Genomic Health has appointed Richard Tompane as president of its new subsidiary InVitae, which will focus on developing next-generation-based sequencing diagnostics for genetic diseases. Tompane was previously president and CEO of Gemfire and has also served as an independent consultant.

LaserGen has appointed Mimi Healy its new CEO and member of the board of directors. She previously served as CEO of Houston-based Bacterial Barcodes, a spin-off company of BCM Technologies.

Trovagene has named Carlo Croce to serve on its scientific advisory board. Croce is director of the Human Cancer Genetics Program and the Genetics Institute at The Ohio State University, and he is John W. Wolfe Chair in Human Cancer Genetics.

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Biology of Genomes Presentations Highlight Burgeoning Single-Cell Sequencing Approaches

Northwestern researchers received two $100,000 grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their work with synthetic biology and global health.

Professors Keith E.J. Tyo and Joshua N. Leonard will research inexpensive in-home diagnostic tests, and Prof. Andreas Matouschek will also work with Tyo to study malaria treatments. The grants, from the Grand Challenges Explorations program, are for 18 months but can be extended if initial research is successful.

That tells you a lot about the Gates Foundation strategy: fund a lot of products initially and see what has a shot at actually being successful, then move those forward to the next stage, Leonard said.

Tyo said the projects are high-risk, high-reward, meaning their technology is in such an early stage that the researchers do not know what will result from their experiments. Tyo and Leonards project focuses on developing methods in which cells can detect particular pathogens, such as HIV and tuberculosis. They then want to replicate these new tests and distribute them to other countries, especially those that lack medical technology and facilities, Tyo said.

The dream, the five-years-plus goal, would be to make something that looks more or less like a pregnancy test that could be very cheap and doesnt need to be refrigerated, doesnt require someone whos technical to operate it, Tyo said. It could do lots of other diagnostic functions to tell you hows your immune function and what pathogen you might be infected with.

They said the global need for a readily available detection system comes from data that shows close monitoring can control a diseases spread.

Its taking on a known opportunity thats not being met right now with diagnostics, Tyo said. In the U.S. we have very good hospitals and hospital labs that we dont have in other places.

The second project, which is a collaboration between Tyo and Matouschek, aims to create a mechanism that will lead the Plasmodium parasite, which causes malaria, to attack its own proteins. This would in turn help kill the parasite.

Its tricking a cell to kill itself, Tyo said.

Tyo also received a previous $100,000 Grand Challenges Explorations grant in November for a separate project, which focuses on lowering the price of drugs that treat diseases such as malaria. All three grants apply to global health issues, he said.

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NU professors win Gates Foundation grants for synthetic biology projects

Public release date: 15-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Dr. Robert Gropp rgropp@aibs.org 202-628-1500 x250 American Institute of Biological Sciences

WASHINGTON, DC A new national initiative promises to improve college biology education by engaging faculty members in an effort to change how post-secondary life sciences departments approach education. PULSE, which stands for Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education, is a collaborative effort funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Program organizers also announced today that they are accepting applications from faculty members interested in becoming Vision and Change Fellows individuals who will lead a national effort to stimulate systemic change in how post-secondary educational institutions approach biology education. The intent of the program is to develop a strategy to implement the findings from a 2011 report.

College students and faculty members have long argued that the approach to undergraduate education in the life sciences should be modernized to reflect what we now understand about how students learn. Twenty-first century science demands that students develop scientific and technical skills, and also the capacity to work beyond traditional academic boundaries. Undergraduate students, regardless of their major, deserve and need a life sciences education that helps then understand biology and how scientific research is conducted. Informed decision-making, whether managing one’s health, deciding what food to eat, or understanding how individual actions influence the environment, requires an appreciation of the nature of science.

In 2006, the NSF initiated a multi-year conversation with the scientific community, with support from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. That dialogue, which was co-funded with the National Institutes of Health and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, generated the 2011 report, Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action.

The scientific community actively informed the recommendations in the Vision and Change report. Among these were a recognition that a 21st century education requires changes to how biology is taught, how academic departments support faculty, and how curricular decisions are made.

“There is now broad consensus about the change that is needed,” said HHMI’s Cynthia Bauerle. The way biology is taught needs to change in order to “spark student interest in science and prepare them for the challenging scientific problems we face in the 21st century.”

Prior efforts to reform post-secondary life sciences education have focused on helping individual faculty members improve their teaching methods. These initiatives have created points of excellence at institutions across the country, but have failed to produce the systemic change that is needed to fundamentally improve college-level biology education.

To foster this widespread change, the NSF, NIH, HHMI have partnered to launch the PULSE program. Supporting the effort are Knowinnovation and the American Institute of Biological Sciences.

The PULSE initiative will facilitate the systemic change that was identified as a national priority in the Vision and Change report.

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National initiative launched to change the way biology departments approach undergraduate education

By Janice Wood Associate News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on May 13, 2012

While forgetting is normal, exactly how we forget the brain processes guiding the process has been, until now, poorly understood.

But now scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institutesay they have pinpointed a mechanism that is as essential for forming memories as it is for forgetting those memories.

This study focuses on the molecular biology of active forgetting, said Ron Davis, chair of the Scripps Research Department of Neuroscience who led the project. Until now, the basic thought has been that forgetting is mostly a passive process. Our findings make clear that forgetting is an active process that is probably regulated.

Davis and his colleagues studied fruit flies, which are often used for studying memory. The flies were put in situations where they learned that certain smells were associated with either a positive reinforcement like food or a negative one, such as a mild electric shock. The scientists then observed changes in the flies brains as they remembered or forgot the new information.

The results showed that a pair of dopamine receptors actively regulate the acquisition of memories and the forgetting of these memories.

The results suggests that when a new memory is formed, there also exists an active, dopamine-based forgetting mechanism ongoing dopamine neuron activity that begins to erase those memories unless some importance is attached to them.

The scientists found that specific neurons in the brain release dopamine to two different receptors known as dDA1 and DAMB, part of a densely packed network of neurons vital for memory and learning in insects. The study found the dDA1 receptor is responsible for memory acquisition, while DAMB is required for forgetting.

When dopamine neurons begin the signaling process, the dDA1 receptor becomes overstimulated and begins to form memories. Once that memory is acquired, however, these same dopamine neurons continue signaling. Except this time, the signal goes through the DAMB receptor, which triggers forgetting of those recently acquired, but not yet consolidated, memories.

Jacob Berry, a graduate student in the Davis lab who led the experiments, showed that inhibiting the dopamine signaling after learning enhanced the flies memory. Boosting the activity of those same neurons after learning erased memory. The researchers also found that a mutation in the dDA1 receptor produced flies unable to learn, while a mutation in the other, DAMB, blocked forgetting.

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The Biology of Forgetting

The open access publisher PLoS recently announced an innovative type of peer reviewed journal article combining the power of expert review with the accessibility of Wikipedia. Topic Pages from the scientific journal PLoS Computational Biology will be peer reviewed articles published in the journal and subsequently added to Wikipedia and subject to the ongoing review of Wikipedians. The first in the series, Circular permutation in proteins was published in Wikipedia and PLoS Computational Biology at the end of March.

Concanavalin A vs Lectin, from the Wikipedia article “Circular permutation in proteins” based on a PLoS Computational Biology article. CC image courtesy of Andorsch at en.wikipedia

For Wikipedia, this has the advantage of increasing the amount of content in computational biology topics.

But this innovation may be a big step forward in convincing scientists to take an active role in adding content to Wikipedia.

Its all tied to how scientists are rewarded for their work.

Most scientists are employed at colleges and universities where they are expected to do original research, write and publish their findings and teach students about their disciplines. Tenure, promotion and the ability to keep doing original research (grants) are all tied to a scientists ability to publish their results as peer reviewed scientific journal article.

Any time spent editing Wikipedia would be time taken from lab work, field work, or scholarly writing.

But PLoS Computational Biology Topic Pages turn the system around by making peer reviewed articles into Wikipedia entries. And by linking from Wikipedia to the original Topic Pages, Wikipedia users (and science term paper writers) can claim the authority of peer review for the original content.

Researchers can put another line on their resumes indicating the original published article, while also contributing to the public knowledge available on Wikipedia, reaching a wider audience than the original journal article. And the topic pages are not that different than a typical review article, a concept that tenure and promotion committees are already familiar with. The audience is just slightly different.

PLoS has always been at the forefront of making scientific research available to the general public. It will be interesting to see if other publishers can work with Wikipedia in similar ways, combining the reward systems of academic science with the public outreach of Wikipedia.

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Wikipedia + Journal articles

Attention young and early-career science writers with a recent background in developmental biology, this is an essay competition tailor-made for you. Run by the prestigious journal, Development, and its sister community website, the Node, the essay competition has as theme: developments in development.

More information from Developments online editor, Eva Amsen follows.

All the best!

The essay competition developments in development is the perfect opportunity for aspiring science writers with a recent background in developmental biology. This is your chance to show off your writing skills and take advantage of your experience in the lab!

Over the past decades, developmental biology has changed a lot. There are different tools, different types of experiments, collaborations with different disciplines, and differences in funding and publication of research. But which changes are still to come? What will the future bring?

If youd like to share your thoughts about the future of the field, please see the full contest details on the Node.

This competition is hosted by the journal Development and by the Nodethe community site for and by developmental biologists. That means that the audience will be (other) researcherskeep that in mind while writing! Submission is open to anyone who is involved in developmental biology research or related fields (such as stem cell science or genetics), or has been within the past three years. That includes lab heads, postdocs, and PhD students, but also new science writers who recently left the lab.

Initial submissions will be judged by Olivier Pourqui, who is the Editor-in-Chief of Development, and by Claire Ainsworth, a freelance science writer (formerly at New Scientist and Nature) with a developmental biology background. They will be looking for well-written essays that convey an interesting take on what the future holds for developmental biologists. Your essay can focus on the future of a particular subfield of developmental biology, emerging techniques or model organisms, changes in science policy that affect the field, or anything else that you see as affecting the future of the discipline.

A shortlist of the best few essays will then be posted on the Node, and readers of the Nodewho are mostly developmental biologists themselveswill have the final vote to decide the winner.

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Essay Competition By The Journal Development

ScienceDaily (May 14, 2012) Ribosomes are “protein factories” in the cells of all living things. They produce proteins based on existing genetic codes stored on special nucleic acid molecules. These molecules, also called messenger RNA (mRNA) due to the genetic information encoded on them, are read by ribosomes in a stepwise manner. Defined start and stop signals on the mRNA direct this process. If a stop signal is missing, protein formation cannot be completed and the ribosome’s mode of operation is blocked.

Until now, it was not understood in all details how a ribosome can overcome such a blockade. At the center of this repair process, called Trans-Translation, is an additional nucleic acid molecule (tmRNA) that unites characteristics of mRNA and another nucleic acid molecule, the transferRNA (tRNA). The tRNA transfers the correct amino acids to the respective gene sequence on the mRNA during protein biosynthesis. The tmRNA molecule is thus able to smuggle in the missing stop signal and lift the blockade. It was never exactly clear how this large tmRNA molecule moves through the ribosome and smuggles its information into the ribosome’s mRNA channel.

This process could now be documented for the first time using cryo-electron microscopy. This method offers the opportunity to examine the spatial and chronological interaction between individual components of macromolecules. This is done by flash-freezing ribosomes in liquid ethane at -192 Celsius and several hundred-thousand two-dimensional images are projected back into a three-dimensional reconstruction. “With the help of cryo-electron microscopy a unique glimpse of a central key step of the interaction between ribosome, tmRNA, a special protein (SmbP) and the elongation factor G could be attained,” explained David Ramrath, doctoral candidate at the Institute for Medical Physics and Biophysics at Charit and primary author of the study.

The mRNA channel, in which the tmRNA must smuggle the missing information, goes straight through the ribosome’s middle, between the so-called head and body domains of the small ribosomal subunit. Structural analysis showed that cooperation between ribosome and tmRNA in the event of necessary repair is only possible through a change in conformation, that is a short-term and unexpectedly large swivel movement of the ribosome’s head domain.

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Cell biology: How ribosomes override their blockades

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East Brunswick native to graduate as top wildlife biology major at Rhode Island

The Thursday sessions of the 2012 Biology of Genomes meeting being held in Cold Spring Harbor, NY, kicked off with computational biology talks. The University of Washington’s Michael Hoffman presented his team’s semi-automated approach for analyzing RNA-seq data to uncover functional elements. Hoffman and his colleagues developed a dynamic Bayesian network an extension of the Segway genomics pattern discovery system to model different tracks of data.

Evening talks focused on evolutionary genomics. Session co-chair Duncan Odom from the University of Cambridge described his lab’s work, studying the evolution of transcription factors and their binding, and the effects of such in diseases like hemophilia. In one part of the study he discussed, Odom and his team found that promoter binding affinity tracked with the clinical severity of disease. Transcription factor binding evolves very rapidly in mammals, Odom added.

Also on Thursday, the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications panel discussed the public’s scientific literacy, and researchers’ obligations to help supplement the public’s understanding of science in general, and genomics in particular. The University of Michigan’s Jon Miller described his work to quantify such literacy, and he argued that the public needs an educational foundation to be able to understand scientific advances. Both Miller and the University of California, Los Angeles’ Wayne Grody, who has consulted on a number of films and TV shows, recommend that researchers take calls from reporters and screenwriters in order to help the public understand science.

Our sister publication GenomeWeb Daily News has more from Biology of Genomes.

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An Abundance of Genomics

It is probably no surprise to my regular readers that I get a little exercised about the science wars that play out across the U.S. in various school boards and court actions. Its probably unavoidable, given that I think about science for a living when youve got a horse in the race, you end up spending a lot of time at the track.

From time to time, though, thoughtful people ask whether some of these battles are distractions from more important issues and, specifically, whether the question of what a community decides to include in, or omit from, its high school biology curriculum ought to command so much of our energy and emotional investment.

About seven years ago, the focus was on Dover, Pennsylvania, whose school board required that the biology curriculum must include the idea of an intelligent designer (not necessarily God, but well, not necessarily not-God) as the origin of life on Earth. Parents sued, and U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that the requirement was unconstitutional. If you missed it as it was happening, theres a very good NOVA documentary on the court case.

As much as the outcome of this trial felt like a victory to supporters of science, some expressed concerns that the battle over the Dover biology curriculum was focusing on one kind of problem but missing many bigger problems in the process for example, this dispatch from Dover, PA by Eyal Press, printed in The Nation in November 2005.

Press describes the Dover area as it unfolded for him in a drive-along with former Dover school board member Casey Brown:

We drove out past some cornfields, a sheep farm, a meadow and a couple of barns, along the back roads of York County, a region where between 1970 and 2000, 11 percent of the manufacturing jobs disappeared, and where in the more rural areas one in five children grows up in a low-income family (in the city of York the figure is one in three). Dover isnt dirt poor, but neither is it wealthy. Its the kind of place where people work hard and save what they can. Looking out at the soy, wheat and dairy farms while Brown explained that lots of older people in the area cant afford to keep up with their mortgages and end up walking away from their homes, I was struck by the thought that this was a part of the country where, a century ago, the populist movement might have made inroads by organizing small farmers against the monopolies and trusts. These days, of course, a different sort of populism prevails, infused by religion and defining itself against outside forces like the ACLU.

Press also went to see what the students in Dover thought of the controversy:

What do the intended beneficiaries of the Dover school boards actions make of the intelligent design debate? A few days before meeting Casey Brown, I drove out to Dover high school to find out. It was late in the afternoon and a couple of kids were milling about outside, waiting for rides. When I asked them what they thought of the controversy, they looked at me with blank stares that suggested I could not have posed a question of less relevance to their lives. I think you should leave us alone, one of them said. Everyone just sleeps through that class anyway, said another. I approached a third kid, who was standing alone. Nobody he knew ever talked about the issue, he told me; it was no big deal.

Press suggests that this is not just a matter of teen ennui. The schools in the area may not be up to the challenge of addressing the real needs of their students:

For the most part, though, kids in Dover seem perplexed that so much attention is being paid to what happens in a single class. It is a sentiment shared by Pat Jennings, an African-American woman who runs the Lighthouse Youth Center, an organization that offers after-school programs, recreational services and parenting and Bible study classes to kids throughout York County. The center, which is privately funded, is located in a brown-brick building in downtown York, next to a church. A deeply religious woman who describes her faith as very important to her, Jennings nonetheless confessed that she hasnt paid much attention to the evolution controversy, since shes too busy thinking about other problems the children she serves facedrugs, gangs, lack of access to opportunity, racism. When we are in this building there are no Latinos, blacks, Caucasian childrenjust children, she explained after giving me a tour of the center. But when I go out thereshe pointed to the streetIm reminded that Im different.

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Is it worth fighting about what's taught in high school biology class?

Public release date: 11-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Megan Fellman fellman@northwestern.edu 847-491-3115 Northwestern University

The innovative research of three Northwestern University professors who are making a big difference in the highly promising area of synthetic biology has been recognized with two early-stage discovery awards from Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The global health projects will focus on creating new compounds to combat malaria and on producing biosensors for low-cost, in-home diagnoses.

The prestigious awards are two of 107 Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) grants announced this week. The funding supports scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs worldwide who are testing unconventional ideas that show great promise to improve the health of people in the developing world.

Northwestern now has received a total of three GCE grants as part of the Gates Foundation’s call to “Apply Synthetic Biology to Global Health Challenges.” (Synthetic biology is the design and construction of new types of biological systems.) To date, only 30 synthetic biology grants have been awarded as part of this initiative, acknowledging Northwestern as being at the forefront of its use to address global health issues.

“The Gates Foundation support allows us to pursue high-risk, high-reward projects that are utilizing cutting-edge techniques to engineer biological systems,” said Keith Tyo, an investigator on all three grants. “Success on any one of these projects could result in a dramatic improvement in quality of life for millions of suffering people.”

Tyo is an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Andreas Matouschek, professor of molecular biosciences in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and Tyo will develop synthetic compounds that target essential proteins in the Plasmodium parasite for destruction by its own protein degradation mechanisms. This strategy could lead to new treatment modalities as well as small molecule drug development efforts to combat malaria.

In the other project, Tyo and Joshua Leonard, an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, will work to engineer yeast-based biosensors that identify protein biomarkers in samples like blood and urine. An array of yeast strains could serve as a low-cost, in-home device providing patients with a panel of diagnostics to improve treatment and diagnosis in resource-poor settings.

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2 Grand Challenges Explorations grants for global health

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Schoolhouse Hero: Campbell teacher has had lifelong interest in biology

Suzanne G. Strait has been awarded a grant for more than $373,000 from the National Science Foundation, according to a news release.

The grant is to re-curate and modernize the West Virginia Biological Survey Museum.

That museum is in Marshall’s College of Science.

This will allow the nation’s largest museum collection of mammals, reptiles and amphibians from West Virginia to be preserved for future generations.

The museum has more than 21,000 specimens from more than 70 years.

Strait has been teaching at Marshall University since 1993.

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Marshall biology professor secures grant

Newswise STONY BROOK, N.Y., May 7, 2012 The new home of the Louis and Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology at Stony Brook University was officially dedicated at a celebratory event on May 7. Nearly 40 extended members of the Laufer family from across the United States joined Stony Brook officials, researcher faculty and local elected representatives for the commemorative ceremony.

The Laufer Center, which is housed in a newly remodeled building (formerly the Stony Brook University Life Sciences Library), started operation in February of 2011 with a major philanthropic gift in loving memory of Louis and Beatrice Laufer by their children Henry and Marsha Laufer, Helen Laufer Kaplan and Howard Kaplan, and Jeffrey and Barbara Laufer. The Center supports two endowed professorships and an endowed chair.

The Laufer family is very pleased to partner with Stony Brook University in creating the Louis and Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology,” said Drs. Henry and Marsha Laufer in a joint statement. “This new facility which houses the Center is not only spacious and lovely, but is also ideally located adjacent to the Life Sciences Building and across the street from the Health Sciences Center. We wish the very best to the faculty and staff of the Laufer Center and look forward to the excellent science which they will produce here. We thank Stony Brook University for all that they have done to make possible the Laufer Center.”

The Laufer Center was designed by architect Jim Braddock of the New York City architectural firm of Mitchell-Giurgola. The Center houses a 73-seat teleconferencing auditorium, a Mediascape collaborative research station and an advanced GPU + CPU computing cluster that currently gives the Center the power of nearly 9000 computer cores.

Research at the Center focuses on solving challenging problems at the interface between the physical and life sciences. As an example, a deeper knowledge of the physical bonding forces within molecules will help to improve the computer algorithms that are increasingly used to design next-generation pharmaceuticals and biotech drugs, and to understand the mechanisms of action of proteins. In addition, a deeper understanding of the mathematical principles that describe the network of interrelationships among the thousands of biochemical reactions and genetic control circuits inside cells will aid in developing next-generation approaches for curing diseases.

On behalf of Stony Brook University, we are deeply honored that the Laufer Family is tying the legacy of their parents to the future of Stony Brook with the establishment of the Louis and Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology, said Samuel L. Stanley Jr., MD, President of Stony Brook University. There is no doubt that this state of the art Center, under the direction of Ken Dill, creates a new nexus for excellence in the studies at the intersection of physics, mathematics, chemistry, computational science and biology. This is a place where we can assemble the brightest minds and provide them with the opportunity to succeed so they can discover new medicines, continue to decipher the human genome and further our understanding of how healthy biological cells work and how diseased cells fail, and we thank the Laufer family for making it possible.

Laufer Center researchers come from a broad community including Stony Brook departments of chemistry, physics, applied mathematics and statistics, computer science, molecular genetics and microbiology; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory. A novel aspect of the Centers research is a core-team approach to problem solving and outreach.

“The Laufer Center provides us with a tremendous opportunity for the development of interdisciplinary approaches to advance biology and medicine through discoveries in physics, mathematics, and computational science,” said Dennis N. Assanis, Stony Brook University Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. “Stony Brook’s west campus has strengths in many of the critically important areas needed to support scientific inquiry and new discovery, such as outstanding departments of physics, applied math, computer science, chemistry, microbiology, and evolution and ecology. By partnering the strengths of these areas with SBU’s distinguished medical school, as well as Brookhaven National Laboratory and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the Laufer Center will help us provide fundamental solutions to some of the most difficult medical problems facing us today–problems that will require expertise in both the life sciences and physical sciences.”

In addition to performing research, we train Ph.D. students, mentor postdoctoral researchers, and host regular scientific seminars from distinguished outside scientists, said Ken A. Dill, Director of the Center, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a past president of the Biophysical Society. He is known internationally for his pioneering work on the physical forces that give rise to the structures and properties of protein molecules. Dr. Dill has dual faculty appointments at Stony Brook in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Department of Chemistry.

The Center will house four to six research groups under the Directorship of Dr. Dill and Associate Director, Carlos Simmerling, an Associate Professor in Computational Structural Biology. It serves as a core on Long Island of scientific and educational activity in computational and physical biology. The Centers 13 affiliated faculty lead research groups from physics, mathematics, chemistry, computer science and biology at Stony Brook, as well as Brookhaven National Laboratory and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

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Laufer Family and Dignitaries Join SBU Officials and Faculty to Commemorate Opening of New Physical and Quantitative …

Three Longhorns recorded perfect GPA’s as only 11 athletes on the women’s side accomplished the feat. The three were Julie Amthor (biology), Laleh Mojtabaeezamani (government) and Anne Jones (biology).

May 8, 2012

AUSTIN, Texas The University of Texas Womens Track & Field team placed 19 student-athletes on the 2012 Academic All-Big 12 team Tuesday.

Three Longhorns recorded perfect GPAs as only 11 athletes on the womens side accomplished the feat. The three were Julie Amthor (biology), Laleh Mojtabaeezamani (government) and Anne Jones (biology).

Joining those three on the first team were 13 other UT student-athletes to give them 16 first team selections. The first team honorees have a GPA of 3.2 or better. Along with the three perfect GPAs the selections included Shanay Briscoe (marketing), Danielle Dowie (nutrition, pre-med), Jessica Doyle (government), Chalonda Goodman (marketing), Marielle Hall (undergraduate studies), Jessica Harper (liberal arts), Victoria Lucas (physical culture and sport), Briana Nelson (economics), Okwukwe Okolie (exercise science), Beverly Owoyele (exercise science), Akua Sencherey (advertising), Megan Siebert (education) and Virginia Simon (Spanish).

To qualify, student-athletes must maintain a 3.00 GPA or higher either cumulative or the two previous semesters and must have participated in 60 percent of their teams scheduled contests. Freshmen and transfers are not eligible in their first year of academic residence. Senior student-athletes who have participated for a minimum of two years and meet all the criteria except percent of participation are also eligible.

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Women's Track & Field sees 19 make Academic All-Big 12 team

Tom Fedor/The Gazette Urbana High School teacher Suzanne Dashiell works with students in her Advance Placement biology class Monday morning. Dashiell was named educator of the year by the Tech Council of Maryland.

For Dr. Suzanne Dashiell, science is more than just formulas on a blackboard or diagrams in a textbook.

Dashiell, a biology teacher at Urbana High School, motivates her students by moving science out of the realm of the theoretical and into the real world.

She organizes field trips to the Maryland Biology Lab, the Science Tech Center in Baltimore and Inova Hospital, where students can watch open heart surgery being performed.

For her efforts, she was recently named the Tech Council of Marylands 2012 Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Educator of the Year.

She teaches all levels of biology at the school, from Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes to lower-level and remedial students.

Some teachers are good at teaching high-level students but struggle with less gifted classes, but Dashiell teaches all levels with equal rigor, said Principal Kathy Campagnoli.

Known as Dr. D to her students, Dashiell is in her ninth year at Urbana and her 13th year teaching overall.

Its not what you do inside the classroom thats important, but helping students make real-world connections that will drive home the lessons they learn, she said.

Along with the field trips and guest speakers to help illustrate her lessons, she keeps her students up-to-date on possible internships, summer jobs and other extracurricular science-related opportunities.

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Gazette.Net: Urbana teacher brings science to the real world

Published on May 7, 2012 at 10:48 AM

This week experts from around the world will meet to discuss how network models can be applied to the study and targeting of complex diseases such as cancer, diabetes and neurological disorders. The discussion will take place at a large symposium hosted by The Integrative Network Biology (INB) and The Technical University of Denmark (DTU). The theme of the symposium is the promising new research area of network medicine.

The Integrative Network Biology 2012: Network Medicine will be held in Elsinore (Helsingr), Denmark, from 11 – 13 May 2012.

Network Medicine is a hot topic in the emerging field of Network biology. It involves using cutting-edge technology to conduct large-scale analysis of biological building blocks, such as DNA and proteins, and constructing computer models that predict the way they interact. Scientists expect that these models will be used to find new drug targets, design drugs that attack multiple points in the biological networks of disease development and match personalized treatments to patients’ specific molecular defects.

INB 2012: Network Medicine showcase the latest science from the area of network biology giving delegates unique insights into the future of network medicine and provide journalists with great opportunities for covering ground breaking stories.

Symposium organizer and guest professor at DTU Systems Biology Dr Rune Linding, says: “Network medicine spans disciplines such as computational biology, systems genetics, tumor biology, cell-cell interactions and molecular pathology, so collaborative meetings such as these are crucial to advancing this important field. We are very excited by the caliber of researchers this meeting has attracted.”

Keynote speakers include oRuedi Aebersold (ETH, Switzerland) oNorbert Perrimon (HMS, USA) oMichael B. Yaffe (MIT, USA) oEng Lim Goh (SGI, USA)

http://www.networkbio.org

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Latest science from area of network biology

By Carin Bondar| May 8, 2012 |

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I came across this wonderful biology version of Where the Wild Things Are some time ago, but I was never quite sure when the best time would be to feature it. The video was made by MIT biology student Joshua Meisel to promote a Halloween party in 2009, but its really too great a production to be watched only for the sake of attending an undergraduate booze-up. The video captures the mysticism of Sendaks classic work, and I love the wonder portrayed by the main character. The video is an outstanding testament to Where the Wild Things Are and today is the perfect day for you to watch it.

RIP Maurice Sendak Your contributions will live on.

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The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

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Where the Wild Types Are – A Biology Parody Dedicated to Maurice Sendak

One of the biggest questions in biology is whether the processes of life are able to exploit quantum effects to improve their lot.

Nobody questions whether living things are ultimately quantum at some level–we’re all made of quantum objects called atoms and glued together by quantum forces. If you look closely enough at any biological process, you’ll see quantum mechanics at work.

The question is whether nature exploits quantum mechanics to achieve things that are not possible in the ordinary, classical world.

There is a growing debate on this topic. On the one hand, evidence has begun to mount that quantum mechanics may play a role in processes such as photosynthesis, bird navigation and the sense of smell. On the other, critics say this evidence is far from conclusive and may simply show that reality always appears quantum in nature, if you look closely enough.

Today,Neill Lambert at the Japanese research institute RIKEN in Saitama and a few pals, provide a much needed review of the evidence in this area, focusing in particular on photosynthesis and bird navigation.

These guys point out that the efforts to find evidence of quantum effects in photosynthesis are largely focused on the fact that energy somehow crosses large protein molecules with an efficiency close to 100 per cent. That’s hard to explain classically.

The evidence for quantum effects in bird navigation is a little more speculative but leaves less room for a classical explanation. It is based on the idea that that a weak magnetic field can influence the outcome of a certain type of chemical reaction in bird retinas involving radical ion pairs.

The details make for interesting reading.

This is an area that has gained huge attention in recent years. The promise, of course, is that if nature has found ways to exploit quantum mechanics, then it should be possible for us to copy those techniques. Think artificial photosynthesis, robotic noses and navigation systems, perhaps even artificial life.

But the alternative is just as interesting. If nature has not found a way to exploit quantum mechanics, an equally important question is: why not? Is it merely an oversight on the part of evolution or is there some other deeper reason why evolution cannot exploit quantum mechanics?

Read more:
The Quantum Biology Conundrum