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April 18, 2013

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4:13 PM | HUGO 2013, Part 1: What does it all mean?

After several days of fascinating and varied talks by a multitude of talented researchers at the Human Genome Meeting/International Congress of Genetics, my head is swimming – and I doubt that I’m the only one. Midway through the conference, we celebrated ten years since the Human Genome Project was officially completed. At the time, this milestone was heralded as the dawn of the genomic era where researchers and clinicians would be able to leverage this new level of understanding to […]

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11:56 AM | What’s The Answer? (miRNA targets)

BioStar is a site for asking, answering and discussing bioinformatics questions and issues. We are members of the community and find it very useful. Often questions and answers arise at BioStar that are germane to our readers (end users of genomics resources). Every Thursday we will be highlighting one of those items or discussions here [...]

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11:37 AM | DNA Day and 20 Years of Writing a Human Genetics Textbook

This month we celebrate the DNA anniversaries: unveiling of DNA’s structure in 1953, and the human genome sequence in 2003. From now until DNA Day, April 25, bloggers will be worshipping the human genome. Nature.com will offer podcasts (PastCasts) and last week, Eric Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, spoke to reporters, summarizing the “quantitative advances since the human genome project.” It’s also the 20th anniversary of my textbook, Human Genetics: […]

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1:41 AM | Re-igniting Biotech in the Bay: OBR Launches New Chapter

Stanford, UCSF, UC Berkley – the San Francisco Bay Area is studded with academic institutions at the roots and leading edge of modern biotechnology. Nobel Prize winning scientist Dr. Paul Berg arguably spawned the dawn of modern biotechnology, and specifically genetic engineering, over 40 years ago, with his pioneering work in recombinant DNA at Stanford [...]The post Re-igniting Biotech in the Bay: OBR Launches New Chapter appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

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12:05 AM | Pharma-Biotech: The Big Picture on where the industry needs to go

This is the sixth and final article in a series by venture capitalist Stan Fleming discussing whether mergers and acquisitions can solve Big Pharma’s problems. Read the first, second, third, fourth and fifth articles in the series for a review of how the industry has come to such an impasse and an overview of a [...]The post Pharma-Biotech: The Big Picture on where the industry needs to go appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

April 17, 2013

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8:16 PM | The New Choice in Preparative Protein Purification

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7:18 PM | Put down that water bottle! BPA Exposure Alters Epigenetic Profile in Neurons

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an industrial chemical that is present in many consumer products, including plastic bottles and other food and beverage containers. Although BPA has been used routinely since the 1960s, exposure to BPA has recently gained a lot of attention due to its proposed effect on brain development. Previous studies have reported that ...

Yeo M, Berglund K, Hanna M, Guo JU, Kittur J, Torres MD, Abramowitz J, Busciglio J, Gao Y, Birnbaumer L & Liedtke WB (2013). Bisphenol A delays the perinatal chloride shift in cortical neurons by epigenetic effects on the Kcc2 promoter., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110 (11) 4315-20. PMID: 23440186

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4:57 PM | ENCODE Uncovers Value in “Junk” DNA

Up until recently, scientists understood the biological function of just 1% of the genome, mainly the regions coding proteins. The non-coding regions were thought to be “junk”, evolutionary debris with no critical function. In 2011, we spoke with John Mattick, Ph.D., then a Professor at the Institute of Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland in Australia. Dr. Mattick believed there might be some other element facilitating biological functions beyond genes and proteins. An […]

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4:13 PM | Cellectis bioresearch launches VizuCELL cell lines for live cell imaging

17 Apr 2013 18:00 PMParis, FranceParis (France), April, 17th 2013 - Cellectis bioresearch, a subsidiary of Cellectis Group (Alternext: ALCLS), the genome engineering specialist, announces the launch of VizuCELL cell lines, a tool for live cell imaging. As live cell imaging has become a requisite analytical tool in most cell biology laboratories, Cellectis bioresearch has developed VizuCELL cell lines for biomedical research and cell biology. VizuCELL cell lines offer an exceptional tool to […]

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3:03 PM | Sticky, Slightly Icky, Science Stories

Biomimetics is the development of materials or machines inspired by the study of biological structures or processes. The book The Gecko’s Foot, published in 2006, gives many examples of such inventions inspired by natural phenomena—ranging from Velcro to cantilever bridges. In recent weeks there have been several news stories reporting new examples of materials design [...]

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2:57 PM | Saving coffee from a serious plant disease

Some of the world’s best coffee comes from the tropical highlands of Central and South America. Recently these regions have experienced heavier rainfall. This is probably due to climate change, but in any case it fosters severe epidemics of the Coffee Leaf Rust pathogen, Hemileia vastatrix. This disease has a long history of disrupting coffee production around the world. One reason the English drink tea is that the Ceylonese and Javan coffee plantations which once supplied them […]

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1:38 PM | Video Tip of the Week: Sharing #H7N9 data at GISAID.org with EpiFlu™

This week’s video Tip of the Week offers you a quick tour of GISAID’s resources and their EpiFlu™ database. This is the database you might be hearing about in the news—the one to which researchers submit the new H7N9 influenza sequence data that they are collecting. Originally this initiative was seeded as the “Global Initiative [...]

Bogner, P., Capua, I., Cox, N., Lipman, D. & others, . (2006). A global initiative on sharing avian flu data, Nature, 442 (7106) 981-981. DOI: 10.1038/442981a

Butler, D. (2013). Urgent search for flu source, Nature, 496 (7444) 145-146. DOI: 10.1038/496145a

Gao, R., Cao, B., Hu, Y., Feng, Z., Wang, D., Hu, W., Chen, J., Jie, Z., Qiu, H., Xu, K. & Xu, X. (2013). Human Infection with a Novel Avian-Origin Influenza A (H7N9) Virus, New England Journal of Medicine, 2147483647. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1304459

Editorial (2006). Boosting access to disease data, Nature, 442 (7106) 957-957. DOI: 10.1038/442957a

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1:12 PM | Reducing Blood Volume for Hematology and Clinical Chemistry Analysis in Mice – SOT 2013

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11:26 AM | Therapeutic use of Monoclonal Antibodies: A Panel Discussion

Monoclonal antibodies have long been heralded as the drugs of the future. The first monoclonal antibody was approved by the FDA for therapeutic use in 1986 and since then there have been many more. There are a total of five dominant antibodies currently in clinical use (“Big 5”: infliximab, adalimumab, trastuzumab, bevacizumab and rituximab) and a [...]The post Therapeutic use of Monoclonal Antibodies: A Panel Discussion appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

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1:47 AM | L’ORÉAL-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards: an evening with Pratibha Gai

Pratibha Gai, Professor of Chemistry and Physics at the University of York, has been recognized as an outstanding leader in her field at the 15th annual L’ORÉAL-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards. The Ceremony took place on March 28, 2013, at the Sorbonne in Paris. Prof. Gai ingeniously modified her electron microscope so that she [...]The post L’ORÉAL-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards: an evening with Pratibha Gai appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

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12:32 AM | Nanomedicine: Transforming Biomedical Research (Part I)

Synthetic “cells” that produce protein drugs when triggered with light (1). Virus-free vaccines administered by stick-on tattoos that yield long-lasting immunity (2). Ultra-sensitive, inexpensive biosensors to rapidly diagnose HIV infection from only a drop of blood (3). Drug cages that change shape to expose growth-arresting agents only when bound by cancer-specific combinations of cell surface [...]The post Nanomedicine: Transforming Biomedical Research (Part I) appeared first on Oxbridge […]

April 16, 2013

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8:17 PM | Listening to Animals

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6:20 PM | Your PCR Results May Look Good, But Are They Really Good Enough?

Do you ever look at your PCR results and think they look good, but they could look even better? We should all strive for excellence and this excellence is closer than you think. Even small improvements in the quality of your PCR reagents can bring huge improvements in your results. Would a small change to [...]

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2:04 PM | Why the pen is sometimes mightier than the pipette – Part 2

. Last week I posted a summary of the first half of a full day Communications for Scientists workshop organized by the Stem Cell Network. This post picks up where I left off, with a description of a “Dragon’s Den” style pitch session intended to introduce trainees to necessary communications skills within a commercialization context. The...Read more

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6:54 AM | May Babies at Higher Risk of Developing MS

Newborn babies’ immune system development and levels of vitamin D have been found to vary according to their month of birth, according to new research. The research, from scientists at Queen Mary, University of London and the University of Oxford, provides a potential biological basis as to why an individual’s risk of developing the neurological [...]

April 15, 2013

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8:20 PM | NYT Food writer is a dark cloud in the brightening sky of reason, by Jon Entine

It’s challenging to name a more influential food writer than The New York Times‘ Mark Bittman—nor one less informed and more damaging to the public weal on the issue of genetically modified crops and foods. Simply said, he is a scourge on science. Those are strong words, and not written lightly. However, when a journalist carries the imprimatur of the world’s most influential newspaper, he/she has standards to uphold, not the least of which is to know the basic facts about what one […]

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8:20 PM | Is Mark Bittman misinformed on GMOs?

By Jon Entine It’s challenging to name a more influential food writer than The New York Times‘ Mark Bittman—nor one less informed and more damaging to the public weal on the issue of genetically modified crops and foods. Simply said, he is a scourge on science. Those are strong words, and not written lightly. However, when a journalist carries the imprimatur of the world’s most influential newspaper, he/she has standards to uphold, not the least of which is to know the basic facts about […]

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6:46 PM | Rats to the Rescue! From Landmines to Tuberculosis, These Rats Have a Nose to Help

A little over a year ago, I wrote about many of the characteristics of the domestic rat that made them an unexpectedly good choice for a family pet. Since I wrote that blog, my family has welcomed three very personable rats into our home. To my family, rats are funny, playful, treat-stealing companions. However, in [...]

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6:31 PM | News of the Week, April 15th, 2013

SCIENCE Swansea epidemic continues to spread Following last week’s reports of a measles outbreak in South Wales, UK, the epidemic shows no signs of slowing and health officials have said they don’t expect it to peak for another 4 weeks. The number of people infected has risen to almost 700. Ministers have been strongly urged [...]The post News of the Week, April 15th, 2013 appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

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2:16 PM | Building computational skills for women in science

It’s really crucial for scientists of all stripes to have some computational skills in their toolbelts. In genomics, the deluge of data that needs to be sorted, sifted, and analyzed is not going to stop–so it’s even more urgent that everyone gets some comfort and capability to work with the data, do some scripting to [...]

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2:12 PM | Seeds without sex – some racy findings on the cloning of plants

By John Bowman. Republished with permission from The Conversation. Sex without seed. Seed without sex. It’s been said that the greatest gift of science to humankind would be achieving those two goals. Effective contraceptives such as the pill have pretty much nailed the first goal. Our findings, published recently in Science, could be significant pieces of the puzzle for the second. That’s because by helping solve one of the fundamental questions in the evolution of plants, we may also have […]

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4:00 AM | LGIS (low glycemic index soup/stew)

To help people with high blood glucose, I investigated the glycemic index for many vegetables, and invented something actually palatable, Low Glycemic Index Soup/Stew (LGIS). Be liberal with spices (I use Greek mix), and it's great. Tasty, easy, filling, cheap, easily made vegetarian, and it lowers blood sugar 2 hours post-prandial to about 110! In crockpot: celery (handful of small pieces) 1 big can of tomatoes, squished, or fresh a few baby carrots cut up (limit these) 1 small zucchini cut […]

April 14, 2013

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10:46 PM | The ghost of Photo 51

When I left the theater after seeing the play, Photograph 51, there was a haunting image in my mind. I had just seen a woman of science ignored and ostracized and jilted. The lab [More...]

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3:18 PM | INO TSRO ICCC PBMD QLTI - Investor Relations Responses Posted

A new set of recent investor relations (IR) questions and responses from biotechs provided by Mike O'Neill has been posted, covering financials and upcoming catalysts for each biotech stock. This round of responses features Inovi [...]

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4:00 AM | A Spleen Gene – And A Ribosomal Surprise

The spleen is a very unappreciated body part. The Talmud considered it the “organ of laughter,” whereas the ancient Greeks equated it with melancholy. Today it’s sometimes used to mean anger. When a spleen bursts, spewing all manner of blood cells, we simply take it out – as happened to Katniss Everdeen in the third installment of The Hunger Games and to Jack Ryan’s daughter in Tom Clancy’s Patriot Games. But starting life without a spleen is a whole different story. It’s […]

April 18, 2013

April 17, 2013

April 16, 2013

April 15, 2013

April 14, 2013

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