LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM--(Marketwire -06/12/12)- An article published in F1000 Biology Reports (http://f1000.com/reports/b/4/11/) discusses recent important advancements in the development of alternative methods of embryo evaluation and selection that could lead to improvements in the reliability of IVF treatments.

The success rate of in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures still remains relatively low, at only around 30%. The high emotional, health and financial costs associated with having to undergo the procedure multiple times has driven the need to develop more efficient methods of assessing the development potential of embryos to ensure that only those with the highest potential are selected for IVF treatment.

In their article Advances in embryo selection methods for F1000 Biology Reports, F1000 Faculty Member in Development Biology Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, and her Associate Faculty Member Anna Ajduk, compare the various methods currently used for assessing embryonic viability and discuss novel procedures based on advanced time-lapse imaging techniques. These new methods show signs of promise for increasing the efficiency and success of IVF treatments.

The authors argue that by developing more reliable methods of assessing embryonic quality, single embryos can be selected for transfer, which could reduce emotional costs, limit the impact on the health of mothers-to-be and improve the overall efficiency of the procedure. The authors say that reliable selection of high quality single embryos can be achieved by combining current screening methods with non-invasive time-lapse imaging techniques.

Commenting on her findings, Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz said: "This is a very effective, rapid and non-invasive way of assessing the health of mammalian embryos. I would be delighted if it can save the lives of human embryos, and I believe it should when applied in the IVF clinic."

Evidence of improvement in live birth outcomes still has to be determined by testing these methods in a clinical environment and subjecting them to randomized controlled trials; however, they offer great hope for more reliable assessment of embryonic quality and more efficient IVF treatments.

For more information, visit http://f1000.com.

About Faculty of 1000

Faculty of 1000 (http://f1000.com) is a post-publication review service in Biology and Medicine that identifies and evaluates the most interesting and important papers published worldwide. The core of our service is our 10,000 Faculty Members and Associates, who cover some 350 defined specialty sections and collectively contribute around 1300-1500 article evaluations per month. These evaluations are published immediately on F1000 and constitute an up-to-date and comprehensive guide to the best of the scientific literature.

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The First Day of Development--a Window to Successful Pregnancy

The Irish Times - Wednesday, June 13, 2012

LOUISE HOLDEN

LEAVING CERT BIOLOGY HIGHER AND ORDINARY LEVEL:AN EXOTIC question on ecology came as a surprise to Leaving Cert biology students yesterday in what was otherwise regarded as a lovely higher paper.

More than 30,000 students took biology at higher and ordinary level yesterday and the response was very positive.

My students were quite happy with this paper, said Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland subject representative Ciara OShea. There was plenty of choice in the long question section. The experiment section demanded a great depth of knowledge but the students seemed able to handle it. They needed to know seven different experiments to answer just one question in this section.

A graph question in section 12 also demanded a bit of thought, teachers commented. Overall, however, the questions were well-scaffolded, leading students to check their answers as they went along, said Teachers Union of Ireland subject representative Margaret ONeill.

Every aspect of the syllabus was covered, said teachers, and the biology course is famous for its breadth.

Even the brain and nervous system came up, and this is a topic that teachers are stretched to get to within the teaching cycle, said Ms ONeill. Every element of the syllabus was examined, as usual.

Biology is the most popular elective subject on the Leaving Cert curriculum after French. Despite annual complaints about the amount of material that students and teachers have to cover, numbers taking the subject remain high. More than twice as many girls take biology as boys.

The higher paper featured flowering plant reproduction, genetic engineering and the function of motor neurons in the brain. A question on the introduction of exotic species to an ecosystem was considered unusual. The ecology question was a little difficult and might have thrown a few students, said Ms ONeill from Gorey Community School in Wexford.

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A 'lovely' paper with an exotic surprise

June 12, 2012 | 8:00 a.m.

Ridley Scott on the set of Prometheus. (Kerry Brown / 20th Century Fox)

The topic has been making the rounds in cinaste circles, and on Thursday it reached the cafeteria at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. Three of the studios directors Oscar winners Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall-E) and Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3) and Oscar nominee Bob Peterson (Up) sat down for lunch and began chewing on a Hollywood mystery: the Ridley Scott Exception.

We started talking about it because Lee mentioned how he had just shown both Blade Runner and Alien to his teenage daughter and that she loved both of them, Stanton recalled later that day. Certainly story and character must be king for a movie to stand the test of time, but typically every [science fiction] movie, no matter how good it looks, is ultimately betrayed in the end by the limitations of whatever current technology was used.

But Alien and Blade Runner are the exceptions to the rule. On every level of aesthetics, they defy Father Time.

The riddle of Ridley is timely again with the release of Prometheus, Scotts 20th feature film but only his third set in a sci-fi universe. Its a somewhat familiar corner of the galaxy this time too: Prometheus is a quasi-prequel to Alien (1979), and both stories follow a human crew (accompanied by an android with an enigmatic agenda) to a planet that holds dark secrets that are coveted by the rapacious Weyland Corp.

Alien was Scotts international breakthrough and he followed it up with the futuristic film noir Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford as a retired L.A. cop hunting down a renegade cell of synthetic humans known as replicants. Blade Runner was a dud upon release, but now, as it reaches its 30th anniversary this month, the movie and its influence are more alive in the pop culture conversation than ever.

That influence can be traced through dozens of films, among them Terminator, The Matrix, Brazil and Inception and the upcoming Looper and a new Total Recall are also candidates for the list. Christopher Nolan cites Blade Runner as his favorite film and Duncan Jones (Source Code, Moon) has described his next movie as a valentine to the 1982 Scott film.

Then there are video games, TV shows and music videos, as well as echoes in fashion, advertising, design and architecture. One other place you can find Blade Runner? Its under the artificial skin and philosophical sinew of Prometheus. The new film is a hybrid of Scotts past sci-fi films, and it appears that he just might keep the laboratory open for business this time he says a Blade Runner sequel is moving forward in development and will again search the souls of creators and creations.

God is in the details, Scott said. Who bothered to create people who look like human beings? Why do that? Its really going into that and answering the big, broad strokes of it.

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'Prometheus' has 'Alien' biology hard-wired by Blade Runner soul

As the race to build life from scratch pushes on, hyperbole drowns out nuanced discussion. We need more wide-ranging dialogue

EXCITING but terrifying. Powerful but scary. This is what some say about the emerging field of synthetic biology. Not surprising, perhaps, for an initiative that aims to "create life from scratch", to "make life better" and to "make biology easier to engineer".

The goals of synthetic biology are certainly ambitious: to produce a toolbox of standard biological parts with well-characterised functions that can be put together in combinations that may not exist in nature in order to perform human-designed functions outside the laboratory. Some hope to make the parts and the knowledge of how to assemble them accessible to all. The overall aim is to make the engineering of biology a routine process that can be put to use in many industries, with no need for highly specialised skills.

Most ethical, policy and media discussions about synthetic biology start from the assumption that these aims have already been achieved: that biology has become easy to engineer for whatever ends we choose, that the toolbox is available to any student or potential terrorist, that dangerous organisms and powerful bioweapons are easy to make, and that no effective regulation is possible. The ability of synthetic biologists to overcome serious scientific and technological challenges is taken for granted, and the economic, legal, social and political conditions for the uptake of these technologies are ignored.

Commentators instead focus on potential reckless use or misuse, overestimate the pathogenic possibilities, and worry about deep questions such as: "Do we have the right to play God?". These worries are the flip side of grand claims about synthetic biology's imminent ability to solve challenges in health, environment and energy. Utopias and dystopias seem to be the only scenarios possible.

This way of framing discussions is unhelpful. It is an example of "speculative ethics" that distracts us from less exciting but more pressing questions. What are synthetic biologists actually doing? How easy, or difficult, is it proving? What applications are they realistically going to develop in the short to medium term? What is their intended purpose, and to what extent could these contribute to the public good?

How, then, to proceed? Synthetic biologists have been impressively open to collaborations with the social sciences, law, arts and humanities, and open to debates with critical groups. In the UK, for example, social scientists have been participating in synthetic biology research programmes from the outset.

We are engaged in such partnerships and work closely with synthetic biologists so that together we can better understand the promises and challenges. We aim to help them reflect on why they are doing what they are doing, and to encourage them to open up such reflections to people outside their labs. In so doing, we try to avoid the pitfalls of speculative ethics and - perhaps idealistically - influence the kind of synthetic biology that is developed.

Science is creative, exciting and future-oriented and most synthetic biologists, like most people, do want to "make life better". But this means different things to different people, and even among synthetic biologists there are different views about what research is most valuable and which directions should be pursued.

As "embedded" social scientists, we routinely witness fascinating, nuanced discussions among synthetic biologists that acknowledge the complexities and uncertainties involved in their research. Sadly, these often disappear when synthetic biologists present their work in official public dialogues - or to journalists.

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Let's get real on synthetic biology

Biology students travel to the Oregon coast to study and take classes

A dozen Brigham Young University biology students spent the entire month of May studying marine biology at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology.

Dr. Russell Rader led the group of 10 students and two teaching assistants on the month-long journey.

Nothing can quite compare to actually field experience in any field, graduate biology student and teaching assistantRiley Rackliffe said. Its rare for an inland university to have a chance to hold class in a tide pool crawling with biodiversity.

The OIMB is located on the shores of Coos Bay and offers easy access to many different marine life environments along the Oregon coast. Professors hold classes in buildings on the campus in addition to being able to explore ecosystems a few steps away.

One moment wed be looking at all of the organisms and then wed go back to the classroom and learn more stuff about them that I had no idea about, said Carrie Ingram, a biology education major from Walkersville, Maryland.

Lexi Balleck, a junior studying biology conservation, said she felt the trip fit her style of learning.

I am very much a hands on learner so I loved getting to actually go out into the ocean and seeing all the animals and the things we are learning about instead of just sitting in the classroom, Balleck said. We got to go play with everything we were learning about. It was a lot of hands on, playing with the animals and seeing the coast and everything.

Students were able to experience unfamiliar terrain and discover new caverns of mother nature.

Dr. Russell Rader poses with a new found friend.

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BYU students study marine biology in the northwest - Biology students travel to the Oregon coast to study and take ...

Yuma Union High School District freshmen will take the Cambridge Board Exam for biology on Tuesday.

Cibola, Gila Ridge, Kofa, San Luis and Yuma high schools will be administering the exam, and students should report to their home campus to take the test.

During this academic year of 2011-2012, all freshman students took part in the unique opportunity of taking Cambridge Curriculum Coursework in biology, stated YUHSD officials.

As part of this opportunity, students completed Cambridge biology labwork and/or coursework during the academic year, which made up a significant portion of their overall board exam. On June 12, students will complete the last remaining portion of the board exam system for biology by taking a 45-minute, multiple-choice exam.

Exam results will be available in August.

Following are the check-in/exam times for each school and the phone numer for more information: Yuma High 1 p.m./1:30 p.m. (502-5000), Kofa High 12:30 p.m./1:30 p.m. (502-5400), Cibola noon/1:15 p.m. (502-5700), San Luis High 12:45 p.m./1:15p.m. (502-6100) and Gila Ridge 1 p.m./1:30 p.m. (502-6400).

Sarah Womer can be reached at swomer@yumasun.com or 539-6858. Find her on Facebook at Facebook.com/YSSarahWomer or on Twitter at @YSSarahWomer.

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Biology exam Tuesday for YUHSD freshmen

Biology students from Vincent Massey High School tangled with students from around the world in the annual University of Toronto National Biology Competition and they did their school proud.

This competition is open to schools worldwide, with the majority of participating schools coming from Canada, the United States and parts of Asia.

Out of the 300 schools participating, the Massey team placed 16th.

More impressively, Massey was the top scoring team out of the 17 Manitoba schools, public and private, that entered the competition.

To be eligible for the team competition, a school must have at least five participants. The team score is calculated based on the top five student scores.

Masseys team included Isaac Kim, Cody Cherepuschak, Gol Roberts, Eric Badiou and Leslie Skead, some of whom racked up some impressive individual honours as well.

Roberts, a Grade 12 student, was awarded a National Biology Scholar Award as her score ranked her 85th highest score out of the 4,332 students who competed.

Kim, a Grade 11 student, was awarded a National Biology Scholar with Distinction Award for having the 49th highest score out of the 4,332 students who competed placing him in the top two per cent of all the students who wrote the exam. He was also awarded the Certificate of Achievement for having received the top mark out of the students who wrote the exam from Vincent Massey High School.

Cherepuschak, another Grade 11 student, also won a National Biology Scholar Award for having the 52nd highest score out of the 4,332 students. He, too, placed in the top two per cent of students who wrote the exam.

Biology teacher Lindsay Metruk is proud of her students for accomplishing such impressive scores in this prestigious contest and credits the rigour of the Advanced Placement program at Massey for such a strong foundation in biology.

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Massey scores big in biology

Public release date: 6-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Garth Hogan ghogan@asmusa.org American Society for Microbiology

Washington, DCJune 6, 2012 LaJoyce Debro, Ph.D., Professor of Biology, Jacksonville State University, Alabama, is the 2012 William A. Hinton Research Training Award laureate. "For more than 45 years, Debro has been an outstanding educator," says her nominator, Ellen Neidle from the University of Georgia. This award, given in memory of William A. Hintona physician-research scientist and one of the first African-Americans to join the ASMhonors outstanding contributions toward fostering the research training of underrepresented minorities in microbiology. "She has had an impact on hundreds of students," says Benjie Blair, Jacksonville State University. "She is highly respected for her depth of knowledge and dedication in teaching and research."

Debro grew up in Clarksdale, Mississippi and received her B.A. in Biology from Spelman College. She went on to receive her M.S. from Atlanta University (now Clark-Atlanta), and her Ph.D. degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology from Purdue University. Before working at Jacksonville State University, she instructed at Coahoma Community College in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and Miles College in Birmingham, Alabamaall historical black colleges. Debro's current instructional responsibilities at Jacksonville State University are in general biology, microbiology, genetics, and molecular biology. She is committed to the instruction of biology as a process, and engages her students in undergraduate research both through scheduled class laboratories and independent study projects. Recently, Debro joined the Science Education Alliance of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and is engaging classes of beginning students in investigations on mycobacteriophage diversity that involve the purification, characterization, and genome analyses of environmental isolates.

Debro views her motivation and dedication to her students as the natural outcome of the special interest her teachers and professors showed in her as a student. It was these teachers and professors who encouraged her to pursue a doctorate in biology. As a result, Debro strives to enhance the educational experiences of her students by showing a personal interest in each student and ensuring that they recognize that they have the power to excel beyond their own expectations. She spends countless hours mentoring, motivating, and providing individualized instruction to her students who then become increasingly independent and responsible for their own learning. "Debro lives in Birmingham and is the first to admit that she chooses to live near her family and drive an hour each way to JSU in order to work with rural students (including many minorities). She has shown more dedication than anyone I can imagine in pursuit of this goal," says Blair. Debro holds to the tenet that "A child can't be what a child can't see," and works to broaden the vision of her students by extending their campus experiences to include summer research positions at research intensive institutions. She also encourages her students to participate in research conferences, including ASM's Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS).

Debro's mentoring extends beyond the students under her direct tutelage to include protgs enrolled in Ph.D. programs as well as young professionals working to secure tenure. She had the opportunity to influence lives and careers from a different perspective by serving as a Program Director in Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF) while on a leave of absence from her faculty position (2007-2009). At NSF she was dedicated to promoting research careers and activities for faculty mentors and their students, and was honored with the Director's Equal Opportunity Achievement Award for her diligence in developing effective activities to enhance diversity in the reviewers and awardees within her cluster and in the biological sciences overall. Susanne von Bodman, a former colleague from NSF, stated: "I am grateful for her sound and insightful scientific judgment, her collegial and supportive nature, and her ongoing willingness to help with all aspects of the merit review process. Debro is a team player whose efforts to build an inclusive scientific community are impressive, successful, and contagious."

According to Debro, her proudest professional achievements are not her publications, presentations, awarded grants, or lab experiments. Instead she is proudest of her successes in promoting young maturing scientists whose lives and careers she has influenced. "For her many contributions, Debro richly deserves recognition," summarizes Neidle.

###

To view Dr. Debro's biosketch, please visit: http://www.asm.org/index.php/awards-grants/current-william-a-hinton-research-training-award-laureate.html

The William A. Hinton Research Training Award will be presented during the 112th General Meeting of the ASM, June 16 - 19, 2012 in San Francisco, California. ASM is the world's oldest and largest life science organization and has more than 40,000 members worldwide. ASM's mission is to advance the microbiological sciences and promote the use of scientific knowledge for improved health and economic and environmental wellbeing.

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The American Society for Microbiology honors LaJoyce Debro

Public release date: 6-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Helen Pinfield-Wells h.pinfield-wells@lancaster.ac.uk Wiley-Blackwell

Scientists from across the world will meet at the University of Bristol on 6 June 2012 for a New Phytologist Workshop on Synthetic Biology (http://www.newphytologist.org/synthetic). There, they will discuss recent advances in this rapidly evolving and controversial new field.

Synthetic biology made headlines in 2010 when researchers at the J Craig Venter Institute announced they had created the first 'synthetic cell'. Created by transferring an artificially constructed DNA sequence into an existing cell which had been stripped of its native DNA, the cell behaved like a member of the species dictated by the synthetic DNA. Since then, the ambition and scale of synthetic biology enterprises have increased even further.

One key principle in the field is the standardisation of 'biological parts' in order to construct synthetic genes, systems or even entire species from new. This is a concept more familiar to engineers than biologists and indeed, attendees at the meeting will have a range of backgrounds from engineering and medicine to plant biologists and industrial scientists.

The idea of breaking down genes, complex biological systems, into simplified building blocks which can be shared and altered freely before being applied to a vast range of tasks is an appealing one to both researchers and industrialists.

With a quickly expanding toolkit and unconstrained by the limits of traditional genetic modification techniques (where genes must already exist in nature to be utilised), synthetic biology offers the opportunity to synthesise completely 'custom' genomes for specific applications. Anne Osbourn, Associate Research Director at the prestigious John Innes Centre, Editor of the New Phytologist journal and an organiser of the workshop suggests that the range of applications of synthetic biology is huge.

'As just one example, synthetic biology has the potential to enable us to make fuels, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and novel biomaterials faster, better and cheaper,' Anne explains. 'It could provide new ways of improving life in developing countries, for example through the generation of biosensors that monitor water quality or allow early detection of disease outbreaks.'

Synthetic biology also offers huge potential benefits when applied in plants and scientists at the workshop will detail research topics ranging from ensuring food security through crop improvement to re-engineering plants for other uses such as producing superior polymers for industry or vaccines for medicine. One presentation at the workshop will focus on technology developed at the John Innes Centre that has already been used to produce a vaccine for the H5N1 avian flu virus.

However, as with genetic modification in the past there are groups with growing concerns about the use of synthetic biology. Drawing parallels with recent events at GM crop trials conducted at Rothamsted Research and attempts by scientists to engage with protestors there, speakers on the final day of the workshop will outline the need for scientists to take the opportunity to 'frame' the debate around synthetic biology at an early stage as was arguably failed to achieve by scientists working on GM in earlier decades.

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Re-engineering life: New Phytologist Workshop on Synthetic Biology

(Phys.org) -- For hundreds of years, paleontologists have added fossils to museums around the world, amassing meticulous records of ancient biology, such as the invertebrate paleontology collection at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Institute.

There, thousands of drawers hold a record of ancient life that could be especially useful today in predicting how climate change could alter our planets biodiversity and distribution of species.

Alas, for years, such collections have come to be known as dark data information that can prove difficult for far-flung researchers and non-academics to access and use.

When I was in graduate school, if you wanted to track down material at an institution, well, maybe you got lucky and found it, said Bruce Lieberman, KU professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and senior curator with the division of invertebrate paleontology at the museum. But to get access to the data, youd have to contact the collections manager there, and if you wanted to gather data, it would require that a researcher there gather it for you or youd have to secure funds to travel yourself sometimes. So when data is hidden like that, its like theres no data at all.

Now, Lieberman is heading a $600,000 effort funded by the National Science Foundations Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections program to digitize thousands of fossils collected over hundreds of years and housed at the KU institute.

Soon, valuable information about fossils temporal and geographic distribution in deep time will be available to anyone on the Internet, accessible with a few keystrokes.

Lieberman said that partnerships with other institutions under the NSF grant would allow scientists to complete a fossil record that will more accurately show how climate change could impact species on Earth going forward.

We know there are certain issues facing the biosphere today and we can sort of measure in ecological time whats going to happen to the flora and fauna today, he said. But if we want a deeper time scale perspective, these fossil data will allow us to look at analogous time periods and analogous climate changes so that we can predict with more accuracy what may happen to life on the planet.

The digitization process, which will employ undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and a biodiversity informatics developer, will focus on three important time periods the Ordovician, Pennsylvanian and Neogene from three major paleobiogeographic regions: the Cincinnati region, American mid-continent and Gulf/Atlantic Coastal Plains.

Im focused on invertebrate fossils, Lieberman said. Those are species that dont have a backbone, like snails, clams and their relatives. We have very strong holdings in the Carboniferous period, the time about 290 million years ago. Much of the rock youd see around this part of Kansas comes from that period. Our deposits are centered on the entire American mid-continent. We have so much information about where those species were found and their distribution through time.

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Project to digitize ancient fossils could clarify influence of climate change

Today, the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology (ASGSB) announced a name change to the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR) to reflect a broadening of the societyis scope to include physical sciences. A general vote was taken by the membership and ninety percent of the votes were in favor of the name change and charter expansion. The predecessor society, ASGSB, was established in 1984, as a U.S. non-profit 501(C)(6) scientific society. The name change represents an expansion in the purpose of the society, which is to promote research, education, training, and development in the areas of gravitational space biological and physical processes and to apply the knowledge gained to a better understanding of gravity and other space environmental factors.

ASGSR president, Dr. Howard G. Levine says "We are very pleased to announce the expansion of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology (ASGSB) to include our fellow researchers in the Physical Sciences. ASGSB will henceforth be the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR), and we fully expect that this expansion of our original charter will lead to many fruitful collaborations between these two closely associated groups." The society sees the future of space exploration changing, with access to space now becoming available from commercial companies, and increased emphasis on the translational value of space research with regard to terrestrial applications. The society believes it is essential that, as an integrated group, they can provide a forum for high quality exploration, enabling research, technology, scientific discovery and training of the next generation of scientists.

According to Dr. D. Marshall Porterfield, director of the NASA Life and Physical Sciences division, "the recent announcement of the expansion of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology charter, and name change to include affiliated fundamental sciences is most welcome from the perspective of the Life and Physical Sciences Division at NASA Headquarters. The resulting fusion of these broad but strongly interdisciplinary groups, life and physical sciences, is in direct alignment with recent reorganization of these research programs at NASA. The new American Society for Gravitational and Space Research will be better aligned to represent the stakeholders of the critical sciences needed by NASA to advance future human space exploration. We welcome future growth and advancement of the organization as it supports the Life and Physical Sciences Division in the Human Exploration Mission Directorate."

Over the next few months, the society will be implementing these changes. The first inaugural conference that includes the broadened society will be held November 28 n December 2, 2012 at the Westin Canal Place in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Dr. Porterfield adds "Laissez les bons temps rouler." Information on the society and upcoming meeting can be found at http://www.ASGSR.org.

Contact: Cynthia Martin-Brennan (703) 392-0272 Email: cmbrennan@comcast.net http://www.asgsr.org

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American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology Changes Name to American Society for Gravitational and Space ...

(Phys.org) -- An international collaboration between scientists in University College Dublin and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) has revealed for the first time that 15% of the proteins encoded by the human genome contribute to the process of secretion in cells. This finding has been made possible through the assessment of more than 8 million individual cells.

This study is the first genome-wide assessment of the secretory process in a human cell system, explains Professor Jeremy Simpson, UCD School of Biology & Environmental Science and UCD Conway Institute, co-author of the research paper published online today in Nature Cell Biology.

Science has long recognised that secretion is a fundamental process, essential to almost all cell types in the body. The process is used to deliver hormones into the blood stream, digestive enzymes into the gut, and signalling molecules between cells.

However, until now, technology did not permit scientists to catalogue the complex pathway that a protein or lipid takes from manufacture to packaging and transporting through the cell to being secreted from the cell.

Previous studies on the secretory process have either been carried out with a more narrow focus on specific subsets of genes or in more simplistic organisms such as the fruit fly (Drosophila) where many of the proteins identified have no human equivalent. Now, using high content screening, we have been able to systematically target each of the 22,000 human genes and track the journey of a specific, fluorescently-tagged protein as it travels through, and out of, over 8 million individual cells.

In order for us to understand the impact on the body when this fundamental process of secretion is disrupted, we must first decipher the functional network of membrane trafficking pathways within the cell.

The researchers analysed more than 700,000 microscopy images and found 554 proteins that influence secretion, with 143 of these either influencing the early stage of the secretory pathway or morphology of the Golgi, a cellular structure responsible for packaging and labelling proteins.

Membrane traffic pathways connect membrane bound organelles in a carefully ordered sequence that ensures the correct complement of proteins and lipids within the cell exist in order to maintain cellular balance or homeostasis.

Image caption: In cells where different genes are silenced (middle, bottom), the site where the secretory processes begins (green) changes compared to normal cells (top). Courtesy of Jeremy Simpson, UCD

Newly synthesized proteins and lipids in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) are modified as they pass along the secretory pathway through the Golgi apparatus to the cell surface.

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First genome-wide assessment of secretion in human cells

As a retrovirus matures, the two parts of its shell protein (red and blue or yellow and blue) dramatically rearrange themselves, twisting and moving away from each other. Credit: EMBL/T.Bharat

Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have for the first time uncovered the detailed structure of the shell that surrounds the genetic material of retroviruses, such as HIV, at a crucial and potentially vulnerable stage in their life cycle: when they are still being formed. The study, published online today in Nature, provides information on a part of the virus that may be a potential future drug target.

Retroviruses essentially consist of genetic material encased in a protein shell, which is in turn surrounded by a membrane. After entering a target cell in the case of HIV, one of the cells in our immune system the virus replicates, producing more copies of itself, each of which has to be assembled from a medley of viral and cellular components into an immature virus. "All the necessary components are brought together within the host cell to form the immature virus, which then has to mature into a particle that's able to infect other cells" says John Briggs, who led the research at EMBL. "We found that when it does, the changes to the virus' shell are more dramatic than expected."

Enlarge

The role and shape of the protein shell (blue/orange) changes from the immature (top) to the mature form of the virus (bottom). Credit: EMBL/T.Bharat

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As a retrovirus matures, the two parts of its shell protein (red and blue or yellow and blue) dramatically rearrange themselves, twisting and moving away from each other. Credit: EMBL/T.Bharat

Although the virus shells imaged in this study were derived from the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus and made artificially in the laboratory, they closely resemble those of both this virus and HIV which are very similar in their natural forms.

"We still need a lot more detailed information before drug design can really be contemplated," Briggs concludes, "but finally being able to compare mature and immature structures is a step forwards."

Journal reference: Nature

Link:
Shape-shifting shell: Structure of a retrovirus at a potentially vulnerable stage

ScienceDaily (June 4, 2012) A University of Saskatchewan research team led by Tony Kusalik and Scott Napper have harnessed bioinformatics and molecular biology to create powerful software that promises to become a "must have" tool in drug development research labs the world over.

The software is used to analyze kinases -- a type of enzyme involved in virtually every cellular function, from energy use and reproduction to modifying gene expression. Licensing of the patented technology is currently underway, and a demonstration of its effectiveness recently appeared in the journal Science Signalling.

"This is a premiere example of what can be achieved through interdisciplinary and collaborative research," says Kusalik, a professor in the computer science department.

Kinases are often involved in cellular functions that go awry, such as when pathogens such viruses or bacteria "hijack" a cell's functions for their own purposes. Pathogens also have kinases of their own.

"Kinases have a central role in controlling cellular processes and are associated with many diseases. They're logical points for understanding biology and represent important treatment targets," says Napper, an associate professor of biochemistry with the U of S and senior scientist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre (VIDO-InterVac).

The standard lab tool in kinase research is the microarray, which allows researchers to analyze many different kinases within a sample simultaneously. A microarray looks like a standard microscope slide with rows of spots, each spot representing a different molecular test.

"With older methods, it was like having a little flashlight in a cave -- you can see, but it doesn't tell you all that is there," Napper says. "These arrays give you the whole picture -- but you end up with absolutely mountains of data."

The problem for Napper and fellow VIDO-InterVac senior scientist Philip Griebel was that the mountains of data were making no sense. Griebel is also a faculty member with the U of S School of Public Health.

"They knew there were problems with the methodology they were following, because the results 'weren't working out,' but they didn't have sufficient expertise in bioinformatics to come up with an alternate method. That's where we came in," Kusalik says.

Kusalik is an expert in bioinformatics, which is the application of computers and information technology to biology and medicine. One well-known application of bioinformatics is DNA sequencing, including the Human Genome Project.

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Powerful new tool for research and drug development

Public release date: 4-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Molly Galvin news@nas.edu 202-334-2138 National Academy of Sciences

At this National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering symposium, stakeholders will examine the tools, platforms, and infrastructure needed for continued advances in synthetic biology; political and social strategies to pursue these advances; and research applications in key areas. The symposium is the final of a three-part series organized in conjunction with the Royal Society, Royal Academy of Engineering, and Chinese Academies of Sciences and Engineering. It will take place on June 12 and 13 from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. EDT in the auditorium of the National Academy of Sciences building, 2101 Constitution Ave., N.W.

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Those who cannot attend may watch a live webcast at http://www.national-academies.org. For a complete agenda or to register, visit http://www.nationalacademies.org/stl.

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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'Synthetic Biology for the Next Generation'

1 hr.

John Roach

Stephen Quake, a prolific inventor whose application of physics to biology has led to breakthroughs in drug discovery, genome analysis and personalized medicine, has won the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, a prestigious award for outstanding innovators.

A big part of physics is trying to figure out how to measure things, Quake, who is a professor of bioengineering and applied physics at Stanford University, told me. And so I get interested in a biological problem [and] figure out a way to measure it.

Among his many inventions is the biological equivalent of the integrated circuit, so-called microfluidic large scale integration.

I got interested in trying to automate biology the way the integrated circuit automated computation, he said. And so you need a chip that, instead of having wires and transistors on it, has pipes and valves and pumps and things.

It is little miniaturized plumbing. Its got up to tens of thousands of mechanical valves on a chip, and all kinds of plumbers nightmares.

Quake co-founded Fluidigm to commercialize the technology in 1999. The company generated $10.8 million in sales in the first quarter of 2012, Reuters noted.

Applications of the technology are myriad, including Quakes own work on single-cell genomics. Others have used it to help determine the structure of proteins, including for the Ebola virus and H5N1 influenza virus, for example.

Another Quake innovation is a non-invasive pre-natal test for Down syndrome which is based on analysis of blood taken from a mothers arm, which includes fetal DNA.

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Inventor of plumbing on a chip wins $500,000 prize

An International Baccalaureate biology teacher at Schenectady High School has been named 2012 Schenectady City School District Teacher of the Year.

Annie Chien was surprised Thursday morning with news of the award in her classroom. She was nominated by co-worker Agnes Phillips, according to a statement released by Schenectady City School District.

"Annie Chien epitomizes the IB teacher," said Phillips, in the nomination letter. "She challenges her students to think, to produce and critique, not just reproduce knowledge."

Chien was up against 16 other nominees for the award. What made Chien standout from the others was the way she challenged her students to succeed, while learning in an exciting program, Phillips said.

Chien has been teaching IB biology since 2008 with a 100 percent passing rate on the internal assessment and 80 percent of her students scoring at the highest level, according to the school.

The IB diploma program is an internationally recognized, rigorous pre-university course of studies that surpasses New York state requirements. The program has also seen an enrollment increase of an average of 24 percent since 2009.

"Ms. Chien demonstrates the qualities of not just a great teacher, but a fantastic teacher who is extremely dedicated in guiding her students to success," said Jessica Sheremet, a senior at Schenectady High School who has been in Chien's classroom for two years.

Chien, who is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, earned her bachelor's degree in psychology and biology from Barnard College of Columbia University, and a master's degree in education and technology from New York University.

Chien will be eligible to compete for this year's New York State Teacher of the Year contest.

Jackson Wang, a College of Saint Rose junior, is a Times Union intern. He can be reached at Jwang@timesunion.com.

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Big day for high school teacher

WESTERLY, R.I. --

It was an unexpected end to the school day for more than a dozen students at Westerly High School on Friday, after they apparently got sick from fumes in a biology classroom.

The first incident happened at about 8 a.m. when two students fainted within a few minutes of each other.

About an hour later, more students complained of symptoms and everyone in the science wing was moved to the auditorium.

"We had an evacuation at like 9 o'clock this morning," one student said.

A total of 17 students and one teacher were affected, and seven people were transported to Westerly Hospital.

"There was something related to a chemical in the biology lab. They shut down the science wing, and they're not letting any of the kids go in there," said student Jordan Degiacomo.

All of the students who felt sick were either in the biology classroom or adjacent to it. The class had planned to dissect a cow's heart and other specimens, preserved with a chemical called formalin.

"For a lay person, formalin perhaps could be watered down formaldehyde," said Chief David Sayles of the Westerly Fire Department.

Sayles called in the Hope Valley-Wyoming hazardous materials team and the Department of Environmental Management as a precaution.

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Biology class chemical makes students sick

[Credit: Peng Yin, Bryan Wei, and Mingjie Dai]DNA is pretty incredible stuff, but who thought it could be turned into a font--and one thats still nicer than Comic Sans at that?

Three Harvard Medical School students--Peng Yin, Bryan Wei, and Mingjie Dai--created the font, nicknamed DNA Sans, by using DNA "tiles." These tiles, like tiny canvases, allow each single strand of DNA to fold into a rectangular tile. When the tiles are mixed together, they stick to each other and form something that resembles a miniature brick wall.

So how does a tiny brick wall make all the shapes needed for a font? As a wall, the tiles are pretty tiny--each is around 64-by-103 nanometers in size. The team discovered that it could make complex shapes by simply leaving out specific tiles. From there, the researchers made 107 two-dimensional shapes comprising of numbers, letters, Chinese characters, symbols, and random objects, like an eagles head and smiley face. They were also able to make different sized tiles using this method.

The tile project proved that you dont need long scaffolds to create DNA structures. Previous work required scaffolds for the structure to retain its shape, because new sets of strands were needed for each structure. With the tiles technique, you can use the same set repeatedly, due to the way tiles are left out--you just need to pick molecules carefully. The team created a robot to perform this task--the bot can pick the tiles and mix the required strands for each shape.

It's pretty fascinating stuff, really. Of course, you wont be seeing DNA Sans in the next edition of Microsoft Word, but it will be interesting to see how else the trios technique can be used.

Check out Discover Magazines post made entirely out of DNA Sans. You can see the full work and detailed explanation of the research team's method published on Nature.

[Nature News via Gizmodo]

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Biology Meets Typography With DNA Sans

Home > News Lynn Tech classmates learn about industry from professionals By Thor Jourgensen / The Daily Item

LYNN James Niemann spent about 20 minutes explaining cellular biology to Lynn Vocational Technical Institute students Thursday at North Shore Community College.

Then he explained how he almost derailed the college education he needed to become a scientist.

"I blew a $54,000 scholarship," he said.

After losing focus on his studies at the University of Rhode Island, Niemann transferred to the University of New Hampshire, where he got his college career back on track.

"I didn't give up," he said.

Niemann, a Beverly resident who works for Danvers cell technology, and three other science professionals spent Thursday morning talking to 48 Lynn Tech, Salem High School and Wakefield-based Northeastern Metropolitan Regional Vocational School students about science careers and how to land them.

Niemann urged students to study subjects they love in college and apply for internships, stressing a semester spent washing laboratory glassware could lead to a job.

"You have to be hardworking and passionate about what you do," he said.

A long-time interest in science and high school biology teachers who encouraged him sent Neimann off to college enthusiastic, but unprepared. After he transferred to Manchester, Niemann earned an associates degree, then a bachelor's degree before pursuing advancing degrees.

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Lynn Tech classmates learn about industry from professionals