challenged to collect and drop off school supplies or donations at the school bus in the EATEL Corp. parking lot at 406 E. Worthey Road in Gonzales from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. July 14.

Community members can drop off school supplies in Volunteer Ascension boxes in front of the Gonzales and Donaldsonville Walmart stores from 8 a.m. to noon July 15.

Each year, we are amazed at the way our community comes together to make this program such a huge success," said Sherry Denig, executive director of Volunteer Ascension. Its so heartwarming to even see young children placing bags of school supplies in a collection barrel. Even at their tender age, they get how important it is to help others.

Visit http://bit.ly/2u4CqWh for details and a list of needed school supplies. Donations can be made at http://bit.ly/1JxNh0v.

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Corporate Challenge on July 14 kicks off 20th annual Volunteer Ascension School Tools Drive - The Advocate

Hospital Impact: How Ascension is embracing the future of healthcare marketing – FierceHealthcare

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The healthcare sector is experiencing a pretty dramatic transformation. Healthcare reform, financing and reimbursement, and a trend toward consumerism are all shaping the way providers interact with consumers. Digitally driven consumers have inspired us to rethink the way we communicate and deliver care.

As we look to the future of healthcare marketing, the most notable transformation is the expansion of consumer options. Now more than ever, consumers have instant access to unlimited information about their choices, which heightens their expectations of us and our providers. As part of a national healthcare organization, Ascension is collaborating across our sites of care to provide responsive solutions and exceed our consumers expectations.

In the provider space, our research shows that patients value the services we provide both inside and outside our facilities. We are delivering care through processes that are digital, analytical and data-driven. From a marketing perspective, we are messaging to consumers where they are to achieve targeted, intentional and measurable results.

RELATED:Lessons from the Oscars about marketing to patients

As we inform communities of our services, we must deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. We are using grassroots research to develop predictive analytics to fully understand the populations we serve and anticipate their needs before they walk through our door. This approach considers more than just brand awareness, how providers have historically marketed their services. This change pushes us to think bigger than billboard and newspaper adswe have to be visible and available to our patients even before they need us.

As we work to prioritize digital access points, we recognize the importance of collaboration. In the past, each Ascension marketing team operated independently from one other with their own creative design, media buying, digital and social media functions. In this format, it was challenging to compare data across markets. We were missing the benefits of streamlined analytics to provide insight into whats working.

We have come together as one marketing community to support our clinical and operational integration. Throughout our One Ascension Journey, we are sharing best practices across our markets, and strengthening our brand connection and awareness nationwide. Collaboration and integration across markets includes establishing partnerships to standardize our approach. Weve implemented one CRM tool across all of our systems, and were in the process of redesigning our websites on one content management platform. This consolidation of resources creates a more consistent experience for users accessing our web entry points and allows for uniform data analysis.

Andwere putting even more resources together to better understand our consumers. We built consumer research focus groups to identify the variables that drive patients to our care sites. As a system, we needed to take off our marketing and clinical hats and see our hospitals through the consumer lens, specific to each market. The research spoke volumes. Patients appreciate that our providers are engaged and dont just diagnosethey listen, too. The populations we serve value physician dialogue to create a personalized care plan.

Were excited to be running our first-ever national campaign focused on primary care. Based on consumer insight, we created our campaign to hone in on how our caregivers take the time to understand you as a whole personnot you as a patient. We know our patients are multifaceted, and their healthcare needs are not one-dimensional. Youll see this theme in our new campaign.

This is an entirely new approach that we wouldnt have considered a few years ago, but were evolving in response to the dynamic needs of consumers in the digital age. Our shift from traditional marketing tactics to digital, data-driven strategies is proving successful, and were excited to continue developing this new marketing model.

Nick RagoneEsq. is senior vice president and chief marketing and communications officer for Ascension, the nations largest nonprofit health system and the worlds largest Catholic health system.

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Kennedy Space Center prepares for Pence – WESH Orlando

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

The vice president's visit to the Kennedy Space Center Thursday may offer the clearest look yet at how NASA may change under the Trump administration.

Setup is underway for Vice President Mike Pences first Kennedy Space Center visit.

As the head of the newly re-established National Space Council, Pence will be the presidents point man for the space exploration program. Pence could provide a window into where space exploration is headed under the new administration, when he speaks to Kennedy Space Center employees Thursday.

Its a historic venue, one big enough to hold thousands.

Already, major changes are underway for space workers.

The administration has canceled NASAs big, centerpiece mission, a trip to an asteroid.

With a gigantic new rocket under development, NASA now has no official near-term goal.

Under discussion though, is a long ride for astronauts past the moon, possibly to build an outpost or small space station beyond Earths nearest neighbor. Pence could provide some hints as he tours KSC.

Trumps first budget proposes a small cut to NASA and eliminates some of its climate change work.

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Kennedy Space Center prepares for Pence - WESH Orlando

Nanotech can make biopesticides more effective – APNLive – APN Live

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By Sunderarajan Padmanabhan

The use of eco-friendly biocontrol agents as an alternative to chemical pesticides is prevalent in some farming communities. A group of scientists have now shown that it is possible to substantially enhance efficacy of such biocontrol agents by converting them into nanoparticles.

Researchers at the University of Agricultural Sciences at Raichur in Karnataka have developed a new technique to do so. They have converted secretion of a bacterium, Photorhabdusluminescens, into nanoparticles and found that its efficacy improved significantly. The bacterium is used as a biocontrol agent against a wide range of crop pests like mite, aphid, and mealy bug. The nano form of biocontrol agent has been tested against two sucking pests of cotton Tetranychusmacfarlanei, a species of mite and Aphis gossypii, a species of aphid.

Reporting their findings in a recent issue of scientific journal Current Science, the researchers noted, High mortality coupled with quick action emphasises the potential of nanotechnology in enhancing the pathogenicity of a microbial pesticide. It was found that very low concentration of nano-particulated secretion could kill pests as against unprocessed secretion. This means farmers would be required to use very small quantities of biopesticide in its nano form.

Cellular secretions of the bacterium Photorhabdusluminescens have been used as pesticide against a wide range of insects. The bacterium lives within the body of a nematode called Heterorhabditis in a symbiotic relationship with the nematode. It secretes an array of toxins and enzymes.The secretions have a wide range of insecticidal actions against both sucking and chewing anthropod pests of agricultural crops. Farmers spray solutions of the bacteria on crops but it is not as efficacious as synthetic chemicals.

Scientists converted bacterial secretions into nanoparticles using a multi-stage process involving culturing, centrifuge, ultrasonic assisted atomizing and hot air-assisted vacuum process. The resultant product is dry powder.

We have proved that it is possible to substantially enhance the efficacy of biopesticides. We need to conduct more studies to figure what is the best form in which it could be delivered to the users: whether it should be as a powder or a solution or in some other form, said A Prabhuraj, one of the scientists involved in the study.

The research team included Ramesh A Kulkarni, J Ashoka and SG Hanchinal of the Department of Agricultural Entomology and SharanagoudaHiregoudar of the Department of Processing and Food Technology at the Raichur University. (India Science Wire)

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Masdar nanotech promises to bring on the rain! – Green Prophet

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Dr. Linda Zou is leading the project. A professor of chemical and environmental engineering, she is one of the first scientists to explore nanotechnology to enhance a cloud seeding materials ability to produce rain. By filing a patent, the team is paving a way to commercialize their discovery, and aligning with Masdar Institutes aim to position the UAE as a world leader in science and tech, specifically in the realm of environmental sustainability.

It is a significant step towards achieving greater water security in the UAE. Rainfall enhancement via cloud seeding can potentially increase precipitation by 10% to 30%, helping to refresh groundwater reserves, boost agricultural production, and reduce the countrys heavy reliance on water produced by energy-intensive seawater desalination.

Using nanotechnology to accelerate water droplet formation on a typical cloud seeding material has never been researched before. It is a new approach that could revolutionize the development of cloud seeding materials and make them significantly more efficient and effective, said Dr. Zou.

Rain enhancement leverages cloud physics, atmosphere physics, and topographical studies to stimulate clouds to produce rain. Zou and her team complement such work through their focus on the cloud seeding material itself.

Conventional cloud seeding materials are tiny particles such as salt crystals, dry ice and silver iodide. A few microns (one-thousandth of a millimeter) in size, these act as the core around which cloud water condenses, stimulating water droplet growth. Once the air in the cloud reaches a certain level of saturation, it can no longer hold in that moisture, and rain falls. Cloud seeding essentially mimics what naturally occurs in clouds, but enhances the process by adding particles that can stimulate and accelerate the condensation process.

According to a Masdar Institute press release, Dr. Zou (pictured above, left) and her collaborators, Dr. Mustapha Jouiad, Principal Research Scientist in Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department, postdoctoral researcher Dr. Nabil El Hadri and PhD student Haoran Liang, explored ways to improve the process of condensation on a pure salt crystal by layering it with a thin coating of titanium dioxide.

The coating measures around 50 nanometers, more than one thousand times thinner than a human hair. Miniscule in size, the coating has a massive effect on the salts condensation efficiency. Titanium dioxide is a hydrophilic photocatalyst, which means that when in contact with water vapor in the cloud, it helps to initiate and sustain the water vapor condensation on the nanoparticles surface, accelerating formation of large water droplets hence, rain.

Zous team found that their coating improved salts ability to absorb and condense water vapor by a hyndredfold compared to an uncoated salt crystal. Armed with the materials to increase in condensation efficiency, research will now move on to field testing.

The team was one of the inaugural recipients of a US$5 MIL grant from the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science last year, a program established to increase rain enhancement research in the UAE and arid and semi-arid regions across the world. That grant will fund another two years of research.

Awardees of the Programs Second Cycle grant of US$ 5 million were announced Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2017, and include teams from the University of Reading (UK), the Finnish Meteorological Institute, and the American firm Spec Inc.

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My grandfather was a death row doctor. He tested psychedelic drugs on Texas inmates. – Texas Tribune

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Editor's note:In this special contribution to The Texas Tribune, Austin writer Ben Hartman tells the story of his search for the truth about his late grandfather, a prison psychiatrist on Texas' death row who performed little-known medical experiments on inmates in the 1960s.

Eusebio Martinez was polite even happy as he entered the death chamber that August night in Huntsville in 1960. He may not have understood his time was up.

A few years earlier, Martinez had been convicted of murdering an infant girl whose parents had left her sleeping in their car while they visited a Midland nightclub. Hed been ruled feeble-minded by multiple psychiatrists and had to be shown how to get into the electric chair.

As he was strapped in, a priest leaned in and coached him to say gracias and a simple prayer. Just before the first bolt knifed through his brain, Martinez grinned and waved at the young Houston doctor who would declare him dead a few minutes later.

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That doctor was my grandfather.

For three years at the end of his life, Dr. Lee Hartman worked as a resident physician and psychiatrist at Huntsvilles Wynne Unit. From 1960 to 1963, he witnessed at least 14 executions as presiding physician, his signature scrawled on the death certificates of the condemned men. All of them died in the electric chair Ol Sparky a grisly method that left flesh burned and bodies smoking in the death chamber as my grandfather read their vital signs.

I had always known from my father that his dad, who died before I was born, worked for the prison system as a psychiatrist.

But I had no idea that hed worked in the death chamber, witnessing executions. Or that hed been involved in testing psychedelics on prisoners to see if drugs like LSD, mescaline and psilocybin could treat schizophrenia. Or that hed been hospitalized repeatedly during his lifelong struggle with depression.

And I didnt know the truth about his death at age 48, when he was found on the staircase of his house in Houstons exclusive River Oaks neighborhood.

My obsession with my grandfathers life grew from my fathers sudden death from a stroke at his Austin home in 2014. Last summer, I came back to Austin after 14 years overseas and began searching for clues about my grandfather in the state archives, in Huntsville and in boxes of old family keepsakes kept by my aunts.

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I reported on crime and police and prisons for several years as a journalist in Israel, and now I wanted to investigate a mystery in my own family tree. I wanted to learn about the man whose story had always seemed more literary than real a Jewish orphan from the Deep South who fought in World War II, sang in operas and became a successful doctor before tragedy cut the story short.

I wanted to know the man my father was named for, and to use the search as a way to beat a path through my grief over my own fathers death.

Through my grandfathers personal papers, newspaper clippings and long-buried state records, I found a man brilliant, thoughtful and sensitive who witnessed great human drama and suffering in the Death House, and in the process became a determined opponent of capital punishment. He outlined his thoughts in a collection of diary entries and a 19-page handwritten treatise I found in my grandmothers old keepsakes.

The death penalty, he wrote in 1962, is irreparable.

My grandfather was born in Greenville, Miss., in 1916, one of two twin boys placed in foster care after their father died of yellow fever and their mother moved away.

The boys ended up at the New Orleans Jewish Childrens Home and attended the elite Newman School down the street, just like hundreds of other Jewish orphans of their day.

My grandfather and his brother went on to graduate from Louisiana State Universitys medical school. Along the way, my grandfather trained as an opera singer, met my grandmother, started a family, served in the Army Air Corps as a flight surgeon during World War II, then returned home to his family and started his medical career. For a decade he worked as a small-town general practitioner in Louisiana and East Texas.

In 1957, he moved to Houston and enrolled in the Baylor College of Medicine to study psychiatry, a major mid-life career move that, according to my father, was partly motivated by my grandfathers desire to understand his own battles with depression.

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Within a few years, he had gone to work inHuntsvilleas part of a contingent of Baylor College of Medicine psychiatrists sent to the Wynne Treatment Center, a diagnostic unit for mentally ill inmates that had opened the previous year.

It was part of an agreement between Baylor, the Houston State Psychiatric Institute and the state prison system: The schools provided psychiatrists who could treat and counsel troubled inmates, and the prison supplied inmates for experiments.

For three years my grandfather shuffled back and forth betweenHuntsvilleand Houston, where hed established a part-time psychiatry practice in Bellaire and in his spare time sang on stage as part of the chorus of the Houston Grand Opera.

Early in my research, I was searching an online newspaper archive for my grandfathers obituary when an unrelated article stopped me.

The United Press International wire report from May 1962 is headlined: Stickney Dies In Electric Chair.

At 12:26 a.m. Stickney was strapped into the chair. He made no last statement, so to speak. Three charges of 1,600 volts charged through his body. At 12:30 a.m. Dr. Lee Hartman, the prison doctor, pronounced him dead.

Twenty executions were carried out inHuntsvillein the three years my grandfather worked there, and he wrote about the 14 he presided over.

He has the same erudite, wordy writing style of my father, peppered with historical references and written in handwriting eerily similar to that of his son. Each entry begins with the date and the dead mans name, race, crime and victim. In small print above the list, he wrote 1500 volts X 15 sec 200 volts X 30 sec 1000 volts X 15 sec 200 volts X 30 sec a morbid list of the fatal series of shocks in the death chamber.

All 14 of them seem to have had an effect on him, but none more than the execution of 24-year-old Howard Stickney, charged in May 1958 with the murder of Clifford and Shirley Barnes in Galveston. Stickney fled the country, only to be arrested the next month in Canada and extradited to Texas, where his youth, his flight from justice and his fight to clear his name made him an instant cause clbre.

His death row file at the state archives is testament to his celebrity letters and postcards from admirers, clergymen and students at the University of Texas Law School who filed appeals on his behalf.

My grandfathers diaries are full of entries about Stickney. On Nov. 10, 1961, he wrote Howard Stickney tonite followed by an entry further down the page detailing the throng of reporters crowded outside the death chamber.

Stickney in shroud before door to execution room and we were all on our way to execution chamber when phone rang, the entry reads. Apparently a complete surprise to Stickney, who broke down, prayed and wept.

The call, at 12:32 a.m., came from a judge who had granted a 10-day stay of execution.

My grandfathers diary entries at times combined the grisly and the mundane. On April 18, 1962, he detailed the execution of Adrian Johnson, a 19-year-old black man convicted of murder who asked Is there a hood for my head? before he was strapped in.

Johnson said Hi, how ya doin to one of the prison guards in the room before the first shock came through, causing his head to smoke and leaving 3rd degree burns on his leg, the entry says.

Above this entry he wrote in all caps SEDER? perhaps remembering plans for the Passover meal that night.

The horrors of execution by electric chair dart across his pages in language that is sparse and direct. Such as in the case of Howard Draper, Jr. Negro rape of white woman - heart beat 5 min. after final shock, or George Williams, a young black man executed for murder, whose heart beat two minutes after the last shock.

In November 1961, he witnessed the execution of Fred Leach a 40-year-old schizophrenic who he examined and diagnosed as severely disturbed. My grandfathers assessment of Leachs sanity appears on a bench warrant contained in the condemned mans file in the state archives, but it wasnt enough to spare Leachs life.

He witnessed back-to-back executions in 1962 on frozen January nights. And the entries in his diary and the treatise became longer and more detailed, revealing a sense of growing anger and distress.

First came Charles Louis Forgey (only white man I know of executed for rape rare) put to death on Jan. 10, 1962, on a 14-degree night that saw Huntsvilles streets covered in ice and sleet.

My grandfather wrote that Forgey was hyperventilating so greatly that he staggered before sitting in chair Few tears on face as he entered room. Said wait a minute before gag placed in mouth and then said God bless you all after being strapped into chair. 1st shock at 12:02 pronounced dead (by me) at 12:06 very livid 2nd and 3rd degree burns on scalp and left leg and much smoke, more than usual from crown (of head) possibly due to cold. Crown still hot on roller after death. Everyone in good humor and rather jocular.

The next was Roosevelt Wiley, a 29-year-old black man convicted of murder, who was electrocuted on the coldest day in 25 years.

Lord bless all these men, Wiley said, as he prayed while being strapped into the chair, and moments later: Forgive them God for what they are doing, and God I pray that someday this will be over.

Finally, in late May 1962, comes the diary entry on Stickneys last night on earth. The newsmen were kept outside the chamber; my grandfather was one of several men inside with Stickney, including a priest who visited with the condemned man as he smoked a cigarette in his final moments.

I kidded about tranquilizers I had in my packet and he asked for some if I make it. At 12:24, warden returned no stay, Stickney quietly sat in chair. 1st shock at 12:25 dead at 12:30.

In a margin above the entry, he wrote: Dignity and grace, shook hands with several guards while waiting, didnt want to take coat off.

After the execution, my grandfather consented to interviews by TV and radio stations before making his way home to try and sleep, with the aid of a sedative.

Very shook up and angry over whole cruel mess, he wrote.

In the 19-pagetreatise, my grandfather laid out arguments for and against the death penalty and made it clear where he stood.

The death penalty has a brutalizing and sadistic influence on the community that deliberately kills a member of its group, he wrote, adding that it allows law-abiding citizens to vicariously indulge in vicious and inhumane fantasies under socially-acceptable guises.

The death penalty is not applied impartially. There is such surfeit of these cases that to mention them would be redundant. The poor defendant is obviously at a disadvantage and frequently receives the extreme penalty while the wealthier accused escapes a prison term. There is well known discrimination on racial or class lines.

He ends with a rhetorical flourish: It behooves us all to remember that we are all singly and collectively responsible for the execution of capital offenders and we should solemnly ponder the striking words of [English poet] John Donne Any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.

In the photo, a man lies strapped to a gurney, with wires running from his head and body to a large, table-sized machine covered in knobs and switches. A heavyset doctor with glasses stands next to the foot of the gurney, observing the readings on the machine.

The caption reads: Bodily functions of insane convict are measured. Dr. Lee Hartman, Baylor Psychiatrist, injected inmate with LSD.

The photo accompanied a Houston Chronicle article from May 15, 1960, headlined, New Drug That Causes Insanity Used on Prisoners Who Volunteer.

The article is a fascinating window into a time before LSD became synonymous with hippies, when it was being explored as a boon to mankind in the words of the newspaper reporter and even the Texas prison board apparently saw potential therapeutic benefits to using hallucinogens on problematic and troubled inmates.

Dr. C.A. Dwyer, a prison psychiatrist atHuntsvilleand a colleague of my grandfathers, is quoted in the article saying that the tests were meant to figure out what part of the brain LSD affected, in hopes that it would lead them to the location where mental illness also resided. If LSD mimicked mental illness, the doctors reasoned, then finding a drug to counteract its effects might also lead to what Dwyer described as a vaccine for schizophrenia. They used a machine called a physiograph, which recorded prisoners brain waves, heartbeat, electrical skin resistance, pulse, blood pressure and respiration.

Dwyer said they would need tests from thousands of subjects to complete their work, and while the inmates who volunteered received no credit on their sentence or monetary reward, a letter, detailing their efforts, is made a part of their records, and will be considered, I am sure, by the pardons and paroles board.

Details on the extent of the program or the results of the testing appear nowhere in my grandfathers papers. In fact, the only mention of it amid his voluminous accounts of the death chamber is a one-line diary entry: Go to Huntsville tomorrow Bring LSD.

Around the same time that he wrote that, he submitted an application to join the Texas Medical Association in October 1962. On the line for research activity, he wrote: clinical investigation of new drugs for the treatment of mental and emotional illness.

An open records request I filed with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice seeking more information about the LSD tests and other experiments in Texas prisons was answered with a letter saying there was no information responsive to your request.

In the end, it turned out almost everything I was looking for was at the state archives in Austin and in boxes of family keepsakes.

In the state archives, I found the minutes of a prison board meeting held on May 9, 1960, at the Rice Hotel in Houston just six days before the article about the LSD program appeared in the Houston Chronicle.

The document is titled Experiment: Baylor School of Psychiatry, and describes how Dr. Marvin Vance of the Baylor program presented a plan to use four inmate volunteers to test LSD. The Baylor doctors have stated that there is no organic or physiological danger in using the drug, the minutes note. The board approved the hallucinogen experiments which eventually involved giving inmates LSD, psilocybin and mescaline.

My aunt and my father both told me my grandfather sampled drugs before he gave them to his patients to gauge their safety though I suspect this was also a means of self-medication. My aunt told me that after my grandfathers death in 1964, she and my grandmother disposed of the medications he kept at home including a vial of liquid LSD they poured down the sink.

Over the past several months Ive tried to find people who worked with my grandfather in Huntsville, or descendants of those people who may have records. Ive come up empty, save for one man who made a passing acquaintance with him at the prison, an encounter that left a powerful impression.

Dr. Kanellos Charalampous was a psychiatrist and professor at Baylor in the early 1960s who worked at the Wynne Unit with my grandfather and authored a large number of psychiatric studies, including several dealing with hallucinogens and illicit drugs and their potential as therapeutic agents.

When I called him at his home in Houston, the 86-year-old doctor said he only remembered meeting my grandfather once, when Charalampous first arrived in Huntsvilleone night in January 1962. They stayed up late at my grandfathers house, drank a beer and visited some, but the next day Charalampous left for Houston and said he never saw my grandfather again.

His memory seemed spotty, but he told me my grandfather was a manic depressive. It was obvious if you were around him, he said. Then he pointed me to his biography, which had been published online in 2015.

Halfway through the book, Charalampous recalls his first night in the Wynne Unit and his visit with the psychiatrist in residence at the prison.

We had a pleasant visit, enjoying a beer until, at midnight he explained he did rounds on the inmates at 2 am; during the day the temperature rose making the place unbearable. Obviously, I did not accompany him and going to the prison only once a week I did not meet him again until the trustees told me a few weeks later that he had stopped making rounds. I learned this talented man, also a great musician and vocalist, was a manic-depressive who injected himself with large doses of Thorazine to achieve a euthymic state in the days before lithium. A year later, this unfortunate colleague committed suicide.

There has always been uncertainty about my grandfathers death. He had suffered from heart problems earlier in his life and my aunts had always blamed heart disease for his death. My aunt, Marie Geisler, remembers very clearly watching the Beatles American debut on the Ed Sullivan Show the night before my grandfather died, and how cold and weak he seemed.

It had only been a year since he finished his stint at the prison, and a few months since his stay at a mental institution in Galveston one in a series of hospitalizations for the depression that haunted him.

My aunt told me she came home from school to find him lying dead on the landing of the stairs in their River Oaks home, a bottle of morphine on the floor next to him. A few days before, he sang in a performance of Verdis Otelo.

I dont know what role his time in Huntsville played in my grandfathers death. On his headstone in Austin are four simple words: scholar and compassionate healer. That was the man I set out to find after my fathers death, and what Ive pieced together is a picture of a troubled, brilliant man who showed great care for others if not always for himself.

My grandfathers obituary in the April 1964 Journal of the American Medical Association cites acute myocardial failure. His Harris County death certificate tells a different story: It lists the cause of death as barbiturate poisoning (pentobarbital) decedent took an overdose of pentobarbital.

Decades later, that very drug would be used in lethal injection executions in Texas and more than a dozen other states.

Ben Hartman is an American-Israeli journalist originally from Austin. Twitter: @BenHartman

Read related Tribune coverage:

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against a Texas death row inmate, making Erick Davila's case ineligible for review in federal court. [link]

For the second time in a week, a Texas death row inmate had his sentenced tossed out. Robert Campbell, 44, has been on death row for nearly 25 years in a Houston kidnapping and murder. [link]

Texas has executed hitman Ronaldo Ruiz 25 years after he killed a San Antonio woman for $2,000. [link]

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My grandfather was a death row doctor. He tested psychedelic drugs on Texas inmates. - Texas Tribune

NITROvit 2017 – Brain Enhancement Memory and Focus Pills

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Instant Motivation and Mental Drive, sustained states of Focus and Concentration, and support for the Neurotransmitters responsible for Cognitive Functions such as Memory Recall and how Happy we feel or Productive we are

The capabilities now being afforded us by the ever growing advances in the world of Nootropics is a game changer for those wanting to make their mark in the world with an unfair advantage. Nootropics (if youre new here) are ingredients, vitamins, and both earth grown and synthetic nutrients shown to support and aid our brains and their performance.

We believe some of these amazing benefits are now within your reach, largely due to the breakthrough research and endless Evolution of NITROvit its original formula first designed by Neuro Laboratories founder Archie Marks to help with his own Focus and Productivity issues.

NITROvits 3 potent blends feature Nutraceutical grade Nootropics NALT (N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine), Alpha GPC, Huperzine A, Centrophenoxine and a large 25 mg dose of Noopept, plus a further 8 other nutrients to aid and support key cognitive functions. While the original Nootropics of the 1950s were designed to be used most commonly as Sleep and Memory hacks, the enhancement and refinements made to Nootropic stacks over the past 60 years has seen them make their way into the homes and workplaces of some of the worlds most driven individuals and teams. Those that are already ahead already know. Now is your turn to discover the secret

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NITROvit 2017 - Brain Enhancement Memory and Focus Pills

Designated ecstasy holder caught with stash at city trance gig – Glasgow Evening Times

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A WOMAN was sentenced at Glasgow Sheriff Court after being caught with a class A drug at a trance gig.

Rebekah Carral was fined after she was found with 17 tablets of ecstasy.

The court heard the tablets were worth 170.

She admitted that on October 15 last year at the O2 Academy on Eglinton Street she had ecstasy in her possession with intent to supply it to others.

The 24-year-olds defending solicitor said his client had come through to Glasgow with a large group to go to a concert.

It was said that Carral of Eastfield Place in Edinburgh was holding on to the drugs on behalf of her group of friends and there was no intention to make any money from the stash.

A number of the girls had clubbed together for it.

The sentencing sheriff fined her 250.

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Designated ecstasy holder caught with stash at city trance gig - Glasgow Evening Times

Indra to Replatform Its Leading TMS Solutions for Hotels Onto SAP S/4 HANA – Hospitality Technology

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| July 05, 2017

Indra said it replatformed its Travel Management Suite (TMS) onto SAPs cloud platform S/4HANA. It allows operating as a real-time enterprise with a single view of each guest. TMS will provide global, multi-property enterprises a single source of truth and visibility. SAP S/4HANA is an in-memory, fast relational database management system and it provides a platform that enables accelerated innovation and predictive experiences for hospitality. SAP S/4HANA is an intelligent ERP suite designed specifically for in-memory computing. It is the digital core that connects a hotel enterprise with customers, business networks, the Internet of things, big data, and more. Through this migration, Indra is capable of enabling the worlds largest and most complex hotel enterprises to take control and run a live business with Indras TMS solutions on SAP S/4HANA. With SAP S/4Hana, Indra will offer hotel enterprises the ability to:

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Indra to Replatform Its Leading TMS Solutions for Hotels Onto SAP S/4 HANA - Hospitality Technology

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On the radio, he brings life to the party. Off it, mental illness nearly killed him. – Charlotte Observer (blog)

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Charlotte Observer (blog)
On the radio, he brings life to the party. Off it, mental illness nearly killed him.
Charlotte Observer (blog)
I finally start my TMS Therapy (transcranial magnetic stimulation) for my major depression and anxiety tomorrow...here's hoping all goes well and that every time my wife Mary turns on the microwave, I don't piss my pants and forget who I am for about ...

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On the radio, he brings life to the party. Off it, mental illness nearly killed him. - Charlotte Observer (blog)

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The Guardian view on Test Match Special: 60 years of tacit pleasure – The Guardian

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Sound of the summer: Test Match Specials Michael Vaughan and Jonathan Agnew. Photograph: Gareth Copley/Getty Images

It is 19 years since BBC television ceased broadcasting live Test cricket and 12 since Channel 4 drew stumps on its own free-to-air coverage. Since then, Sky has had the monopoly of rights to what was once the national summer game. This will change a bit in 2020, when the BBC will start showing highlights, and some live T20 games, with Sky retaining the bulk of the rights.

Yet for many, free-to-air cricket coverage is now synonymous with radios Test Match Special. On Thursday, as Test cricket resumes for the first time in this English summer, TMS marks its 60th year of ball-by-ball radio commentaries. This deserves salute from the paper of John Arlott, even while recognising that TMS is a Marmite taste that some adore and others dislike.

Many are devoted to TMSs gentle rhythms in spite of the male public school tone that still lingers. Others want it to converse better with todays Britain. The tension between tradition and innovation will always shape responses to TMS and cricket itself.

In a Wisden survey of TMSs role in the game, Matthew Engel this year highlighted an important truth. While televised sports relentless underlying dogma, especially in Skys treatment, is always that this is thrilling and it really matters, he wrote, radios values are subtler. On radio, there is a tacit pact with the listener, who will be registering the cricket as an agreeable extra in their own daily routine. Exactly so. Just as there is more to life than politics, so there is also more to life than cricket. But its good to welcome TMS back for the summer.

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The Guardian view on Test Match Special: 60 years of tacit pleasure - The Guardian

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TA cloning – Wikipedia

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TA cloning is a subcloning technique that avoids the use of restriction enzymes[1] and is easier and quicker than traditional subcloning. The technique relies on the ability of adenine (A) and thymine (T) (complementary basepairs) on different DNA fragments to hybridize and, in the presence of ligase, become ligated together. PCR products are usually amplified using Taq DNA polymerase which preferentially adds an adenine to the 3' end of the product. Such PCR amplified inserts are cloned into linearized vectors that have complementary 3' thymine overhangs.[2]

The insert is created by PCR using Taq DNA polymerase. This polymerase lacks 3' to 5' proofreading activity and, with a high probability, adds a single, 3'-adenine overhang to each end of the PCR product. It is best if the PCR primers have guanines at the 5' end as this maximizes probability of Taq DNA polymerase adding the terminal adenosine overhang.[3] Thermostable polymerases containing extensive 3 to 5 exonuclease activity should not be used as they do not leave the 3 adenine-overhangs.[4]

The target vector is linearized and cut with a blunt-end restriction enzyme. This vector is then tailed with dideoxythymidine triphosphate (ddTTP) using terminal transferase. It is important to use ddTTP to ensure the addition of only one T residue. This tailing leaves the vector with a single 3'-overhanging thymine residue on each blunt end.[5] Manufacturers commonly sell TA Cloning "kits" with a wide range of prepared vectors that have already been linearized and tagged with an overhanging thymine .

Given that there is no need for restriction enzymes other than for generating the linearized vector, the procedure is much simpler and faster than traditional subcloning. There is also no need to add restriction sites when designing primers and thus shorter primers can be used saving time and money. In addition, in instances where there are no viable restriction sites that can be used for traditional cloning, TA cloning is often used as an alternative. The major downside of TA cloning is that directional cloning is not possible, so the gene has a 50% chance of getting cloned in the reverse direction.[1]

TOPO cloning

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TA cloning - Wikipedia

Johns Hopkins joins gene cloning project to advance medicine development – Baltimore Sun

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Scientists at Johns Hopkins, Rutgers and Harvard universities, as well as the University of Trento in Italy, have created a new technique that allows thousands of genes in a DNA sequence to be cloned at once.

Researchers hope the advance in gene cloning will allow them to more quickly identify markers for diseases and discover new medicines.

Until now genes had to be cloned individually in a time-consuming process. The new molecular method allows thousands of the long DNA strands that make up genes to be isolated and cloned at the same time.

The discovery was published June 26 in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

"Our goal is to make it cheap and easy for any researcher in any field to clone and express the entire set of proteins from any organism," said Ben Larman, an assistant professor of pathology in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the study's co-senior author, in a statement. "Until now, such a prospect was only realistic for high-powered research consortia studying model organisms like fruit flies or mice."

The scientists call their technique for capturing DNA strands that make up genes the LASSO method, for long adapter single-stranded oligonucleotid. They also liken it to capturing cattle with a rope.

The new process speeds up the genes' creation of proteins, which manage cell activity, compared to the old process of cloning individual genes.

To test the method, the scientists sought to capture more than 3,000 DNA strands from the E. coli bacterial genome, commonly used as a model organism, and were successful with most of the targets. They also were able to use the strands to analyze what the gene's proteins do.

"We're very excited about all the potential applications for LASSO cloning," Larman said. "Our hope is that by greatly expanding the number of proteins that can be expressed and screened in parallel, the road to interesting biology and new therapeutic biomolecules will be dramatically shortened for many researchers."

The next step, already underway, is improving the cloning process and building libraries of proteins from DNA samples for use in research, said Biju Parekkadan, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

Funding for the research came from the Shriners Hospitals for Children, the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Larman, Parekkadan and a Harvard scientist on the project have sought a patent for the method, which is pending.

meredith.cohn@baltsun.com

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Johns Hopkins joins gene cloning project to advance medicine development - Baltimore Sun

With powerful new technique, scientists can clone thousands of genes at once – The Hub at Johns Hopkins

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By Chanapa Tantibanchachai

Scientists at Johns Hopkins, Rutgers, the University of Trento in Italy, and Harvard Medical School report they have developed a new molecular technique that can be used to isolate thousands of long DNA sequences at the same time, more than ever before possible.

According to the researchers, the new technologyknown as LASSO cloningspeeds up the creation of proteins, the final products of genes, and is likely to lead to far more rapid discovery of new medicines and biomarkers for scores of diseases.

Historically, figuring out what a gene does by cloning its DNA and expressing its protein was done one gene at a time. The new technology simultaneously clones and expresses thousands of protein-coding DNA sequences in a single reaction.

In a report on the technique's development, published online June 26 in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the researchers describe their novel molecular approach to simultaneously clone and express thousands of protein-coding DNA sequences in a single reaction. Historically, figuring out what a gene does by cloning its DNA and expressing its protein was done one gene at a time.

"Our goal is to make it cheap and easy for any researcher in any field to clone and express the entire set of proteins from any organism," says Ben Larman, an assistant professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the study's co-senior author. "Until now, such a prospect was only realistic for high-powered research consortia studying model organisms like fruit flies or mice."

The new paper describes a new type of captured DNA strand, a tool the authors refer to as a LASSO probe; LASSO stands for long adapter single-stranded oligonucleotide. Collections of these LASSO probes can be used to grab desired DNA sequencesmuch like a rope lasso is used to capture cattlebut in this case thousands at a time in a single effort.

Each target gene sequence can be up to a few thousand DNA base pairs long, which is the typical size of a gene's protein-coding sequence. The new technique is an improvement on an older method called molecular inversion probes, which is able to capture only about 200 bases of DNA, Larman says.

In a proof-of-concept study, LASSO probes were used to simultaneously capture more than 3,000 DNA fragments from the E. coli bacterial genome. The team successfully captured at least 75 percent of the gene targets. Importantly, the researchers say, these sequences are captured in a way that permits scientists to analyze what the genes' proteins do, as demonstrated by conferring antibiotic resistance to an otherwise susceptible cell.

"We're very excited about all the potential applications for LASSO cloning," Larman says. "Our hope is that by greatly expanding the number of proteins that can be expressed and screened in parallel, the road to interesting biology and new therapeutic biomolecules will be dramatically shortened for many researchers."

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With powerful new technique, scientists can clone thousands of genes at once - The Hub at Johns Hopkins