“Mildred Cohn dies at 96; chemist applied physics to problems of ... - Los Angeles Times” plus 4 more

Mildred Cohn dies at 96; chemist applied physics to problems of ... - Los Angeles Times
Philadelphia Biology Examiner - Examiner
Media availability: The role of biomedical research in malaria ... - Science Centric
Teachers use grants to enhance their learning - MLive.com
Researchers develop innovative imaging system to study sudden cardiac ... - Science Centric

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Mildred Cohn dies at 96; chemist applied physics to problems of ... - Los Angeles Times

Posted: 31 Oct 2009 05:38 AM PDT

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Philadelphia Biology Examiner - Examiner

Posted: 31 Oct 2009 03:50 AM PDT

Anne worked in research laboratories in Philadelphia universities and in the pharmaceutical industry. She has been teaching Biology and Microbiology courses in Philadelphia universities for 15 years. In 2009, Anne founded Lab Partners Science Tutoring, Inc. Anne may be reached at apacitti@comcast.net.

Media availability: The role of biomedical research in malaria ... - Science Centric

Posted: 31 Oct 2009 07:46 AM PDT

Although malaria has been controlled in many local and regional populations, the permanent elimination of malaria parasites throughout the world remains an elusive goal, and the disease continues to claim nearly one million lives each year. In 2007, Bill and Melinda Gates called for a renewed effort to eradicate malaria worldwide. Some sceptics have questioned the feasibility of doing so because of failed attempts to eradicate malaria in the 20th century. In a new commentary, National Institutes of Health scientists B. Fenton Hall, M.D., Ph.D., and Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), discuss the lessons learned from past attempts to eradicate malaria and identify key challenges to achieving success today.

The renewed effort to eradicate malaria will require a long-term commitment that incorporates multiple activities, interventions and approaches, they assert. As success in controlling malaria is achieved, the behaviour and distribution of malaria parasites and the mosquitoes that spread them are likely to change. Scientists must be prepared to anticipate these changes and alter their strategies to keep ahead of them by developing a robust pipeline of new tools and interventions. The authors note that such a pipeline will require a sustained research effort, as NIAID recently outlined in the Strategic Plan for Malaria Research and the NIAID Malaria Research Agenda. NIAID is the lead U.S. government agency that supports basic biomedical and clinical research in malaria.

To reach the goal of malaria eradication, the authors write that several research challenges must be addressed and overcome. These include

- Translating basic research advances into usable malaria interventions

- Developing a rapid point-of-care diagnostic test that can be used to detect infection in people without symptoms of malaria, which will become even more important to the eradication effort as malaria becomes less prevalent

- Finding vaccines and other interventions that block the malaria parasite at different stages of its life cycle

- Understanding in more detail not only the most deadly malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, but also non-falciparum parasite species

- Maintaining a vigourous, long-term research effort as scientists and public health personnel work to eliminate and eradicate malaria from every part of the globe

Although these challenges are formidable, the authors conclude that with long-term commitment and sustained effort, malaria eradication can be achieved.

In a second commentary, NIAID malaria experts Louis H. Miller, M.D., and Susan K. Pierce, Ph.D., argue that malaria eradication will not be possible with existing tools. What is needed, the authors contend, is a modern-day 'Manhattan Project' aimed at developing methods to modify mosquitoes so that they are unable to act as vectors of malaria and to introduce such modifications into multiple mosquito populations in a way that the modification can be spread and sustained within the population. Such an approach will require the recruitment of bright young minds into the field of insect biology and unwavering support of research into malaria vector biology.

Source: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

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Teachers use grants to enhance their learning - MLive.com

Posted: 31 Oct 2009 04:33 AM PDT

By Kalamazoo Gazette staff

October 31, 2009, 7:19AM

KALAMAZOO — Local teachers traveled to Costa Rica, Washington, D.C., and other locations throughout the United States to bring new experiences and techniques back to their classrooms — all with help from the Kalamazoo County Excellence in Education program.

Excellence in Education awarded 15 Educator Incentive Grants during the 2008-09 school year. Grant recipients will be honored at a 7:30 a.m. breakfast Wednesday Nov. 4 at the Kalamazoo Country Club.

The Educator Incentive Grant program provides grant funding for teachers and administrators, allowing them to explore new ideas that they may not otherwise have had an opportunity to pursue. Last year, grant recipients participated in projects nationwide in an effort to bring new and exciting resources back to their local districts.

Excellence in Education Grant applications for 2010 will be distributed in November to principals at all Kalamazoo County public and nonpublic schools. The program offers 19 individual grants for educators worth $500 each; two $500 administrator grants; five $750 two-educator grants; two $1,000 buildingwide or multieducator grants; and one $1,500 districtwide or multidistrict grant. Funding is provided through an endowment and supplemented by the local school districts.

2009 Educator Incentive Grants

Individual teacher grants

John Goudie, Kalamazoo Public Schools: Goudie attended a "Bioinformatics in the High School" workshop at Purdue University of Biology, which was designed to assist the implementation of bioinformatics across biology curriculum by incorporating bioinformatics into a variety of courses.

Mary Mazei, Kalamazoo Public Schools: Mazei, a third-grade teacher at Vine Street Dual Language School, participated in the "Meeting the Challenges of Immersion Education: Language and Learning Disorders and the Struggling Immersion Learner" workshop at The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition.

Lindsay Steenbergen, Portage Public Schools: At the 2009 National Council of Teachers of English annual convention in Philadelphia, Steenbergen presented ideas, strategies and resources for teaching contemporary Middle Eastern literature with WMU English education professor Allen Webb, author Linda Christensen and local teacher Nicole Ziegler.

Gayle McPhilamy, Portage Public Schools: McPhilamy worked with a local metals artist to establish curricular offerings appropriate for middle school students. McPhilamy's goal is to extend student activities in metals and integrate 3-D activities already included in the curriculum, such as combining metals and clay or metals and glass.

Rosalie Kirsch, Vicksburg Community Schools: Kirsch attended the RtI Innovations Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she learned training skills to increase effectiveness when working with school staff to develop appropriate building-based intervention strategies.

Jodie Lugar-McManus, Parchment School District: This Parchment High School teacher attended an intensive six-day Advance Placement Biology Summer Institute designed to provide AP Biology teachers an introduction to the College Board's AP program as well as provide teachers with the basic tools to create a successful AP laboratory program.

Connie Budiwarman, Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency: Budiwarman attended an advanced training called "Pediatric Swallowing and Feeding" in Detroit. As the occupational therapist for Croyden Avenue School's cognitively impaired program, Budiwarman helps students with cognitive impairments maximize their independence and life skills.

Doni Kramer, Kalamazoo Country Day School: Kramer traveled to Matapalo, Costa Rica, where she studied the habitat of the rainforest. Kramer will incorporate her experience into her kindergarten curriculum on ecosystems found throughout the world through photos and artifacts from this trip.

Deborah Heyboer, Kalamazoo Christian West Elementary: Heyboer attended the State Technology Conference to acquire expertise in Microsoft Photo Story. Heyboer's project is designed to engage students in the use of technology in the classroom to enhance the development of their literacy skills.

Colleen Chapoton, Catholic Schools of Greater Kalamazoo: In a weeklong Biodiversity Academy at the National Science Resource Center of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., Chapoton increased her understanding of plant and animal biodiversity. Chapoton interacted with scientists, curators, and museum educators during specially designed visits to museums, laboratories and the National Zoo.

Two-educator grants

Heather Reid and Doug Flynn, KRESA: Reid and Flynn attended the 2009 Classroom Assessment for Student Learning workshop through Educational Testing Services Assessment Training Institute in Naperville, Ill. As a result of this training, Reid and Flynn will be able to provide internal expertise to their district on creating formative assessments. In addition, they will return to their school with a greater knowledge of how to establish targets, appropriately match assessments, and give valuable feedback to their students.

Jeffrey Blamer and Marc VerKaik, Kalamazoo Christian Schools: Blamer and VerKaik attended the Northwest Evaluation Association Midwest Conference in Lincolnshire, Ill. As the Kalamazoo Christian Schools use the Measures of Academic Progress achievement test, they hope to develop a better understanding of the use of the testing data for the improvement of student learning.

Buildingwide/Multieducator Grants

Kelly Bagley, Hillary Moczerad and Christine Sutton, Parchment School District: This group attended the "Midwest Brain & Learning Institute: Healthy Brains, Engaged Learners" conference at Hope College. It taught them about the neuroscience foundations of learning, the implications brain research holds for the classroom, and how knowledge of the diversity of brains and learners can improve how teachers help their students reach their full potentials.

Ann Alburtus, Pilar Forero and Margie DeGroot, Portage Public Schools: This diverse, cross-curricular, cross-grade-level team from Portage Central Middle School attended the National Character Counts! Seminar in Chicago to enhance and expand their understanding of character development research. Alburtus, Forero and DeGroot will share the latest program information with their building steering committee and continue to utilize character education with their middle school students.

District grants

Madelon "Lonnie" Richardson, Portage Public Schools: Ten art teachers from Portage Public Schools will attend the 60th annual conference of the Michigan Art Education Association in November in Kalamazoo. The group also will have the opportunity to collaborate closely with other art teachers from across the state and area business leaders as they help organize the event.

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Researchers develop innovative imaging system to study sudden cardiac ... - Science Centric

Posted: 31 Oct 2009 07:25 AM PDT

A research team at Vanderbilt University has developed an innovative optical system to simultaneously image electrical activity and metabolic properties in the same region of a heart, to study the complex mechanisms that lead to sudden cardiac arrest. Tested in animal models, the system could dramatically advance scientists' understanding of the relationship between metabolic disorders and heart rhythm disturbances in humans that can lead to cardiac arrest and death, and provide a platform for testing new treatments to prevent or stop potentially fatal irregular heartbeats, known as arrhythmias.

The research is supported in part by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

The design and use of the dual camera system is described in the 1 November issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine. Additional support for the project has also been provided by the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education (VIIBRE), the American Heart Association, and the Simons Centre for Systems Biology at the Institute for Advanced Study.

'The challenge in understanding cardiac rhythm disorders is to discern the dynamic relationship between multiple cardiac variables,' said one of the coauthors of the paper and the project's principal investigator, John P. Wikswo, Ph.D., Gordon A. Cain University Professor and VIIBRE director. 'This dual camera system opens up a new window for correlating metabolic and electrophysiological events, which are usually studied independently.'

The 11-year-old research project would have been terminated this year due to lack of funding, according to Wikswo. But a $566,000 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant from the NHLBI is enabling the 13-member research team to continue developing and testing the innovative optical system. Recovery Act funds are also allowing the team to purchase a pair of $60,000 high-speed and highly sensitive digital cameras to record the changes in the metabolic and electrical activity of isolated cardiac tissue using low-intensity fluorescent dyes under conditions associated with heart failure, ischaemia, fibrillation and other pathological circumstances.

'Through the Recovery Act, the NHLBI is able to support promising research to develop and enhance innovative technologies to help us better understand the complex mechanisms involved in potentially fatal conditions such as sudden cardiac arrest,' said NHLBI Director Elizabeth G. Nabel, M.D. 'This research will allow us to better understand how to prevent and treat life-threatening cardiac rhythm disturbances and potentially save thousands of lives every year.'

Each year, 250,000 to 450,000 people die in the United States as a result of sudden cardiac arrest, a condition that is triggered by arrhythmia. Usually, a complex series of electrical and metabolic changes precede sudden cardiac arrest.

The Vanderbilt researchers created and tested an innovative way to visualise the electrical activity of the heart in relation to its structure and changing metabolic state under different pathological conditions. Their multimodal cardiac imaging technique uses a two-camera approach to integrate electrophysiological imaging with optical fluorescence imaging of metabolic activity associated with damaged heart tissue and tachycardia, or accelerated heart rate. The biochemical and electrochemical studies of heart tissue under controlled conditions will enhance scientists' understanding of electrometabolic cardiac disorders and their clinical treatment.

The advantages of this imaging system over others include rapid setup, two-colour image separation, high spatial resolution, and an optional software camera calibration routine that eliminates the need for precise camera alignment. The authors provide a detailed description of a camera calibration procedure along with multiple examples.

In addition, the multimodal imaging system will be a less-invasive, instrumental tool in helping scientists discover and test safe and effective ways to prevent or treat arrhythmias. Current treatments include medications that can produce undesirable side effects and the implantable cardioverter defibrillator, a small device that's placed under the skin in the chest and uses electrical pulses or shocks to help control life-threatening arrhythmias.

Source: National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute

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Biology

Saturday, October 31, 2009