Applied Genetics News articles from May 2001

Applied Genetics News archives from May 2001

BASIC SCIENCE: Engineering a Smarter Worm.
May 1, 2001... Intelligence is not a quality that one usually associates with worms. Nonetheless, scientists at Roche (Grenzacherstrasse 124, Postfach Ch-4070, Basel, Switzerland, Tel: +41-61-688-1111, Fax: +41-61-691-9391; Website: roche.com), led by Patrick...

Muscle Cells Trigger Synapse Formation.
May 1, 2001... Investigators from the Salk Institute (10010 N. Torrey Pines Rd., La Jolla, CA 92037-1099; Tel: 619/453-4100) have examined the clustering of neurotransmitters, an indicator of synapse formation, between nerve and muscle in growing mouse...

Recipe to Grow a Kidney.
May 1, 2001... The step-by-step development of a mammalian kidney in terms of gene expression has been described by UCSD School of Medicine researchers, led by Sanjay Nigam, professor of pediatrics and medicine, using DNA gene-chip technology and novel...

GENOMICS: Making a Better Cancer-Prone Mouse.
May 1, 2001... Researchers led by Tyler Jacks, a Howard Hughes investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), have genetically engineered mice to spontaneously switch on a cancer-causing gene, K-ras, generating lung and other cancers much...

Fungal Pathogen to be Sequenced.
May 1, 2001... The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) (9712 Medical Center Dr., Rockville, MD 20850; Tel: 301/838-0200, Fax: 301/838-0208; Website: www.tigr.org) has received funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to...

Dividing the First Cell.
May 1, 2001... In the May issue of the journal Developmental Biology, UCSD researchers, led by Raffi V. Aroian, report the discovery of a new class of genes that regulates the asymmetric division of the first cell in the developing C. elegans embryo into an...

Speeding Up Evolution.
May 1, 2001... To explore how functional proteins evolved, researchers Jack Szostak and Anthony Keefe at Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, MA) have subjected proteins derived from a massive library of 400 trillion random DNA sequences to a kind of...

Heart Disease, Insulin Resistance Linked.
May 1, 2001... A rare genetic condition that speeds the development of heart disease suggests a link between heart disease and insulin resistance, a problem of blood sugar metabolism, according to a report in Circulation, a journal of the American Heart...

Mouse Genome Is Complete.
May 1, 2001... The Mouse Sequencing Consortium (MSC), an international effort to accelerate the sequencing of the mouse genome, has achieved its goal to generate threefold coverage of the mouse DNA sequence. These data represent at least 95% of the full...

REPRODUCTION: Babies with Three Parents.
May 1, 2001... The Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science has used a technique called ooplasmic transfer to facilitate the birth of 15 babies so far. The technique involves withdrawing cytoplasm from one woman's oocyte and injecting it into another....

GENE THERAPY: Method Cures Blind Dogs.
May 1, 2001... Dogs blinded by an inherited retinal degenerative disease had their vision restored after treatment with genes from healthy dogs, marking the first successful gene therapy for blindness in a large animal. Their research is reported in the May...

ANTISENSE AND RIBOZYMES Antisense to Study p38 Kinase.
May 1, 2001... Using antisense technology, researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Isis Pharmaceuticals (2292 Faraday Ave., Carlsbad, CA 92008; Tel: 760/931-9200, Fax: 760/931-9639) found that in cells exposed to a stimulus such as UV...

Allozymes for Molecular Diagnostics.
May 1, 2001... Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (RPI) (2950 Wilderness Place, Boulder, CO 80301; Tel: 303/449-6500, Fax: 303/449-6995) and Archemix Corp. (20 Hampden St., Boston, MA 02119; Tel: 781/736- 2424; Website: www.archemix.com) have formed a strategic...

HORMONES AND CYTOKINES The PDGF Family Grows.
May 1, 2001... CuraGen Corp. (555 Long Wharf Dr., 11th Floor, New Haven, CT 06511; Tel: 203/401-3330, Fax: 203/401-3331; Website: www.curagen.com) has discovered a new member of the platelet- derived growth factor (PDGF) family that has been named PDGF-D. The...

ANTIBODIES: Mucin is a Breast Cancer Target.
May 1, 2001... Scientists from the Free University Medical Center, Amsterdam, showed that humanized HMFG1, an antibody being developed by U.K. biopharmaceutical company Antisoma, plc (West Africa House, Hanger Lane, Ealing, London, U.K.; Tel: +44(0)181 799...

Campath Cleared for Marketing.
May 1, 2001... The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared Campath (alemtuzumab), ahumanized monoclonal antibody, for marketing as a treatment for patients with B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) who have been treated with alkylating...

Synthetic Antibodies Best Nature's.
May 1, 2001... Synthetic antibodies, called molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), have the ability to bind to small molecules and to target molecules such as organics and proteins with equal or greater potency than that of natural antibodies. MIPs work at...

CELL THERAPY: Multifunctional Stem Cells.
May 1, 2001... A stem cell in the bone marrow can transform itself into almost any organ in the body, according to a new study by New York University School of Medicine (NYU), Yale University School of Medicine, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine...

VACCINES AND ANTI-INFECTIVES Measles Virus Has Role in Hodgkin's.
May 1, 2001... The measles virus has been shown by researchers to be present in the tumor cells of patients suffering from Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL), a cancer of the body's antibody-producing B-lymphocytes. These findings were presented at the 92nd Annual...

AG-BIO: Resistance Genes Spread from Farm.
May 1, 2001... Genes resistant to tetracycline have been found in groundwater as far as a sixth of a mile downstream from two swine facilities that use antibiotics as growth promoters. This finding shows the potential for spreading resistance back into the...

Sequence Promotes Better Beans.
May 1, 2001... Monsanto Co. (800 North Lindbergh Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63167; Tel: 314/694-1000, Fax: 314/694-7625; Website: www.monsanto.com) has announced its intent to donate a single Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) genetic marker to the United Soybean Board's...

Stressed Out Fish Lose Immunity.
May 1, 2001... Researchers have identified naturally occurring antibiotics in channel catfish that may be a promising indicator for monitoring fish health in the expanding aquaculture industry nationwide. Scientists discovered that fish, under stress, suffer...

How Pox Virus Outwits Vaccine.
May 1, 2001... Fowlpox, a virus common to poultry is outfoxing a long-used live vaccine, apparently through natural genetic engineering and by using strategies to survive environmental insults, says University of Illinois researcher Deoki N. Tripathy, who has...

INDUSTRY NEWS: NIH Sets Mutant Mouse Centers.
May 1, 2001... The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has announced the establishment and funding of five research centers to develop and breed mice with genetic variations similar to those of humans. The centers will provide the special,...

Genentech Wins Patent Suit.
May 1, 2001... A federal jury in Delaware unanimously found that Genentech's (One DNA Way, South San Francisco, CA; Tel: 650/225-1000, Fax: 650/225- 6000; Website: www.genentech.com) two oncology products, Herceptin (Trastuzumab) and Rituxan (Rituximab), do...

World's Leading Killers Targeted.
May 1, 2001... Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has unveiled that agency's Global Health Research Plan for HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis. The plan addresses the three diseases singled out by the Group...

Epilepsy Gene Discovery Project.
May 1, 2001... The Epilepsy Foundation has launched a new version of its Gene Discovery Project with enhancements to help forge research partnerships between medical centers and families with epilepsy (www.epilepsyfoundation.org/GDP). The Internet-based...

Compugen Joins Ontology Consortium.
May 1, 2001... Speaking at the Second Annual Dain Rauscher Wessels Investment Conference, Martin Gerstel, chairman of Compugen (72 Pinchas Rosen St., Tel Aviv, Israel; Tel: 3-765-8585, Fax: 3-765-8555; Email: info@cgen.com, Website: www.cgen.com), announced...

CALENDAR.
May 1, 2001... June 11-12, 2001. Anti-Cancer Drug Discovery and Development, Strategic Research Institute; Tel: 212/967-0095; Email:jliong@srinstitute.com. June 24-27, 2001. BIO 2001, San Diego, CA; BIO Tel: 202/857-0244, Fax: 202/857-0357; Website:...