The soft and transparent protein models will enable researchers to quickly and collaboratively see, touch, and test ideas about molecular interactions and the behavior of proteins. Credit: Masaru Kawakami/Review of Scientific Instruments

Published: Aug. 24, 2012 at 4:55 PM

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 (UPI) -- A new soft, transparent and squishy silicone model could offer biology researches hands-on help to learn the secrets of molecules, its Japanese developer said.

Created by Masaru Kawakami a biophysicist researcher at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, it is mostly transparent and easy to manipulate, intended to help researchers more intuitively understand protein structures, positions, and interactions.

The model, described in the American Institute of Physics journal Review of Scientific Instruments, will enable researchers to quickly and collaboratively see, touch and test ideas about molecular interactions and the behavior of proteins, Kawakami said.

"Because my new model is soft, users can deform the model and experience ligand binding or protein-protein association, which has never been possible with other physical molecule models," he said.

"I believe my model would be an effective discussion tool for the classroom or laboratory to stimulate inspired learning."

Read more here:
'Squishy' model shows cell biology

Simon Chan, an associate professor of plant biology at the University of California, Davis, whose work on plant breeding promised to help some of the world's poorest people, died Aug. 22. He was 38.

Chan had been suffering from primary sclerosing cholangitis, an autoimmune disorder, and developed complications while awaiting a liver transplant.

"Simon was an incredible scientist, superb mentor and a great friend," said James Hildreth, dean of the College of Biological Sciences at UC Davis. "His brilliant work could fundamentally change how new crop plants are generated and may shed light on how new plant species are formed."

Professor Bill Lucas, chair of the Department of Plant Biology, described Chan as "one of a kind."

His enthusiasm for his science was contagious and his passion for teaching and mentoring his students served as a true role model for us all. Words cannot express our deep sorrow at losing such a talented and wonderful human being, Lucas said.

Working with the model plant Arabidopsis, Chan's laboratory discovered a way to breed plants with genes from only one parent, making it possible to "breed true" without generations of inbreeding.

In June 2011, Chan was one of two UC Davis scientists selected for the first-ever class of HHMI-GBMF Investigators, funded jointly by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to support promising research in plant sciences. (The other awardee was Jorge Dubcovsky, professor of plant sciences.)

Chan planned to use the HHMI-GBMF award to expand his work to crop plants such as tomatoes and Chinese cabbage.

Chan was also working with plant breeders in Colombia, Tanzania and Kenya to find new ways to breed bananas, plantain and cassava, staple foods for millions of the world's poorest people. That project was supported by a grant from the NSF-BREAD (Basic Research to Enable Agricultural Development) program, a joint initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

Chan was born in 1974 in Auckland, New Zealand, and earned his bachelor's degree in biochemistry from the University of Auckland in 1996. From there he went to UCSF, where he worked with Professor Elizabeth Blackburn, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, and was awarded his doctoral degree in cell biology in 2002.

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Obituary: Simon Chan made breakthroughs in plant breeding

OU awarded $9.7 million to fund molecular biology research

The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $9.7 million grant funding to OUs research in molecular biology.

Oklahoma Center of Biomedical Research Excellence, or COBRE, gives grants to institutions doing biomedical research in order to strengthen their infrastructure, according to the website.

Ann West, a professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry and the project director for the grant, said many opportunities are now open because of the money.

One of the things these funds will allow us to do is upgrade some very sophisticated instrumentation in our core facility, West said. Our current [X-ray machine in Stephenson Life Science's Research Center] is about 12 years old now.

There are plans to build another facility, West said.

Wests research focuses on molecular structures of macromolecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids. The research then can be applied to developing new drugs, treatments and better understanding of diseases, such as cancer.

Were interested in what is the shape of those molecules, what are their three-dimensional structures, because then we can glean something about how they function, she said.

Project funds also will go to junior investigators who are just getting started in their career and need funding to get their projects off the ground.

Dr. Blaine Mooers, who works in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the OU Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City, is someone who is benefiting from the grant. The grant will allow Mooers and his team to create more copies of RNA, and he will benefit from the access to the new X-ray machine in Norman, thanks to funds going to Wests team.

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OU awarded $9.7 million to fund molecular biology research

Dear Editor: Here's a suggestion that would make elections a little less painful. All candidates for public office should be required to have compulsory biology lessons. It might be an antidote, in one modest but important area, for substituting wishful thinking for actual facts.

Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin's fantasy is horrifying, but it's useful to recall that earlier this summer, South Dakota was defending a law requiring doctors to tell women that, if they get an abortion, their risk of suicide goes up. In fact, there is no causal relationship between abortion and depression. It's crucial to understand that Akin's delusion is not a solo act.

I know that some would argue that having politicians actually understand biology might lead to a slippery slope where they were required to also understand basic physics, math or even civics. But as a voter, that's a risk I'm willing to take.

Mark McFadden

Madison

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Mark McFadden: Make candidates take biology lessons

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/swfdjt/synthetic_biology) has announced the addition of the "Synthetic Biology Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Growth, Share And Forecast, 2012 - 2018" report to their offering.

The global market for synthetic biology is estimated to grow to $4.5 billion over the year 2015 owing to the developments in fields like biomedicine, biopharmaceutical synthesis, energy and environment, biosecurity, sustainable chemical segment, and biomaterials. Significant investments by major companies and emergence of new players in the market are also expected to boost the growth of this industry.

Synthetic biology is the fastest growing segment of the biotechnology field having number of applications. Synthetic biology provides significant number of near future commercial opportunities. Despite its emerging status, the list of applications is continuously growing. Some of these major applications include chemicals, enzymes, synthetic genes and other DNA parts, pharmaceuticals, biofuels, and chassis microorganisms among others.

Current developments in technologies like DNA synthesis and sequencing, specialty media, and bioinformatics, and the need for renewable feedstock are driving the market for synthetic biology. Rapid developments in this field are creating unique market opportunities and contributing to the growth of this field.

Synthetic biology is gaining tremendous recognition as a transformative technology as it has the ability to address food storage and security issues as well as handle other threats like climate change, energy shortage, and water deficits.

This report highlights the industry with the following points:

- Definition, estimates & forecast of synthetic biology product market from 2010 to 2017

- Analysis of product segments for synthetic biology product market with historical data and forecast

- Trends and forecast for four geographic markets, namely North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the RoW regions based on segments of synthetic biology product market

The rest is here:
Research and Markets: Synthetic Biology Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Growth, Share And Forecast, 2012 - 2018

Some of the UKs top public health officials have hailed DNA sequencing techniques, such as next generation sequencing, as one the most powerful laboratory tools to help tackle foodborne disease, such as E.coli and salmonella, and have underlined their commitment to use this technology in future.

Earlier this year, experts gathered at a workshop organised by the Food Standards Agency, the Health Protection Agency, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Advisory Committee on Microbiological Safety of Food, to discuss how advances in molecular biology could be used to pinpoint the source in major outbreaks of foodborne disease. The report of this workshop can be found below.

Andrew Wadge, Chief Scientist at the Food Standards Agency, said: The devastating effects of incidents such as the E.coli O104 outbreak in Germany, remind us of the need to embrace cutting-edge technology to help us transform the way we investigate incidents in the future.

We are fully committed to exploiting the potential of molecular biology tools, such as next generation sequencing, in our fight against foodborne disease. By using these techniques, outbreaks could be investigated more quickly and effectively than ever before. This could shape the way we respond to incidents in the future and, ultimately, save lives.

An estimated one million people a year in the UK suffer from foodborne illness, with 20,000 receiving hospital treatment and causing about 500 deaths. This costs the UK economy approximately 1.5 billion annually.

Read more here:
Harnessing technology to pinpoint foodborne disease

Former JSU Biology Department Chair Dr. Frank Romano dies

by Special to The News Jacksonville News

Dr. Frank Romano, retired chair of the Biology Department, passed away last night after an extended illness. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.

Dr. Romano joined the JSU faculty in 1989 and became department head in 2002. He retired in May 2012.

Throughout his career, his expertise, professionalism and rapport with his students and colleagues were unparalleled.

In addition to his lifes work in the classroom and his numerous presentations, workshops and publications, Dr. Romano conducted extensive research on the physiological ecology of limno-terrestrial, freshwater and marine invertebrates with emphasis on tardigrades and mollusks. In recent years, he worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations National Marine Fisheries Service on northern Gulf of Mexico deep-sea microscopic animal communities with emphasis on tardigrades. This led to the discovery of four new species of tardigrades.

Among his recent accolades was selection for the Association of Southeastern Biologists (ASB) 2010 Meritorious Teaching Award. Earlier this month, Dr. Romano and a team of colleagues were awarded a Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) grant supporting studies of the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Dr. Romano received his Ph.D. in Physiological Ecology from Syracuse University, New York and was a member of Beta Beta Beta, the biology honor society. He held professional society memberships in the Alabama Academy of Science, the Association of Southeastern Biologists, the American Microscopial Society, the International Tardigrada Society, and the International Meiofauna Association. In addition to the ASB Meritorious Teaching Award, his honors included a Syracuse University Summer Fellowship (1977), selection to Men and Women in American Science (1984), Leadership Kennessaw State College (1987), Jacksonville State University College of Letters and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award (1994), Service Award from the U.S. Forest Service for continuing activities with personnel from the Shoal Creek District of Talladega National Forest (2004), and nomination as The 2005 International Scientist of the Year.

Funeral arrangements will be shared as soon as they become available.

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Former JSU Biology Department Chair Dr. Frank Romano dies

ALBANY, New York, August 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research (http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com) "Synthetic Biology Market, Global Industry Analysis, Size, Growth, Share and Forecast, 2012 - 2018", global Synthetic biology market was worth USD 1,537.5 million in 2011. The market grew to a value of USD 2,120 million in 2012, and is expected to reach USD 16,745 million by 2018, growing at a CAGR of 41.1% from 2010 to 2018. In the overall global market, Europe holds the maximum market share, and is expected to maintain its lead position in terms of revenue till 2018.

Browse the full report athttp://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/synthetic-biology-market.html

The global Synthetic biology market is driven by factors such as increasing incidence of oceanic oil spills and other types of pollutions, potential substitute of genetic engineering, increasing demand for cross bred animals, dropping prices of DNA sequencing and DNA synthesis, increasing population is increasing the demand for GM (Genetically Modified) food, increasing demand for alternative energy resources like biofuels, and rising R&D investments in drug development.

Some of the opportunities in the synthetic biology market which would drive the revenue of the industry in the future include rising economies of Asia Pacific regions and the BRICS nations, and increasing investments of WHO and other NGOs in third world countries to fight epidemic diseases such as malaria. Europe holds the maximum market share in the synthetic biology market, owing to high demand of synthetic biology products like biofuels and increasing R&D activities in the field of synthetic biology. The Europe synthetic biology market was valued at USD 619.5 million in the year 2011, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 39.8% from 2012 to 2018, to reach USD 6,389.5 million by the year 2018.

The synthetic biology market can be segmented into 4 major categories: synthetic biology market by products, synthetic biology market by enabled product application, synthetic biology technology by enabling technology and synthetic biology by geography. The global synthetic biology market by enabling technology was valued at USD 183.84 million and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 44.7% from 2012 to 2018, to reach an estimated value of USD 1780.40 million by 2018.

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Synthetic Biology Market is Expected to Reach USD 16.7 Billion Globally in 2018: Transparency Market Research

As soon as I read the comments that Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) made Sunday about how legitimate rapes dont result in pregnancy, my first thoughts were 1) what an insensitive ignoramus, and 2) its long past time that we require our politicians to take and pass a course in female biology. After all, if theyre going to be enacting laws that affect womens health and bodies, they should at least understand how the female body works.

Its clear that right now many of them simply dont have a clue.

Akin showed his ignorance while defending his no-exceptions stance on abortion during an interview on a local Missouri television station Sunday morning. It seems to me, first of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape is] really rare, he told KTVI-TV. If its a legitimate rape, the female has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

But lets assume that maybe that didnt work or something, he added. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.

Akins ridiculous idea that women have some kind of natural defense that somehow fights off conception during a legitimate rape isnt new to a particular wing of the political spectrum, as Garance Franke-Rute, a senior editor at the Atlantic, pointed out on Sunday afternoon:

Arguments like his have cropped up again and again on the right over the past quarter century and the idea that trauma is a form of birth control continues to be promulgated by anti-abortion forces that seek to outlaw all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest. The push for a no-exceptions anti-abortion policy has for decades gone hand in hand with efforts to downplay the frequency with which rape- or incest-related pregnancies occur, and even to deny that they happen, at all. In other words, it's not just Akin singing this tune.

Franke-Rute then quotes from a 1999 article written by Dr. John C. Willke, a past-president of the National Right to Life Committee and the current president of the ban-all-abortions Life Issues Institutes (and who may be one of those unnamed doctors that Akin referred to in his TV comments):

When pro-lifers speak of rape pregnancies, we should commonly use the phrase "forcible rape" or "assault rape," for that specifies what we're talking about. Rape can also be statutory. Depending upon your state law, statutory rape can be consensual, but we're not addressing that here .... Assault rape pregnancies are extremely rare.

.... What is certainly one of the most important reasons why a rape victim rarely gets pregnant, and that's physical trauma. Every woman is aware that stress and emotional factors can alter her menstrual cycle. To get and stay pregnant a woman's body must produce a very sophisticated mix of hormones. Hormone production is controlled by a part of the brain that is easily influenced by emotions. There's no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape. This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy. So what further percentage reduction in pregnancy will this cause? No one knows, but this factor certainly cuts this last figure by at least 50 percent and probably more.

Of course, Willke offers no scientific evidence to support this biologically bogus theory about rape, hormones and the menstrual cycle. And it is bogus. Although its difficult to truly know how many pregnancies result from rape because rapes are so underreported, a team of University of South Carolina researchers took a stab at it in 1996. They estimated that about 32,000 pregnancies resulted from rape each year in the United States.

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Rep. Todd Akin needs to take a course in female biology

Survey led by University of Gloucestershire discovers there is no single day for swarming nuisance

By Eddie Wrenn

PUBLISHED: 04:36 EST, 20 August 2012 | UPDATED: 05:22 EST, 20 August 2012

One of the first major studies of 'Flying Ant Day' has revealed that the nuisance outbreaks can occur anytime in the space of a month.

The Society of Biology asked members of the public to cover their mouths and keep a record each time they saw the pesky insects take to the air in their annual battle to find a mate.

Adam Hart, an ecologist and insect expert at the University of Gloucestershire, led the call to arms, and discovered that the outbreaks could come anytime over the period of a month.

It was previously assumed the ants synchronised their swarms to increase their reproductive chances, but instead of the 'Friday night' approach, is appears there is a more complex pattern at play.

Swarming: The most common flying ants seen at the moment is the black garden ant, Lasius niger

More than 4,000 people responded to the survey across June and July, and their sightings reveal that even within a small town can have outbreaks on different days.

Hart told The Scientist: 'Its really too early to tell but even a casual glance at the data so far shows that flying ant emergence is a spatially and temporally complex event.

Continue reading here:
Forget Flying Ant Day ... it's actually a month! 4,000 people join 'citizen survey' to pin-point outbreaks across the UK

A week in Yellowstone National Park with a bunch of climate scientists is how Shirley Greene, a biology teacher atLewis and Clark Middle School, spenther summer vacation.

"It's incredible," Greene said. "We've been talking to scientists, traveling around the park."

The teachers finished their week at the park onFriday. They'll return home just in time for classes to begin Wednesday, energized for the coming school year.

Greene attended the weeklong workshop with her husband, Steve Greene, who teaches earth science at West High and colleague Trish Loken, who also teachesbiology at Lewis and Clark.

The program at Yellowstone is part of the 12-park program called 2012 Parks Climate Change Challenge sponsored by the National Park Foundation.

Loken and the Greenes were part of a group of 15 public school teachers selected to attend the program at Yellowstone. Shirley Greene, a member of the Montana Science Teachers Association, found out about the programthrough the groupand applied.

The Parks Climate Change Challengeprogram is designed to help teachers develop engaging lesson plans, create hands-on service projects and plan field trips to help students better understand climate change and develop a strong connection to the national parks, said Al Nash, a Yellowstone National Park spokesman.

The group spent time with park scientists and staff from Montana State University covering everything from geology to biology.

Wednesday they learned about the vanishing biomes of the mountain pika, which has steadily moved its habitatup in elevation as temperatures increase.

"At some point you get to the top of the mountain and there's nowhere else to go,"Greene said.

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Science teachers spend week in Yellowstone studying climate change

PLOS One has launched the Synthetic Biology Collection a set of more than 50 papers that the journal has published since 2006 on DNA synthesis and assembly, the development of libraries of biological parts, protein engineering, network and pathway analysis, and the like.

The PLOS One Community Blog notes that "the heavily interdisciplinary nature" of synthetic biology research "can make it difficult to publish in traditional discipline-specific journals," but the broad scope of PLOS One "allows for the publication of work crossing many traditional research boundaries, making it an ideal venue for many different types of synthetic biology research."

The collection will be updated as relevant articles are published in the journal.

An overview of the collection, authored by Jean Peccoud and Mark Isalan, says that the papers are organized into broad categories: DNA synthesis and assembly; biological parts; protein engineering; networks and pathways; synthetic life; software and modeling; and instruments.

They add that "since many synthetic biology papers cited in this review span more than one category, it was sometimes difficult to assign them to one category rather than another. Nonetheless, this structure should aid in navigating the 50+ papers currently included in the collection."

Link:
Synthesizing Synthetic Biology

Public release date: 16-Aug-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Clare Weaver press@plos.org 44-122-344-2824 Public Library of Science

High baseline levels of neuronal activity in the best connected parts of the brain may play an important role in the development of Alzheimer's disease. This is the main conclusion of a new study appearing in PLoS Computational Biology from a group at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

In recent times, it has become clear that brain activity patterns change at an early stage in Alzheimer's disease. Moreover, there is reason to believe that, instead of being the consequence of structural damage, they might be the cause: recently, a direct influence of excessive regional neuronal activity on Alzheimer pathology was found in animal experiments. By showing that highly connected 'hub' regions (which display most Alzheimer pathology) indeed possess the highest levels of activity, the present study offers support for the unconventional view that brain dynamics may play a causal role in Alzheimer. As first author, Willem de Haan, says, "this implies that the investigation of factors regulating neuronal activity may open up novel ways to detect, elucidate and counter the disease".

Using a realistic computational model of the human cortex, the authors simulated progressive synaptic damage to brain regions based on their level of activity, and subsequently investigated the effect on the remaining network. With this 'activity dependent degeneration' model, they could not only offer an explanation for the distribution pattern of Alzheimer pathology but also reproduce a range of phenomena encountered in actual neurophysiological data of Alzheimer patients: loss and slowing of neuronal activity, loss of communication between areas, and specific changes in brain network organization.

In upcoming projects the authors plan to verify the predictions from this study in patient data, but also to continue modeling studies. They conclude that: "the use of 'computational neurology' and network theory to unite experimental results and find plausible underlying principles in the growing bulk of human brain data seems inevitable".

###

Financial disclosure: No funding was received for this work

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Citation: de Haan W, Mott K, van Straaten ECW, Scheltens P, Stam CJ (2012) Activity Dependent Degeneration Explains Hub Vulnerability in Alzheimer's Disease. PLoS Comput Biol 8(8): e1002582. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002582

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Is too much brain activity connected to Alzheimer's disease?

Public release date: 15-Aug-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Yael Franco yfranco@plos.org 415-568-3169 Public Library of Science

PLoS ONE announces the launch of the Synthetic Biology Collection. The new Collection contains an unprecedented number of articles illustrating the many facets of this dynamically evolving research area.

The field of synthetic biology interconnects many engineering and scientific disciplines including biology, chemical engineering, chemistry, electrical engineering, and computer science. PLoS ONE has published more than 50 articles covering all aspects of synthetic biology. The journal aims to help increase the visibility of this growing transdisciplinary field by assembling the articles into a Collection.

"When working at its best, science should be an active conversation that keeps refining ideas," said Damian Pattinson, PLoS ONE's Executive Editor, "We believe that PLoS ONE provides the ideal venue to achieve this and we hope that the Collection will inspire further progress in synthetic biology."

PLoS ONE's innovative editorial policy has made it possible for synthetic biologists to publish research that may not be the proper fit for a classical journal.

"The collection includes several articles from engineers and computer scientists who traditionally publish their work in conference proceedings rather than the journals available to life-scientists," said Dr. Jean Peccoud, an Associate Professor at Virginia Bioinformatics Institute. "PLoS ONE's breadth of subject matter made it possible to publish an unprecedented body of articles that reflects the multifaceted nature of synthetic biology."

A key feature of PLoS ONE is the inclusion of article-level metrics (ALMs) that are published alongside each paper and can be used to assess the impact of the research.

"Two articles now included in the Collection, were published in 2006, and to date have been cited 70 and 84 times, respectively," said Dr. Mark Isalan, Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation. "Metrics such as social bookmarking or number of views lead us to believe that articles published more recently will also have a lasting impact on the field."

The Collection highlights selected synthetic biology articles published in PLoS ONE since 2006. It will be updated regularly with appropriate new papers, as a growing resource. "Ultimately, we hope that having a dedicated repository in PLoS ONE will further increase the journal's attractiveness to researchers publishing synthetic biology," said Pattinson.

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PLoS ONE launches Synthetic Biology Collection

Fletcher Smith with Akpik on breeding grounds in the Canadian Arctic.

(Phys.org) -- Scientists at the College of William & Mary/Virginia Commonwealth University Center for Conservation Biology (CCB) at the VCU Rice Center have tracked three whimbrels off the east coast of Canada to the northern shore of South America via a previously unknown migration pathway over the open Atlantic Ocean. The route passed through the center of the vast Atlantic at one point passing 1,000 miles closer to Africa than to North America and within 700 miles of the Cape Verde Islands. The bird with the longest flight flew nonstop for 145 hours (six days), covering a distance of 7,000 kilometers (4,355 miles).

The three birds, named Mackenzie, Taglu and Akpik, were originally marked by the CCB and Canadian Wildlife Service staff on the breeding grounds along the Mackenzie River Delta in far northwestern Canada (Mackenzie was fitted with a transmitter recovered from Machi, a bird that was shot on Guadeloupe in September of 2011).

Map of migration route for three whimbrels that were marked on a breeding ground in western Canada. Incredible flight over the open Atlantic Ocean was previously undocumented.

The three birds are part of a larger project that has included 20 additional birds that have been tracked to better understand migratory pathways and locations that are critical for this declining species. The study has tracked whimbrels for more than 185,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) since 2008. The broader tracking project is a collaborative effort between the Center for Conservation Biology, the Canadian Wildlife Service, the Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program and Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences.

Provided by Virginia Commonwealth University

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Scientists identify previously unknown Whimbrel migration pathway over open Atlantic Ocean

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Organovo Holdings, Inc. (ONVO) ("Organovo") a three-dimensional biology company focused on delivering breakthrough 3-D bioprinting technology, today reported unaudited financial results for the period ended June 30, 2012.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120813/MM55537LOGO)

Organovo is focused on breakthrough 3D bioprinting technology to create tissue on demand for research and medical applications. The company's NovoGen MMX Bioprinter() is part of a 3D human tissue generation platform that works across a broad array of tissue and cell types to recapitulate in vivo biology. Organovo's bioprinting technology has immediate applications in disease research, drug discovery and development, and toxicology testing. In the future, the Company believes that applications of this technology hold the promise to generate tissues for therapeutic uses.

Second quarter 2012 revenues increased approximately 49% above the same period in 2011. Collaborative research revenues for the second quarter increased approximately 81% over the same period of prior year revenues, but were partiallyoffset by a reduction in grant revenues. Loss from Operations for the second quarter was approximately $1,449,700.

Recent Corporate HighlightsOn July 17, 2012, Organovo announced the commencement of operations at its new, larger facility in San Diego, California. The new facility has over three times the capacity of Organovo's previous headquarters and is expected to facilitate the Company's needs to grow staff and research and development output.

On July 9, 2012, Organovo announced the receipt of two issued patents. The patents consisted of the issuance in the United States of a patent to which the Company owns the exclusive license from the University of Missouri, and the issuance in the United Kingdom of the Company's first assigned patent.

On July 9, 2012 Organovo announced the appointment of James T. Glover, former CFO of Beckman Coulter and Anadys Pharmaceuticals, to its Board of Directors. Mr. Glover has been affirmed as an independent director by the Organovo Board of Directors, and the Company expects to attract additional independent directors as it grows.

On May 21, 2012, Organovo announced the hiring of Dr. Eric Michael David as Chief Strategy Officer.

On April 25, 2012, Organovo announced the hiring of Michael Renard as its Executive Vice President, Commercial Operations, and the promotion of Dr. Sharon Presnell to Chief Technology Officer.

The Company is performing on current contracts with Pfizer and United Therapeutics. The Company expects to book revenue on both contracts in the second half of 2012.

More:
Organovo Reports Q2 2012 Financial Results, Provides Business Update

Dear Colleagues:

The Open Journal System web site for Gravitational and Space Biology is active, and we continue to encourage manuscript submissions of all kinds. The instructions to authors can be found on the website, and in the front-matter of the September 2011 issue.

Manuscripts can be submitted any time through the website, http://GravitationalAndSpaceBiology.org, and will be published in the order of their completion through the peer review and author revision process. Manuscripts for the Fall 2012 issue are in various stages of the submission and review, However, depending on the time it takes to navigate the peer review system, manuscripts submitted as late as August 31st can still make it into the Fall issue. So please do not hesitate if you have a paper of interest you would like to submit!

Submission is open to all (members and non-members alike), and we are actively encouraging papers in the fields of gravitational and space biology, astrobiology, analog environment research, advanced life support (ALS), as well as biophysics, radiation biology, engineering, and hardware development relevant to these arenas. The categories of papers include Short Communication, Methods, Research, and Review. In addition, we are also opening a new category: Hypothesis. Guidelines for each category can be found in the Instructions to Authors, and you may feel free to contact any of the members of the Editorial team for guidance at any time.

The value of the journal to ASGSR, and to the scientific community, depends heavily on the quality and number of articles submitted. We look forward to receiving many high-quality papers that strongly reflect the exciting research of our members. We are the face of ASGSR.

As always, do not hesitate to e-mail with any questions, concerns, or suggestions.

Best regards, Anna-Lisa Paul alp - at - ufl.edu

Editor, Gravitational and Space Biology

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.

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Open Journal System web site for Gravitational and Space Biology is Active

Public release date: 9-Aug-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Dr. James Antoon jantoon@tulane.edu Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine

Scientists at Tulane University School of Medicine, led by Dr. James Antoon and Dr. Barbara Beckman, have characterized two drugs targeting sphingosine kinase (SK), an enzyme involved in cancer growth and metastasis. New treatments specifically attacking cancer cells, but not normal ones, are critical in the fight against cancer. The results, which appear in the July 2012 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, demonstrate the role of SK in drug resistance and therapeutic potential of SK inhibitors.

"Sphingosine kinase is a relatively new molecular target," says Dr. Beckman "In this study, we show that overexpression of SK promotes resistance to first-line breast cancer therapies, such as tamoxifen. We further found that treatment with the sphingosine kinase inhibitors SKI-II and ABC294640 induced cell death and blocked drug-resistant tumor growth without similar effects in a model system representing relatively normal breast cells."

Molecular therapies, such as those targeting SK, have the potential to improve treatment response rates while simultaneously decreasing side effects. However, Dr. Antoon cautions that "while these results are promising, further study is needed to fully understand the benefits and risks associated with treating drug resistant cancer with these SK inhibitors."

Dr. Steven R. Goodman, Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Biology and Medicine said "Dr. Antoon, Dr. Beckman and colleagues present exciting results indicating the need for further study of inhibitors of sphingosine kinase as promising new cancer treatments".

###

Experimental Biology and Medicine is a journal dedicated to the publication of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research in the biomedical sciences. The journal was first established in 1903.

Experimental Biology and Medicine is the journal of the Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine. To learn about the benefits of society membership visit http://www.sebm.org. If you are interested in publishing in the journal please visit http://ebm.rsmjournals.com.

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Treating drug resistant cancer through targeted inhibition of sphingosine kinase

With NASAsCuriosity Rover safely on Mars and ready to search for signs of life, back on Earth attempts are underway to engineer bacteria that could thrive on the Red Planet.

A team of undergraduates from Stanford and Brown Universities are busy applying synthetic biology to space exploration, outfitting microbes to survive extreme Martian conditions and produce resources needed to sustain a human colony.

Though Mars is potentially a place where life may have survived at some point, it is not an especially friendly environment, and thriving there will not be easy for humans or microbes. The average surface temperature of Mars is minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and the almost-nonexistent atmosphere is 95 percent carbon dioxide. Although water exists in Mars ice caps and theres some evidence that giant oceans once coveredthe planet, today its essentially a deep-frozen desert. Colonizing Mars would be challenging and pricey.

Obviously, bringing up heavy machinery or building materials is going to be really expensive,said Brown student and team captain Ben Geilich. The benefit of having bacteria that can do this for you is theyre really small and very light. Once there, they could grow food, produce medicine, extract minerals, and build building material.

The project is part of the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) challenge, an annual synthetic biology competition that pits students around the world against each other in attempts to ingeniously hack living cells to perform new tasks. In a regional iGEM meet in October, Geilichs team will present what they call aHell Cell, asuite of genetically engineered parts that could enable a bacterium to withstand severe cold, dryness and radiation. Geilich calls it a genetic box of crayons for extremophile conditions.

In the Stanford-Brown iGEM lab, students work on designing bacteria that could survive on Mars. (Lynn Rothschild)

The Hell Cell includes genetic modules, or BioBricks, based on DNA from a variety of ultra-tough organisms, including a cold-resistant species of Siberian beetle that makes antifreeze proteins, aradiation-resistant bacterium that sequesters large amounts of the element manganese, andE. coli, which produces a nutrient that confers cold and drought resistance. The team is also investigating heat- and acid-tolerance mechanisms that could be useful in other planetary environments.

While theyre currently experimenting with E. coli, BioBricks can be mixed and matched in other species, tailoring new strains to particular conditions. You go into nature and find genes, and then you can recombine them into circuits that you cannot find in nature, explained Andre Burnier, one of the teams mentorsand a lab technician at NASAs Ames Research Center.

To be really successful, the bacteria must do more than just survive on Mars. They need to perform functions usefulfor establishing a human colony one day. In addition to the Hell Cell suite, the team is developing bacteria that could extract minerals from Martian sediment or recycle rare metals from spacecraft electronics.

The teams main focus is on the latter,which requires engineering bacteria to separate metals from the silica that coats most electronics.

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Engineering Life to Survive on Mars and Aid Human Colonization

Project Scientist Daniel Hyduke and Ph.D. candidate Joshua Lerman, in the Palsson Systems Biology Research Group, Department of Bioengineering, discuss how their model enables detailed calculations of the total cost of synthesizing many different chemicals, including biofuels. Photo Credit: UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering

(Phys.org) -- Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a method of modeling, simultaneously, an organisms metabolism and its underlying gene expression. In the emerging field of systems biology, scientists model cellular behavior in order to understand how processes such as metabolism and gene expression relate to one another and bring about certain characteristics in the larger organism.

In addition to serving as a platform for investigating fundamental biological questions, this technology enables far more detailed calculations of the total cost of synthesizing many different chemicals, including biofuels. Their method accounts, in molecular detail, for the material and energy required to keep a cell growing, the research team reported in the journal Nature Communications.

This is a major advance in genome-scale analysis that accounts for the fundamental biological process of gene expression and notably expands the number of cellular phenotypes that we can compute, said Bernhard Palsson, Galetti Professor of Bioengineering, at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

With this new method, it is now possible to perform computer simulations of systems-level molecular biology to formulate questions about fundamental life processes, the cellular impacts of genetic manipulation or to quantitatively analyze gene expression data, said Joshua Lerman, a Ph.D. candidate in Palssons Systems Biology Research Group.

The teams method can be compared to understanding both the chemical reactions and the machinery that are required to refine crude oil into petrol in a large, industrial factory. Modeling metabolism tells you what biochemical reactions need to take place. Modeling the organisms gene expression tells you what kind of machinery you need. The teams method specifically accounts for the expression of enzymes, which are the molecular machines responsible for the biochemical processes of life. With this knowledge, it is possible to explore how an organism distributes its resources to promote growth and how genetic manipulation of these organisms alters this distribution.

What you could hypothetically do with our model is simulate the total cost of producing a value-added product, such as a biofuel. That includes all the operating and maintenance costs, said Daniel Hyduke, a project scientist in Palssons lab. Hyduke said the method has the potential to help streamline industrial metabolic engineering efforts by providing a near complete accounting of the minimal material and energy costs associated with novel strain designs for biofuel, commodity chemicals, and recombinant protein production.

Hyduke and Lerman prototyped the method on the minimal, yet metabolically versatile, hyperthermophile Thermotoga maritima. Because T. maritima is not currently ready for use in industrial applications, Hyduke and Lerman are working as part of a larger team to produce similar models for industrially relevant microorganisms, such as E. coli.

Weve built a virtual reality simulator of metabolism and gene expression for Thermotoga maritima, and shown that it much better approximates phenotypes of cells than modeling metabolism in isolation, said Lerman.

Journal reference: Nature Communications

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Molecular economics: New computer models calculate systems-wide costs of gene expression