Applied Genetics News articles from December 2001

Applied Genetics News archives from December 2001

CLONING: Send in the Clones.
December 1, 2001... Six little cells stirred up anew the global controversy over human cloning, and before it was over, the president, the pope, politicos, pundits, and professors from around the globe had chimed in on what was or wasn't ethical, moral or just....

BASIC SCIENCE: Focusing on Microbial Slime.
December 1, 2001... The faculty of Stanford (Stanford, CA) announced the official opening of the Biofilm Research Center. The new facility includes a $350,000 Zeiss confocal laser-scanning microscope that will allow researchers, on and off campus, to investigate...

Peptides Block mRNA Transport.
December 1, 2001... Joan Steitz and Imed-Eddine Gallouzi, both from Yale University of Medicine (333 Cedar St., New Haven, CT 06150; Tel: 203/432-4771) have developed a new technique that selectively blocks the export of messenger RNA (mRNA) from the nucleus to...

Functional Computer from DNA.
December 1, 2001... The universal Turing machine is a hypothetical device that scans a digital tape and, in principle, can solve any computable problem. Ehud Shapiro and his team at the Weizmann Institute (Rehovot 76100, Israel) have implemented a type of finite...

Smallest Land Vertebrate Discovered.
December 1, 2001... The world's smallest lizard has been discovered on a tiny Caribbean island off the coast of the Dominican Republic. The newly discovered species not only ranks as the smallest lizard, but it also is the smallest of all 23,000 species of...

GENOMICS: Resource Center for Genomics of Pathogens.
December 1, 2001... The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, Bethesda, MD) has announced a major new initiative that will use the genomic sequences of pathogens to identify the precise molecules a microbe uses to infect people and cause...

Infant Leukemia Is Genetically Distinct.
December 1, 2001... Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (44 Binney St., Boston, MA 02115; Tel: 866/408-3324; Website: www.danafarber.org) scientists have discovered that a rare but lethal blood cancer that strikes infants in their first year is a genetically distinct...

CELL THERAPY: Receptor Switches Off Pluripotency.
December 1, 2001... Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania led by Hans Schler, have identified a receptor, called GCNF for germ cell nuclear factor, which plays a key role in restricting pluripotency of embryonic stem cells. The work is the first...

Adult Stem Cells to be Profiled.
December 1, 2001... Paradigm Genetics, Inc. (108 Alexander Dr., Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-4528; Tel: 919/425-3000, Fax: 919/544-8094; Website: www.paragen.com) and StemCo BioMedical, Inc. (Research Triangle Park, NC 27709; Website: www.stemcobiomedical.com)...

ANTISENSE: Compound Inhibits Calicivirus Infection.
December 1, 2001... In a study published in Antisense & Nucleic Acid Drug Development, scientists at AVI BioPharma, Inc. (One S.W. Columbia St., Suite 1105, Portland, OR 97258; Tel: 503/227-0554, Fax: 503/227-0751; Website: www.avibio.com) report that its NeuGene...

Clusterin Is Antisense Target.
December 1, 2001... OncoGenex Technologies, Inc. (Suite 400, 609 - 14th St., N.W., Calgary, Alberta T2N 2A1; Tel: 403/283-6051, Fax: 403/283-6753; Website: www.oncogenex.ca) and Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (2292 Faraday Ave., Carlsbad, CA 92008; Tel: 760/931-9200,...

VACCINES: HIV Collaboration Is Initiated.
December 1, 2001... Epimmune, Inc. (5820 Nancy Ridge Dr., San Diego, CA 92121; Tel: 858/ 860-2500, Fax: 858 860-2600) and Bavarian Nordic A/S (Vestrbrogade 149, DK-1620 Copenhagen V, Denmark; Tel: 45 3326 8383, Fax: 45 3326 8380; Email: pw@bavarian-nordic.dk,...

Acambis to Produce Smallpox Vaccine.
December 1, 2001... Acambis, Inc. (38 Sidney St., Cambridge, MA 02139; Tel: 617/494- 1339, Fax: 617/494-1741), with support from its subcontractor Baxter International, Inc. (One Baxter Pkwy., Deerfield, IL 60015; Tel: 847/948-2000, Fax: 847/948-3948), has been...

AG-BIO: Insecticides That Don't Kill People.
December 1, 2001... At the 31st Annual Society for Neuroscience meeting, Acadia Pharmaceuticals (3911 Sorrento Valley Rd., San Diego, CA 92121- 1402; Tel: 619/558-2871) reported the discovery of compounds that differentiate between insect and human genomic...

PCR Detects Plant Pathogens.
December 1, 2001... Cepheid, Inc. (1190 Borregas Ave., Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1302; Tel: 408/541-4191, Fax: 408/541-4192; Website: www.cepheid.com) has entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Department of Agriculture...

Fine-Tuning Plant Response to Light.
December 1, 2001... Joanne Chory and Detlef Weigel The Salk Institute (10010 North Torrey Pines Rd., La Jolla, CA 92037-1099; Tel: 858/453-4100, Fax: 858/552-8258; Website: www.salk.edu) and colleagues studied 141 varieties of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana...

Transgenes in Remote Mexican Corn.
December 1, 2001... Transgenic DNA has contaminated some of Mexico's native varieties of corn grown in remote regions, according to researchers Ignacio Chapela and David Quist from the University of California, Berkeley. Their study is published in the November 29...

INDUSTRY NEWS: A Greenhouse in Pittsburgh.
December 1, 2001... Leaders of the Pittsburgh region's universities; health care, bioscience industry, and economic development organizations; and government have released a prospectus outlining a 10-yr. plan to position the region as a global leader in the...

Medimmune to Acquire Aviron and FluMist.
December 1, 2001... MedImmune, Inc. (35 West Watkins Mill Rd., Gaithersburg, MD 20878; Tel: 301/417-0770, Fax: 301/527-4200; Website: www.medimmune.com) and Aviron (297 North Bernardo Ave., Mountain View, CA 94043; Tel: 650/919-6500, Fax: 650/919-6216) have...

Will Oregon Refuse to Pay for Bio-Medicine?
December 1, 2001... In an open letter to Governor John Kitzhaber, the Oregon Bioscience Association (OBA) and representatives from Oregon biotechnology companies and patient advocacy groups have asked that patients in the Oregon Health Plan (OHP) be assured of...

CALENDAR.
December 1, 2001... January 14-15, 2002. High Performance Computing: Strategic Applications for Genomics and Proteomics, La Jolla, CA. Contact: Cambridge Healthtech Institute; Tel: 617/630-1300; Website: www.healthtech.com January 23-27, 2002. Molecular...