Journalism C101 - 2014-04-14: Pamela Ronald: Plant Genetic Engineering and
Journalism C101, 001 - Spring 2014 Creative Commons 3.0: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs.
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Journalism C101 - 2014-04-14: Pamela Ronald: Plant Genetic Engineering and - Video
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- In what could be a big win for opponents of genetically modified organisms, Vermont is one step closer to signing into law legislation that would require food companies to label products that contain GMOs in the Green Mountain State.
On Wednesday, the Vermont State Senate passed "An Act Relating to the Labeling of Food Produced with Genetic Engineering," H. 112, by a vote of 28-2. The state legislation, introduced in January 2013, proposes to provide that "food is misbranded if it is entirely or partially produced with genetic engineering and it is not labeled as genetically engineered." Sen. David Zuckerman is the bill's lead sponsor, according to the Brattleboro Reformer.
The bill will now go back to the House to approve the Senate's amendments and then to Gov. Peter Shumlin to sign into law. The act is supposed to become effective on July 1, 2016, according to Reuters.
Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are plants or animals that have been genetically engineered with DNA from bacteria, viruses or other plants and animals that cannot occur in natural crossbreeding, according to the Non-GMO Project, a non-profit organization dedication to the education of GMOs and helping consumers find alternatives and considered the main organization used by many companies to verify their non-GMO foods.
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
17-Apr-2014
Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 x2156 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
New Rochelle, NY, April 17, 2014The development of stem cell therapies to cure a variety of diseases depends on the ability to characterize stem cell populations based on cell surface markers. Researchers from the Finnish Red Cross have discovered a new marker that is highly expressed in a type of stem cells derived from human umbilical cord blood, which they describe in an article in BioResearch Open Access, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the BioResearch Open Access website.
Heli Suila and colleagues, Finnish Red Cross Blood Service, Helsinki, Finland present evidence to show that the glycan O-GLcNAc, is present on the surface of stem cells and is part of a stem cell-specific surface signature. In the article "Extracellular O-Linked N-Acetylglucosamine Is Enriched in Stem Cells Derived from Human Umbilical Cord Blood" the authors suggest that the glycan plays a crucial role in a cell signaling pathway that regulates embryonic development.
"This work is particularly interesting as epidermal growth factor domains are found on the Notch receptors, suggesting that these novel glycans may be involved in Notch receptor signaling pathways in stem cells," says BioResearch Open Access Editor Jane Taylor, PhD, MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
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About the Journal
BioResearch Open Access is a bimonthly peer-reviewed open access journal led by Editor-in-Chief Robert Lanza, MD, Chief Scientific Officer, Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. and Editor Jane Taylor, PhD. The Journal provides a new rapid-publication forum for a broad range of scientific topics including molecular and cellular biology, tissue engineering and biomaterials, bioengineering, regenerative medicine, stem cells, gene therapy, systems biology, genetics, biochemistry, virology, microbiology, and neuroscience. All articles are published within 4 weeks of acceptance and are fully open access and posted on PubMedCentral. All journal content is available on the BioResearch Open Access website.
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Novel marker discovered for stem cells derived from human umbilical cord blood
The Vermont Senate voted to pass a new law requiring labeling for foods that contain ingredients produced with genetic engineering or genetically modified ingredients (GMOs). If enacted, the law would be the first in the nation to require GMO labeling without any contingencies or similar legislation by adjoining states. The proposed effective date is July 1, 2016.
Although the Vermont House previously passed the bill, it will be returned for representatives to approve changes made by the Senate. Once approved, the bill will reach the governors office for signature into law.
It is estimated that 80% of all food sold in the United States is at least partially produced from genetic engineering. The bill would require labeling on all such food sold at retail in Vermont, regardless of whether the food was manufactured in Vermont.
While the bill exempts processing aids and milk from cows that have been fed GMO feed, many dairy products and other foods that incorporate milk would be affected unless they were made with organic ingredients.
The Food and Drug Administration, the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Academy of Sciences all have said that GMO ingredients are safe and there are no negative health effects associated with their use.
This bill would confuse consumers, raise food prices and do nothing to ensure product safety, said Ruth Saunders, IDFA vice president of policy and legislative affairs. Its too bad for the dairy industry that Vermont would require such labels on chocolate milk, yogurt and other healthy dairy products while offering an exemption to the entire alcoholic beverage sector.
The neighboring states of Connecticut and Maine already passed labeling laws, but each delayed implementation until at least four other adjoining states passed and implemented similar laws. This strategy is designed to protect them from lawsuits from companies and associations that want to safeguard consistency in food labeling and avoid a 50-state patchwork of laws. Vermont, however, has decided to go it alone and is preparing a war chest in anticipation of the lawsuits to come.
IDFA and many other trade organizations oppose individual state legislation on GMO labeling and fully support The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2014, introduced by U.S. Reps. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) and G.K. Butterfield (D-NC). This bill would preempt states from requiring mandatory labeling and establish a federal standard for voluntary labeling of food and beverage products made with GMOs.
IDFA believes that a federal solution on GMO labeling would bolster consumer confidence in American food by affirming FDAs overall authority for setting the nations food safety and labeling regulations, said Saunders.
IDFA is working with the Safe and Affordable Food Coalition, headed by the Grocery Manufacturers Association, on all issues related to GMO labeling.
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Vermont Senate passes GMO labeling bill
When his tomato plants were just a week old, technicians manually punched a hole in each seedling to get leaf tissue that was taken to a nearby lab, converted into a chemical soup and then scanned for genetic markers linked to desired traits.
Krivanek uses the information to keep just 3percent of the seedlings and grow them until they fruit this spring, when he can evaluate fully grown plants, keep a few hundred, sow their seeds and then screen those plants.
Im improving my odds. Maybe I can introduce to market a real super-hybrid in five years, Krivanek said. A predecessor might take a whole career.
The technology called marker-assisted or molecular breeding is far removed from the better-known and more controversial field of genetic engineering, in which a plant or animal can receive genes from a different organism.
Marker-assisted breeding, by contrast, lays bare the inherent genetic potential of an individual plant to allow breeders to find the most promising seedling among thousands for further breeding. Because the plants natural genetic boundaries are not crossed, the resulting commercial hybrid is spared the regulatory gantlet and the public opposition focused on such plants as genetically modified Roundup Ready corn or soybeans, which are engineered to withstand herbicide sprays.
Marker-assisted breeding has been embraced not only by the multinational biotech companies here in Californias Central Valley but also by plant scientists in government, research universities and nongovernmental organizations fervently seeking new, overachieving crops. The goal is to sustainably feed an expanding global population while dealing with the extremes of climate change.
But critics of Big Agriculture worry about the needs of small-scale farmers and breeders. Low-tech conventional breeding judging plants by how they look and perform, not by their DNA has been the lifeblood of small seed companies and local growers, often in conjunction with breeding programs at land-grant universities. But those programs have shrunk by a third in recent years, and the remaining ones are increasingly gravitating to the trendy sphere of molecular breeding.
Organic farmers, who need crop varieties designed for specific regions and less-intensive growing methods, are not being served by the new applied science, said John Navazio, a senior scientist with the Organic Seed Alliance.
There used to be a significant winter spinach production area in southern Virginia and Delmarva, and thats completely gone, he said. The spinach-growing industry has moved to megagrowers in California and Arizona.
Progress comes sooner
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Trait by trait, plant scientists swiftly weed out bad seeds through marker-assisted breeding
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
16-Apr-2014
Contact: Tom Abate tabate@stanford.edu 650-736-2245 Stanford University Medical Center
STANFORD, Calif. Consider the marvel of the embryo. It begins as a glob of identical cells that change shape and function as they multiply to become the cells of our lungs, muscles, nerves and all the other specialized tissues of the body.
Now, in a feat of reverse tissue engineering, Stanford University researchers have begun to unravel the complex genetic coding that allows embryonic cells to proliferate and transform into all of the specialized cells that perform myriad biological tasks.
A team of interdisciplinary researchers took lung cells from the embryos of mice, choosing samples at different points in the development cycle. Using the new technique of single-cell genomic analysis, they recorded what genes were active in each cell at each point. Though they studied lung cells, their technique is applicable to any type of cell.
"This lays out a playbook for how to do reverse tissue engineering," said Stephen Quake, PhD, the Lee Otterson Professor in the School of Engineering and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
The researchers' findings are described in a paper published online April 13 in Nature. Quake, who also is a professor of bioengineering and of applied physics, is the senior author. The lead authors are postdoctoral scholars Barbara Treutlein, PhD, and Doug Brownfield, PhD.
The researchers used the reverse-engineering technique to study the cells in the alveoli, the small, balloon-like structures at the tips of the airways in the lungs. The alveoli serve as docking stations where blood vessels receive oxygen and deliver carbon dioxide.
Treutlein and Brownfield isolated 198 lung cells from mouse embryos at three stages of gestation: 14.5 days, 16.5 days and 18.5 days (mice are usually born at 20 days). They also took some lung cells from adult mice.
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Stanford scientists develop 'playbook' for reverse engineering tissue
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
16-Apr-2014
Contact: Tom Abate tabate@stanford.edu 650-736-2245 Stanford University Medical Center
STANFORD, Calif. Consider the marvel of the embryo. It begins as a glob of identical cells that change shape and function as they multiply to become the cells of our lungs, muscles, nerves and all the other specialized tissues of the body.
Now, in a feat of reverse tissue engineering, Stanford University researchers have begun to unravel the complex genetic coding that allows embryonic cells to proliferate and transform into all of the specialized cells that perform myriad biological tasks.
A team of interdisciplinary researchers took lung cells from the embryos of mice, choosing samples at different points in the development cycle. Using the new technique of single-cell genomic analysis, they recorded what genes were active in each cell at each point. Though they studied lung cells, their technique is applicable to any type of cell.
"This lays out a playbook for how to do reverse tissue engineering," said Stephen Quake, PhD, the Lee Otterson Professor in the School of Engineering and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
The researchers' findings are described in a paper published online April 13 in Nature. Quake, who also is a professor of bioengineering and of applied physics, is the senior author. The lead authors are postdoctoral scholars Barbara Treutlein, PhD, and Doug Brownfield, PhD.
The researchers used the reverse-engineering technique to study the cells in the alveoli, the small, balloon-like structures at the tips of the airways in the lungs. The alveoli serve as docking stations where blood vessels receive oxygen and deliver carbon dioxide.
Treutlein and Brownfield isolated 198 lung cells from mouse embryos at three stages of gestation: 14.5 days, 16.5 days and 18.5 days (mice are usually born at 20 days). They also took some lung cells from adult mice.
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Stanford scientists develop 'playbook' for reverse engineering tissue
CollabRx has appointed Paul Billings to its board of directors. Billings is a board certified internist and clinical geneticist and most recently served as chief medical officer for Life Technologies. He is executive chairman of Melanoma Diagnostics, a director of Trovagene, and a co-founder and past medical director of the Cordblood Registry. He was also a senior vice president for corporate development at Laboratory Corporation of America and a co-founder of Omicia. Billings also currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the US Food and Drug Administration, the Genomic Medicine Advisory Committee at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicines Roundtable on Genomics.
Kathy Hibbs, former senior VP and general counsel at Genomic Health, has joined 23andMe as chief legal and regulatory officer. Hibbs joins 23andMe while the firm is in the midst of regulatory discussions with the US Food and Drug Administration regarding its Personal Genome Service. Hibbs has also worked at Monogram Biosciences and Varian Medical Systems, and is actively engaged in a number of industry groups, such as the American Clinical Laboratory Association, the Coalition for 21st Century Medicine, and the Personalized Medicine Coalition.
Stephen Rusckowski has been named chairman of the American Clinical Laboratory Association's board of directors. Rusckowski has served as Quest Diagnostics' president and CEO since May 2012. Before joining Quest Diagnostics he was CEO of Philips Healthcare.
ProteinSimple has appointed Joe Keegan and Chris van Ingen to its board of directors. Keegan was previously the CEO of ForteBio and Molecular Devices. Van Ingen was previously president of Agilent Technologies' bio-analytical measurement business. He currently serves on the boards of Bruker, Accelrys, and Promega.
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Celera Researchers Investigating Genetic Risk Signature to Predict Atrial Fibrillation
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
15-Apr-2014
Contact: Sophie Mohin smohin@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
New Rochelle, NY, April 15, 2014Transgender individuals are medically underserved and their healthcare needs incompletely understood in part because they represent a subpopulation whose health is rarely monitored by U.S. national surveillance systems. To address these issues, a new study compared methods of collecting and analyzing data to assess health disparities in a clinical sample of transgender individuals, as reported in an article published in LGBT Health, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the LGBT Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/lgbt.
Sari Reisner, ScD and coauthors, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, and Fenway Health, Boston MA, compared transgender and non-transgender patients on health measures such as substance abuse, HIV infection, lifetime suicide attempts, and social stressors including violence and discrimination. They report their findings in the article "Transgender Health Disparities: Comparing Full Cohort and Nested Matched Pair Study Designs in a Community Health Center".
"Clinic-based samples and patient-related data are under-utilized sources of information about transgender health, particularly in community-based, urban health centers that typically serve large numbers of transgender patients," says Editor-in-Chief William Byne, MD, PhD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY. "Reisner and coauthors describe a method of handling such data to provide valid results while maximizing efficiency with respect to time and resources."
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About the Journal
Spanning a broad array of disciplines LGBT Health, published quarterly online with Open Access options and in print, brings together the LGBT research, health care, and advocacy communities to address current challenges and improve the health, well-being, and clinical outcomes of LGBT persons. The Journal publishes original research, review articles, clinical reports, case studies, legal and policy perspectives, and much more. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the LGBT Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/lgbt.
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New study from Harvard identifies transgender health disparities
As much as 80 percent of the processed food sold in Vermont is a product of modern genetic engineering. An overwhelming majority of registered voters in the state want to to know which 80 percent, according to a new public opinion poll conducted for VTDigger.org by the Castleton Polling Institute.
The poll results show 79 percent of respondents support a law to require the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified ingredients. Vermonters' support for what would be a landmark labeling law surpasses party lines, regional boundaries and differences in age, gender, education and income level.
The constituency showing the most opposition to the labeling law is Republicans, at 27 percent. Otherwise, no group reaches 20 percent opposition. Democrats show the least opposition, with just 9 percent.
About 83 percent of Vermonters under age 65 support the bill.
GMO labeling laws have been proposed in more than two dozens other states to date. Connecticut and Maine have passed legislation that would take effect if other states require labeling, too.
Vermont's proposed law contains no triggers. It would take effect in July 2016.
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VTDigger poll shows overwhelming support for GMO labeling law
Genetic Engineering and Selective Human Breeding
Should people be genetically engineering future changes in the human being? Probably not. But things like disease make it probably that humans will go down t...
By: Chris Freely
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Health risks, environmental damage and placards featuring corn cobs grimacing menacingly: the discussion about genetic engineering is ridden above all with anxieties. In a poll from environmental organization Greenpeace, the majority of German consumers strongly opposed the cultivation of the genetically modified (GM) corn variety 1507. This maize has been approved to be grown Europe-wide. DW gets to the bottom of the possible anxieties which regularly arise when it comes to this controversial crop.
No, it doesn't. One of the biggest concerns about the introduction of genetically modified corn is that consuming it could cause illness. But agricultural scientist Friedhelm Taube asserts that, to his knowledge "there are no scientific studies which have documented a danger to health." Furthermore, the vast majority of the corn under the German Farmers' Association ("Deutscher Bauernverband") would be produced as feed for dairy cows; the remainder would be used for the generation of energy in biogas plants. Therefore, the corn cultivated on a large-scale would not end up on the plates of consumers.
What about the cows' milk, though? The TUM Technical University in Munich ("Technische Universitt Mnchen") proved in 2008 that the genetically modified material in corn could be excluded from being passed on to consumers through milk. In a two-year study, cattle were fed with the genetically modified maize MON810, which like the currently-discussed GM corn variety 1507 has the gene of the naturally occurring bacteria bacillus thuringensis (Bt) introduced into its genetic makeup. The researchers detected neither illness in the cows, nor could they find traces of the genetically-modified material from the corn in the cows' milk.
Yes, it could be dangerous for vermin and other animals. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) examined the maize variety 1507 amongst others to see whether the protection from insects, for which it had been genetically modified, also endangered other animals apart from those which posed a danger to corn. The EU body based its statement on expert advice received from member states, for example the German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL). According to that, the pollen of the maize had the highest concentrations of the self-produced insecticide. This successfully killed the damaging European corn borer, but also a related butterfly, the wax moth, which poses no threat to the maize. Greenpeace accused the EFSA of not adequately investigating the negative consequences of the Bt-protein on other types of insects.
For bees, researchers currently see no threat from the GM maize. Animal ecologists from the University of Wrzburg have probed the possible effects of Bt-maize pollen on honeybees and their larvae. They could not determine any negative consequences. However, this pollen can end up in the honey which the bees produce. Honey which has been gathered from the flowers of genetically modified plants is no longer allowed to be marketed as organic.
There's no definite answer yet. Corn is a cultivated plant and grows mainly in sunny and warm regions of the world. It originated from Mexico. In Germany, maize, no matter whether it is genetically modified or not, cannot by itself spread out from the land on which it is cultivated. There are no plants native to Germany with which the maize plants can successfully cross-breed. Furthermore, the corn is not able to survive a German winter.
However, agricultural ecologist Rdiger Gra from the University of Kassel gives some food for thought: "If like this year we have a very mild winter, or the maize becomes ploughed into the earth, the plants could germinate afresh."
All plants have an effect on their environment and the soil, and here genetically modified maize is neither an exception nor a larger danger, adds Gra. "Maize pollen, which is blown into streams and rivers, does however serve as basic nourishment for smaller animals." All possible impacts of the GM corn have not yet been conclusively examined.
Possibly. In Germany about 2.5 million hectares of maize will be cultivated, that covers about a fifth of the country's total arable land. Europe-wide there are more than 500 maize varieties and hybrids. So, is it possible to prevent genetically modified maize from mixing with other maize types?
Wild pigs, bees and other animals could have a hand in mixing up maize varieties, says plant researcher Rdiger Gra, who believes, however, that the flight of pollen is the biggest contamination risk: "In areas of law relating to genetic modification technology there is talk about different minimum distances between the fields. At the same time, no-one can seriously answer how much of a gap is safe." Whether maize pollen can travel for 100 or 1000 meters, the agricultural scientist says, depends among other things on the wind strength and air temperature - and has nothing to do with the type of maize.
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Genetic Engineering pt II
Applications of Genetic Engineering Human Genome Project.
By: fcpsthwilkowske
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mr i explains: The Process of Genetic Engineering (for KS4)
By: mr i explains
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mr i explains: The Process of Genetic Engineering (for KS4) - Video
April 10, 2014
Image Caption: Independent genetic circuits are linked within single cells, illustrated under the magnifying glass, then coupled via quorum sensing at the colony level. Credit: Arthur Prindle, UC San Diego
By Kim McDonald, UC San Diego
Programming living cells offers the prospect of harnessing sophisticated biological machinery for transformative applications in energy, agriculture, water remediation and medicine. Inspired by engineering, researchers in the emerging field of synthetic biology have designed a tool box of small genetic components that act as intracellular switches, logic gates, counters and oscillators.
But scientists have found it difficult to wire the components together to form larger circuits that can function as genetic programs. One of the biggest obstacles? Dealing with a small number of available wires.
A team of biologists and engineers at UC San Diego has taken a large step toward overcoming this obstacle. Their advance, detailed in a paper which appears in this weeks advance online publication of the journal Nature, describes their development of a rapid and tunable post-translational coupling for genetic circuits. This advance builds on their development of biopixel sensor arrays reported in Nature by the same group of scientists two years ago.
The problem the researchers solved arises from the noisy cellular environment that tends to lead to highly variable circuit performance. The components of a cell are intermixed, crowded and constantly bumping into each other. This makes it difficult to reuse parts in different parts of a program, limiting the total number of available parts and wires. These difficulties hindered the creation of genetic programs that can read the cellular environment and react with the execution of a sequence of instructions.
The teams breakthrough involves a form of frequency multiplexing inspired by FM radio.
This circuit lets us encode multiple independent environmental inputs into a single time series, said Arthur Prindle, a bioengineering graduate student at UC San Diego and the first author of the study. Multiple pieces of information are transferred using the same part. It works by using distinct frequencies to transmit different signals on a common channel.
The key that enabled this breakthrough is the use of frequency, rather than amplitude, to convey information. Combining two biological signals using amplitude is difficult because measurements of amplitude involve fluorescence and are usually relative. Its not easy to separate out the contribution of each signal, said Prindle. When we use frequency, these relative measurements are made with respect to time, and can be readily extracted by measuring the time between peaks using any one of several analytical methods.
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
10-Apr-2014
Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2156 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
New Rochelle, NY, April 10, 2014In early fetal development, skin wounds undergo regeneration and healing without scar formation. This mechanism of wound healing later disappears, but by studying the fetal stem cells capable of this scarless wound healing, researchers may be able to apply these mechanisms to develop cell-based approaches able to minimize scarring in adult wounds, as described in a Critical Review article published in Advances in Wound Care, a monthly publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers and an Official Journal of the Wound Healing Society. The article is available free on the Advances in Wound Care website.
Michael Longaker, Peter Lorenz, and co-authors from Stanford University School of Medicine and John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, describe a new stem cell that has been identified in fetal skin and blood that may have a role in scarless wound healing. In the article "The Role of Stem Cells During Scarless Skin Wound Healing", the authors propose future directions for research to characterize the differences in wound healing mechanisms between fetal and adult skin-specific stem cells.
"This work comes from the pioneers in the field and delineates the opportunities towards scarless healing in adults," says Editor-in-Chief Chandan K. Sen, PhD, Professor of Surgery and Director of the Comprehensive Wound Center and the Center for Regenerative Medicine and Cell-Based Therapies at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, OH.
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Advances in Wound Care is a monthly journal published online and in print that reports the latest scientific discoveries, translational research, and clinical developments in acute and chronic wound care. Each issue provides a digest of the latest research findings, innovative wound care strategies, industry product pipeline, and developments in biomaterials and skin and tissue regeneration to optimize patient outcomes. The broad scope of applications covered includes limb salvage, chronic ulcers, burns, trauma, blast injuries, surgical repair, skin bioengineering, dressings, anti-scar strategies, diabetic ulcers, ostomy, bedsores, biofilms, and military wound care. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Advances in Wound Care website.
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Scarless wound healing -- applying lessons learned from fetal stem cells
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
10-Apr-2014
Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
New Rochelle, NY, April 10, 2014Men are three to four times more likely to get bladder cancer than women. The possible causes for this greater risk among men, the importance of early and accurate diagnosis, and the scope of available and emerging surgical, chemotherapeutic, and immunotherapeutic approaches for treating bladder cancer in men are the focus of a comprehensive Review article in Journal of Men's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Men's Health website.
Coauthors R. Jeffrey Karnes, MD and Christopher Murphy, DO, Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN), offer a detailed discussion of the three main types of malignancy that can derive from the epithelial lining of the bladder in the Review article "Bladder Cancer in Males: A Comprehensive Review of Urothelial Carcinoma of the Bladder." Each of these types of bladder cancernonmuscle-invasive, muscle-invasive, and metastaticrequires different management strategies. Prompt diagnosis and appropriate surveillance for disease progression and recurrence are critical.
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About the Journal
Journal of Men's Health is the premier peer-reviewed journal published quarterly in print and online that covers all aspects of men's health across the lifespan. The Journal publishes cutting-edge advances in a wide range of diseases and conditions, including diagnostic procedures, therapeutic management strategies, and innovative clinical research in gender-based biology to ensure optimal patient care. The Journal addresses disparities in health and life expectancy between men and women; increased risk factors such as smoking, alcohol abuse, and obesity; higher prevalence of diseases such as heart disease and cancer; and health care in underserved and minority populations. Journal of Men's Health meets the critical imperative for improving the health of men around the globe and ensuring better patient outcomes. Tables of content and a sample issue can be viewed on the Journal of Men's Health website.
About the Societies
Journal of Men's Health is the official journal of the International Society of Men's Health (ISMH), American Society for Men's Health, Men's Health Society of India, and Foundation for Men's Health. The ISMH is an international, multidisciplinary, worldwide organization, dedicated to the rapidly growing field of gender-specific men's health.
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Therapeutic options and bladder-preserving strategies in bladder cancer
Programming living cells offers the prospect of harnessing sophisticated biological machinery for transformative applications in energy, agriculture, water remediation and medicine. Inspired by engineering, researchers in the emerging field of synthetic biology have designed a tool box of small genetic components that act as intracellular switches, logic gates, counters and oscillators.
But scientists have found it difficult to wire the components together to form larger circuits that can function as genetic programs. One of the biggest obstacles? Dealing with a small number of available wires.
A team of biologists and engineers at UC San Diego has taken a large step toward overcoming this obstacle. Their advance, detailed in a paper which appears in this weeks advance online publication of the journal Nature, describes their development of a rapid and tunable post-translational coupling for genetic circuits. This advance builds on their development of biopixel sensor arrays reported in Nature by the same group of scientists two years ago.
The problem the researchers solved arises from the noisy cellular environment that tends to lead to highly variable circuit performance. The components of a cell are intermixed, crowded and constantly bumping into each other. This makes it difficult to reuse parts in different parts of a program, limiting the total number of available parts and wires. These difficulties hindered the creation of genetic programs that can read the cellular environment and react with the execution of a sequence of instructions.
The teams breakthrough involves a form of frequency multiplexing inspired by FM radio.
This circuit lets us encode multiple independent environmental inputs into a single time series, said Arthur Prindle, a bioengineering graduate student at UC San Diego and the first author of the study. Multiple pieces of information are transferred using the same part. It works by using distinct frequencies to transmit different signals on a common channel.
The key that enabled this breakthrough is the use of frequency, rather than amplitude, to convey information. Combining two biological signals using amplitude is difficult because measurements of amplitude involve fluorescence and are usually relative. Its not easy to separate out the contribution of each signal, said Prindle. When we use frequency, these relative measurements are made with respect to time, and can be readily extracted by measuring the time between peaks using any one of several analytical methods.
While their application may be inspired by electronics, the UC San Diego scientists caution in their paper against what they see as increasing metaphorization of engineering biology.
We explicitly make the point that since biology is often too intertwined to engineer in the way we are accustomed in electronics, we must deal directly with bidirectional coupling and quantitatively understand its effects using computational models, explained Prindle. Its important to find the right dose of inspiration from engineering concepts while making sure you arent being too reliant on your engineering metaphors.
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