Category Archives: Transhuman News

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

17-Mar-2014

Contact: Kathryn Ruehle kruehle@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, March 17, 2014In response to the 2010 Affordable Care Act, employers may no long offer traditional employee health care benefits as they protect themselves from rising health care costs and seek to minimize their risk. How the shifting landscape of health care coverage will impact population health management providers, employers, and employees is the focus of a commentary in Population Health Management, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Population Health Management website at http://www.liebertpub.com/pop.

Bruce Sherman, MD, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine (Cleveland, OH), and Chris Behling, AXA (New York, NY), explore many potential scenarios and conclude that employees and their families may be most impacted by these changes. In the article "Beyond Incentives: The Impact of Health Care Reform on Employer Population Health Management Strategies", they propose the need for new models of population health management services delivery.

"Sherman and Behling have done a great job outlining the challenges faced by every employer in our nation under health reform," says Editor-in-Chief David B. Nash, MD, MBA, Dean and Dr. Raymond C. and Doris N. Grandon Professor, Jefferson School of Population Health, Philadelphia, PA. "The success of Obamacare rests, in no small part, on following their advice!"

###

About the Journal

Population Health Management is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published bimonthly in print and online that reflects the expanding scope of health care management and quality. The Journal delivers a comprehensive, integrated approach to the field of population health and provides information designed to improve the systems and policies that affect health care quality, access, and outcomes. Comprised of peer-reviewed original research papers, clinical research, and case studies, the content encompasses a broad range of chronic diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic pain, diabetes, depression, and obesity) in addition to focusing on various aspects of prevention and wellness. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Population Health Management website at http://www.liebertpub.com/pop. Population Health Management is the official journal of the Population Health Alliance.

About the Publisher

Follow this link:
Will health care reform require new population health management strategies?

BERKELEY

The University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Francisco are launching the Innovative Genomics Initiative (IGI) to lead a revolution in genetic engineering based on a new technology already generating novel strategies for gene therapy and the genetic study of disease.

The Li Ka Shing Foundation has provided a $10 million gift to support the initiative, establishing the Li Ka Shing Center for Genomic Engineering and an affiliated faculty chair at UC Berkeley. The two universities also will provide $2 million in start-up funds.

Jennifer Doudna, executive director of the new Innovative Genomics Initiative and the new Li Ka Shing Chancellors Chair in Biomedical and Health Sciences.

At the core of the initiative is a revolutionary technology discovered two years ago at UC Berkeley by Jennifer A. Doudna, executive director of the initiative and the new faculty chair. The technology, precision DNA scissors referred to as CRISPR/Cas9, has exploded in popularity since it was first published in June 2012 and is at the heart of at least three start-ups and several heavily-attended international meetings. Scientists have referred to it as the holy grail of genetic engineering and a jaw-dropping breakthrough in the fight against genetic disease. In honor of her discovery and earlier work on RNA, Doudna received last month the Lurie Prize of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.

Professor Doudnas breakthrough discovery in genomic editing is leading us into a new era of possibilities that we could have never before imagined, said Li Ka-shing, chairman of the Li Ka Shing Foundation. It is a great privilege for my foundation to engage with two world-class public institutions to launch the Innovative Genomics Initiative in this quest for the holy grail to fight genetic diseases.

In the 18 months since the discovery of this technology was announced, more than 125 papers have been published based on the technique. Worldwide, researchers are using Cas9 to investigate the genetic roots of problems as diverse as sickle cell anemia, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, AIDS and depression in hopes of finding new drug targets. Others are adapting the technology to reengineer yeast to produce biofuels and wheat to resist pests and drought.

We now have a very easy, very fast and very efficient technique for rewriting the genome, which allows us to do experiments that have been impossible before, said Doudna, a professor of molecular and cell biology in the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) and an investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at UC Berkeley. We are grateful to Mr. Li Ka-shing for his support of our initiative, which will propel ground-breaking advances in genomic engineering.

Transforming genetic research The new genomic engineering technology significantly cuts down the time it takes researchers to test new therapies. CRISPR/Cas 9 allows the creation in weeks rather than years of animal strains that mimic a human disease, allowing researchers to test new therapies. The technique also makes it quick and easy to knock out genes in human cells or in animals to determine their function, which will speed the identification of new drug targets for diseases.

The CRISPR/Cas9 technology is a complete game changer, said Jonathan Weissman, codirector of the initiative and professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology in the UCSF School of Medicine. With CRISPR, we can now turn genes off or on at will. I am particularly interested in using CRISPR to understand the normal functions of genes as well as how disease-causing mutations alter these functions.

Continued here:
New DNA-editing technology spawns bold UC initiative

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

18-Mar-2014

Contact: Kathryn Ruehle kruehle@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, March 18, 2014Recent high-profile cases have drawn attention to the problem of sexual assault in the U.S. military, the effects on survivors, and the actions and response of military leadership. Issues such as why there is more sexual assault in the military than in the general population, why it is under-reported, and what preventive approaches should the military adopt are explored in a provocative Roundtable Discussion published in the preview issue of Violence and Gender, a new peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Violence and Gender website at http://www.liebertpub.com/vio.

Roundtable participants Mary Ellen O'Toole, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of Violence and Gender and Senior FBI Profiler/Criminal Investigator Analyst (ret.), Christopher Kilmartin, United States Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs), and Colonel Jeffery Peterson, Center for Naval Analyses (Alexandria, VA), discuss specific factors that likely contribute to the sexual assault problem, including the acceptance of bullying in American culture, and an overall greater risk for sexual assault among people who join the military due to more previous experience with sexual assault than the general population, both as offenders and as survivors.

"From the battlefield to Congress, sexual assault in the military is viewed as one of the most concerning criminal problems we face today," says Dr. O'Toole. "Sexual offenders in the military wear the same uniform but victimize innocent men and women who work alongside them to serve their country. As a society we should be outraged at this behavior and want answers. I think we give you some of those answers in this Roundtable Discussion."

###

About the Journal

Violence and Gender is the only peer-reviewed journal focusing on the understanding, prediction, and prevention of acts of violence. Through research papers, roundtable discussions, case studies, and other original content, the Journal critically examines biological, genetic, behavioral, psychological, racial, ethnic, and cultural factors as they relate to the gender of perpetrators of violence. Led by Editor-in-Chief Mary Ellen O'Toole, PhD, Forensic Behavioral Consultant and Senior FBI Profiler/Criminal Investigative Analyst (ret.), Violence and Gender explores the difficult issues that are vital to threat assessment and prevention of the epidemic of violence. Violence and Gender is published quarterly online with Open Access options and in print, and is the official journal of The Avielle Foundation.

About the Publisher

Read this article:
What factors contribute to sexual assault in the military and what can be done to prevent it?