Public release date: 25-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Latarsha Gatlin lgatlin@gwu.edu 202-994-5631 George Washington University

Keith Crandall, a renowned biologist and population geneticist, has been named founding director of the George Washington University Computational Biology Institute. This newly created position will further strengthen GW's role as a leader in science and research in the region and nationally.

As director, Dr. Crandall will define the scientific vision of the Computational Biology Institute and direct the development and implementation of research plans and organizational structures, with the goal of hiring new faculty as well as integrating existing faculty and resources across the university. He will also serve as professor of biology.

"This is the beginning of a true interdisciplinary initiative at George Washington that I expect will positively impact virtually all colleges and schools," said Leo Chalupa, vice president of research at GW. "I believe that Dr. Crandall's recruitment as the founding director of the Computational Biology Institute will be the driving force towards more cross-campus research in many fields including computer science, evolutionary biology and personalized medicine." Personalized medicine is a medical model in healthcare that allows practitioners to tailor medical decisions to the individual patient using genetic or other information.

The George Washington University is one of the first universities to establish an institute dedicated to computational biology. The institute will focus on large-scale integrative bioinformatics and genomics. Informatics are used to answer important biological questions using massive amounts of data, including genetic and molecular data. Many disciplines are becoming more data-intensive, creating a need for the development of new computational tools and approaches that aid in the integration, interpretation and understanding of complex datasets.

To meet this challenge, the institute will foster creation of new positions in computational biology research, enhancing and synergizing disciplines at George Washington such as the biological, biophysical and biomedical sciences as well as computation disciplines such as computer science, math and statistics. The institute will also build upon existing partnerships with regional research centers of excellence, including Children's National Medical Center, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Janelia Farm, INOVA hospital system, Naval Research Laboratory, Virginia Tech-Arlington and the National Institutes Health intramural research program.

"I feel it a great honor to join the George Washington University faculty and direct the new Computational Biology Institute," said Dr. Crandall. "We have an amazing opportunity in this new genomics era to be world leaders in developing and implementing computational approaches to broad questions from biodiversity crisis issues to translational medicine. With the exceptional faculty and outstanding leadership at GW, the institute is sure to be a huge success."

Dr. Crandall comes to George Washington from Brigham Young University where he has served as a faculty member since 1996 and chair of the biology department since 2007. He is a recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Young Investigator Award, the National Science Foundation Career Award, the National Institutes of Health James A. Shannon Director's Award and a Fulbright Scholar Award to Oxford University. He is past president of the Society of Systematic Biologists.

A recipient of more than $18 million in grant funds, Dr. Crandall brings to George Washington two grant awards. He is the lead investigator and one of 11 researchers from 10 institutions across the country working on a component of the ground-breaking "Open Tree of Life" project funded by the National Science Foundation. Dr. Crandall also is serving as part of a team of researchers studying the affects of the BP oil spill on coastal ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico.

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GW announces creation of Computational Biology Institute to conduct integrated research

Public release date: 25-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Fran Yates fyates@faseb.org 301-634-7109 Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

Bethesda, MD FASEB MARC (Maximizing Access to Research Careers) Program has announced the travel award recipient for the 2012 Genetics Society of America (GSA) Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology Meeting in Princeton, NJ from July 31 August 5, 2012. These awards are meant to promote the entry of underrepresented minority students, postdoctorates and scientists into the mainstream of the basic science community and to encourage the participation of young scientists at the 2012 GSA Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology Meeting.

Awards are given to poster/platform presenters and faculty mentors paired with the students/trainees they mentor. This year MARC conferred 1 award totaling $1,850.

The FASEB MARC Program is funded by a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health. A primary goal of the MARC Program is to increase the number and competitiveness of underrepresented minorities engaged in biomedical and behavioral research.

The following has been selected to receive a FASEB MARC Travel Award for her poster/platform presentation:

Dr. Jennifer Gallagher, Stanford University

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FASEB is composed of 26 societies with more than 100,000 members, making it the largest coalition of biomedical research associations in the United States. Celebrating 100 Years of Advancing the Life Sciences in 2012, FASEB is rededicating its efforts to advance health and well-being by promoting progress and education in biological and biomedical sciences through service to our member societies and collaborative advocacy.

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MARC travel award announced for the 2012 GSA Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology Meeting

ScienceDaily (June 21, 2012) A new paper by Crislyn D'Souza-Schorey, professor of biological sciences at the University of Notre Dame, discusses the biology of tumor-derived microvesicles and their clinical application as circulating biomarkers. Microvesicles are membrane-bound sacs released by tumor cells and can be detected in the body fluids of cancer patients.

The World Health Organization estimates that cancer will cause approximately 9 million deaths in 2015. The rising prevalence of the disease is a major factor that drives the growth of the oncology biomarkers market. Biomarkers can be defined as any biological, chemical or physical parameter that can be utilized as an indicator of physiological or disease status. Thus, biomarkers are useful in cancer screening and detection and drug design and also in boosting the effectiveness of cancer care by allowing physicians to tailor therapies for individual patients -- an approach known as personalized medicine.

The new paper discusses the potential of microvesicles to present a combination of disease- and tissue-specific markers that would constitute a unique and identifiable biosignature for individual cancers.

"As such, it would make their sampling over time a preferred method to monitor changes to the tumor in response to treatment, especially for tissues such as the ovary or pancreas, where repeated biopsies of these organs is impractical," D'Souza-Schorey said.

Profiling of microvesicles could form the basis of personalized, targeted cancer therapies, especially as more reliable and rapid profiling technologies become available.

"For example, certain markers like HER2/neu, in addition to being elevated in breast cancer, is also increased in a relatively smaller subset of other cancers such as ovarian cancer," D'Souza-Schorey said. "This latter group of patients would benefit from existing treatment strategies that target the HER2 receptor."

The approach could be advantageous over currently used approaches of profiling whole tissue or un-fractionated body fluid particularly if circulating microvesicles indeed concentrate molecular changes that occur in the tumor, as it would increase the sensitivity of detecting critical markers of cancer progression.

"One complicating factor, though, is the presence of shed vesicles from other non-tumor cell types also in direct contact with these body fluids," D'Souza-Schorey said. "Thus, equally significant is the development of strategies to selectively capture tumor-specific markers that separate from other shed vesicle populations."

In collaboration with local oncologists, the D'Souza-Schorey laboratory is investigating the potential of microvesicles as a cancer diagnostic platform, a project under the umbrella of Notre Dame's Advanced Diagnostics and Therapeutics Initiative. The lab's research on the biology of microvesicles and their roles in tumor progression is supported by the National Cancer Institute and the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute.

"Despite considerable strides, effort and investment in cancer biomarker research in the past decade, there are still more desirable outcomes, most especially enhanced sensitivity to enable early detection," D'Souza-Schorey said. "An effective biomarker platform that will overcome these challenges would be paradigm-shifting in cancer care."

The rest is here:
The biology of tumor-derived microvesicles

Public release date: 22-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Luise Dirscherl dirscherl@lmu.de 49-892-180-2706 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitt Mnchen

Researchers from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitt (LMU) in Munich have identified an enzyme that is involved in a modification pathway that is essential for bacterial pathogenicity. Because it shows no similarity to other known proteins, it may be an ideal target for development of novel antimicrobial drugs.

Studies on a number of pathogenic bacteria have shown that these strains become pathogenic only when an enzyme called elongation factor P (EF-P) is chemically modified on a conserved lysine residue. EF-P is a universally conserved translation factor, which is involved in protein synthesis. Two enzymes are known to be involved in modifying the conserved lysine of EF-P, however these enzymes cannot fully account for the pattern of modification seen on EF-P in living cells.

The mystery molecule

Thus, at least one other protein must be involved in the modification process however to date it has proved to be particularly elusive. Now a research team led by LMU biochemist Daniel Wilson, who is also affiliated with the Center for Integrated Protein Science Munich (CIPSM), a Cluster of Excellence at LMU, has succeeded in identifying the mystery protein as the enzyme YfcM and showing that it displays hydroxylase activity. Strikingly, YfcM shows no sequence similarity to any other known protein and therefore may have a unique structure.

This is not the only reason why discovery of YfcM will arouse great interest. "YfcM may turn out to be an ideal target for the development of new - and urgently needed antibiotics, however more insight will be needed to ascertain the role of the YfcM mediated hydroxylation of EF-P," says Wilson.

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

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Infection biology: The elusive third factor

Public release date: 21-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Crislyn-D'Souza-Schorey cdsouzas@nd.edu 574-631-3735 University of Notre Dame

A new paper by Crislyn D'Souza-Schorey, professor of biological sciences at the University of Notre Dame, discusses the biology of tumor-derived microvesicles and their clinical application as circulating biomarkers. Microvesicles are membrane-bound sacs released by tumor cells and can be detected in the body fluids of cancer patients.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the incidence of cancer will reach approximately 9 million deaths in 2015. The rising prevalence of the disease is a major factor that drives the growth of the oncology biomarkers market. Biomarkers can be defined as any biological, chemical or physical parameter that can be utilized as an indicator of physiological or disease status. Thus, biomarkers are useful in cancer screening and detection, drug design and also to boost the effectiveness of cancer care by allowing physicians to tailor therapies for individual patientsan approach known as personalized medicine.

The new paper discusses the potential of microvesicles to present a combination of disease and tissue-specific markers that would constitute a unique, specific and identifiable biosignature for individual cancers.

"As such, it would make their sampling over time a preferred method to monitor changes to the tumor in response to treatment, especially for tissues such as the ovary or pancreas, where repeated biopsies of these organs is impractical," D'Souza-Schorey said.

Profiling of microvesicles could form the basis of personalized, targeted cancer therapies, especially as more reliable and rapid profiling technologies become available.

"For example, certain markers like HER2/neu, in addition to being elevated in breast cancer, is also increased in a relatively smaller subset of other cancers such as ovarian cancer," D'Souza-Schorey said. "This latter group of patients would benefit from existing treatment strategies that target the HER2 receptor."

The approach could be advantageous over currently used approaches of profiling whole tissue or un-fractionated body fluid particularly if circulating microvesicles indeed concentrate molecular changes that occur in the tumor, as it would increase the sensitivity of detecting critical markers of cancer progression.

"One complicating factor, though, is the presence of shed vesicles from other non-tumor cell types also in direct contact with these body fluids," D'Souza-Schorey said. "Thus, equally significant is the development of strategies to selectively capture tumor-specific markers that separate from other shed vesicle populations."

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Notre Dame researcher's paper examines the biology of tumor-derived microvesicles

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire -06/21/12)- Genome Canada with support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), today launched the 2012 Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Competition. This research fund will help create the next generation of tools needed to deal with the massive amounts of data produced by modern genomic technologies and allow researchers to better understand the biology of living things.

Bioinformatics expands the use of genomics data through the research, development or application of computational tools and approaches. It enables better ways to acquire, store, organize, archive, analyze and visualize data.

"The Harper Government is supporting Canada's research leadership in genomics, an area that has the potential for significant social and economic benefits," said the Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology. "Through this investment, we are supporting the development of new tools and methods necessary to keep Canada at the leading edge of this fast-growing field."

Pierre Meulien, President and CEO, Genome Canada, said: "The genomics research community has an urgent need for efficient computational tools to collect and analyse data. Genome Canada has made it a priority to invest in this area so that key economic sectors from forestry to fisheries, agriculture to environment, energy to mining and human health have the ability to reap the full value of genomics research."

Computational biology helps make sense of genomics data through computational analysis, modelling, and prediction. New experimental, computational and theoretical tools in biology will lead to a much greater understanding of life in its molecular detail and maximize the impact of genomics research in health and life sciences, among other areas.

The competition involves $5 million from Genome Canada and $1.25 million from CIHR. Of this, $4 million will support large-scale projects by multi-disciplinary teams to develop robust, user-friendly tools needed by the genomics research community. As well, $2.25 million will support small-scale projects by individuals or groups to propose innovative ideas with the potential for significant impact. CIHR's funding preference will be in support of the smaller scale projects. The projects, in collaboration with Canada's six regional Genome Centres, are expected to secure an additional $4 million in co-funding for the large-scale applied projects.

Dr. Alain Beaudet, President, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, said: "CIHR is pleased to partner with Genome Canada on this important initiative, especially given the vast potential applications to research that could come out of new tools and methodologies in this essential field. The more effectively we can analyze and interpret genomic data, the greater our understanding of life at its most fundamental level."

Genome Canada is a catalyst for developing and applying genomic sciences that create economic wealth and social benefit for Canadians. We work in partnership to invest in and manage large-scale research and translate discoveries into commercial opportunities, new technologies, applications and solutions. We build bridges between government, academia and industry to forge a genomics-based public-private innovation focused on key life science sectors. For more information, visit http://www.genomecanada.ca.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the Government of Canada's health research investment agency. CIHR's mission is to create new scientific knowledge and to enable its translation into improved health, more effective health services and products, and a strengthened Canadian health care system. Composed of 13 Institutes, CIHR provides leadership and support to more than 14,100 health researchers and trainees across Canada. http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca.

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Genome Canada Launches Competition to Strengthen Canada's Leadership in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology

Posted on: 1:36 pm, June 20, 2012, by David Wood, updated on: 06:23pm, June 20, 2012

The February 2010 biology department shootings helped put the University of Alabama in Huntsville on top of a national websites ranking of Americas 25 Most Crime-Rattled Colleges. The unofficial ranking, based on an analysis of crime reports, wasreleased Tuesday by the website The Daily Beast.

UAH spokesman Ray Garner called the ranking skewed in an interview with WHNT News 19 news partner, The Huntsville Times:

It is no secret that we had a tragic shooting incident on our campus in 2010, and that event heavily skewed this ranking, Garner said Tuesday. If you look at our overall crime statistics, you will find outside that isolated event that our university offers a safe environment for the thousands of students, faculty and staff that travel around our campus.

Huntsville S.W.A.T. team members rush to the UAH Shelby Center February 12, 2012

While taking a UAH campus tour Wednesday, parent of a prospective 2013 freshman Julie DiLiberty told WHNT News 19 she find the report ludicrous. DiLiberti says she has no qualms about safety in considering sending her son to study computer science at the university next year.

Looking around today, absolutely not, weve seen some police presence on campus just doing patrolsand we see the emergency call boxes and you certainly dont get a feeling of apprehension when youre on campus, DiLiberti said.

Incoming fall 2012 freshman Malaysia Denton said she agrees.

Its shocking, said Denton. I dont feel Huntsville is dangerous in the least compared to Birmingham or Mobile, places like that.

The website said it based its rankings on a system it designed to compare and rank per-capita crime in certain categories as reported by colleges to the U.S. Department of Education. The reporting period was 2008-2010, which included the period of a triple homicide committed during a biology faculty meeting on the UAH campus. A former assistant biology professor, Dr. Amy Bishop, faces trial in September 2012 on those charges.

Original post:
UAH Named Nation’s Most ‘Crime-Rattled’ College, According to Website

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

A New Jersey teen who as a high school senior earned top honors at the 2011 International Biology Olympiad was honored yesterday by New Jersey Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno and BioNJ President Debbie Hart at a special ceremony here during the worlds largest annual biotechnology conference.

Rebecca Shi, a 2011 graduate of West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, is the first U.S. female team member to take top honors in the world in individual scores at the long-running Olympiad, where 58 other nations sent teams to compete. Team USA 2011, comprised of Rebecca and three other high school seniors from around the U.S., also placed first in the team competition and collected four gold medals in practical assessments and theory.

Its such a great honor to be recognized by such accomplished professionals in the industry, Ms. Shi said in an interview last week from Purdue University, where she was helping high school seniors from around the country prepare for this years Olympiad.

Rebecca, who goes by Becky, was presented with a BioNJ Special Achievement Award by New Jersey Lieutenant Governor Guadagno and BioNJ President Debbie Hart at the New Jersey Pavilion during Biotechnology Industry Organizations International Convention in Boston.

Congratulations to Becky for her significant accomplishments at the Biology Olympiad, and the inspiration she provides our state and our nations future scholars and scientists through her hard work, educational achievement and dedication to helping others, said Lt. Governor Guadagno. It is the depth of quality and committed talent from our young scholars like Becky to a host of globally renowned bio scientists that make New Jersey the innovation state and ideal place to locate and grow biotech companies.

BioNJ President Debbie Hart offered her congratulations to Rebecca and said she takes particular pride that a state known for its biocluster also produced the worlds top high school senior in biology last year.

Its terrific to see one of our own students excelling in this exciting and still-emerging field, said Hart. Biotech offers so many people so much through promise of new medicines and other advances and its heartening to see such very bright young people like Becky coming up who will continue to move our industry forward.

The McClean Va.-based non-profit Center for Excellence in Education co-sponsors the U.S. Biology Olympiad (USABO) and Team USA with Purdue University. Nearly 10,500 students from across the U.S. registered for the highly competitive USABO.

The Center is proud of the success of Team USA 2011 to honor the United States with their outstanding academic performance Number One team in the world at the IBO, said Joann DiGennaro, the Centers president. Rebecca Shi received the Number One individual score in the world at the global competition and this is a remarkable achievement for U.S. academics.

Link:
NJ Lt. Governor and BioNJ Honor NJ Student for Top Honors at International Biology Olympiad during BIO International ...

19 June 2012 Last updated at 21:20 ET By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

Turtles killed as they were having sex and then fossilised in position have been described by scientists.

The remains of the 47-million-year old animals were unearthed in the famous Messel Pit near Darmstadt, Germany.

They were found as male-female pairs. In two cases, the males even had their tails tucked under their partners' as would be expected from the coital position.

Details are carried in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Researchers think the turtles had initiated sex in the surface waters of the lake that once existed on the site, and were then overcome as they sank through deeper layers made toxic by the release of volcanic gases.

The animals, still in embrace, were then buried in the lakebed sediments and locked away in geological time.

"We see this in some volcanic lakes in East African today," explained Dr Walter Joyce of the University of Tbingen.

"Every few hundred years, these lakes can have a sudden outburst of carbon dioxide, like the opening of a champagne bottle, and it will poison everything around them."

The turtles described in Biology Letters are of the extinct species Allaeochelys crassesculpta.

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Turtles fossilised in sex embrace

Public release date: 20-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Stefan Matile stefan.matile@unige.ch 022-379-6523 Universit de Genve

Professor Stefan Matile does not mention whether, as a child, he was a big fan of Lego. However, as an adult, he is fascinated by the game of molecular construction. Using the rules of chemistry, it is possible to artificially assemble all kinds of molecules and even nanomachines.

However, chemists in this area feel their creativity constrained by the small number of bond types available for binding atoms and molecules. Such is the case for this UNIGE and NCCR Chemical Biology chemist who decided several years ago to flush out new kinds of bonds. "The literature murmured about the existence of a possible halogen bond, particularly in thyroid gland biology," explains the specialist. "It was said to be very similar to the hydrogen bond except for an important detail: while the hydrogen bond (hydrophilic) works only in water, the halogen bond (hydrophobic) feels at ease in fatty environments."

To highlight this bond and its potential usefulness, Stefan Matile's team sought to compose the smallest molecular system possible. They bonded a carbon atom and an iodine atom (member of the halogen family) to establish that in so doing they created an imbalance in the distribution of electrons orbiting the iodine nucleus. This results in an excess of negative charge on one side and a negative charge deficit on the other. This deficit acts as a positive charge, now capable of interacting with anions (negatively charged atoms).

The Geneva team's biggest contribution is to have demonstrated that this system can transport anions across a phospholipid bilayer membrane, similar to that found in our cells.

"This halogen bond acts somewhat like a buoy and allows anions to swim across the fatty interior of the membrane," adds Stefan Matile. "This is obviously a very interesting function for NCCR Chemical Biology, one of whose goals is to discover new ways to penetrate cells without damaging them."

This discovery is currently situated in the field of fundamental science, but could very quickly find applications, especially in the medical field. Some diseases are in fact linked to the inability of some organs to allow vital ions across cell membranes.

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A new tool for molecular architects

TAINAN, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), southern Taiwan, and Fujitsu Taiwan LTD. signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) Monday for building a platform of genomics and bioinformatics research to jointly promote computational biology, cultivate personnel training for bioinformatics, and develop biology analysis software.

Dr. Hwung-Hweng Hwung, president of NCKU, and Ikegami Ichirou, general manager of Fujitsu Taiwan, signed the MOU on behalf of their respective organizations.

With a solid engineering research of NCKU, which helps promote the application of genetics study, the input from Fujitsu, a leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company, and the prospective NCKU genomics and bioinformatics research platform are expected to enlarge NCKUs role in global genetics research.

With the MOU, the cooperation between NCKU and Fujitsu will be escalated to another level as their partnership will strengthen the collaboration among academia, industry, and government in Taiwan and Japan.

In his welcoming speech, President Hwung of NCKU said that NCKUs partnership with Fujitsu is based upon shared benefits and strong collaborations. Under the MOU, both parties will establish a platform to help develop genomics research.

Ikegami Ichiro pointed out that NCKU is the first university in Taiwan Fujitsu has looked forward to cooperating with.

NCKU has many distinguished researchers in the biological field and well-rounded research environment, he said. NCKUs research on genomics and the original species of Taiwan has shown great achievement and its extensive relations with world-renowned scientific institutes are fruitful in collaborated results.

The initial cooperation between NCKU and Fujitsu will focus on nurturing talents, followed by data collecting of Taiwan original species and the personnel training for biology data analysis, according to Chi-Chuan Hwang, chair professor of NCKU Engineering Science.

Fujitsu and NCKU will jointly build a research platform of genomics and bioinformatics, explore the important genomics research issues, and share R&D results.

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NCKU-Fujitsu MOU to Build Platform for Genomics Research

ScienceDaily (June 19, 2012) NASA is expanding its existing capabilities for doing plant and animal tissue investigations on the International Space Station with the delivery of a new centrifuge scheduled for this summer. The centrifuge is a NASA and commercial industry collaboration, and will be housed in the NanoRacks facility.

The small Gravitational Biology Lab will allow biological experimentation in artificial gravity -- from zero gravity to twice Earth's normal gravity -- for prolonged periods of time. The new facility will provide environmental control, lighting, data transfer, commanding, and observation of experiments in Mars and moon gravity conditions, as well as mimicking Earth's gravity. This is useful for biological research, and could lead to advances in medications and vaccines, agricultural controls, and discoveries in genetics -- all beneficial to those of us on Earth.

NanoRacks hardware is available for many different investigation scenarios, including mini-aquariums, seed germination boxes, plant growth chambers, mammal and plant cell culture units, along with multi-generation chambers for fruit flies. There have been several multi-generational investigations involving drosophila -- a type of fruit fly. Drosophila has a similar genetic makeup to humans, and can serve as a genetic model for several human disease studies.

There are already two NanoRacks research platforms in use on the space station, including two microscopes. More than 35 investigations have already used the NanoRacks facilities, which operate under a Space Act Agreement with NASA and the U.S. National Lab. In 2005, Congress designated the space station a national laboratory in an effort to include other government organizations, schools and universities and private companies in the use of the orbiting lab facility, increasing the amount of research being done in microgravity.

The centrifuge is a joint venture between Astrium Space Transportation and NanoRacks LLC, with more joint projects planned. Additional facilities also are planned, with a Plate Reader scheduled for delivery this year to allow on-site microbiological analysis, expanding life science and biological research.

"This is an important step in the expansion of National Lab facilities aboard the space station," said Marybeth Edeen, former U.S. National Lab manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center. "Having companies develop research and facilities for the National Lab with their own funding demonstrates the beginnings of the commercial space marketplace that the National Lab was created to serve."

Centrifuges have been used in space since 1985 to conduct more than 130 experiments on 25 shuttle missions, resulting in the publication of more than 300 scientific papers. This heritage provides a large variety of flight-proven experiment designs now available for use by researchers for all types of molecular and cellular investigations on animal and plant tissues. The new NanoRacks facility design will provide fully automated culturing of cells and tissue, including "plug-and-play" payloads that require only a standard computer USB connection to access needed power and environmental controls.

Station crew members and researchers are looking forward to the addition of this new centrifuge. What they will learn from the research in the new facility can be used to better life on Earth, as well as provide knowledge to help advance future long-duration human spaceflight missions.

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New gravitational biology lab allows for testing in artificial gravity

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- The 2010 biology department shootings helped put the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) on top of a national website's ranking of "America's 25 Most Crime-Rattled Colleges." The unofficial ranking, based on an analysis of crime reports, was released today by the website "The Daily Beast."

UAH spokesman Ray Garner called the ranking skewed. "It is no secret that we had a tragic shooting incident on our campus in 2010, and that event heavily skewed this ranking," Garner said in a statement today. "If you look at our overall crime statistics, you will find outside that isolated event that our university offers a safe environment for the thousands of students, faculty and staff that travel around our campus."

The website said it based its rankings on a system it designed to compare and rank per-capita crime in certain categories as reported by colleges to the U.S. Department of Education. The reporting period was 2008-2010, which included the period of a triple homicide committed during a biology faculty meeting on the UAH campus. A former assistant biology professor, Dr. Amy Bishop, faces trial this fall on those charges.

"The crimes we considered were: murder, negligent murder, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, car theft, and arson," the website explained. "Because not all crimes are the same, we devised a subjective weighting system based on crime severity. Burglary established our low-end baseline for weighting; car theft was weighted twice as much as burglary; assault and robbery, six times as much as burglary; arson and negligent manslaughter, 10 times as much as burglary; and murder, 20 times as much as burglary." Each campus was also compared based on enrollment.

According to the website, UAH had the following numbers of crimes during the 2008-2010 period surveyed: 3 homicides, 4 robberies, 10 aggravated assaults, 80 burglaries and 8 car thefts.

Follow me on Twitter @leeroop and email me at lee.roop@htimes.com

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UAH is nation's most 'crime-rattled' college, according to website

Animal biology major Amber Parle, selected the student commencement speaker for the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences' afternoon ceremony on Sunday, is not your usual graduate.

In 2011 Parle completed her first full marathon, only a year and two weeks after being hit by a car while walking in downtown Davis. And, beginning this fall, she will "follow her dream" by traveling the world for 10 years.

After being hit by a car, "I realized that life is too fragile to let dreams slip away, and so I decided that after college I would travel the world -- spending a year in each country for a total of ten years," she said.

Parle will speak at the 2 p.m. commencement in the Activities and Recreation Center Pavilion, where the College of Ag will confer degrees to students from 21 departments, including animal biology and entomology.

The other College of Ag commencement ceremony starts at 9 a.m. at the same site, and encompasses the other nine departments, including plant sciences and environmental horticulture and forestry.

Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey serves as the master advisor of the animal biology program, which includes some 350 students. "Amber has a first-rate mind," he said, "and she led her study group."

Parle, born and reared in Southern California, is a 2008 graduate of Big Bear High School, Big Bear City, San Bernardino County. The valedictorian of her class, she was one of seven students, countywide, selected

Parle enrolled at UC Davis immediately after high school. During her time at UC Davis she explored several interests including painting, acting, drawing, photography, fitness, writing, and singing. She is currently working on her first novel and a collection of poems -- both of which she hopes to get published soon.

Parle will be leaving for South Korea in fall of 2012, where she has a yearlong contract to teach English.

After that "I will go wherever my heart takes me," she said.

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Amber Parle not your typical UCDavis grad

Emma Stone's onscreen romance with Spider-man has inspired the actress to study biology.

The Help star, who plays Peter Parker's first love Gwen Stacy in the film, visited a laboratory for the first time on the set and was left fascinated by the work of real scientists - and now wants to become one.

But first she has to exchange film scripts for biology books.

She tells WENN, "It was the first (time) I'd ever been angry about not going to college because I was fascinated by what they were showing us (at the laboratory). I thought, 'What do I need to do to intern?' You need to be a college graduate!

"It sucks because I can learn, I swear... I got so interested in biology, learning about medicine and regeneration and stem cells. It expanded my mind in so many ways, so now I'm gonna go take a biology class. What's amazing is you can do it at home."

And Stone has a couple of great minds on tap if her studies get too tough: "My aunt and uncle were scientists that worked for Merck and they had a hand in creating the cervical cancer vaccine and Gardasil, so they are incredibly intelligent and fantastic minds. I'd always been fascinated by what they did."

See more here:
Emma Stone - Emma Stone Plans To Study Biology

The Help star, who plays Peter Parker's first love Gwen Stacy in the film, visited a laboratory for the first time on the set and was left fascinated by the work of real scientists - and now wants to become one.

But first she has to exchange film scripts for biology books.

She tells WENN, "It was the first (time) I'd ever been angry about not going to college because I was fascinated by what they were showing us (at the laboratory). I thought, 'What do I need to do to intern?' You need to be a college graduate!

"It sucks because I can learn, I swear... I got so interested in biology, learning about medicine and regeneration and stem cells. It expanded my mind in so many ways, so now I'm gonna go take a biology class. What's amazing is you can do it at home."

And Stone has a couple of great minds on tap if her studies get too tough: "My aunt and uncle were scientists that worked for Merck and they had a hand in creating the cervical cancer vaccine and Gardasil, so they are incredibly intelligent and fantastic minds. I'd always been fascinated by what they did."

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Emma Stone plans to study biology

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

Contact: Stevenson Swanson sswanson@nybg.org 718-817-8512 The New York Botanical Garden

Three leading researchers in evolutionary biology and biodiversity will explore pressing current issues in one of the most important projects in contemporary sciencethe quest to understand the fundamental evolutionary relationships among speciesat the 2012 Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Symposium on Wednesday, June 20, at The New York Botanical Garden.

Ever since Charles Darwin sketched a simple tree to illustrate how species are related, scientists have endeavored to construct a "tree of life" that traces the evolutionary ancestry of related species. The advent of fast, reliable DNA sequencing and dramatically increased computing capacity has transformed that endeavor, allowing researchers to discover relationships among species at the molecular level.

The Cullman Symposium, "Assembling the Tree of Life," will cover such subjects as the significance of the tree of life as a scientific endeavor with practical applications, the impact it is having on environmental research and information technology, and its potential to help address a wide array of problems, from climate change to human disease.

Quentin Wheeler, Ph.D., Founding Director of the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University, will discuss his experiences as the former director of the Division of Environmental Biology at the National Science Foundation, where he was responsible for launching the Assembling the Tree of Life (AToL) program.

Sandra Knapp, Ph.D., Merit Researcher at the Natural History Museum in London, will talk about the importance of understanding the species at the tips of the tree of life, not just its branching patterns, in using tree-of-life information to conserve plant diversity.

Dennis Stevenson, Ph.D., the Botanical Garden's Vice President for Laboratory Research, will draw on his extensive research as a leading evolutionary botanist to show how understanding evolutionary problem solving at the genetic level could help address such current problems as species conservation, climate change, and even human diseases.

From June 16th to June 22nd, the Garden is hosting scientists from around the world who study one of the oldest but often overlooked forms of plant life on Earth--mosses. This group of plants, called bryophytes, was a pivotal step in the evolution of plants from water to land, and their significance in maintaining healthy ecosystems and preserving biodiversity is increasingly recognized.

The weeklong series of scientific presentations and lectures encompasses two separate conferences and the Cullman Symposium, which is held every other year at the Garden to inform a diverse audience, ranging from scientists to the general public, about the latest advances in molecular biology.

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'Tree of Life' symposium at NYBG

Public release date: 14-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: A. Engelen a.engelen@iospress.nl 31-206-883-355 IOS Press

The journal Fundamenta Informaticae honours Alan Turing with a Special Issue: Watching the Daisies Grow: from Biology to Biomathematics and Bioinformatics.

In 1951 Alan Turing wrote a paper entitled The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis in which he developed the reactiondiffusion theory, which became one of the basic models of theoretical biology and is also considered a foundation of chaos theory.

The story started much earlier, in spring 1923, as documented by his mother in a caricature called Hockey or Watching the Daisies Grow. Crucial motif in the drawing is that, while most players are engaged by the game, Turing is investigating a flower emerging just off the field.

In his Outline of the Development of a Daisy, Turing writes: "At a certain point in the development of the daisy the anatomical changes begin. From this point, as has been mentioned, it becomes hopelessly impracticable to follow the process mathematically."

Guest-editors Anna Gambin and Anna Marciniak-Czochra: "In this special issue, we present a selection of papers commemorating Alan Turing and arguing that he should be also considered the co-founder of biomathematics and bioinformatics. His late works were inspired by curiosity about the role of mathematics in natural phenomena. Turing's ideas on diffusion-driven instability leading to a formation of stable spatial structures provided mathematical explanations of symmetry break and de novo pattern formation during development, and the shapes of animal coat markings. They also led to the prediction of oscillating chemical reactions, the behavior which were first observed only about 10 years after Turing's death. In this volume, various applications of mathematical theories inspired by Turing's work to natural phenomena are considered."

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Continued here:
Special Alan Turing issue Fundamenta Informaticae published

IU role in Human Microbiome Project exposes battle history between bacteria, viruses in human body

Newswise BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- An Indiana University team of researchers has conducted the most in-depth and diverse genetic analysis of the defense systems that trillions of micro-organisms in the human body use to fend off viruses. The work is among a collection of 16 research papers released today by the Human Microbiome Project Consortium, a National Institutes of Health-led effort to map the normal microbial make-up of healthy humans.

CRISPRs

Led by IU Bloomington assistant professor of informatics and computing Yuzhen Ye, the team of bioinformaticists and biologists reconstructed arrays of clusters of regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats -- CRISPRs -- which function as immune systems to the bacteria that play a vital role in human health. Between genomic repeats, CRISPR locations carry short strands of foreign DNA called spacers, which provide a history of past exposures to outside invaders like plasmids and bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria), and allow the bacteria to fight off viruses they have already encountered.

"By studying CRISPRs and their sequences, we ask the same types of questions we ask about viral infections in humans and other animals: Do individuals make antibodies to a particular virus? If they do, we then know they have been exposed to that virus," Ye said. "By examining CRISPR sequences, we learn about what viruses there have been infecting different species of bacteria in a particular environment."

Bacteriophages are the most abundant life form on the planet and are in a constant arms race with bacteria, which in the human body outnumber human cells by 10 to 1. Scientists want to better understand how microbes -- a group that contributes more genes responsible for human survival than humans themselves do -- battle the viruses that seek to infect them.

Using a targeted assembly strategy to reconstruct CRISPR arrays that otherwise are impossible to identify from whole metagenome assemblies, the team identified the distributions of 64 known and 86 novel types of CRISPRs (based on the CRISPR repeat sequences) from the 751 shotgun datasets (containing 3.5 terabases of genomic sequences) of microbial DNA extracted from the 242 healthy U.S. volunteers participating in the Human Microbiome Project.

The Human Microbiome Project collected tissues from 15 body sites in 129 men and from 18 body sites in 113 females, with up to three samples taken from each volunteer's mouth, nose, skin and lower intestine, in addition to three vaginal sites in women. The entire research consortium included 200 researchers at nearly 80 universities and institutions, and today's release of new data is the result of five years of work and an investment of $173 million.

The IU team confirmed that by using targeted assembly, longer CRISPR arrays were produced that allowed more spacers to be identified for analyzing CRISPR evolution. The Streptococcus CRISPR SmutaL36, for example, was observed in 38 of 751 datasets using whole metagenome assembly, but targeted assembly identified SmutaL36 in 386 datasets. For 142 out of 150 CRISPRs, their traces were identified in more datasets by targeted assembly as compared to whole metagenome assembly, and for 36 CRISPRs, they were seen in at least 10 times more datasets. Enterococcus faecalis

"We know that CRISPRs adapted to a virus or other infectious agent are extremely important to the bacteria carrying those CRISPRs: They live or die," Ye said. "But we really don't understand how this leads to changes in the entire biology of an individual."

See the article here:
Informatics, Biology Team Demonstrates Role of Foreign DNA Strands in Life-Supporting Bacteria

The Irish Times - Wednesday, June 13, 2012

IZABELLE BALIKOEVA

EXAM BLOGGER:YESTERDAY WAS Russia Day. I celebrated with a 3-hour Russian exam, after a three-hour biology exam, after a 2-hour Irish exam. Yay!

I dont know if the State Exams Commission thought it would be nice to have the Russian exam on Russia Day, but I could have done without it.

There are days that can be described as character-building. Yesterday was such a day for me. I was born in Russia but have lived in Ireland all my life. As a result I took Russian, Irish and French for the Leaving, and yesterday was the day that two languages landed together, or would have, if a three-hour biology paper hadnt got in the way. Im up for most things, but sitting two papers at the same time is not one of them. So I finished a very long biology paper at 5pm, ate the lunch I didnt have time to eat after Irish, and finally fell out of the exam hall at sunset.

This timetabling quirk had a number of knock-on effects.

Trying to remember not to answer biology questions in Russian, for example. There was also the little matter of my technology embargo as I took Russian hours after everyone else (actually, there are quite a few of us taking Irish and Russian around the country), I was not allowed access to my mobile phone, laptop or anything that might plug me into the mainframe, in case I might find out what came up on the mornings Russian paper. With three exams back to back its hard to see what I could have done with any information it took me until 5pm to find a gap for lunch.

It was a surreal day. In fact, this whole process has been surreal.

Week one was like walking through a dream. It felt strange but I was excited to finally start and get it over with once and for all. The last days before the English exam everyone seems to brush up on their clairvoyance abilities and the predictions for the paper are inescapable. It was a tough paper. If only they gave us eight hours instead of three, the gold we could produce with more time! Writing in Russian is a different story. I have spoken the language at home all my life but over three hours of the Russian alphabet is quite another thing. Yesterday I spent a grand total of nine hours scribbling away on everything from Favellas in El Salvador in Irish to seashore ecology in biology to the past tense in Russian.

If the Leaving Cert is designed to mould us into flesh and blood Wikipedia sites, job done. However, something tells me that as soon as I open Facebook, it will all be forgotten.

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Surreal day with three exams - and a technology embargo