“Marijuana 'Munchies' May Be Rooted in Biology - WSFA” plus 4 more |
- Marijuana 'Munchies' May Be Rooted in Biology - WSFA
- Protein that keeps stem cells poised for action identified - New Kerala
- 'Self-seeding' of cancer cells may pave way for new therapies - New Kerala
- Biology Examples Give MIT Students a New Perspective on Chemistry - Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Do-it-yourself biology grows with technology - San Francisco Chronicle
| Marijuana 'Munchies' May Be Rooted in Biology - WSFA Posted: 25 Dec 2009 05:56 AM PST THURSDAY, Dec. 24 (HealthDay News) -- New research sheds some light on the "munchies" -- the desire that pot smokers sometimes have to eat lots of food. THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, is similar to substances known as endocannabinoids, which are produced in the brain and body and enhance the perception of sweet foods, researchers say. "Our taste cells may be more involved in regulating our appetites than we had previously known," said Dr. Robert Margolskee, a molecular biologist at Monell Chemical Senses Center and co-author of a new study, in a statement. "Better understanding of the driving forces for eating and overeating could lead to interventions to stem the burgeoning rise in obesity and related diseases." Endocannabinoids "both act in the brain to increase appetite and also modulate taste receptors on the tongue to increase the response to sweets," study senior author Yuzo Ninomiya, a professor of oral neuroscience at Kyushu University in Japan, said in a statement. In the study, published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers performed experiments on mice and found that endocannabinoids enhanced the perception of sweet taste, but not other kinds of taste like sour and salty. Margolskee said the "marijuana munchies" may be related to how endocannabinoids affect the sense of taste. More information The National Institutes of Health has more about marijuana.  Copyright © 2009 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Protein that keeps stem cells poised for action identified - New Kerala Posted: 25 Dec 2009 08:40 AM PST Washington, Dec 25 : Scientists from Stanford University School of Medicine have identified a protein that appears to play a critical role in keeping stem cells poised to quickly become more specialized cell types.
The protein called Jarid2 maintains a delicate balancing act - one that both recruits other regulatory proteins to genes important in differentiation and also modulates their activity to keep them in a state of ongoing readiness. 'Understanding how only the relevant genes are targeted and remain poised for action is a hot topic in embryonic stem cell research,' said Dr Joanna Wysocka, assistant professor of developmental biology and of chemical and systems biology. 'Our results shed light on both these questions,' Wysocka added. Jarid2 works through a protein complex called PRC2, for Polycomb Repressive Complex 2, which is necessary to regulate the expression of developmentally important genes in many types of cells. According to the researchers, PRC2 activity allows the cell to carefully manage its degree of readiness for the subsequent unwrapping and expression of genes involved in differentiation of the embryonic stem cells into more specialized cells. 'It was just as we would have predicted,' said Wysocka. 'Without Jarid2, which keeps the genes silent yet poised for activation, the embryos stop developing.' The researchers now plan to further investigate the mechanism by which Jarid2 summons PRC2 to differentiation-specific genes in the stem cells, and how it affects gene expression. The interaction may be important in human cancers as well. The study appears in journal Cell. --ANI
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| 'Self-seeding' of cancer cells may pave way for new therapies - New Kerala Posted: 25 Dec 2009 08:40 AM PST Washington, Dec 25 : Scientists from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre have identified what they call the 'self-seeding' mechanism of cancer cells, which appears to play a critical role in tumour progression.
Cancer progression is commonly thought of as a process involving the growth of a primary tumour followed by metastasis, in which cancer cells leave the primary tumour and spread to distant organs. The new study shows that cancer cells can return to and grow in their tumour of origin, a process called 'self-seeding.' It can enhance tumour growth through the release of signals that promote angiogenesis, invasion, and metastasis. 'Our work not only provides evidence for the self-seeding phenomenon and reveals the mechanism of this process, but it also shows the possible role of self-seeding in tumor progression,' said the study's first author Mi-Young Kim, PhD, Research Fellow in the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. According to the research, which was conducted in mice, self-seeding involves two distinct functions: the ability of a tumour to attract its own circulating progeny and the ability of circulating tumour cells to re-infiltrate the tumor in response to this attraction. The investigators identified four genes that are responsible for executing these functions: IL-6 and IL-8, which attract the most aggressive segment of the circulating tumour cells population, and FSCN1 and MMP1, which mediate the infiltration of circulating tumor cells into a tumor. The findings also show that circulating breast cancer cells that are capable of self-seeding a breast tumour have a similar gene expression pattern to breast cancer cells that are capable of spreading to the lungs, bones, and brain, and therefore have an increased potential to metastasize to these organs. 'These results provide us with opportunities to explore new targeted therapies that may interfere with the self-seeding process and perhaps slow or even prevent tumor progression,' said the study's senior author, Dr Joan Massague, Chair of the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. The study appears in journal Cell. --ANI
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| Biology Examples Give MIT Students a New Perspective on Chemistry - Howard Hughes Medical Institute Posted: 18 Dec 2009 07:37 AM PST
|  December 18, 2009 Biology Examples Give MIT Students a New Perspective on Chemistry When Allison Hamilos came to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last year, she dreaded having to take the mandatory general chemistry course for freshmen. Eyeing a future in medicine, she couldn't see much point in learning chemistry. "I didn't like chemistry at all in high school," says Hamilos, now a sophomore. "I was really surprised to find out how much I liked it in college and how relevant it is to biology. (It) has been my favorite class at MIT so far."
That's exactly what Hamilos's teacher, HHMI Professor Catherine Drennan, had in mind when she infused her introductory chemistry lectures with examples from biology and medicine. "I have been totally amazed by the huge impact this small change has made in terms of the students' attitude about the connections between biology and chemistry," Drennan says. "They really see that chemistry is the heart of biology and that is a big change." This relatively simple approach generated an enthusiasm and an improved appreciation for chemistry that was so significant Drennan and her colleagues published the results in the December issue of the journal ACS Chemical Biology. She hopes that success can be replicated in chemistry classes across the country. The full curriculum can be found on MIT's web site at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Chemistry/5-111Fall-2008/BiologyTopics/index.htm. The link is also available in HHMI's Cool Science for Educators site. While scientific research increasingly takes place at the interface of disciplines, most undergraduate classes are still taught within the confines of traditional science fields: physics, chemistry, biology. As a result, students often view disciplines as separate and unrelated. That is true for the roughly 200 students in MIT 5.111 or Principles of Chemical Science, the introductory chemistry class that Drennan teaches. It's intended for students who have taken high school chemistry – but may lack a strong background in the subject – and so it tends to attract students who are not interested in chemistry or those who think that they are not good at it. Drennan, a chemist who has long been interested in education, decided to use part of the $1 million grant she received as an HHMI Professor to change that perception among a subset of MIT students. Drennan and co-instructor, Elizabeth Vogel Taylor, who received a Ph.D. in bioorganic chemistry at MIT, developed examples based on biological and medical topics that demonstrate basic chemical principles. "I wanted to do something that anyone could replicate with a minimal amount of effort," says Drennan, who has since been named an HHMI investigator. "If you really want to affect change, it needs to start at a level where it is practical and easy to do." The examples and problem sets link specific chemistry lecture topics to biology. One example is electron exchange of oxidation/reduction reactions, a common introductory chemistry topic, and its link to the activation of vitamin B12 in the body. Hamilos' favorite example relates tothe wave-particle duality of light and matter, which Drennan and Taylor explained through quantum dot nanoparticles, small semiconductors that emit light when excited by UV radiation. They then showed how quantum dots can be used to help create images of tumors. The teaching team used clickers—handheld electronic devices that let students respond to questions posed by professors in real time—to make some of the biology examples interactive. The instructors would propose problems for the students to solve during class and offer multiple answers. The students answered the questions using the clickers, and the results were displayed immediately on the overhead projector. This gave Drennan and Taylor immediate feedback on what percentage of the students understood the concepts and which students still needed help."It allowed us to see if students were understanding the (biology) concepts and adjust if we needed to," Taylor says. "It also kept the students engaged." Drennan and Taylor enlisted Rudy Mitchell, an educational researcher from MIT's Teaching and Learning Laboratory, to help them assess whether the students learned anything different from the biology examples. Mitchell developed a survey that the introductory chemistry students completed at the end of the course,in addition to the standard end of course evaluations. The researchers compared students who took the class from Drennan and Taylor during three different years: 2006, when the class contained no biology examples; 2007, when only half of the course contained biology examples; and 2008, when the entire course included biology examples. The standard year-end course evaluations showed a statistically significant increase from 2006 to 2008 in three areas -- the number of students who were satisfied with the course;the number of students who claimed the course inspired interest in chemistry; and the total number of students who said the course used good examples. Of the students who were exposed to the biology examples, 86 percent reported that the examples helped them to see the connection between biology and chemistry. "Even more interesting was the student attendance in the course," Mitchell says. "Large lecture classes often suffer from poor attendance. But 85 percent of students reported attending 90 percent or more of the lectures. That's unheard of in a lecture with 200 students, and it speaks to how enthusiastic the students are about the course." Mitchell noted that students viewed the experience very positively, describing it as meaningful, effective, enjoyable, supportive, motivating, and challenging. Her student's perception of this class is important to Drennan because she sees herself in her chemistry-avoiding students."I had taken chemistry in high school and hated it. So when I was told I had to take chemistry I wasn't happy at all. But (I) fell in love with it," she says. "I almost missed out entirely. My life would have been very, very different if the person teaching that course hadn't been able to reach me." Drennan discovered that many of the MIT freshmen she encountered harbored similar reservations about chemistry. "I talk quite openly about it in class," she says. "I tell my students, you may not have discovered your love for chemistry yet, but I'm going to show you how it is applicable."She hopes that by showing her students how chemistry is related to other disciplines she can help them become better doctors or engineers or maybe even chemists. She has at least made one student look at her life choices. "I'm actually considering choosing chemistry as a major now," Hamilos says. "I would have never predicted that!"
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| Do-it-yourself biology grows with technology - San Francisco Chronicle Posted: 19 Dec 2009 03:57 PM PST Out of a garage in Sacramento, a bioengineer is designing low-cost equipment to allow people to see and construct DNA. From a studio in San Francisco, an artist is building houses from a medicinal fungus. Across the Bay Area, and in other high-tech hotbeds, a revolution is under way. Citizen scientists - or biohackers, as they're being called - are taking biology out of academia and closed-door laboratories and bringing it into garages and kitchens, studios and warehouses. The dream is to make breakthroughs that will ultimately benefit humanity, in fields as diverse as biofuel and cancer research. The risk is putting dangerous materials into the wrong hands, which could lead to the creation of potent new pathogens or the reassembly of lethal old ones such as the 1918 influenza virus. Members of this informal network of wannabe biologists, entrepreneurs and artists are buying bacteria online, cobbling together discarded equipment, and holding parties to transect DNA and exchange live cultures. Little regulationWhat they are doing is legal, but regulation of home labs is largely nonexistent. Genetic databases are free to the public, and buying synthetic DNA online requires little more than the name of an institution and a home address. Scientists and policy advisers say this availability of biological materials, coupled with new technology, raises questions reminiscent of another scientific debate stirred in San Francisco decades ago. "When genetic engineering was invented in San Francisco over 30 years ago, it triggered many discussions as to whether it was safe and how safety should be addressed," said Drew Endy, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford and co-founder of iGEM, the nation's premier undergraduate synthetic biology competition. "They came up with a set of DNA guidelines supported by the federal government." Endy said hobbyist biologists tinkering with live organisms "need to recognize the rising questions around safety oversight. Are there sustaining safe practices for work being done in garages? Or is there a cogent argument as to why that's not needed?" Security questionsWendy Hall, a senior adviser on biological threats with the Department of Homeland Security, acknowledges: "The trick with biology is to figure out whether it is being used for good or evil." The federal government is keenly aware, Hall said, of the rise in scientific experimentation by nontraditional communities. She noted that the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity approved regulations this month requiring companies selling DNA to do a better job of screening orders for questionable intent. "We're in a unique place globally because the biotechnology industry is growing so fast," Hall said. "It's exciting in that there will be new discoveries. But we now have all kinds of folks working in the manipulation of biological systems to produce certain outcomes. We are starting to get calls from companies saying, 'Hey, I got a funny order from this place. Please step in.' " At-home scientific experimentation is nothing new; in 1901, Audubon (as it was called then) enlisted nonexperts to do bird counts. But a confluence of events - new technologies and the commercial availability of synthetic DNA - has enabled hobbyist biologists like never before. Beginnings in BostonThe biohacker movement began in an organized way in Boston with a group called DIYbio (for do-it-yourself biology). Started a year and a half ago with two members, the forum now includes dozens of clubs around the globe and about 1,000 members. San Francisco has one of the nation's strongest chapters. Jason Bobe, the co-founder of DIYbio in Boston, says new technologies are enabling citizen scientists in ways never imagined. He cited a well-publicized story in August of two high school girls in New York using a simplified genetic fingerprinting technique to see whether the sushi dinners they were buying were what they thought they were getting. The tests found that a number of high-end restaurants and grocery stores were selling mislabeled fish. "This is still very early in the science," said Bobe. "But it's amazing science." Bobe's own do-it-yourself biology project is creating a test allowing people to go out into their communities and take swabs of microbes on crosswalk buttons. "You'd be able to get all of the data on the bacteria," Bobe said. "Over time, you could see the bacteria, allergens and viruses that are moving through a city. You could compare the microbial content of the air in San Francisco to that in New York City." S.F. chapter a year oldThe San Francisco chapter was started a year ago by Tito Jankowski, a 23-year-old from Hawaii who studied bioengineering at Brown University and came to California in 2008 with the dream of starting a biotechnology company. "When I got out of school, there wasn't a way really for me to continue doing synthetic biology," said Jankowski, whose day job is doing computer system testing for the consulting firm Accenture. "I've learned that you can do some powerful things if you get a bunch of smart people together in an area they're a bit naive to." The San Francisco DIYbio group includes artists, entrepreneurs, computer scientists, a winemaker and biophysicists from across Northern California. "To the general public, the term hacking is not good," said Jankowski. "But the actual definition of a hacker is someone who takes something apart and puts it back together in a new way, maybe a way that's better." Jankowski said he notified the FBI of the club's meetings and types of experiments, which have ranged from demonstrating how to extract DNA from saliva to devising cells that would glow with a gene from a jellyfish. "All of it is a learning experiment," said Jankowski. Working out of his garage in Sacramento, Jankowski is building equipment for hobbyist biologists, including a gel electrophoresis box, which makes it possible to see DNA and separate pieces by length. "It's a really useful tool for constructing DNA," Jankowski said. "The original box was made around 1978 and hasn't changed. It costs $2,000. We're making a smarter piece of equipment that costs $200." Jankowski drives to San Francisco regularly to meet with folks from DIYbio and attend related events. "San Francisco is the place where biology will step from biologists to everyone else. There are a lot of really smart people, from technology types to artists, who will apply what they know to biology." Critter SalonSan Francisco artist Phil Ross, 43, a professor at the University of San Francisco, realized decades ago while working in hospice care that people know little about basic life processes. He started something called the Critter Salon a year ago to use accessible science to explore connections between food, art, science and technology. Monthly events have included a plant cloning exchange and a kimchi contest, held to look at the microbiology behind it. Ross returned last week from Dusseldorf, Germany, where an art show featured his latest work - a house made from fungus. "This structure I grew for the show is a tea house made from the reishi mushroom, which has medicinal properties," said Ross. "Part of the house can be broken down and used for tea. You can live in the building and drink the building. Next I'm going to do a full-scale building to house 20 people." Raymond McCauley, 43, is an electrical engineer and biophysicist who works for a Silicon Valley company that makes DNA sequencers. After hours, he sets up a lab in the kitchen of his Mountain View home, shared by his partner and their two toddlers. He uses cast-off equipment from labs that went out of business and items such as a thermo-cycler pulled from a trash bin and a pure strain of E. coli purchased online. Garage, not kitchen"My dream is to create a diagnostic care tool where you could go into a hospital room and swab something and put it through this analyzer and see, 'Oh, here's some MRSA bacteria,' " he said. On occasion, McCauley gets kicked out of the kitchen into the garage. "My partner works in biotech, but she has raised her eyebrows at my monopolizing kitchen counter space working on E. coli," he said. "But it's very cool being able to get things FedEx'd overnight on ice, having these actual biological materials. Once you get into this community, you start to see possibilities for doing something yourself that you wouldn't have thought you could do." McCauley said he ordered the E. coli - which he measures but does not manipulate - by listing the name of the startup he has formed under the institution category. "If you have trouble getting live materials, you can always just go out your front door and scoop up some dirt and get 15 different types of fungus," he noted. "Or you can go to the grocery store and buy some yogurt, as there are live cultures there. And with E. coli, you can get a toilet brush and swipe the inside of your toilet. These things are all around us." For Drew Endy, the Stanford bioengineering professor, the potential for good vies with the potential for harm. But whatever the case, he says, do-it-yourself biology is not going away. "On the one hand," Endy noted, "there is a recognized need to ensure that accidents or intentional misapplications do not occur. On the other hand, Darwin may have been the original do-it-yourself biologist, as he didn't originally work for any institution." E-mail Julian Guthrie at jguthrie@sfchronicle.com. This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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