Saturday, December 12, 2009

“Hollywood and Molecular Biology Go Well Together - Softpedia” plus 4 more

“Hollywood and Molecular Biology Go Well Together - Softpedia” plus 4 more

Hollywood and Molecular Biology Go Well Together - Softpedia

Posted: 12 Dec 2009 01:18 AM PST

Strangely enough, while Hollywood is usually dismissed by the scientific community for its total lack of connection with real knowledge, its technology could mean a boost for science, and especially for molecular biology. Experts believe that the technology used to animate movies such as the blockbuster Shrek could in the near future also help molecular biologists model various cellular components and their interactions. This may help test numerous existing hypotheses, or even lead scientists to creating new ones, Nature News reports.

The announcement was made this month at the meeting for the American Society of Cell Biology, which took place in San Diego. "We want to be able to make predictions. At the very least we want our models to reproduce known behaviors," said University of Iowa in Iowa City scientist Adrian Elcock. The expert is already engaged in virtual cell research, simulating the movements of proteins, enzymes and other big molecules inside of them. The work was founded on established scientific knowledge of these molecules – about 50 of the most common ones in the bacteria Escherichia coli – but the model also brings something new to the table.

It is used to simulate all the possibilities that these proteins could display when it comes to interacting among themselves. This could, in the near future, lead to a more accurate understanding of their overall relationships. Scientists hope that, at some point, they will be able to include sufficient amounts of data in the models so as to make new discoveries, as in infer the existence of other molecules, and how they fit in the general schematic of a cell's function. Thus far, Elcock was able to demonstrate that the green fluorescent protein (GFP), the marker generally used for such lab studies, indeed diffuses 10 times slower in the actual cell than in the test tube. This is due to the "crowd" of molecules inside the cells.

"Animation is seen as more eye candy than anything. That could change," adds Harvard Medical School in Boston expert Janet Iwasa. The thing is, experts say, that the human brain is not well-equipped to memorize and fully understand the complex interactions that take place between the molecules inside cells. "Our intuition is fragile in this regard. We need a tool to help us understand," explains University of Washington in Friday Harbor professor Jonathan Alberts. "All we really need to do, we hope, is get things about right, and we will see some emergent properties," he says.

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University of California, San Francisco, Researcher Receives ASBMB ... - PR.com

Posted: 11 Dec 2009 11:59 PM PST

Bethesda, MD, December 12, 2009 --(PR.com)-- James A. Wells, professor and chairman of the department pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of UCSF's small molecule discovery center, has been named the winner of the 2010 American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology-Merck Award for his pioneering studies in the field of protein engineering.

Wells, who also serves on the ASBMB Council, will present an award lecture, titled "Probing and Controlling Cellular Remodeling Enzymes," at 2:15 p.m. Monday, April 26, at the 2010 annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif.

Wells integrates multiple disciplines, including biophysics, cell biology, chemical biology, molecular biology, enzymology and proteomics, to design small molecules and proteins that can selectively activate or inhibit cellular processes such as differentiation and apoptosis. Through these efforts, Wells hopes to better understand how signaling events drive responses, such as cell growth and death, and perhaps discover new drugs to treat diseases like cancer.

Along the way, Wells has developed numerous innovative methodologies to improve protein engineering, molecular screening and pharmaceutical chemistry, including a disulfide-based protein-trapping technology, substrate-assisted catalysis and N-terminomics.

"[Wells] is an exciting and highly creative scientist," noted Ian A. Wilson, professor of structural biology at The Scripps Research Institute, "and these methods that he has pioneered have been invaluable to countless researchers in a multitude of fields."

"His unbridled enthusiasm is infectious and ensures his lab is fully regaled with a plethora of ideas," Wilson continued, "so they can unleash their individual talents to further progress drug discovery, biochemical mechanisms, protein function and understanding of key cellular events that impact human health."

Wells' impressive expertise in protein engineering stems from a long and renowned career in the pharmaceutical industry. Before joining UCSF, Wells spent nearly two decades at Genentech Inc., where he was a founding scientist of its protein engineering department. He later founded and served as president and chief scientific officer of Sunesis Pharmaceuticals and helped invent a novel drug-discovery platform called Tethering, which efficiently screens molecules to identify the most potent compounds that block specific protein action.

Prior to that, Wells received his bachelor's degree in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1973 and his doctorate in biochemistry from Washington State University in 1979. He also took on postdoctoral fellowships at both Washington State University and the Stanford University School of Medicine before joining Genentech in 1982.

"Over his career, Wells has made enormous contributions to our understanding of enzyme mechanisms, allostery, protein plasticity, protein-protein interfaces, small molecule discovery, hormone receptor signaling, molecular recognition, protease signaling and apoptosis," said Molecular and Cellular Proteomics co-editor Alma Burlingame, who is also a professor of chemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry at UCSF. "Not only has his science led to fundamental discoveries, it also produced new products in both the industrial enzyme and pharmaceutical sectors."

The ASBMB-Merck Award, presented annually, recognizes outstanding research contributions in the fields of biochemistry and molecular biology.

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ASCB: Spotlight on Cell Biology - Photonics.com

Posted: 11 Dec 2009 01:00 PM PST

SAN DIEGO, Calif., Dec. 11, 2009 – Not even a day of rain and wind could keep attendees away from the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) annual meeting at the San Diego Convention Center this week. In fact, the uncharacteristically gray, wet weather might have kept conferencegoers from being distracted by San Diego's beaches, at least on Monday.

sandiegoconventioncenter.jpg

The San Diego Convention Center hosted the American Society for Cell Biology annual meeting this week. (Photonics Media photo by Laura S. Marshall)

Fortunately, there was plenty to keep cell biologists happy inside the convention center. The conference connects thousands of cell biologists – scientists and students from fields including academia, higher education. industry and government – every year. Organizers estimated that this year's event would draw 9000 to 9500 attendees with more than 100 scientific sessions and mini-symposia as well as 3500 poster presentations on everything from cancer to cell cortex and membrane dynamics. Official attendance numbers were unavailable, but several exhibitors reported that there seemed to be fewer people at this year's event.

The ASCB, which was founded in 1960 and now serves approximately 11,000 members, is a Bethesda, Md.-based nonprofit dedicated to promotion and development of the field of cell biology.

Poster sessions

Especially interesting for the photonics-minded was the poster session on imaging technology on Tuesday. Approximately 20 posters shared the latest imaging discoveries from researchers and companies, from choosing the right photoactivatable fluorescent protein for a specific job to using quantum dots for multicolor single particle tracking of lipids and membrane proteins, from new ways to expand the number of distinguishable fluorescent labels in an image to modulation tracking of cellular adhesions in 3-D collagen matrices, using fluorescence microscopy for quantitative analysis of protein proximity, and STED nanoscopy in the living cell.

Other posters in the imaging technology session looked at dichroic beamsplitters and their effect on resolution; image quality in fluorescence microscopy; combined atomic force-optical microscope systems designed for the observation of cell dynamics; live-cell imaging with a multiplexed microfluidic perfusion system; and long-term time-lapse imaging with microfluidic devices.

Corporate exhibition

In addition to poster sessions, the ASCB annual meeting hosted an exhibition featuring more than 350 cell biology-related companies, including an exhibitor's showcase where companies could present their latest developments.

Dr. Deepak Sharma, camera product manager at Photometrics, was on hand at the booth to give inspired presentations about Photometrics' evolve cameras and QImaging's EXi cameras. Each evolve camera is individually "fingerprinted" on how it responds to light, allowing for comparison of results between experiments. "This is the first camera to give data in real, non-arbitrary units," Sharma said. "Now we can use the camera in a much more quantitative manner."

Nikon announced this week that it has licensed super-resolution microscopes N-SIM from the University of California at San Francisco and N-STORM from Harvard University. Nikon's booth was chock-full of systems for microinjection; stem-cell incubation/microscopy; macroimaging; super-res microscopy; and more.

Agilent Technologies had its new MLC 400 monolithic laser combiner on display; the instrument was developed for confocal and fluorescence microscopy. Andor Technology discussed its new differential spinning disk (DSD) technology, for white light confocal imaging, as well as its scientific CMOS (sCMOS), a special CMOS with a large dynamic range for scientific imaging.

Leica had a number of new products on display: the HCS-A, for high-content screening on confocal platform; the TCS SP2 personal confocal; and the EM GP for cryo TEM prep. Olympus gave visitors tours of new microscopes on display, including cell^TIRF, newly released at this show.

Hamamatsu Photonics released the ORCA-D2 camera, with 2 CCD devices for simultaneous dual-wavelength imaging, at the show. Caliper Life Sciences gave visitors to its booth an in-depth look at IVIS Lumina XR, which offers fluorescence, bioluminescence and x-ray in one.

At the show, PerkinElmer Inc. introduced expanded reagent, imaging and detection system offerings for life sciences research. One of the new systems is the Volocity 5.3, which offers real-time 3-D imaging and displays fully rendered 3-D results as they are acquired.

The outlook among the exhibitors seemed to be optimistic in the first two days of the show, but as time went on most reported that attendance seemed down and that promising leads were down as well.

Special events

The annual meeting also featured a career fair; special workshops of interest to minorities and women in cell biology; and student-centric events and education-related panels. Other popular events included Celldance, the ASCB cell film contest, and CellSlam, a "stand-up science comedy slam."

During the annual meeting, the Women in Cell Biology Committee offered a host of mentoring and career roundtables, talks and other events, including a networking reception and even an awards show, all designed to promote and encourage the contributions of women to cell biology.

Career discussion and mentoring roundtables were held on Monday. These conversations, free to registered conference attendees, focused on a variety of opportunities in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, patent and intellectual property law, scientific writing and editing, computational biology, government laboratories, scientific foundations and funding agencies, and academia.

Self-improvement topics included negotiation strategies, contributing to public policy, developing one's career, lab setup management and leadership, collaboration, funding opportunities, and mid- and late-career transitions. Other roundtables discussed issues for women in science, gay and lesbian issues in science, opportunities for undergraduates, international postdocs coming to the US and US postdocs who are going to labs in other countries.

The ASCB held its Career Center near the center of the convention center's Exhibit Hall from Saturday to Tuesday, offering board postings targeted to both job seekers and employers. Those seeking jobs were able to post their résumés and view job listings, and employers with available jobs could post openings and view posted résumés; employers also could reserve onsite interview booths. There was a steady flow of traffic around the boards throughout the show.

The ASCB also has an online job board at jobboard.ascb.org for those who could not attend the career center in person.

The members of the American Society for Cell Biology are interested not only in the workings, actions and functions of the cell, but also in how their discipline is being taught in schools and universities, as evidenced by the education-related talks, symposia and workshops held at the annual meeting.

A workshop titled "No More Eyelashes and Air Bubbles … New Ways to Use Microscopes in High School Labs" was held Sunday. David Epel of the department of biological sciences at Stanford University and Pamela Miller of Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station introduced a set of Web-based laboratory modules designed to enable students to learn how to use the microscope in a timely and effective manner, how to measure cells or cell structures under the microscope, and how representative cells look under different modes of microscopy (such as phase, Normaski, scanning and transmission electron microscopy).

In conjunction with the annual meeting, Olympus held its annual BioScapes awards dinner Sunday night, honoring the year's best microscope images of life science subjects. First prize went to Dr. Jan Michels of the University of Kiel in Germany. Nine additional winners also received prizes from Olympus, and many more were recognized as honorable mentions.

Kiel, who received a prize of $5000 in Olympus microscope or camera equipment, thanked his girlfriend in his acceptance speech for all her patience when he's stuck in the lab at odd hours. "This [winning] image actually was taken on a Sunday evening," he said, and the crowd, made up primarily of fellow scientists, gave a knowing laugh.

For more information, visit: www.ascb.org
Laura S. Marshall
laura.marshall@laurin.com 

fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger

'Speedy' protein linked to spread of aggressive cancers - Windsor Star

Posted: 12 Dec 2009 03:05 AM PST

WINDSOR, Ont. — When diagnosed early and treated properly, breast cancer is up to 96 per cent curable today, thanks to advances in medicine and groundbreaking research.

But there are still many barriers in the fight against the disease and that's why supporting new studies and educating the public is so important, says a prominent local cancer researcher, the University of Windsor's Lisa Porter.

Porter gave an overview of some of the latest developments in breast cancer research and current therapy options at a free lecture Thursday afternoon. The biology professor and Assumption University chair in cancer research has been awarded substantial grants for her studies looking at the roles stem cells, certain hormones and proteins play in the development of cancer.

In an interview before the lecture, Porter said the research focus is now on more aggressive and rare forms of cancer, such as inflammatory breast cancer, which develops quickly and is often deadly.

Porter's ongoing research involves looking at types of breast cancers that don't respond to hormone therapies and how they can be diagnosed more quickly so that time isn't wasted trying to treat patients with drugs that aren't going to work.

Porter and her collaborators have been able to isolate a protein called "Speedy" that seems to be involved in advanced-stage breast cancer. Experiments with lab mice show that inhibiting that protein can significantly reduce the growth of the tumour, Porter said.

"It does suggest that it's a really exciting therapy that could be used for these really aggressive types of cancers that aren't responsive to hormone therapy," she said.

"One of the big things that I always try to get across to people is that cancer isn't just one disease. And because breast cancer has received the most funding and the most attention, we really have made the greatest strides in breast cancer. Those patients that are responsive to therapies and are diagnosed early are almost 100 per cent curable now."

Porter said the goal of her lectures is to educate people in the community about signs of cancer and the importance of screening. She pointed out the rare but still serious issue of breast cancer in men, which often goes undetected until it's too late.

"There is a stigma with male breast cancer -- it's seen as a female disease and men are ashamed to talk about it or even consider it," Porter said.

Men make up only one per cent of breast cancer patients, but they are more difficult to treat.

Male breast cancer is usually more advanced at the time of diagnosis and men often don't respond to conventional treatments as well as women do.

"It's important to make males realize that it can happen and that they need to watch out for signs and symptoms because they don't get screened," Porter said.

fivefilters.org featured article: Normalising the crime of the century by John Pilger

NARMC hires Chy - Baxter Bulletin

Posted: 12 Dec 2009 02:51 AM PST

HARRISON — Physical Therapist Dr. Joni Chy has joined the staff at North Arkansas Regional Medical Center.

Chy is a graduate of Bergman High School. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and psychology and then went on to earn her Masters and Doctorate of physical therapy, all at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Mo.

She is married to Andrew Chy and has three children: Cara, 13; Sloan, 6; and Mia, 3. Chy's hobbies include spending time with her family, athletics, hiking, serving at Brand New Church, and supporting the Razorbacks.

— From Christy Hawkins

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