Tuesday, December 8, 2009

“Illinois teen's biology project wins $40,000 prize - Quad Cities Onlines” plus 4 more

“Illinois teen's biology project wins $40,000 prize - Quad Cities Onlines” plus 4 more

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Illinois teen's biology project wins $40,000 prize - Quad Cities Onlines

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 08:03 AM PST

CHICAGO (AP) — A passion for biology has paid off big-time for an Illinois high school senior.

Marissa Suchyta of South Barrington won a $40,000 scholarship prize at the Siemens Competition national finals in New York. She is 17 and attends the University of Chicago lab school.

Marissa investigated a protein called geminin and how it blocks DNA from replicating. That could be useful information someday for treating diseases like cancer.

The teen scientist told The Associated Press her prize will help pay college tuition. She plans to become a neurosurgeon and continue her research.

A New York teen won the contest's top individual prize of $100,000.

Winners of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology were announced Monday.



Name change highlights links between engineering and biology - Princeton University

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 07:06 AM PST

Name change highlights links between engineering and biology

Posted December 8, 2009; 09:58 a.m.
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by Steven Schultz

Reflecting the growing intersection of biology and engineering, the Department of Chemical Engineering will change its name as of July 1, 2010, to the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

"Adding 'biological' to our name makes a public statement," said Richard Register, who chairs the department. "It signals to the community -- especially prospective graduate students and faculty -- our commitment to leading in this area of great scientific and social importance."

The name change was formally approved at the Faculty Meeting on Dec. 7.

The field of chemical engineering has had longstanding ties to biology, Register noted. Fermentation processes, discovered millennia ago, became a modern tool for chemical production and most recently in making advanced biofuels. Chemical engineers pioneered the use of polymeric materials (plastics) for implantable medical devices and controlled drug delivery.

These connections have developed rapidly in the last decade, and now about a third of the department's faculty members focus a significant portion of their research on questions related to biology. Two senior faculty members, Christodoulos Floudas and Robert Prud'homme, have moved much of their research into biological engineering. Floudas collaborates with biologists to apply his expertise in optimization to the analysis and design of proteins. Prud'homme has leveraged his understanding of polymers and nanoscale processes to develop innovative drug-delivery technologies.

Associate Professor Stas Shvartsman holds a joint appointment with the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, where he applies the tools of engineering to the understanding of the process of early embryo development.

Register also noted that two of three recently recruited junior faculty members work in this area. Celeste Nelson studies tissue development, which may aid the understanding and control of cancer or lead to new types of regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. Jamie Link works on protein engineering, with potential applications in cancer treatment, antimicrobial drugs and other areas.

"These developments have also been reflected in our teaching, which has evolved considerably in recent years," said Register. Of the six "tracks" that chemical engineering undergraduates may choose, the "Bioengineering and Biotechnology" track has been the most popular. About half the students concentrating in chemical engineering also pursue the University's certificate in engineering biology, which was established by Prud'homme.

The growing links between engineering and biology extend beyond chemical engineering to all areas of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, said H. Vincent Poor, dean of engineering. "Every one of our six departments has faculty members engaged in work that ultimately aims to improve human health," Poor said. "The most inventive and effective solutions often come from unexpected interactions between disciplines. Expanding the visibility of chemical and biological engineering is an important step toward fostering such interactions."

Among many other examples throughout the school, electrical engineers work with neuroscientists to achieve better brain imaging techniques and work with medical specialists to develop laser-based disease detection. Mechanical and aerospace engineers collaborate with biologists to understand the movement and coordinated activity of whole organisms.

"We are looking forward to building even stronger bridges throughout the engineering school, the University and beyond," said Register. "This dynamic area of work will provide a great learning environment for our students and a powerful source of innovation and discovery."

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Biology examiner does Las Vegas - Examiner

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 05:18 AM PST

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No one ever complains that there's nothing to do in Las Vegas, and that should be true for the biologist, too. The gaming floor is not an attraction to the Biology Examiner as she only believes in gambling on love. The cyanotic blue trio and many other popular stage shows usually have Biology Examiner scratching for the exit door in about twenty minutes. However, walking down the strip, one may discover novel and innovative gardens, landscape design, zoological collections and biological architectural features that amuse, amaze and are admirable in their creativity.

The casinos are now decorated for the Christmas season, all festooned with greenery and florals. A visit to the Bellagio revealed a beautiful conservatory decorated with Christmas-theme scenes composed of flowers. Particularly impresssive were three polar bears made entirely of white carnations.

Between the Bellagio and Caesar's Palace was landscape design that could lead the traveler to think that he or she had gone to Italy by some mistake, instead. Inside, Caesar's palace decorated their Roman statues as if they were in a sea of white snowballs of white hydrangeas. Wandering around back, Roman gardens surrounding the pool area beckon one to timelessly sit and chill with the Roman gods and goddesses. One can easily forget that only a few hundred yards away are the the bustling city streets.

Perhaps the greatest delight and surprise came when visiting the Mirage Casino and Hotel. Here you may visit Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat. Siegfried and Roy were, of course, staples of Las Vegas entertaiment for almost thirty years. They were novel and wildly popular magicians who used lions and tigers in their act. What is conveyed here in the garden is their genuine love for these felines and the other animals under their care. The animals, some of them retired from the stage since the end of the act, live in a beautifully landscaped habitat that features a special memorial to their beloved royal white tiger, Sitara. Dolphins delight the visitors with their friendliness and skills in the dolphin habitat. A visitor may also become "Dolphin Trainer for a Day" in a special tutorial program at the Mirage. Even the reception area had a biological theme. Behind the reception desk was a long wall of bright tropical aquarium fish.

Mandalay Bay Casino features a shark reef. At the Wynn, Christmas decorations include an arbor of trees, trunks wrapped in lights, ornamented with hanging floral spheres.

Even leaving the city reminds one of a sense of time and beauty. When viewing the mountains surrounding the city, and certainly when viewing the Grand Canyon from the air, one can see marks of sediment and erosion, literally looking into the passage of time. As it says in the Secret Garden website, "The key to finding beauty is knowing where to look."

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Illinois teen's biology research wins $40,000 science prize; she aims ... - WGNtv.com

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 01:01 AM PST

By Associated Press

3:03 AM CST, December 8, 2009

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Therasis Obtains $12 Million From Tilocor in Series A Round - Yahoo Finance

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 05:33 AM PST

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - 12/08/09) - Therasis, Inc., a newly founded oncology drug discovery company, has secured $12 million in a Series A financing from Tilocor Life Science. The funds will allow the Company to launch and further develop its proprietary oncology drug discovery engine, the Therasis Filter(TM). This platform employs a systems biology approach and represents a significant advance over existing technologies, enabling the identification of new chemical entities, biomarkers and synergistic combinations through the construction and analysis of tumor-derived molecular interaction networks. The Company's initial efforts will focus on developing an internal pipeline of oncology drug candidates and forming drug discovery collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

"The Therasis Filter(TM) represents a paradigm shift in drug discovery that overcomes many of the hurdles in developing optimal anti-cancer therapies, in particular the ability to identify and target the multiple chemical pathways altered in a specific tumor subtype," said Andrea Califano, Ph.D., co-founder of Therasis. "This funding allows Therasis to build internal capacity and offer potential partners the unprecedented advantages of our screening technology, which greatly facilitates the identification of both disease-relevant activity as well as effective drug combinations."

Therasis was founded based on technology developed at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center by three internationally-recognized thought leaders: Dr. Andrea Califano, Director of the Joint Centers for Systems Biology at Columbia University and Associate Director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center; Riccardo Dalla-Favera, M.D., Director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center; and Owen A. O'Connor, M.D., Ph.D., presently Deputy Director of Clinical Research and Cancer Treatment at the New York University Cancer Institute. Collectively, they bring unique expertise and decades of experience in cancer systems biology, cancer genetics and pathology, and small molecule discovery and drug development in hematological malignancies.

"The co-founders of Therasis have individually made impressive contributions to their respective fields. The industrial translation of their combined academic leadership has the potential to make a real difference for cancer drug discovery," said Stefan Catsicas, Chairman of Tilocor. "Many academic and biotech groups have either systems biology, screening or chemistry outstanding expertise. But very few have managed to assemble all the necessary skills to truly transform how new oncology treatments are identified and developed."

About the Therasis Filter(TM)

The Therasis Filter(TM) enables the identification of disease-specific alterations in the networks of molecular interactions that regulate cellular processes, allowing the rapid identification of new chemical entities and synergistic combinations that target these alterations. Beginning with high throughput screening of compound libraries, the Therasis Filter(TM) first collects a large number of molecular profiles of chemically-perturbed cells. These profiles are used to reconstruct accurate maps of molecular interactions, also known as "interactomes." The latter are experimentally validated and analyzed to identify disease-specific alterations in tumor-derived tissues, compounds targeting these alterations and biomarkers complementing clinical development. Interactomes are also effective in characterizing drug mechanisms of action, supporting both drug rescuing and drug repositioning efforts.

About Therasis

Therasis, Inc. is a new drug discovery company developing oncology therapeutics for use as single agents or in combination therapy. The Company's proprietary technology, the Therasis Filter(TM), represents a paradigm shift in the ability to discover therapeutic targets, their chemical inhibitors and associated biomarkers. This platform integrates world-class expertise in high throughput screening, systems biology, cancer genetics and clinical research. Therasis plans to leverage its discovery engine to identify new chemical entities for internal development and to forge collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies on drug repositioning.

Therasis's technology platform was developed at Columbia University by internationally recognized thought leaders in cancer genetics, cancer systems biology and cancer therapeutic development. The Company is funded by Tilocor Life Science. Learn more at www.therasis.com.

About Tilocor

Tilocor has established a small group of innovation-driven companies, working synergistically to better understand unmet medical needs and the new technologies that can be used to address them. Co-founded by Professor Stefan Catsicas, former Vice-President of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Lausanne), the Tilocor Group promotes an entrepreneurial approach adapted to the long-term needs of the life science sector. Currently, Tilocor companies focus on inflammation, infectious diseases and cancer with specific therapeutic agents that include intracellular peptides, human antibodies and small chemical entities. More information is available at www.tilocor.com

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