EurekAlert! InContext Modules

Public Release: 9-Nov-2011

Journal of Virology
Fish flu: Genetics approach may lead to treatment
A NIST research team has provided the first look at a genetic structure that may play a critical role in the reproduction of the infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAV), more commonly known as the "fish flu."

Public Release: 8-Nov-2011
ORNL fundamental discovery casts enzymes in new light
A tree outside ORNL researcher Pratul Agarwal's office window provided the inspiration for a discovery that may ultimately lead to drugs with fewer side effects, less expensive biofuels and more.

Public Release: 8-Nov-2011

Journal of Biogeography
Holm oaks will gain ground in northern forests due to climate change
Holm oaks and other forests in lowland areas of Mediterranean mountains could expand by up to 350 percent due to global warming. In contrast, those forest formations that are more adapted to cold and humid conditions, such as beech and Sylvester pines, could shrink by up to 99 percent. Both scenarios could be quite possible in the 21st century according to a model created to study the effects of climate change on the forests of the Sistema Central and the Sistema Ibérico (Spain).

Public Release: 8-Nov-2011

Journal of Clinical Oncology
Northern Ireland company makes major breakthrough in cancer treatment
Northern Ireland-based pharmaceutical development company Almac has devised a groundbreaking new test which can detect the likelihood of the recurrence of stage two colon cancer in patients who have undergone surgery. The innovative technology designed by the company, which also has US operations in Souderton Pennsylvania and in North Carolina and California, identifies patients who may benefit from chemotherapy and could help raise survival rates.

Public Release: 8-Nov-2011

Nature Biotechnology
Galaxy DNA-analysis software is now available 'in the cloud'
Galaxy -- an open-source, web-based platform for data-intensive biomedical and genetic research -- is now available as a "cloud computing" resource. The new technology will help scientists and biomedical researchers to harness such tools as DNA-sequencing and analysis software, as well as storage capacity for large quantities of scientific data.

National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Pennsylvania Department of Health

Public Release: 8-Nov-2011
TGen and Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center form drug development collaboration with Cedars-Sinai
The Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare is expanding its efforts to accelerate advances in cancer care with the addition of Cedars-Sinai's Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute in Los Angeles as a collaborator in clinical trials to develop personalized therapies that could lead to more effective cancer treatments. Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center Clinical Trials is a partnership between the Translational Genomics Research Institute and Scottsdale Healthcare.

Public Release: 8-Nov-2011

Carbon Balance and Management
Reducing carbon footprints with carbon storage
Destruction of wildland habitats to make way for agriculture continues to erode the amount of carbon stored in the biomass and soil. New research published in BioMed Central's open-access journal Carbon Balance and Management shows that maintenance of wildlands in and among vineyards significantly increases carbon storage. Policies which include improving carbon storage by increasing vegetation and biodiversity, along with reduction in carbon emissions, will help to balance global atmospheric carbon.

Public Release: 7-Nov-2011

Archives of General Psychiatry
UMMS researchers identify epigenetic signatures of autism
Scientists at UMass Medical School are the first to map epigenetic changes in neurons from the brains of individuals with autism, providing empirical evidence that epigenetic alterations -- changes in gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence -- may play an important role in the disease. Analysis of these variations revealed hundreds of genetic sites that overlap with many of the genetic regions known to confer risk for Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Public Release: 7-Nov-2011

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Paper uncovers power of Foldit gamers' strategies
Researchers studying the nature of crowds playing Foldit called some strategies "shocking" in how well they mimicked some of the methods already used by protein scientists. In a paper published online at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of Washington researchers reveal the creative power of Foldit players' strategies and compare them to the best-known scientist-developed methods.

US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Science Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Adobe and Microsoft Corp.

Public Release: 7-Nov-2011
Opening the data bank -- scientists try to match new protein structures
Scientists at Rochester Institute of Technology and Dowling College are matching proteins to the job they perform in the human body. Their research could lead to drugs that target proteins and switch on or off specific functions associated with various diseases. The three-year study is funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

NIH/National Institute of General Medical Sciences

Public Release: 7-Nov-2011
Genomics of wood for biofuels production investigated
Virginia Tech has received funding to conduct research to accelerate bioenergy crop production.

US Department of Energy, US Department of Agriculture Plant Feedstocks Genomics for Bioenergy

Public Release: 7-Nov-2011
Creating an 'electronic nose' to sniff out tuberculosis from a patient's breath
Developers of a handheld "Electronic Nose" with the potential to diagnose tuberculosis in the breath of symptomatic patients today receive a US $950,000 grant from Grand Challenges Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Public Release: 6-Nov-2011

Nature Biotechnology
ICRISAT-led team cracks pigeonpea genome
Once referred to as an "orphan crop" mainly grown by poor farmers, pigeonpea is now set to join the world's league of major food crops with the completion of its genome sequence.

Public Release: 6-Nov-2011

Nature
Preparing for a thaw: How Arctic microbes respond to a warming world
The Arctic permafrost keeps an estimated 1,672 billion metric tons of carbon out of the Earth's atmosphere but rising global temperatures lead to concerns about potential carbon cycle impacts when the frozen soils thaw. To answer the question, researchers including those from the DOE Joint Genome Institute, Berkeley Lab and the U.S. Geological Survey studied a collection of genomes isolated and assembled from the permafrost. Their findings appear online Nov. 6, 2011, in Nature.

DOE Office of Science

Public Release: 3-Nov-2011

PLOS Pathogens
Research team unravels tomato pathogen's tricks of the trade
Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato is the causative agent of bacterial speck disease of tomato, a disease that occurs worldwide and causes severe reduction in fruit yield and quality. The genome of several Pseudomonas syrinage pv. tomato isolates have been sequenced in order to track the bacterial pathogen's ability to overcome plant defenses and to develop methods to prevent further spread.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 3-Nov-2011
Trillions served: Massive, complex projects for DOE JGI 2012 Community Sequencing Program
Taking advantage of massive-scale sequencing and data analysis capabilities, the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute will serve up trillions of nucleotides of information from newly-selected projects geared to feed the data-hungry worldwide research community. The total allocation for the 2012 Community Sequencing Program portfolio will exceed 30 trillion bases (terabases), a 100-fold increase compared with just two years ago, when just a third of a terabase was allocated to more than 70 projects.

US Department of Energy/Office of Science

Public Release: 3-Nov-2011

Science
Evolution during human colonizations
Most human populations are the product of a series of range expansions having occurred since modern humans left Africa some 50,000 years ago to colonize the rest of the world, but how have these processes influenced today's population diversity? An international research team studied the effects of rapid territorial and demographic expansions on recent human evolution.

Public Release: 3-Nov-2011

Science
The selective advantage of being on the edge of a migration wave
Research published in Science today reveals that the first individuals settling on new land are more successful at passing on their genes than those who did not migrate.

Fonds de recherche en santé du Québec

Public Release: 2-Nov-2011

PLOS ONE
New study reveals coral reefs may support much more biodiversity than previously thought
Smithsonian scientists and colleagues conducted the first DNA barcoding survey of crustaceans living on samples of dead coral taken from the Indian, Pacific and Caribbean oceans. The results suggest that the diversity of organisms living on the world's coral reefs is seriously underestimated. The team's research "The Diversity of Coral Reefs: What Are We Missing?" was published in October in the journal PLoS ONE.

Public Release: 2-Nov-2011

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Genome-scale network of rice genes to speed the development of biofuel crops
Researchers at the Joint BioEnergy Institute have developed the first genome-scale model for predicting the functions of genes and gene networks in a grass species. Called RiceNet, this systems-level model of rice gene interactions should help speed the development of new crops for the production of advanced biofuels, as well as help boost the production and improve the quality of one of the world's most important food staples.

US Department of Energy, Joint BioEnergy Institute

Public Release: 31-Oct-2011

Smart Materials and Structures
Scientists reach the heights with gecko-inspired tank robot
Researchers have developed a tank-like robot that has the ability to scale smooth walls, opening up a series of applications ranging from inspecting pipes, buildings, aircraft and nuclear power plants to deployment in search and rescue operations.

Public Release: 28-Oct-2011

Nature
Scientists chart gene expression in the brain across lifespan
The "switching on" of specific genes in the human genome is what makes each human tissue and each human being unique. A new study found that many gene expression changes that occur during fetal development are reversed immediately after birth. Reversals of fetal expression changes are also seen again much later in life during normal aging of the brain. Additionally, the team observed the reversal of fetal expression changes in Alzheimer's disease findings reported in other studies.

Lieber Institute for Brain Development, NIH/National Institute of Mental Health

Public Release: 28-Oct-2011

Nature
BGI reports pig parasite's genomic sequence provides new clues for parasitic diseases research
Pig parasite's genomic sequence provides new clues for parasitic diseases research.

Public Release: 27-Oct-2011
An IRB Barcelona project on computational biology receives an ERC Advanced Grant
The multidisciplinary project awarded within the category of Physical Sciences and Engineering is specialized in chemistry and computational biology, structural biology, biophysics, and bioinformatics and will have direct applications in several fields of biomedicine, such as the regulation of gene expression, and epigenetic mechanisms.

European Research Council

Public Release: 27-Oct-2011

Cell
Researchers build largest protein interaction map to date
Researchers have built a map that shows how thousands of proteins in a fruit fly cell communicate with each other. This is the largest and most detailed protein interaction map of a multicellular organism, demonstrating how approximately one third of the proteins cooperate to keep life going.

National Institutes of Health


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