Genome Alberta's Official Newsletter
Genome Alberta Newsletter GeneSnips - August 19, 2008
Genome Alberta News
-------------------------------------------------------------------------DNA Network
Genome Alberta’s blog pages have been added to the DNA Network a collection of 50 plus blogs are related to genetics and genomics. This means that with every blog entry there will be an updating of the newsfeeds and blog rolls on all of the other sites. We have added the DNA Network feed to the left hand navigation bar on our own blog pages at www.genomealberta.ca/blogs
This means that once you come to our blog page you will also get an update on what is happening on the pages of other members of the network. We encourage you to check our blog postings and the DNA Network. Our pages include a Mountain Pine Beetle blog, Mikenomics from our Communications Director, Gerry Ward’s Education blog and we now have a guest blog all about Biopunk. In case you’re not quite up on the world of science fiction, fantasy, and gaming, Biopunk is devoted to genetics as the mainstay of the fictional worlds that go with the genre. We trust you’ll have fun with Biopunk and realise that science can be just a wee but wild and crazy as well as earnest and serious.
Good Morning America – Good Morning Canada
Christoph Sensen and his CAVEman were recently featured on a segment of Good Morning America. The reporting team was in Alberta earlier this year to do the interviews and get the footage. This was an excellent PR opportunity for the 4D Project and you can catch the segment online at http://abcnews.go.com/Video/
playerIndex?id=5516954 It is a nice piece but you might take note of Calgary being referred to as a quiet, Canadian blue-collar town. After all, we’re a CITY now!
New Face and Voice at Genome Alberta
While Aleishia is off having her baby we are pleased to announce that Keli Bronson will be the new voice on the phone and to first greet you if you drop by our office. Keli will handle reception duties and provide office support and assistance. We welcome her to the GA family and now we're waiting patiently for Aleishia to phone with her news.
Petroleum Metagenomics
Buried deep within hydrocarbon deposits there are microbes quietly doing their job. Whether it is a conventional deposit or the oilsands, there are naturally occuring microbial communities and Genome Alberta is proposing that Alberta put those organisms to work for the province’s oil industry. Metagenomics can provide more environmentally sound ways of getting the last drops of oil out of the ground, use less water in the oil sands, and do a better job of managing tailings ponds. That is, if we can figure out exactly what mechanisms are in place. You can find out more about Genome Alberta’s proposal and about the processes at work by going to http://genomealberta.ca/
research/new_initiatives/oil_ sands/
GE3LS Digest
This is a sample from the GE3LS Digest put out on a regular basis by Genome Alberta’s GE3LS team. If you’d like to receive the full digest, email rhyde-lay@genomealberta.ca
Will Gene Therapy Destroy Sports?: A new age of biotechnology promises bigger, faster, better bodies—and no existing tests will catch it – August 5, 2008
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/the-body/12-will-gene- therapy-destroy-sports
The chime on H. Lee Sweeney’s laptop dings again: another e-mail. He doesn’t rush to open it. He knows what it’s about. He knows what they are all about. The molecular geneticist gets a handful every week—often many more, depending on what is in the news—all begging for the same thing, a miracle. Ding. A woman with carpal tunnel syndrome wants a cure. Ding. A man offers $100,000, his house, and all his possessions to save his wife from dying of a degenerative muscle disease. Ding, ding, ding. Jocks, lots of jocks, plead for quick cures for strained muscles or torn tendons. Weight lifters press for larger deltoids. Sprinters seek a split second against the clock. People volunteer to be guinea pigs. Sweeney has the same reply for each ding. “I tell them it’s illegal and maybe not safe, but they write back and say they don’t care. A high school coach contacted me and wanted to know if we could make enough serum to inject his whole football team. He wanted them to be bigger and stronger and come back from injuries faster, and he thought those were good things.”Researchers able to direct stem cells to create certain progeny – August 6, 2008
http://healthandfitness.sympatico.msn.ca/Researchers+ able+to+direct+stem+cells+to+ create+certain+progeny/News/ ContentPosting?isfa=1& newsitemid=117466044&feedname= CP-HEALTH&show=False&number=0& showbyline=True&subtitle=& detect=&abc=abc&date=True
Canadian researchers have found a way to control embryonic stem cells so they give rise to only one category of cell, a first step in medicine's quest to generate specific tissues to repair or replace parts of the body that are diseased, damaged or just plain worn out. Embryonic stem cells are programmed to spawn all the different cells of the body, from those that make up the brain or heart to those that comprise the liver or skin. Scientists worldwide have been trying to figure out the mechanisms that decide which cell becomes what. In Wednesday's issue of the journal Stem Cell, scientists at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children describe how they prodded stem cells to generate a single category of cell. Called early-stage endoderm cells, they give rise to only certain tissues in the body."By adding a gene, we've essentially been able to take embryonic stem cells, which make everything, and push them a little bit down one particular pathway, the endoderm pathway," senior author Janet Rossant, chief of research at Sick Kids Hospital, said in an interview Wednesday.
Making Genetic Testing Useful: A project aims to convert the slew of newly identified disease-risk genes into useful medical information – July 22, 2008
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/21113/
It's now possible to go online and mail-order genetic tests that will predict your genetic risk for common diseases. But because the meaning of the genetic risk factors flagged--how they boost risk for disease--is not yet clear, such tests have received major criticism. In many cases, it's unclear how to use the findings to improve an individual's health. A new $31 million project aims to address that issue by revisiting large epidemiological studies encompassing tens of thousands of people whose medical status has already been well documented. Scientists will use previously donated DNA samples to identify 100 different variations in the participants, and then sift through data to clarify how they affect health. The results could have a broad impact on public-health recommendations, such as who would benefit most from additional screening for cancer or diabetes. They could also provide new targets for drug development.
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Genome Alberta in Pictures
Genome Alberta’s Chief Scientific Officer Gijs van Rooijen
spoke at a Science Evening put on by the Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery as
part of the Geee! in Genome Exhibit. The Science Evening are every
Wednesday night at the Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery and get underway at
06:30. There is always snacks and refreshments and the night Dr. Van Rooijen
was speaking, you can see everyone ended the event with do-it-yourself sundaes. For more pictures from the Science Evening and
of the Geee! in Genome’s Red Deer stop, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/
This Wednesday, the 20th, Dr. Janice Cooke, the co-leader of the Mountain Pine Beetle project will be at the Red Deer Museum (4525-47a Avenue ) to talk about the work of her and the Alberta-B.C. team working on deciphering the genomics of the Pine Beetle, the pine tree, and the fungus the beetle introduces into the tree.
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