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Public Release: 11-Jul-2012

GigaScience
New model in scientific publishing: GigaScience combines article and data publication
BGI, the world's largest genome sequencing institute, and their publishing partner BioMed Central, a leader in scientific data sharing, announce the launch of a new journal, GigaScience, which publishes large-scale biological research in a unique format. The journal combines standard article publishing with complete data hosting and analysis tools, all of which are open access and freely available.

BGI-Shenzhen

Public Release: 11-Jul-2012

Genetics
Genetics Society of America's Genetics journal highlights for July 2012
These are selected highlights for the July 2012 issue of the Genetics Society of America's journal, Genetics.

Public Release: 10-Jul-2012

ChemSusChem
Waste to watts: Improving microbial fuel cells
Some of the planet's tiniest inhabitants may help address two of society's biggest environmental challenges: How to deal with the vast quantities of organic waste produced and where to find clean, renewable energy. Anode respiring bacteria generate useful energy in a device known as a microbial fuel cell.

Public Release: 10-Jul-2012

Nature Biotechnology
Searching genomic data faster
In the latest issue of Nature Biotechnology, MIT and Harvard University researchers describe a new algorithm that drastically reduces the time it takes to find a particular gene sequence in a database of genomes.

Public Release: 10-Jul-2012
F1000 Research partners with figshare to provide smart ways of accessing data
The new figshare widget acts as a window within the body of the F1000 Research article (much like a YouTube video window), and allows users to preview accompanying data files to help them decide whether to download the data itself.

Public Release: 6-Jul-2012

GBIC 2012
Building global collaboration for biodiversity intelligence
A landmark conference has agreed key priorities for harnessing the power of information technologies and social networks to understand better the workings of life on Earth, focusing on how biodiversity can continue to sustain human lives and livelihoods. The Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference, gathering some 100 experts from around the world from July 2-4, identified critical areas in which greater investment and better coordination could give society much better, innovative tools to monitor and manage biological resources.

Public Release: 4-Jul-2012

Nature Genetics
Yak genome provides new insights into high altitude adaptation
An international team, led by Lanzhou University, comprising BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, Institute of Kunming Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences as well as the other 12 institutes, has completed the genomic sequence and analyses of a female domestic yak, which provides important insights into understanding mammalian divergence and adaptation at high altitude.

Public Release: 4-Jul-2012

ZooKeys
A new type of data papers designed to publish online interactive keys identifying biodiversity
Data Papers are a new type of scholarly articles, which are rapidly gaining momentum in the scientific community. They are peer-reviewed scholarly publications that describe data sets and provide an opportunity for data authors to receive the academic credit through citation and re-use of the published data.

Public Release: 3-Jul-2012

The Era of Next Generation Sequencing in Cancer
The genomics symposium to boost the further development of cancer research
The symposium themed "The Era of Next Generation Sequencing in Cancer," co-organized by BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, and Imperial College London, was successfully conducted in London, UK. Around 70 experts, scholars, and representatives from the local colleges, institutes and biotechnology industries attended the meeting with the aim to exchange their insights on high-throughput genomics and accelerate the further development of cancer research.

Public Release: 2-Jul-2012

Nature Biotechnology
DNA sequenced for parrot's ability to parrot
Scientists say they have assembled more completely the string of genetic letters that could control how well parrots learn to imitate their owners and other sounds.

Public Release: 1-Jul-2012

Nature Biotechnology
An error-eliminating fix overcomes big problem in '3rd-gen' genome sequencing
A team has developed a software package that fixes a serious problem inherent in "3rd-gen" single-molecule genome sequencing: the fact that every fifth or sixth DNA "letter" it generates is incorrect. The high error rate is the flip side of the new method's chief virtue: it generates much longer genome "reads," providing a much more complete picture of genomes.

US Department of Homeland Security, US Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Public Release: 28-Jun-2012

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
A new source of maize hybrid vigor
Steve Moose, an associate professor of maize functional genomics at the University of Illinois and his graduate student Wes Barber think they may have discovered a new source of heterosis, or hybrid vigor, in maize. They have been looking at small RNAs, a class of double-stranded RNA molecules that are 20 to 25 nucleotides in length.

Public Release: 28-Jun-2012

PLOS Computational Biology
Both innate and adaptive immune responses are critical to the control of influenza
Both innate and adaptive immune responses play an important role in controlling influenza virus infection, according to a study, published in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology, by researchers from Oakland University, Mich., and Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M., USA.

US Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health, NIH/National Center for Research Resources

Public Release: 28-Jun-2012

Cell Reports
Lymph node roundabout
An organism's ability to make new antibodies is of central importance in the fight against pathogens. In case of severe infections, the speed with which an immune response proceeds could mean the difference between life and death. An international team of scientists, among them systems immunologist Prof. Michael Meyer-Hermann of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research of Braunschweig, Germany, has now found out how the division of B cells contributes to a fast immune defense.

Public Release: 28-Jun-2012

Science
How an ancestral fungus may have influenced coal formation
The fossilized remains of plants that lived from around 360 to 300 million years ago, coal generated nearly half of the roughly four trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity consumed in the United States in 2010. An international team of scientists proposes that the evolution of fungi capable of breaking down the polymer lignin in plants may have played a key role in ending the development of coal deposits, contributing to the end of the Carboniferous period.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 25-Jun-2012
GW announces creation of Computational Biology Institute to conduct integrated research
Keith Crandall, a renowned biologist and population geneticist, has been named founding director of the George Washington University Computational Biology Institute. This newly created position will further strengthen GW's role as a leader in science and research in the region and nationally.

Public Release: 25-Jun-2012
First-ever Allen Brain Atlas Hackathon unleashes big data API to push neuroscience forward
The Allen Institute for Brain Science convened the first ever Allen Brain Atlas Hackathon last week, opening its doors to a diverse group of programmers and informatics experts for a non-stop week of collaboration, learning and coding based on its public online platform of data, tools and source code.

Public Release: 24-Jun-2012

Genome Research
Gut microbes battle a common set of viruses shared by global populations
The human gut is home to a teeming ecosystem of microbes that is intimately involved in both human health and disease. But while the gut microbiota is interacting with our body, they are also under constant attack from viruses. In a study published online in Genome Research, researchers have analyzed a bacterial immune system, revealing a common set of viruses associated with gut microbiota in global populations.

Public Release: 21-Jun-2012

ISME Journal
Waves of Berkeley Lab responders deploy omics to track Deepwater Horizon cleanup microbes
In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago, a team of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers found that marine microbial communities also played a role in the dispersal process. The researchers availed of the expertise and resources at two of the Lab's national user facilities, the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute and the Advanced Light Source.

US Department of Energy/Office of Science

Public Release: 18-Jun-2012
FORMA Therapeutics teams with TGen Drug Development
FORMA Therapeutics and TGen Drug Development today announced an agreement to jointly develop transformative cancer therapies, leveraging the synergistic capabilities of both organizations.

Public Release: 17-Jun-2012

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology
Lariats: How RNA splicing decisions are made
Lariats are discarded byproducts of RNA splicing, the process by which genetic instructions for making proteins are assembled. A new study has found hundreds more lariats than ever before, yielding new information about how splicing occurs and how it can lead to disease.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 15-Jun-2012

Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research
Researchers find a strong association between alcohol dependence and chromosome 5q13.2
There is a strong genetic influence on the risk of developing alcohol dependence (AD). Copy number variations (CNVs) refer to a class of genetic variation that can delete and duplicate whole genes, leading to powerful genetic effects. A first-of-its-kind study has found a significant association between AD and CNVs on chromosome 5q13.2.

National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 14-Jun-2012
UD's Lachke selected Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences
Salil Lachke, a University of Delaware biologist whose research is yielding new discoveries about the world's leading causes of blindness, has been named a 2012 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Lachke is one of 22 scholars selected across the United States, and the first University of Delaware professor to receive the award, which recognizes the nation's most innovative young researchers in medicine or the biomedical sciences.

Pew Charitable Trusts

Public Release: 14-Jun-2012

Journal of Applied Physiology
How many cells can our blood tolerate?
Bioinformaticians of Jena University have just found out, the optimal value of hematocrit -- which indicates the volume fraction of the red blood cells -- can be calculated with an equation that dates from no less a person than Albert Einstein. The red blood cells form the greatest part of bloods solid components -- all in all around 40 percent of the blood. The percentage of this component is not only similar in all human beings but also in many other vertebrates.

Public Release: 13-Jun-2012
Next-generation sequencing technology opens doors to discoveries
Discoveries unfathomable only a few years ago are reality today at the Texas AgriLife Genomics and Bioinformatics Service with the acquisition of next-generation sequencing technology on the Texas A&M University campus in College Station.


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