Joshua Vogelstein

Joshua T. Vogelstein is an American biomedical engineer. He is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University, where he sits at the Center for Imaging Science. Vogelstein also holds joint appointments in the JHU departments of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Computer Science, and Neuroscience. He has an appointment in the Institute for Data Intensive Engineering and Sciences, and Vogelstein is the director of the Biomedical Data Science focus area for the Johns Hopkins biomedical engineering program. Joshua Vogelstein is also a Steering Committee Member & Associate Member of the Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute, as well as a Visiting Scientist for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Vogelstein's research focuses on understanding how massive biomedical datasets are best analyzed to discover new knowledge about the function of living systems in health and disease, and how this knowledge can be harnessed to provide improved, more affordable health care. One of Vogelstein's current areas of study is connectal coding, an emerging field focusing on the study of how brain structure, rather than brain activity, encodes information; this represents a shift from the traditional study of neural coding. His work focuses largely on big and wide data in neuroscience, focusing on the statistics of brain graphs and connectomics.
Joshua Vogelstein also co-founded Gigantum, a platform for creating and collaborating on open-source data.
Education.
Vogelstein did his undergraduate studies at Washington University in St. Louis where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2002. From 2003 to 2009 he studied at Johns Hopkins University, where he received his Master of Science in Applied Mathematics & Statistics and a PhD in Neuroscience from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he developed algorithms for spike detection in calcium imaging.
Career and research.
Joshua Vogelstein co-directs NeuroData with Randal Burns, which has created an ecosystem of open-source tools for neuroscientists and hosts a collection of open-source data.
Joshua Vogelstein has been on the advisory board for numerous commercial companies, including Gigantum, Mind-X, and PivotalPath. He was also the co-founder of the data science consulting firm d8alab. From 2014 to 2018, Vogelstein was the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Institute for Computational Medicine. He has also held positions as an Endeavor Scientist at the Child Mind Institute], a Senior Research Scientist for the departments of Statistical Sciences & Mathematics & Neurobiology at Johns Hopkins University, and as Affiliated Faculty at Duke University.
Vogelstein has also held the position of Chief Data Scientist at Global Domain Partners, LLC.


Sulfate adenylyltransferase (ADP)

In enzymology, a sulfate adenylyltransferase (ADP) () is an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction
Thus, the two substrates of this enzyme are ADP and sulfate, whereas its two products are phosphate and adenylyl sulfate.
This enzyme belongs to the family of transferases, specifically those transferring phosphorus-containing nucleotide groups (nucleotidyltransferases). The systematic name of this enzyme class is ADP:sulfate adenylyltransferase. Other names in common use include ADP-sulfurylase, sulfate (adenosine diphosphate) adenylyltransferase, and adenosine diphosphate sulfurylase. This enzyme participates in sulfur metabolism.


IscR stability element

The IscR stability element is a conserved secondary structure found in the intergenic regions of iscRSUA polycistronic mRNA. This secondary structure prevents the degradation of the iscR mRNA.
The iscRSUA operon encodes for the proteins required in iron-sulfur cluster biosynthesis where the expression of this operon is regulated by RyhB and iscR, a transcription repressor. Under sufficient iron conditions RyhB binds to iscRSUA mRNA and promotes the degradation of the mRNA located downstream of iscR. Scanning the intergenic regions of this polycistronic mRNA and using Mfold software a secondary structure was predicted within the intergenic region between iscR and iscS and later confirmed by lead acetate probing. Mutations that disrupt this secondary structure resulted in the degradation of iscR mRNA after RyhB binding. 3′ RACE analysis of the iscR mRNA fragment identified the intergenic RNA at the 3′ end. These results suggest that this intergenic RNA element acts as an iscR mRNA stability element by protecting iscR from exonuclease degradation.


CFU-E

CFU-E stands for Colony Forming Unit-Erythroid. It arises from CFU-GEMM (via BFU-E, which stands for "erythroid burst-forming units") and gives rise to proerythroblasts.
Murine CFU-E assay.
CFU-E is a stage of erythroid development between the BFU-E stage and the pro-erythroblast stage. CFU-E colony assay is designed to detect how many colony-forming-units of erythroid lineage there are in a hematopoietic tissue (bone marrow, spleen, or fetal liver), which may be reflective of the organism’s demand for oxygen delivery to the tissues or a hematopoietic disorder.
Early erythroid progenitors are found at a quite low frequency relative to later stages of erythroid differentiation, such as the pro-erythroblast and the basophilic erythroblast stages which can be detected by flowcytometry directly ex-vivo (). Furthermore, unlike for the pro-erythroblast and later stages of erythroid development, no truly reliable and unique positive flow-cytometric markers exist, though it is possible to use negative exclusion markers to deplete a cell population of other precursors and differentiated cells by cell sorting, thus greatly enriching it for the CFU-E activity (Prospective isolation and global gene expression analysis of the erythrocyte colony-forming unit, Terszowski G. et al. Blood 2005). CFU-E cells express Epo receptor, c-Kit (Stem cell factor receptor), transferrin receptor (CD71+), and are Ter119(glycophorin-A associated antigen)-negative. For the above reasons, the CFU-E assay, as inefficient and variable as it can often be, is still in use today.
Cells at the CFU-E stage express some erythropoietin receptor (EpoR), and thus can be induced to terminally differentiate in vitro in 2–3 days in the presence of only erythropoietin (Epo) (together with the basic contents of culture media: FBS, BSA in IMDM). Methylcellulose is a semisolid media additive that allows an investigator to stain (with diaminobenzidine reagent for hemoglobin) and then count individual colonies, each arising from a single plated progenitor that is at the CFU-E stage. By day 2 from the time of plating, each CFU-E colony will contain between 8 (minimum) and 64 hemoglobinized cells most of which are in their end-stage of erythroid differentiation. It is possible to see a small spectrum of hemoglobinization level and possibly cell size, indicating that some cells in the colony have achieved the end-stage faster than others.
Cell number in a colony is important because pro-erythroblast stage is also Epo-responsive (expresses Epo receptor), but the proliferative capacity of these cells is not as high, thus yielding a colony with fewer than 8 cells. Likewise, an earlier stage of erythroid differentiation may also yield colonies in Epo-only medium, but these colonies would likely be smaller and/or not hemoglobinized, since the stages before the CFU-E stage (MEP and BFU-E) require other factors (IL-3 etc) and more time for growth that will also delay the terminal differentiation and hemoglobinization.


Pyrocitric

Pyrocitric is a group of organic chemical compounds pertaining to, or designating, any one of three acids obtained by the distillation of citric acid, and called respectively citraconic, itaconic, and mesaconic acid.


Operation Sea-Spray

Operation Sea-Spray was a 1950 U.S. Navy secret experiment in which "Serratia marcescens" and "Bacillus globigii" bacteria were sprayed over the San Francisco Bay Area in California.
Military test.
From September 20 to 27, 1950, the U.S. Navy released the pathogens off the shore of San Francisco. Based on results from monitoring equipment at 43 locations around the city, the Army determined that San Francisco had received enough of a dose for nearly all of the city's 800,000 residents to inhale at least 5,000 of the particles.
Illnesses.
On October 11, 1950, eleven residents checked into Stanford Hospital for very rare, serious urinary tract infections. Although ten residents recovered, one patient, Edward J. Nevin, died three weeks later. None of the other hospitals in the city reported similar spikes in cases, and all 11 victims had urinary-tract infections following medical procedures, suggesting that the source of their infections lay inside the hospital. Cases of pneumonia in San Francisco also increased after "Serratia marcescens" was released, though a causal relation has not been conclusively established. The bacterium was also combined with phenol and an anthrax simulant and sprayed across south Dorset by US and UK military scientists as part of the DICE trials that ran from 1971 to 1975.
The urinary tract outbreak was so unusual that the Stanford doctors wrote it up for a medical journal.
There was no evidence that the Army had alerted health authorities before it blanketed the region with bacteria. Doctors later wondered whether the experiment might be responsible for heart valve infections around the same time as well as serious infections seen among intravenous drug users in the 1960s and 1970s.
Senate subcommittee hearings.
In the 1977 Senate subcommittee hearings, the U.S. Army disclosed the existence of the tests. Army officials noted the pneumonia outbreak in their testimony but said any link to their experiments was totally coincidental. The Army pointed out that no other hospitals reported similar outbreaks and all 11 victims had urinary-tract infections following medical procedures, suggesting that the source of their infections lay inside the hospital.
Lawsuit.
In 1981, Nevin's surviving family members filed suit against the federal government, alleging negligence and responsibility for the death of Edward J. Nevin, as well as financial and emotional harm caused to Mr. Nevin's wife from the medical costs.
The lower court ruled against them primarily because the bacteria used in the test was unproven to be responsible for Mr. Nevin's death. The Nevin family appealed the suit all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to overturn lower court judgments.
Similar tests.
In the Senate subcommittee hearings in 1977, the Army revealed:
References.
[[Category:United States biological weapons program]]
[[Category:History of the San Francisco Bay Area]]
[[Category:Military in the San Francisco Bay Area]]
[[Category:United States Navy in the 20th century]]
[[Category:1950s in California]]


CiteAb

CiteAb Ltd is a life science data company located in Bath, England that offers an antibody and biochemicals search tool to aid biomedical scientists in their research.
History and operations.
CiteAb started in 2013 as an academic project by Dr Andrew Chalmers, a senior lecturer at the University of Bath. The resource was established to help scientific researchers find suitable antibodies for their experiments - such antibodies can be helpful in context of screenings, therapeutic development, and drug discovery.
CiteAb ranks antibodies by citations, making it possible for researchers to find antibodies or biochemicals that have been successfully used in past research papers. The accompanying citations are listed, so the data contained within the publications can also be checked. The CiteAb platform was built in collaboration with technology company Storm Consultancy, in Bath, in 2012. A trial website was soft-launched in September 2012 before the full website was publicly launched in September 2013. In June 2013, the number of antibodies listed by CiteAb reached the one million mark. In July 2014 the company announced it had 2 million antibodies in its database. In 2018 CiteAb added a biochemical search to its platform.
The company spun out from the University of Bath in January 2014, and CiteAb Limited was formed.
Awards and Funding.
Initial funding was provided as part of an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) ‘Knowledge Transfer Account' and the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s ‘Innovation Fund’ – with funds administered by the University of Bath’s Research Development and Support Office – to enable the growth and development of CiteAb prior to its spin-out.
CiteAb was winner of the Best Startup at the 2013 Bath Digital Festival. It was awarded funding from the West of England Growth Fund, administered by the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership.
In August 2014, CiteAb was shortlisted for the Bath Business Awards in the category 'Innovative Startup Business of the Year'. On 11 September 2014 the company was named as the winner of the Bath Business Awards 'Innovative Startup Company' category.
In March 2018 CiteAb won the 'Export' category in the Medilink South West awards - at that point the company's products and services are used by between 50k and 100k individuals per month from 196 countries and 1,400 institutions.


Contact high

A contact high is a psychological phenomenon that occurs in otherwise sober people and animals who come into contact with someone who is under the influence of recreational drugs. It involves a supposed transfer of the physiological state of intoxication.
A glossary of drug users' language from the 1970s describes the term as "a psychogenic 'trip' without taking drugs by being close to somebody while he or she is on drugs. The term is often incorrectly used to describe the high obtained by inhaling the smoke of other marijuana smokers."
In Alexander Shulgin's book "PiHKAL" under the 2C-I entry, a notable reaction is observed in a participant who takes a placebo, existing in an environment with other people who are under the drug's influence. The participant wrote that he had "absorbed the ambience of the folks who had actually imbibed the material."


Francis Hincks

Sir Francis Hincks, (December 14, 1807 – August 18, 1885) was a Canadian businessman, politician, and British colonial administrator. Of Irish descent, he was the Co-Premier of the Province of Canada (1851-1854), Governor of Barbados (1856-1862), Governor of British Guiana (1862-1869) and Canadian Minister of Finance (1869-1873).
Early life.
Born at Cork in Ireland, he was the ninth and youngest child of the Rev. Thomas Dix Hincks, a Presbyterian minister and scholar, and his wife Anne (née Boult). Two of his older brothers, Edward Hincks and William Hincks, followed their father's footsteps as noted scholars and clergy. Francis was also intended for a career as a clergyman and was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. However, he found himself more interested in business, starting in Belfast, with commercial ties to the West Indies. It was at Belfast that he married his first wife. Two weeks after their marriage, they set sail for the Canadas.
Business career.
Arriving in York, Upper Canada (now Toronto), Hincks set up a wholesale import business. He rented business premises from William Warren Baldwin and his son, Robert Baldwin. The Baldwins were a leading Reform family, opposed to the Tory Family Compact, which had run the government of the Province for many years. Hincks became friends with the Baldwin family, who were also of Irish descent. family.
He accepted a job as manager for the Farmer's Joint Stock Bank but left to become manager of the newly formed Bank of the People after the management of the Farmers' Bank became dominated by Tories. When even moderate reformers were being persecuted following the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837, Hincks considered moving to the United States. However, the appointment of Lord Durham in 1838 provided new hope and he chose to continue in Upper Canada. That year, he established "The Examiner" in Toronto, with the aim of promoting responsible government; this newspaper merged with "The Globe", the predecessor of "The Globe and Mail", in 1855.
Political career.
Reform Party and responsible government.
Hincks was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the 1st Parliament of the Province of Canada, sitting from 1841 to 1843, representing Oxford County. He was defeated in 1843, but elected in 1848 and subsequent elections, sitting from 1848 to 1855.
Bank notes and central bank.
During his first term, Hincks was the chair of a select committee which studied a proposal from the Governor General, Lord Sydenham, who advocated that the government should take over the issuing of bank notes. Up to that time, paper notes were issued by the banks. Sydenham proposed that the government take over that function, with control over the amount of paper money in circulation, a forerunner of the idea of a central bank. Issuing the notes would also give the government an important source of income.
Although Hincks personally supported the proposal, it was defeated in the committee, largely because of opposition from the banks who would lose a major source of income.
Inspector general.
In 1842, he was appointed inspector general of public accounts. In 1844, he became editor of a new newspaper in Montreal, the "Pilot", which supported Reformers in both Canada East and Canada West. Because he sought subscriptions for his paper in Canada West, he came into conflict with George Brown, editor of the "Globe". In 1848, he sold the paper and accepted the post of inspector general.
Co-Premier of Province of Canada.
Hincks was Premier of the Province of Canada from 1851 to 1854. Hincks' vision of a railroad linking British North America led to the establishment of the Grand Trunk Railway in 1852 and he helped negotiate the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 with the United States.
Decimal currency.
During Hincks' time in office, currency reforms were a major issue in the British North American provinces. Although the British government wanted to keep all of its overseas possessions on the pound sterling, the North American provinces favoured a decimal currency, to facilitate trade with the United States. A compromise was reached in 1853 when the Canadian Parliament passed a "Currency Act", allowing both pounds and American dollars to be used in the Province of Canada, at fixed exchange rates. New Brunswick passed similar legislation, the beginning of a common currency system in British North America.
Fall of government.
A scandal developed in 1854 as a result of profits made by Hincks and Mayor John George Bowes of Toronto from the sale of railway stock. The government fell as a result, but when this matter was reviewed in the next parliament, no basis was found for allegations of corruption against Hincks.
Governorships in the Caribbean.
In 1856, he accepted an appointment as governor of Barbados and the Windward Islands, and, in 1861, became governor of British Guiana. He was knighted in 1869, upon the completion of his term in British Guiana.
Minister of Finance.
On his return to Canada, he was Minister of Finance from 1869 until 1874.
Later life.
In 1878, he represented the federal government on the Ontario-Manitoba boundary commission.
He was also an editor of the "Toronto Express" newspaper.
Family.
Hincks was married twice. In 1832, he married Martha Anne Stewart, in Belfast, Ireland. They remained married until her death in 1874 and had five children.
In 1875, he married Emily Louisa Delatre, widow of Judge Robert Baldwin Sullivan, another member of the extended Baldwin family. Lady Hincks died in Montreal, May 14, 1880, aged 69.
Sir Francis Hincks died in Montreal, August 18, 1885, of smallpox.
Legacy.
Hincks Township in Quebec was named in his honour (but was officially renamed in 1975 to Lac-Sainte-Marie).
Hincks Street, Bridgetown, Barbados: In February 1861 H.R.H. Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh visited Barbados. In a bout of excess jubilation towards the visit, authorities promptly renamed several streets in and around the capital city of Bridgetown. Among the changes, one of the city's oldest streets, Madeira Street was renamed to Hincks Street after Sir Francis, the then Governor of Barbados.


Charles DeLisi

Charles Peter DeLisi (born December 9, 1941) is an American biomedical scientist and the Metcalf Professor of Science and Engineering at Boston University. He is noted for seminal contributions to the initiation of the Human Genome Project, for transformative academic leadership, and for research contributions to mathematical and computational immunology, cell biophysics, genomics and protein and nucleic acid structure and function. Recent activities include mathematical finance and climate change.
Early life and education.
DeLisi was born in the Bronx, graduated from City College of New York (CCNY) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history (1963), and received his Ph.D. in physics (1965 -1969) from New York University (NYU).
Career and research.
In 1969 he joined Donald Crothers’ Lab as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) postdoctoral research fellow in the department of chemistry at Yale University. In 1972 he was appointed a theoretical division staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he collaborated with George Bell, a theoretical physicist who a few years earlier had begun pioneering research in mathematical immunology. DeLisi was subsequently appointed senior scientist (1975–1982) at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, and founding head of the Section on Theoretical Immunology (1982–1985), where he and his collaborators established one of the earliest protein and DNA sequence databases fully integrated with machine learning tools for functional inference and developed a number of analytical methods that proved useful in cell biology.
In 1986, as director of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Health and Environmental Research Programs, DeLisi and his advisors proposed, planned and defended before the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Congress, the Human Genome Project. The proposal created a storm of controversy but received strong support from Alvin Trivelpiece, who was head of DOE's Office of Science, and William Flynn Martin, the Deputy Secretary of Energy. It was included in President Ronald Reagan's FY 1987 budget submission to the Congress and subsequently passed both the House and the Senate, the latter with the essential support of Senator Pete Domenici (R, NM).
In the spring of 1987, shortly before leaving the DOE, DeLisi established an ethical studies component of the Project. The goal was to set aside 3-5% of the funding in order to engage the best minds in the humanities and social sciences to develop a body of thought that would inform decisions about the development and deployment of the radically new technologies destined to emerge from the completion of the Project.
In addition to the medical and scientific advances engendered by the Human Genome Project, it and its progeny have had a profound effect on the sociology and culture of cell biology. The computer science community, in particular, moved with extraordinary dexterity into cell biology, transforming the field and creating a record of discovery destined to provide material for a remarkable story in the sociology of late 20th and early 21st Century science. Computational and mathematical methods are now widely viewed as central to progress in cell biology, a change that is forcing even the most conservative universities to respond to a new paradigm in biological education. The Human Genome Project enabled a rapid and smooth transformation of all aspects of DOE's health and environmental and energy programs, propelling the Office of Health and Environmental Research to a position of international importance.
Commemorating the significance of the Human Genome Project, the DOE installed a bronze plaque outside room F-202 at its Germantown, Maryland facility. The plaque reads
In 1987, DeLisi returned to New York as a professor and department chair at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Boston University years.
In 1990 DeLisi joined Boston University (BU) as dean of the College of Engineering. Under his watch the College grew into a leading research institution, adding among other things Centers for Biotechnology, Photonics and Manufacturing Engineering. In addition, the Biomedical Engineering (BME) department added a new dimension to the field, namely molecular and cellular engineering, and was the home of the seminal research in synthetic biology.
In 1999 DeLisi initiated the Nation's first Ph.D. program in bioinformatics and served as Chair for more than a decade.
In 2000, after 10 years as dean, DeLisi returned to a full-time faculty position as dean emeritus and Metcalf Professor. The lobby of the building that houses the College of Engineering Dean's Office is named in his honor, as is an annual College of Engineering award lecture.
DeLisi is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). In 1999 he was awarded the CCNY Townsend Harris Medal, in 2011 he was elected an honorary citizen of Marineo, Palermo, Italy, and in 2019 he was recipient of the Informa Clinical and research excellence lifetime achievement award.


Dolomite Bio

Dolomite Bio, headquartered in Royston, Hertfordshire, UK is a biotechnology company that creates products for high throughput single cell research for biologists. Dolomite Bio is based out of five global offices including the UK (headquarters) and regional offices in the USA, Japan, Vietnam and Brazil.
Dolomite Bio is part of the Blacktrace Holdings ltd.
History.
Dolomite Bio was founded in March 2016, from its sister company Dolomite Microfluidics (part of the Blacktrace group of companies). Dolomite Bio now serves all of Dolomite Microfluidics' biology customers and develops new products specifically for biologists.
Products.
Dolomite Bio creates innovative products for high throughput single cell research. By encapsulating single cells in microfluidic droplets, our products enable rapid analysis of thousands or millions of individual cells and their biological products.
Dolomite Bio's Nadia Instrument is an automated, microfluidic droplet-based platform for single cell research that encapsulates up to 8 samples, in parallel, in under 20 mins. Over 50,000 single cells can be captured per cartridge in a run. The fully automated Nadia Instrument guides users through all relevant steps of the experiment via an easy-to-use touchscreen interface.
Adding the Nadia Innovate upgrade to the Nadia Instrument transforms it into an open system, for the development of novel protocols and applications. Nadia Innovate enables the development of user-defined single cell protocols and applications. Newly developed protocols can be transferred to the Nadia Instrument for high throughput parallel operation. By allowing users to control parameters such as droplet size, droplet frequency, temperature, agitation and timing, innovation is unlocked.
The Nadia platform enables applications such as single cell RNA-Seq (scRNA-Seq), single nuclei RNA-Seq (sNuc-Seq), plant protoplast RNA-Seq (ppRNA-Seq) and the encapsulation of cells in Agarose beads.
Technology.
Dolomite Bio systems employ the principle of microfluidic flow technology focussing to rapidly encapsulate single cells in millions of aqueous droplets in oil. The droplets are identically sized and, depending on the application, may be 10 – 100 µm in diameter.
Benefits of encapsulating cells in microfluidic droplets
• Enables analysis of millions of single cells
               – e.g. more than 105 single-cell libraries/hour
• Single-cell reactions become efficient and robust
               – Droplets are small (often 10s to 100s of picolitres), so e.g., effective mRNA concentration is high
• Reliable and reproducible performance
               – Precisely-controlled micro-reactor volumes and avoidance of cross-contamination
• Droplets can be used as micro-compartments or micro-reactors
• Can capture quantitative data from rare cells


David Kirby (journalist)

David Kirby is a journalist based in Brooklyn, New York, and was formerly a regular contributor to "The New York Times" since 1998. He is the author of "Evidence of Harm" (2005), "Animal Factory" (2010), "Death at Sea World" (2012), and "When They Come for You" (2019).
Biography.
Kirby has written for many national magazines, including "Glamour", "Redbook", "Self" and "Mademoiselle". From 1986 to 1990, Kirby was a foreign correspondent for UPI, and "Newsday" (among others) in Latin America, covering wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, and he covered politics, corruption and natural disasters in Mexico. It was during this time that he was also a reporter for "OutWeek".
From 1990 to 1993, Kirby was director of public information at the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR), worked for New York City Council President Carol Bellamy, and was a senior staff adviser to David Dinkins' successful 1989 run for mayor of New York City.
In 1998, Kirby wrote a cover story for "The Advocate", "Does coming out matter?". From 1998 to 2001, he wrote many articles for "The Advocate", including one on the courage of young gay and lesbian scouts and service members.
From 2000 to 2004, Kirby contributed several articles on travel to "The New York Times", including "Rainbow Beach Towels on Mexican Sand", an article on the gay tourism industry in Puerto Vallarta. He has also written on topics other than travel and leisure, including on a new phenomenon, known as "dirty driving", the playing pornography on DVD screens inside vehicles while they drive through traffic. The article expressed concern for what children have been exposed to by these "dirty drivers".
In 2005, Kirby's book "Evidence of Harm - Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy" was published.
Since May 2005, Kirby has been a contributing blogger at "The Huffington Post".
Evidence of Harm.
"Evidence of Harm" explores the controversies surrounding thimerosal containing vaccines (TCVs), and whether TCVs have contributed to the apparent increase of autism, ADHD, speech delay and other childhood disorders in the United States. In the book, Kirby tells the personal stories of parents of children who have autism, founders of the advocacy group SafeMinds, including Sallie Bernard, Lyn Redwood, Mark Blaxill, Albert Enayati, Heidi Roger and Liz Birt.
The autism-vaccine link has been firmly discredited, including any suggested evidence of a link between thimerosal and autism. The majority of scientific consensus agrees with vast population studies that have shown there to be no link between vaccines, autism, and thimerosal. The original paper by Andrew Wakefield that started a media firestorm and led to fears of vaccination amongst parents has been discredited and research by journalist Brian Deer showed the data used in the paper to be fraudulent.
"British Medical Journal" review.
In May 2005, "Evidence of Harm" was reviewed negatively in the "British Medical Journal". The reviewer described Kirby's book as "woefully one-sided", and wrote: "In his determination to provide an account that is sympathetic to the parents, Kirby enters into the grip of the same delusion and ends up in the same angry and paranoid universe into which campaigners have descended, alleging phone taps and other forms of surveillance as they struggle against sinister conspiracies between health authorities and drug companies."


AIDSVAX

AIDSVAX is an experimental HIV vaccine that was developed originally at Genentech in San Francisco, California, and later tested by the VaxGen company, a Genentech offshoot. The development and trials of the vaccine received significant coverage in the international media, but American trials proved inconclusive. The vaccine was then tested on a group of at-risk individuals in Thailand.
In 1991, AIDSVAX originally consisted of the B envelope of recombinant gp120, a glycoprotein unique to HIV's surface, from a strain of the virus, MN, known at the time to infect people in the United States and Europe. The vaccine was designed to provoke the production of antibodies in subjects that would strip the gp120 protein off of the HIV viral particles, effectively disabling the virus so that it could not bind to or invade susceptible cells. Then, another group, infected with a second strain of HIV, A244, was discovered in 1995, and a revised, bivalent version of the vaccine was produced that combined elements of both MN and A244. Phase I and Phase II tests of the first version were promising, showing excellent safety in chimpanzees and humans and provoking production of HIV MN and A244 antibodies in 99% of human volunteers.
VaxGen's leadership enthusiastically applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for permission to undertake Phase III studies in the U. S. on large numbers of at-risk volunteers. But since some of the Phase I and Phase II volunteers had become infected with HIV while taking the vaccine, showing that the vaccine was not 100% effective, and it was not proven that the vaccine itself hadn't caused these infections, the FDA and other members of the medical community hesitated and finally declined to approve Phase III testing "until more was learned about HIV immunity", despite the fact that early versions of successful vaccines have rarely been 100% effective, and even the 1955 Salk polio vaccine was only 70% effective, superseded as it was seven years later by the Sabin vaccine. With human lives at stake, however, the FDA could not risk condoning further trials until it knew what had caused the infections.
Another problem with AIDSVAX was that it provoked an entirely humoral, antibody immune response in its subjects, unlike other HIV vaccines in development in Europe and elsewhere that were provoking balanced antibody and cellular defenses.
In response, VaxGen turned to the international community, seeking a place that would sanction clinical trials of AIDSVAX, and after negotiating with AIDS-plagued officials in Africa and Asia, landed upon Thailand. Initial Phase II trials of AIDSVAX B/B alone in the US and AIDVAX B/E alone in Thailand were unsuccessful, with both vaccines failing to either prevent or weaken HIV infection, so instead VaxGen began Thai trials of AIDSVAX B/E in combination with the Aventis-Pasteur vaccine, ALVAC-HIV, that uses genetic elements of several different HIV strains encapsulated in a harmless canarypox virus vector. AIDSVAX B/E, moreover, contained elements of the HIV strain peculiar to Thailand's victims, E, as well as one common in the US, B.
A report published in the December 2009 "New England Journal of Medicine" on this Thailand clinical trial, also known as the RV144 trial, of the vaccine known as "ALVAC-AIDSVAX B/E" showed the combination treatment's efficacy ranging from 26.1 to 31.4%, which though far from optimal makes the combination AIDSVAX-Aventis vaccine one of the first important milestones in the world's struggle to produce a globally effective HIV vaccine. However, during the study seven participants were removed from the study when the results showed they had already been found with an HIV-1 infection at baseline, which changed the result from 26.1 to 31.4% vaccination efficacy.


MMP20

Matrix metalloproteinase-20 (MMP-20) also known as enamel metalloproteinase or enamelysin is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the "MMP20" gene.
Function.
Proteins of the matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) family are involved in the breakdown of extracellular matrix in normal physiological processes, such as embryonic development, reproduction, and tissue remodeling, as well as in disease processes, such as arthritis and metastasis. Most MMP's are secreted as inactive proproteins which are activated when cleaved by extracellular proteinases.
MMP-20, also known as enamelysin, appears to be the only MMP that is tooth-specific and it is expressed by cells of different developmental origin (i.e. epithelial ameloblasts and mesenchymal odontoblasts).
Clinical significance.
The human MMP-20 gene contains 10 exons and is part of a cluster of matrix metalloproteinase genes that localize to human chromosome 11q22.3. A mutation in this gene, which alters the normal splice pattern and results in premature termination of the encoded protein, has been associated with amelogenesis imperfecta. Enamel in the absence of MMP-20 is hypoplastic (thin), contains less mineral (only one-third as much total mineral as wild type), and contains more protein and water. In general, MMP-20 functions in enamel are to cleave enamel matrix proteins at specific cleavage sites.


Amanda Swart

Amanda Cecilia Swart is a South African biochemist who holds a professorship in biochemistry at Stellenbosch University. She is known for her research on rooibos, a herbal tea popular in South Africa, has been funded by the South African Rooibos Council in her research, and is frequently quoted in South African media promoting the reported health benefits of rooibos.
Education and career.
Swart completed her MSc in Biology in 1986 and her doctorate at Stellenbosch in 1999, and returned to Stellenbosch as a faculty member in 2002, where she teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in biochemistry. She was instrumental in establishing the P450 Steroid Research Group at Stellenbosch and in 2011 she was appointed associate professor. Her research areas include: Adrenal steroidogenesis, cytochrome P450 enzymes, prostate cancer, and products derived from the plants "Aspalatus linearis" (Rooibos), "Salsola tuberculatiformis" Botch. (Gannabos) and "Sutherlandia frutescens" (Cancer bush).
Research.
Her primary research focus, and that of the P450 Steroid Research Group, is on the hormones (adrenal steroids) produced by the adrenal gland as well as on the steroidogenic enzymes which catalyse their biosynthesis, the metabolism of these steroids in prostate cancer, and their implications in endocrine disorders. Their research also involves the investigation of the effects of plant products on the endocrine system.
Swart's research has been sponsored by the National Research Foundation, Cancer Association of South Africa and the SA Rooibos Council.
The research is broken into three focus areas:
11β-hydroxyandrostenedione.
11β-hydroxyandrostenedione is an adrenal steroid and has been implicated in prostate cancer as well as castration-resistant prostate cancer. Swart investigates the mechanism of this steroid within prostate cancer cells and other cancer cells.
Rooibos.
There are two avenues of research regarding rooibos that Swart is pursuing.
Prostate cancer metabolism.
Swart's research has suggested that rooibos may have beneficial effects on prostate cancer by inhibiting 17β-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases and blocking dihydrotestosterone. Her research is also looking at the effect of rooibos on the PSA enzyme marker which is used as a test for prostate cancer.
Cortisol and stress.
Her research has suggested that drinking rooibos may lower stress through the effects of two compounds in it, aspalathin and nothofagin. Under laboratory conditions these compounds block the production of a stress hormone, cortisol. She has claimed that rooibos has the potential to prevent heart disease, reduce the effects of aging, and promote weight loss.


Tandem exon duplication

Tandem exon duplication is defined as duplication of exons within the same gene to give rise to the subsequent exon. A complete exon analysis of all genes in "Homo sapiens", "Drosophila melanogaster", and "Caenorhabditis elegans" has shown 12,291 instances of tandem duplication in exons in human, fly, and worm. Analysis of the intronic region has produced further 4,660 unidentified duplicated exons referred to as unannotated exons. 1,578 of these unannotated exons contained stop codons thus not considered potential exons. 35.1% of the unannotated exons were found in the EST sequence thus confirming the potential of the presence of these exons in protein transcripts.


Kyotorphin

Kyotorphin (-tyrosyl--arginine) is a neuroactive dipeptide which plays a role in pain regulation in the brain. It was first isolated from bovine brain, by Japanese scientists in 1979. Kyotorphin was named for the site of its discovery, Kyoto, Japan and because of its morphine- (or endorphin-) like analgesic activity. Kyotorphin has an analgesic effect, but it does not interact with the opioid receptors. Instead, it acts by releasing met-enkephalin and stabilizing it from degradation. It may also possess properties of neuromediator/neuromodulator. It has been shown that kyotorphin is present in the human cerebrospinal fluid and that its concentration is lower in patients with persistent pain.


Rubiscolin

The rubiscolins are a group of opioid peptides that are formed during digestion of the ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco) protein from spinach leaves. These peptides have much in common with the better-known gluten exorphins.
Types of Rubiscolin.
There are 2 known rubiscolins with known structure:
Studies on Rubiscolin.
Studies have been conducted on rubiscolin structure and biological responses following its digestion. The tertiary structure and biological function of spinach-derived rubiscolin has been analyzed in the laboratory. When rubiscolin is digested, studies have shown that rubiscolin has the potential to bind to δ opioid receptors in the body. The analysis of the amino acids responsible for this agonistic relationship of rubiscolin with δ opioid receptors can lead to replication of these proteins in the lab. Rubiscolin has the capability to bind to δ opioid receptors following its digestion. Upon the digestion of rubiscolin from spinach with the protease pepsin, peptides MRWRD, MRW, LRIPVA, AND IAYKPAG were found and purified. These peptides were found to have binding capabilities with angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE), which catalyze an antihypertensive, or decreased blood pressure, response. When treated to rats in the laboratory, MRW, MRWRD, and IAYKPAG resulted in antihypertensive responses in hypertensive rats 2 hours, 4 hours, and 4 hours, respectively, after ingestion of the peptides. The peptide LRIPVA did not induce any antihypertensive responses from laboratory rats. The tertiary structure of rubiscolin has been mapped and the δ opioid receptor and ACE binding capabilities have been researched in the lab.


BQ-788

BQ-788 is a selective ETB antagonist.


Relief Therapeutics

Relief Therapeutics is a Swiss biopharmaceutical company based in Geneva. The company was founded in 2013 and currently holds a patent for RLF-100, a synthetic form of a natural peptide that protects the lung. It was incorporated as Relief Therapeutics Holdings AG (RFLB.S) and listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange in 2016.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists at Relief conducted initial studies into the efficacy of RLF-100 in treating severe COVID-19 patients. In June 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted fast-track designation to RLF-100 for treatment of respiratory distress in COVID-19. In September 2020, Relief partnered with US-Israeli firm NeuroRX, who submitted a request for an Emergency Use Authorization to the US FDA for its use in patients in intensive care.


Abarelix

Abarelix, sold under the brand name Plenaxis, is an injectable gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonist (GnRH antagonist) which is marketed in Germany and the Netherlands. It is primarily used in oncology to reduce the amount of testosterone made in patients with advanced symptomatic prostate cancer for which no other treatment options are available.
It was originally marketed by Praecis Pharmaceuticals as "Plenaxis", and is now marketed by Speciality European Pharma in Germany after receiving a marketing authorization in 2005. The drug was introduced in the United States in 2003, but was discontinued in this country in May 2005 due to poor sales and a higher-than-expected incidence of severe allergic reactions. It remains marketed in Germany and the Netherlands however.


Hfq protein

The Hfq protein (also known as HF-I protein) encoded by the hfq gene was discovered in 1968 as an "Escherichia coli" host factor that was essential for replication of the bacteriophage Qβ. It is now clear that Hfq is an abundant bacterial RNA binding protein which has many important physiological roles that are usually mediated by interacting with Hfq binding sRNA.
In "E. coli", Hfq mutants show multiple stress response related phenotypes. The Hfq protein is now known to regulate the translation of two major stress transcription factors ( σS (RpoS) and σE (RpoE) ) in Enterobacteria. It also regulates sRNA in "Vibrio cholerae", a specific example being MicX sRNA.
In "Salmonella typhimurium", Hfq has been shown to be an essential virulence factor as its deletion attenuates the ability of "S.typhimurium" to invade epithelial cells, secrete virulence factors or survive in cultured macrophages. In "Salmonella", Hfq deletion mutants are also non motile and exhibit chronic activation of the sigma mediated envelope stress response. A CLIP-Seq study of Hfq in "Salmonella" has revealed 640 binding sites across the "Salmonella" transcriptome. The majority of these binding sites was found in mRNAs and sRNAs.
In "Photorhabdus luminescens", a deletion of the "hfq" gene causes loss of secondary metabolite production.
Hfq mediates its pleiotropic effects through several mechanisms. It interacts with regulatory sRNA and facilitates their antisense interaction with their targets. It also acts independently to modulate mRNA decay (directing mRNA transcripts for degradation) and also acts as a repressor of mRNA translation. Genomic SELEX has been used to show that Hfq binding RNAs are enriched in the sequence motif 5'-AAYAAYAA-3'. Hfq was also found to act on ribosome biogenesis in "E. coli", specifically on the 30S subunit. Hfq mutants accumulate higher levels of immature small subunits and decreased translation accuracy. This function on the bacterial ribosome could also account for the pleiotropic effect typical of Hfq deletion strains.
Electron microscopy imaging reveals that, in addition to the expected localization of this protein in cytoplasmic regions and in the nucleoid, an important fraction of Hfq is located in close proximity to the membrane.
Crystallographic structures.
Six crystallographic structures of 4 different Hfq proteins have been published so far; "E. coli" Hfq (), "P. aeruginosa" Hfq in a low salt condition () and a high salt condition (), Hfq from "S. aureus" with bound RNA () and without (), and the Hfq(-like) protein from "M. jannaschii" ().
All six structures confirm the hexameric ring-shape of a Hfq protein complex.
References.
 11. Mol Cell. 2002 Jan;9(1):23-30. Hfq: a bacterial Sm-like protein that mediates RNA-RNA interaction.Møller T1, Franch T, Højrup P, Keene DR, Bächinger HP, Brennan RG, Valentin-Hansen P.
 12. EMBO J. 2002 Jul 1;21(13):3546-56.Structures of the pleiotropic translational regulator Hfq and an Hfq-RNA complex: a bacterial Sm-like protein. Schumacher MA1, Pearson RF, Møller T, Valentin-Hansen P, Brennan RG.


Carboxypeptidase B

Carboxypeptidase B (, "protaminase", "pancreatic carboxypeptidase B", "tissue carboxypeptidase B", "peptidyl-L-lysine [L-arginine]hydrolase") is a carboxypeptidase that preferentially acts upon basic amino acids, such as arginine and lysine. This serum enzyme is also responsible for rapidly metabolizing the C5a protein into C5a des-Arg, with one less amino acid.


Mycena manipularis

Mycena manipularis is a species of agaric fungus in the family Mycenaceae. Found in Australasia, Malaysia, and the Pacific islands, the mycelium and fruit bodies of the fungus are bioluminescent.


Denis Wirtz

Denis Wirtz is the vice provost for research and Theophilus Halley Smoot Professor of Engineering Science at Johns Hopkins University. He is an expert in the molecular and biophysical mechanisms of cell motility and adhesion and nuclear dynamics in health and disease.
Wirtz was the first to establish how a 3-dimensional environment fundamentally affects the way cancer cells migrate, providing more biologically and medically relevant information than 2D studies. He also pioneered the technique of particle-tracking microrheology to probe the rheological properties of complex fluids and living cells and tissues. He is a professor in the Departments of Chemical Engineering & Biomolecular Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering in the Whiting School of Engineering, and in the Departments of Oncology and Pathology in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Wirtz was named vice provost for research in February 2014, charged with directing the university's $2.24 billion research enterprise, implementing institutional research compliance, expanding research development, and producing and managing cross-divisional research initiatives, such as the Johns Hopkins Catalyst and Discovery Awards program, the President's Frontier Award program, and the Bloomberg Distinguished Professorships, which were established as part of a $350 million gift by Michael Bloomberg.
Biography.
Wirtz was born in the Ixelles municipality of Brussels, Belgium. He is fluent in English and French, and became a U.S. citizen in 2007. Wirtz earned a physics engineering degree at the Ecole Polytechnique of the Université libre de Bruxelles in 1988.
With a Hoover Fellowship from the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF), he earned an M.S. and Ph.D in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University, working in polymer physics. He was then granted a fellowship through the European Union’s Human Capital and Mobility program to conduct postdoctoral research at the Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielles (ESPCI) in Paris, France.
Wirtz joined the faculty of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 1994 and was promoted to the rank of full professor in 2003. In 2009, he was selected to be the Theophilus Halley Smoot Professor of Engineering Science with secondary appointments in the departments of Materials Science and Engineering, Pathology and Oncology, where he collaborates with fellow researchers in the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Upon his appointment as the Theophilius Halley Smoot Professor of Engineering Physics , Dr. Nicholas Jones, former dean of the Whiting School of Engineering, stated "Throughout his time at Johns Hopkins, Denis has distinguished himself as an outstanding scholar and teacher. Additionally, Denis’ role as a catalyst for interdisciplinary research and collaboration at the university has proven extremely effective, both in terms of the research he conducts and the support he has attracted over the years. I am confident that his current research into the physical basis for cell adhesion and de-adhesion will prove critical to our understanding of the metastasis of cancer and enable important breakthroughs in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer in the years to come."In February 2014, Wirtz was named the vice provost for research at Johns Hopkins . In announcing the Wirtz’s appointment, Provost Robert C. Lieberman stated, "As is obvious to all who know him, Denis is an extremely productive and accomplished faculty member and a wonderful colleague. Those traits will serve both Denis and the university as he works with me to support important multidisciplinary research projects, including the strategic initiatives identified in the campaign, the Bloomberg Distinguished Professorships, and multidivisional proposals in response to RFAs (requests for applications)."
Vice provost.
In his role as vice provost for research, Wirtz has recruited nearly two dozen faculty to join Johns Hopkins University as Bloomberg Distinguished Professors, managed the inaugural year of the Catalyst and Discovery Awards, and the first two President’s Frontier Awards. He has expanded the university’s research development efforts, creating a weekly digest of limited submission opportunities, a list of more than 175 funding opportunities for postdoctoral researchers, a list of more than 330 funding opportunities for early career faculty, and consolidated monthly digests of internal funding opportunities at the institution. He also consolidated multiple research administration offices into a central research administration team, Johns Hopkins University Research Administration. As director of the university's Signature Initiatives, he has overseen the launch of two new signature initiatives on big data, led by Alex Szalay, and space studies, Space@Hopkins, led by Charles L. Bennett. These are in addition to Kathryn Edin’s 21st Century Cities Initiative, Barbara Landau’s Science of Learning Institute, Scott Zeger’s Individualized Health Initiative, and David Peters’ Global Health Signature Initiative.
Wirtz also directs the Johns Hopkins Physical Sciences-Oncology Center (PSOC), , which is part of a network of twelve centers in the United States funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute to link the physical sciences with the study of cancer. When the center was established with a $14.8M grant in 2009, Wirtz stated, "For too long, not enough room has been made for nonconventional and nonbiological concepts borrowed from modern physics and engineering to tackle this disease. It is time to bring to the table ideas grounded in chemical and biomolecular engineering principles to develop new therapies and diagnostic tools. [The National Cancer Institute has] given us major funding for a center to study all the steps in the metastatic cascade." The PSOC is part of the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology (INBT), which Wirtz co-founded and acts as associate director. INBT was launched in 2006 to "promote multidisciplinary research at the interface of nanotechnology and medicine." With more than 250 affiliated faculty members from the Johns Hopkins schools of Engineering, Arts and Sciences, Medicine, and Public Health and scientists from the Applied Physics Laboratory, the institute is home to several center grants and numerous education, training, and outreach programs. INBT counts Becton Dickinson, MedImmune, Northrop Grumman, Secant Medical, and Under Armour among its corporate partners, and Wirtz has previously served as a Nikon Partner in Science since 2008.
Wirtz is the PI of a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site in the Nanotechnology for Biology and Bioengineering program. Wirtz also founded the Johns Hopkins Center for Digital Pathology that brings together pathologists, surgeons, oncologists, and engineers to develop new single-cell technology for improved diagnostic, prognostic, therapeutic approaches for human diseases, including cancer, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and frailty in aging. He co-directs the Cancer Nanotechnology Training Center, another National Cancer Institute-funded entity. From 2005 to 2012, he also directed a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) funded interdisciplinary graduate research training program in nanotechnology for biology and medicine. The program aimed to produce researchers able to create new particles and materials to be used in the detection, treatment, prevention, and cure of human disease. It recruited students from biochemistry, chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering, while making a special effort to include minorities under-represented in science.
Awards and distinctions.
Wirtz was elected fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2006 for "major contributions in molecular cell mechanics and the development of particle tracking methods for cell and molecular biology." In 2009, he was elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2009 "for contributions to cell micromechanics and cell adhesion and for the development and application of particle tracking methods to probe the micromechanical properties of living cells in normal conditions and disease state." Wirtz was elected fellow of the American Physical Society in 2010 for "his seminal contributions to the understanding of basic cellular functions through the development and application of novel biophysical methods grounded in statistical mechanics and polymer physics." In 2011, he was elected member of the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF).
Wirtz is also a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biophysical Society, American Society for Microbiology, American Society for Cell Biology, American Society for Microbiology, and Society of Rheology.
Wirtz is a 1996 recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for: “A Research and Teaching Program in Complex Fluids Dynamics.”. In 1997, he received the Whitaker Foundation’s Biomedical Engineering Award. In collaboration with Benjamin Shapiro, Elisabeth Smela and Pamela Ann Abshire, Wirtz was awarded the 2004 Physical Science Invention of the Year Award by the University of Maryland Office of Technology Commercialization. The team invented a Cell Sensor Based Pathogen Detection that will enable “selective pathogran detection by exploiting the signalizing machinery of living cells.
Since 2008, he has been the Editor-in-Chief of "Cell Health and the Cytoskeleton". He is on the Editorial Boards of "Scientific Reports", "Cell Adhesion & Migration", "World Journal of Biological Chemistry", and "TECHNOLOGY". Wirtz formerly served on the editorial boards of "Physical Biology", "Journal of the Royal Society Interface Focus", "Biophysical Journal", "Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine", as an ad hoc editor for the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America", as the guest editor of a Special Issue of "Physical Biology" on physical oncology, and as the editor of the Cell Biophysics section of "Comprehensive Biophysics". Wirtz also served as an expert advisor to the study panel of the international Assessment of Physical sciences and Engineering advances in Life sciences and Oncology (APHELION), which was commissioned by the National Cancer Institute and National Science Foundation in order to “determine the status and trends of applying physical sciences and engineering principles to oncology research and development in leading laboratories and organizations in Europe via an on-site peer review process.”
Recent plenary talks include: ASME 2015 4th Global Congress on NanoEngineering for Medicine and Biology; 2015 Cell Mechanics, Morphogenesis and Pattern Formation Workshop, Isaac Newton Institute at the University of Cambridge; 2015 MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit; 2015 American Society for Cell Biology Cell Biology Annual Meeting; 2014 Longrifles Cancer Seminar, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; and 2014 IUTAM Symposium on Mechanics of Soft Active Materials; 2013 The Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC) annual conference in Coimbra, Portugal; distinguished lecturer at the Cancer Nanotechnology Training Center, University of Kentucky.
In 2019, we was elected as a foreign member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine (ARMB).
Research.
Bridging the fields of chemical engineering, oncology, pathology, biophysics, and materials science, Wirtz's research focuses on the biophysical properties of healthy and diseased cells, including interactions between adjacent cells and the role of cellular architecture on nuclear shape and gene expression. His research interests include cell biophysics, aging, tumor microenvironment, digital pathology, the actin cap, single molecule manipulation, intracellular particle trafficking, instrument development, tissue engineering, and nanotechnology in biology and medicine. He has made important contributions to molecular and biophysical mechanisms of cell motility and adhesion and nuclear dynamics in health and disease, and he pioneered the method of particle-tracking microrheology to probe the rheological properties of complex fluids and living cells and tissues.
Wirtz currently holds several patents on his work.
Wirtz's lab identified fundamental differences between conventional 2D migration and more physiologically relevant 3D migration in cancer cells, creating new understanding of the tumor microenvironment and metastasis. In particular, they found that the nucleus, focal adhesion molecules, the lamina, LINC complexes, and matrix metalloproteinase (MMPs) play a central role in 3D migration (migration in 3D collagen-rich matrices) that is not predicted or extrapolated from the better known 2D case (use of a Petri dish).
"Supporting Publications:"
Wirtz developed novel tools and concepts to study the role of nucleus and nuclear connections to the cytoskeleton and key cell functions, including 2D and 3D cell migration and adhesion, mechanosensation, and mechanotransduction. In particular, he identified LINC complexes and the so-called perinuclear actin cap as key mediators of physical signaling between the cytoplasm and the nuclear interior. More recently, he discovered that the nuclear lamina of adherent cells is polarized through the actin cap, which in turn polarizes hyper-acetylated forms of histones in the nucleus. "Supporting Publications:"
Using single-molecule force spectroscopy, his lab showed how intracellular molecules such as a-catenin and b-catenin modulate cell-cell adhesion mediated by E-cadherin. "Supporting Publications:"
Publications.
Wirtz has published nearly 200 peer-reviewed articles published in "Science, Nature, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Methods, Nature Reviews Cancer, Nature Materials, Nature Protocols, PNAS, Nature Communications", and "Journal of Cell Biology." He has an h-index of 83.
External links.
Pathology and Oncology,


Amphichiral knot


Gregory J. Martin

Captain Gregory J. Martin, M.D., is an American medical doctor and captain in the United States Navy. Martin is a recognized expert in the fields of infectious diseases and bioterrorism.
Biography.
Martin received his B.S. in Biology from Fairfield University in 1980 and M.D. from the Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1986. Martin completed both his Internal Medicine Internship from 1986 to 1987 and his Internal Medicine Residency from 1989 to 1991 at the Naval Medical Center San Diego. He completed an Infectious Disease Fellowship at the National Naval Medical Center between 1991 and 1993.
In 2002, the United States Secretary of the Navy conferred the Legion of Merit Award upon Martin for his pivotal role in the five-month investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks as well as his role as the on-site infectious disease physician on Capitol Hill during the attacks and the treatment of the staff of Senator Tom Daschle in the aftermath of the attacks. Having served as the principal investigator for the anthrax vaccination protocol set up by the Centers for Disease Control following the attacks, he is also the lead author of a study of the clinical and immunologic responses to anthrax exposure.
In 2003, Martin led the military medical team that examined and cared for the United States Marines ill with malaria contracted while spending two weeks ashore in Liberia. More than 40 service members from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit based out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, who were deployed to Liberia in support of Joint Task Force Liberia became sick aboard two Navy ships, the USS Carter Hall and the USS Iwo Jima. Fearing worse, Martin's testing efforts ruled out contagious diseases, like Lassa fever or ebola which have much-higher mortality rates.
Martin is currently the director of the Infectious Disease Clinical Research Program (IDCRP) at the Uniformed Services University (USU). Previously, he served as Assistant Dean for Special Programs at USU, focused on the development of graduate courses and training in weapons of mass destruction. He also was the Infectious Disease Program Director at the National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center.


Suksin Lee

Suksin Lee (; October 6, 1896/7 – December 12, 1944) was a Korean biochemist and physician. He is considered a pioneer of biochemistry in Korea, having been the first Korean to obtain a Ph.D. and to hold a full-time professorship in that field. His studies of glucose metabolism and the chemical composition of common foods contributed to the scientific analysis of nutrition in the Korean diet.
Biography.
Early life and education.
Suksin Lee was born in P'yŏngannam-do, Korea, the son of I Myŏngse and a woman of the Koksan Kang family. He earned his medical degree from Kyŏngsŏng Medical College (now Seoul National University) in 1921, and obtained his medical license in August of that year. After graduation, he studied pathology for several months at Tokyo Imperial University in Japan. He then traveled to Germany in 1922 to pursue additional studies.
After completing preliminary language instruction and various coursework in chemistry and physiological chemistry at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin, he earned a doctorate of medicine in 1926. Lee’s inaugural dissertation, "Ueber Glykolyse", was a study of inorganic phosphates during blood glycolysis. His thesis advisors at the time included Otto Lubarsch of the Chemistry Department at the Pathological Institute, University of Berlin.
While in his final year of studies, Lee obtained a position as a research assistant at a national hospital in Berlin, where he worked and researched until 1927. During this time he published and co-published several papers on the effects of photosensitive substances on glucose metabolism and cellular respiration.
Scientific career.
Returning to his native Korea, he began studies of the staple Korean diet and its effects on metabolism as a research assistant at Kyŏngsŏng Medical College in February 1928. He was appointed an instructor of physiology in the department of biochemistry of Severance Union Medical College (now Yonsei University College of Medicine) and an adjunct instructor of dietetics at Ewha Women's University College of Medicine.
In 1932, Suksin Lee was the first Korean to earn a Ph.D. in biochemistry for his thesis, "A Study on the Eating Habits of Koreans", presented to Kyoto Imperial University on the nutrition and metabolism of prisoners in Korea. Among his advisers at the time was Professor Sato of Keijo Imperial University.
He was then appointed full-time professor of biochemistry in 1933 at Severance, the first Korean to hold such a position. He continued to lead the department, later serving as Severance's Dean of Student Affairs, until his death aged approximately 47 of a cerebral hemorrhage on December 12, 1944.
Contributions.
As the first Ph.D and full-time professor of biochemistry in Korea, Lee contributed to the establishment of biochemistry as a newly organized field of study in Korea.
He began with a study of glycolysis. In the late 1920s, the role of phosphorylated compounds in glycolysis had not yet been fully explained. Lee’s work touched on early aspects of intermediary carbohydrate metabolism, which was also the subject of Nobel Prize-winning research by Otto Fritz Meyerhof, Otto Heinrich Warburg, and Hans Adolf Krebs.
Lee maintained an interest in factors affecting glucose metabolism upon his return to Korea, where he continued his research with published studies of the Korean diet. Building upon work begun in 1928, he investigated the problem of identifying and quantifying the nutritional elements of the staple Korean diet and its effects on metabolism. He identified nutritional sources in these foods for the healthy development of Korean children and adults during the Japanese occupation of Korea.
In addition to teaching and editing, Lee authored and co-authored at least 10 scientific papers and articles in several languages throughout his brief career. He did all of this despite working under conditions of widespread rationing at the end of World War II.
Legacy.
In 2014 and 2016, the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Yonsei University College of Medicine, hosted academic symposiums to commemorate his life’s work.
A Special Memorial Exhibition was also held in 2015 at the Dong-Eun Museum of Medical Science in Seoul, Korea. The exhibit included a collection of papers left by the late Suksin Lee.


3,4-Dihydroxyphenylacetic acid

3,4-Dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) is a metabolite of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine can be metabolized into one of three substances. One such substance is DOPAC. Another is 3-methoxytyramine (3-MT). Both of these substances are degraded to form homovanillic acid (HVA). Both degradations involve the enzymes monoamine oxidase (MAO) and catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT), albeit in reverse order: MAO catalyzes dopamine to DOPAC, and COMT catalyzes DOPAC to HVA; whereas COMT catalyzes dopamine to 3-MT and MAO catalyzes 3-MT to HVA. The third metabolic end-product of dopamine is norepinephrine (noradrenaline).
DOPAC can be oxidized by hydrogen peroxide, leading to the formation of toxic metabolites which destroy dopamine storage vesicles in the substantia nigra. This may contribute to the failure of levodopa treatment of Parkinson's disease. A MAO-B inhibitor such as selegiline or rasagiline can prevent this from happening.
It can also be found in the bark of "Eucalyptus globulus".
This product has been synthesized (52% yield) from 4-hydroxyphenylacetic acid via aerobic biotransformation using whole cell cultures of "Arthrobacter protophormiae".


Cell Calcium

Cell Calcium is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Elsevier that covers the field of cell biology and focuses mainly on calcium signalling and metabolism in living organisms.
Abstracting and indexing.
The journal is abstracted and indexed in:
According to the "Journal Citation Reports", "Cell Calcium" has a 2012 impact factor of 4.327.


Psycholeptic

In pharmacology, a psycholeptic is a medication which produces a calming effect upon a person. Such medications include barbiturates, benzodiazepines, nonbenzodiazepines, phenothiazines, opiates/opioids, carbamates, ethanol, 2-methyl-2-butanol, cannabinoids (in some classifications), some antidepressants, neuroleptics, and some anticonvulsants. Many herbal medicines may also be classified as psycholeptics (e.g. kava)
The psycholeptics are classified under N05 in the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System.


North African elephant shrew

The North African elephant shrew ("Petrosaltator rozeti") or North African sengi is a species of elephant shrew in the family Macroscelididae. It is found in Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia, and (since the extinction of the North African elephant) is the only extant afrotherian within its range. The species was formerly classified in the genus "Elephantulus", but molecular evidence indicates that it is more closely related to "Petrodromus" than to other members of "Elephantulus". It was moved to a new genus, "Petrosaltator", in 2016.
The split with "Petrodromus" likely occurred during the Miocene period.
Description.
The North African elephant-shrew is a little rodent-like in appearance, having a small body, large ears, and a long tail. It weighs around , which is very light compared to other sengis). The total length is from , of which the tail is . The fur on the upper body varies from yellowish brown to pale sandy-pink, and the fur on the underside is white. It has a long flexible snout, typical of the elephant-shrews, which can be moved in a circular fashion and the nostrils are located towards the tip of the snout, with long sensory whiskers growing at the base of the snout. The rear legs are longer than the forelimbs, an adaptation for running and jumping. North African elephant-shrews use well-developed glands, placed under the tail, for marking territory. The adult specimen has 42 teeth, with a dental formula of .
Distribution.
It is present in northwestern Africa from the northern Western Sahara to western Libya.
Habitat.
Its natural habitats are Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation and deserts.
Habits.
The North African sengi typically gives birth to litters of 1 to 4 young twice a year.


Urolithin B

Urolithin B is an urolithin, a type of phenolic compounds produced in the human gut after absorption of ellagitannins-containing food such as pomegranate, strawberries, red raspberries, walnuts or oak-aged red wine. Urolithin B is found in the urine in the form of urolithin B glucuronide.


Richard W. Jones

Richard Ward Jones was a biomedical engineer and authority on physiological control systems.
Education.
His BS was from the University of Minnesota, 1926. His MS in physics was from Northwestern University, 1941, under Walter S. Huxford for a thesis entitled: "Discharge Across Very Small Gaps."
Career.
Dick Jones worked at Northwestern University until his retirement in 1971, where he pioneered the biomedical engineering program there.
Honors.
He was elected to Fellow of the IEEE in 1965, and his citation reads "For contributions in the fields of physiological control systems and biomedical engineering education."


Guanosine-triphosphate guanylyltransferase

In enzymology, a guanosine-triphosphate guanylyltransferase () is an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction
Hence, this enzyme has one substrate, GTP, and two products, diphosphate and P1,P4-bis(5'-guanosyl) tetraphosphate.
This enzyme belongs to the family of transferases, specifically those transferring phosphorus-containing nucleotide groups (nucleotidyltransferases). The systematic name of this enzyme class is GTP:GTP guanylyltransferase. Other names in common use include diguanosine tetraphosphate synthetase, GTP-GTP guanylyltransferase, Gp4G synthetase, and guanosine triphosphate-guanose triphosphate guanylyltransferase.


Lysine riboswitch

The Lysine riboswitch is a metabolite binding RNA element found within certain messenger RNAs that serve as a precision sensor for the amino acid lysine. Allosteric rearrangement of mRNA structure is mediated by ligand binding, and this results in modulation of gene expression. Lysine riboswitch are most abundant in Firmicutes and Gammaproteobacteria where they are found upstream of a number of genes involved in lysine biosynthesis, transport and catabolism. The lysine riboswitch has also been identified independently and called the L box.
Structure.
The structure of the lysine riboswitch has recently been determined. The lysine amino acid is bound in the pocket formed by the 5-way junction. The structure is composed of a three helical bundle and a two helical bundle joined by the 5-way junction. Helices 1 and 2 are stacked in a colinear fashion as are helices 4 and 5.


Argadin

Argadin is a cyclic peptide natural product, investigated for its ability to be a nanomolar inhibitor of Family-18 Chitinases.


Celiprolol

Celiprolol is a medication in the class of beta blockers, used in the treatment of high blood pressure. It has a unique pharmacology: it is a selective β1 receptor antagonist, but a β2 receptor partial agonist. It is also a weak α2 receptor antagonist.
Medical use.
Celiprolol is believed to provide clinical benefit for people with vascular Ehlers–Danlos syndrome by promoting normal collagen synthesis in the blood vessels, and by shifting the pressure load away from the vessels most prone to dissection and rupture. In 2019, a new drug application (NDA) for celiprolol was denied by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), instead calling for an “adequate and well-controlled” trial to determine whether celiprolol reduced the risk of clinical events in patients with vEDS.
It was patented in 1973 and approved for medical use in 1982.
Brand names.
Brand names include Cardem, Selectol, Celipres, Celipro, Celol, Cordiax, Dilanorm


Pukateine

Pukateine is an alkaloid found in the bark of the New Zealand tree "Laurelia novae-zelandiae" ("Pukatea"), as well as some South American plants. An extract from pukatea is used in traditional Māori herbal medicine as an analgesic.
Bernard Cracroft Aston studied the physical and chemical characteristics of the compound, and presented a paper with his findings to the Royal Society of New Zealand on May 11, 1909.


Desacetylmetipranolol

Desacetylmetipranolol is the active metabolite of metipranolol.


Soluble NSF attachment protein

Soluble NSF attachment proteins (SNAP, or Sec17p in yeast) are proteins involved in membrane fusion, where they recycle key tethering components after each fusion event. After membrane fusion, the tethering SNARE proteins remain tightly bound to each other. SNAPs bind to the SNARE complex and recruit the soluble ATPase NSF. NSF provides the energy to untangle the SNARE complex, allowing it to be recycled for future fusion events. Mammals have three SNAP genes: α-SNAP, β-SNAP, and γ-SNAP. α- and γ-SNAP are expressed throughout the body, while β-SNAP is specific to the brain.
SNAP proteins were identified by James Rothman's laboratory group in 1990.


GadY

GadY RNA (previously named IS183 in ) is a non-coding RNA. The GadY gene is located on between and on the opposite strand to the GadX and GadW genes. GadY can form base pairs with the 3' UTR of its target mRNA gadX, this pairing is thought to confer increased stability to the transcript, allowing accumulation of gadX (a transcriptional regulator of the acid response) and therefore increased expression of downstream acid resistance genes. The GadY gene produces three overlapping transcripts that differ in length. The long form is 105 nucleotides in length and two processed versions are 59 and 90 nucleotides in length. It has been shown that all three forms of GadY bind to the Hfq protein.


Cripavirus internal ribosome entry site

The Cripavirus internal ribosome entry site (CrPV IRES) is an RNA element required for the production of capsid proteins through ribosome recruitment to an intergenic region IRES (IGR IRES).


5-Methoxy-7,N,N-trimethyltryptamine

5-Methoxy-7,N,N-trimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-7,N,N-TMT, 5-MeO-7-TMT), is a tryptamine derivative which acts as an agonist at the 5-HT2 serotonin receptors. In animal tests, both 7,N,N-TMT and 5-MeO-7,N,N-TMT produced behavioural responses similar to those of psychedelic drugs such as DMT and 5-MeO-DMT, but compounds with larger 7-position substituents such as 7-ethyl-DMT and 7-bromo-DMT did not produce psychedelic-appropriate responding despite high 5-HT2 receptor binding affinity, suggesting these may be antagonists or weak partial agonists for the 5-HT2 receptors. The related compound 7-MeO-MiPT (cf. 5-MeO-MiPT) was also found to be inactive, suggesting that the 7-position has poor tolerance for bulky groups at this position, at least if agonist activity is desired.


Hebeloma radicosoides

Hebeloma radicosoides is a species of agaric fungus in the family Hymenogastraceae. Found in Japan, it was described as new to science in 2000. The mushroom's long rooting stipe and membranous ring give it an appearance similar to "H. radicosum". Like that species, it is also an ammonia fungus, growing on soil containing urea.


Lig RNA thermometer

Lig RNA thermometer is a "cis"-acting non-coding RNA element that controls "ligA" and "ligB" gene expression in "Leptospira interrogans" in response to temperature change. The lipoproteins LigA and LigB stimulate adhesion of the element and then hosting proteins. The RNA that composes of 175-nucleotide 5'UTR and the first six "lig" codons (identical in "ligA" and "ligB") folds into two distinct-stem loop structures. "Lig" expression is limited by these double-stranded RNA structures because they occludes the ribosome-binding site. At higher temperatures, the ribosome binding site is exposed to promote translation initiation.