tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272885542010-03-10T15:46:53.371-08:00Adminnoreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-76283474600897274122010-03-10T15:46:00.001-08:002010-03-10T15:46:53.382-08:00

Two postdoctoral position immediately available in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The first project entails the functional characterization of the aquaporin (water channel) gene family in the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae. The ideal applicant will have expertise in general molecular biology techniques such as cloning, rtPCR etc…, antibody production and RNA interference

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-11442962145073791142010-02-18T08:33:00.000-08:002010-02-18T08:33:53.944-08:00

Cancer in all its inglorious forms remains a killer but there are signs that the huge investment in cancer research, improvements in cancer care and, possibly, lifestyle changes, are having an effect. In the USA, the National Cancer Institute announced that the rates of new diagnoses fell about 1% per annum from 1999-2006 while death rates from all cancers dropped about 1.6% per annum from 2001-

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-46376909572237218342009-05-27T09:46:00.000-07:002009-05-27T09:48:31.045-07:00

The mouse (Mus musculus) is the premier animal model for understanding human disease and development. Here we show that a comprehensive understanding of mouse biology is only possible with the availability of a finished, high-quality genome assembly. The finished clone-based assembly of the mouse strain C57BL/6J reported here has over 175,000 fewer gaps and over 139 Mb more of novel sequence,

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-37350938228716402882009-02-23T05:45:00.000-08:002009-02-23T05:48:28.438-08:00

Classical and emerging infectious diseases, viral pandemics, and drug-resistant pathogens remain challenges to human health. However, contemporary advances in genetics and genomic technologies provide new approaches to understanding and combating these diseases. ASHG and HUGO are partnering with NPG to organize an international conference to discuss how the genomes, unique biologies, and

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-45873300362991549292008-11-25T14:05:00.000-08:002008-11-25T14:11:48.160-08:00

The human genome has hidden levels of regulatory complexity and variability that have begun to reveal themselves since the initial sequence became available in 2001. Today, with increasingly powerful sequencing and analysis technologies, we are not only beginning to appreciate the scale of variation in individual human genome sequences, but also gaining a greater understanding of how genome

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-54668356700591809352008-11-24T03:44:00.000-08:002008-11-24T03:48:17.751-08:00

In 1994, two independent groups extracted DNA from several Pleistocene epoch mammoths and noted differences among individual specimens. Subsequently, DNA sequences have been published for a number of extinct species. However, such ancient DNA is often fragmented and damaged, and studies to date have typically focused on short mitochondrial sequences, never yielding more than a fraction of a per

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-38667718474071895062008-11-18T14:56:00.000-08:002008-11-18T15:04:26.598-08:00

What genes and regulatory sequences contribute to the organization and functioning of neural circuits and molecular pathways in the brain that support social behavior? How does social experience interact with information in the genome to modulate brain activity? Here, we address these questions by highlighting progress that has been made in identifying and understanding two key "vectors of

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-41358996604782064552008-09-01T03:55:00.000-07:002008-09-01T03:56:44.048-07:00

In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, the nucleus is tethered to the cytoskeleton by KASH domain-containing proteins in the outer nuclear membrane and SUN domain-containing proteins in the inner nuclear membrane. By exerting force on these SUN-KASH complexes, the cytoskeleton controls the position of the nucleus within the cell. Centromeric DNA inside the nucleus has been observed to

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-69116907917775623762008-08-09T15:40:00.000-07:002008-08-09T15:45:17.229-07:00

A Postdoctoral position is available for research in the areas of STEM CELLS AND NEURODEVELOPMENT. The laboratory, headed by Dr. Alysson R. Muotri, make use of human ES and iPS cells, in combination with genetic, molecular, biochemical and computationaltools, to study early stages of brain development and the formation of neuronal networks.Research currently focuses on two interconnected projects

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-50674630875436652052008-08-07T13:05:00.000-07:002008-08-07T13:09:55.153-07:00

Mitochondria are responsible for maintaining the energy balance of the cell and are also responsible for triggering apoptosis (programmed cell death) in response to oxidative stress. This one-day mini-symposium aims to highlight recent advances in our understanding of how these organelles function in the nervous system, and how mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to neurological

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-69139480560518242212008-08-01T15:02:00.000-07:002008-08-01T15:04:51.872-07:00

The generation of pluripotent stem cells from an individual patient would enable the large-scale production of the cell-types affected by that patient’s disease. These cells could in turn be used for disease modeling, drug discovery, and eventually autologous cell-replacement therapies. Although recent studies have demonstrated the reprogramming of human fibroblasts to a pluripotent state, it

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-81992161589769595652008-03-19T05:18:00.000-07:002008-03-19T05:22:55.022-07:00

Prion proteins are linked to several diseases, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle, scrapie in sheep, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Infectious prion-like proteins that also form amyloid fibrils are found in yeast and other fungi. Based on solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance data, Wasmer et al. provide a structural model of amyloid fibrils from the prion-forming

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-63319766382775338402008-03-11T07:19:00.000-07:002008-03-11T07:40:55.337-07:00

Although autism is highly heritable, sorting out the genes associated with this complex disease has been difficult. Weiss et al. searched for structural mutations (duplications or deletions below the level of microscopic detection) in the genomic DNA of 751 families who are part of the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange. They found a significant association of autism with a nearly 600-kb region

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-43626576963976618612008-02-18T04:19:00.000-08:002008-02-18T04:24:26.271-08:00

Genomics revolutionized genetic research. Now, complete annotated genome sequences are available for the human, our closest relative, the chimpanzee, and for many other model organisms. Multiple genomes have been compared and scrutinized for past and ongoing processes of variation, adaptation and speciation. Traces of the foregoing RNA world show it to be far more influential than previously

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-87130943407589867382008-02-08T05:32:00.000-08:002008-02-08T07:06:24.982-08:00

Bonneau et al. describe progress in an effort to link systems-level analysis to events at the molecular and organismal levels. Using experiments and computation, they have pooled transcriptome, protein-protein interaction, structural, and evolution-related data to generate a dynamic model of the halophilic organism Halobacterium salinarum. This model was trained on data sets that included more

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-92225440361938228612008-02-02T05:10:00.000-08:002008-02-02T05:15:18.519-08:00

Many examples have been reported of assembly of atoms and small molecules into patterns on surfaces by pick up, transfer, and release with a scanning probe microscope tip under vacuum conditions. Kufer et al. assembled larger single molecules into patterns on surfaces in aqueous solution with an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip by taking advantage of differential forces acting on double-stranded

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-22247240179657431942008-01-13T02:44:00.000-08:002008-01-13T02:46:29.203-08:00

The Computational Genomics Laboratory (www.evocell.org) is looking fora post-doctoral fellow to work on the origins and evolution ofintracellular compartmentalization and protein trafficking pathways,and a second post-doctoral fellow to work, in collaboration with theCell Cycle Regulation Lab (http://sites.igc.gulbenkian.pt/ccr/), inthe evolution of centrioles and their regulatory pathways.

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-55493757665013991752007-12-22T09:05:00.000-08:002007-12-22T09:13:56.992-08:00

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the most common adult respiratory diseases worldwide and the fourth leading cause of death. The American Lung Association estimates that about 15 million US citizens are affected. In the UK, the 30,000 deaths annually mean that more die of COPD than from breast, colon or prostate cancer. Despite the high prevalence, COPD is preventable and

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-70866584108006155742007-09-05T05:39:00.000-07:002007-09-05T06:05:27.567-07:00

Presented here is a genome sequence of an individual human. It was produced from ∼32 million random DNA fragments, sequenced by Sanger dideoxy technology and assembled into 4,528 scaffolds, comprising 2,810 million bases (Mb) of contiguous sequence with approximately 7.5-fold coverage for any given region. We developed a modified version of the Celera assembler to facilitate the identification

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-9357378089332613912007-08-14T16:06:00.000-07:002007-08-14T16:16:04.466-07:00

Characterization of interspecies differences in gene regulation is crucial for understanding the molecular basis of both phenotypic diversity and evolution. By means of chromatin immunoprecipitation and DNA microarray analysis, the divergence in the binding sites of the pseudohyphal regulators Ste12 and Tec1 was determined in the yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae, S. mikatae, and S. bayanus under

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-18621233939323007702007-08-10T07:22:00.000-07:002007-08-10T07:28:29.066-07:00

Adeno-associated viruses (AAV) are promising gene therapy vectors that have little or no acute toxicity. We show that normal mice and mice with mucopolysaccharidosis VII (MPS VII) develop hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after neonatal injection of an AAV vector expressing b-glucuronidase. AAV proviruses were isolated from four tumors and were all located within a 6-kilobase region of chromosome 12

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-47288794583593568712007-07-16T07:18:00.000-07:002007-07-16T07:25:59.981-07:00

During development, genes are often transcribed in a temporally and spatially regulated manner. The murine growth hormone gene is differentially expressed in the developing pituitary gland. Lunyak et al. now examine the region surrounding the growth hormone gene and show that a repeated DNA sequence (short interspersed nuclear element B2) in the growth hormone locus functions as an insulator to

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-71520393921395104902007-07-01T07:07:00.000-07:002007-07-01T07:11:23.083-07:00

As a step toward propagation of synthetic genomes, we completely replaced the genome of a bacterial cell with one from another species by transplanting a whole genome as naked DNA. Intact genomic DNA from Mycoplasma mycoides large colony (LC), virtually free of protein, was transplanted into Mycoplasma capricolum cells by polyethylene glycol-mediated transformation. Cells selected for

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-20018030348481621182007-06-20T05:55:00.000-07:002007-06-20T06:00:03.261-07:00

The venom itself is a cocktail of low- and high-molecular-weight components, the toxins constituting a very small proportion of these, often only one compound. They can be classified according to their mode of action and include neurotoxins (acting on the nervous system), cardiotoxins (heart), haemorrhagins (blood vessels), haemotoxins (blood), nephrotoxins (kidney), necrotoxins (tissue) and

Adminnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27288554.post-16813568750298648952007-06-15T07:09:00.000-07:002007-06-15T07:12:18.359-07:00

Random cell-to-cell variations in gene expression within an isogenic population can lead to transitions between alternative states of gene expression. Little is known about how these variations (noise) in natural systems affects such transitions. In Bacillus subtilis, noise in ComK, the protein that regulates competence for DNA uptake, is thought to cause cells to transition to the competent

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