Genome Alberta's Official Newsletter

Genome Alberta Newsletter GeneSnips - December 2, 2008

Genome Alberta News

Genome Alberta and the Calgary FoodBank

Genome Alberta is joining Calgary Technologies, CBC, PetroCanada, the FoodBank, and a host of other organizations and individuals to help feed the homeless this year. You can drop off food donations in the lobby of our building starting December 7^th and running through to December 19^th.  We’ll be taking cash donations in our office and can give you a tax receipt on the spot.  We’ll be presenting the donations live on CBC Radio so we hope to be able to make it a sizable gift. Then on December 22^nd Genome Alberta staff will be volunteering our time in the lobby of the CBC building to help collect, sort, and load donations that come in that day.

The address for Genome Alberta is 3553-31^st N.W. in Calgary and you can leave food donations in the collection bins in the lobby or come back to our office (Suite 115) to drop off cash donations and get your tax receipt.

We’d like to see Alberta’s sizable research and science community join us in this effort and support those who are having a tough time supporting themselves. The CBC-PetroCanada-FoodBank drive is the largest single source of donations for the FoodBank in the year so anything you can do to make it a resounding success would be appreciated.

If you can’t make it to our building then come down to the lobby of the CBC at 1724 Westmount Blvd. N.W. on December 22^nd and say hello when you leave your contribution.

For more information contact Mike Spear at mspear@genomealberta.ca

BIOAccess Program

If you’re an Alberta-based early stage company with somewhere between 2 and 10 employees and think that attending Bio Atlanta in 2009 is a good fit for your company you should consider applying for the BIOAccess award co-sponsored by Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research and BIOAlberta. There is funding of up to $6,000 each for three companies to help cover the costs of transportation, accommodation and delegate registration. In addition the companies will have shared booth space in the Alberta Pavilion. Last year’s BIO event in San Diego attracted 23,000 participants so the opportunity for exposure is significant.

For complete information please check the BIOAccess Terms and Conditions.

Reservoir Microbiology Forum

On November 25-26, Genome Alberta’s Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Gijs van Rooijen, attended the Reservoir Microbiology Forum, organized by the Energy Institute, in London, UK. Three general observations  came out of the meeting:

1. This industry in general has been slow to embrace genomic technologies and is far behind the medical, agriculture, forestry and environmental genomics communities.
2. Alberta research in this area has very high profile and is well cited.
3. Attendees at the Forum were well aware of the hydrocarbon metagenomics efforts/proposal in Alberta and are looking forward to the results.

It was also noted that CSIRO, an Australia-based Research organization, and Delft University in the Netherlands also have plans to initiate research effort in this area.

To view information on Genome Alberta’s plans in the field of Petroleum Metagenomics please visit our website.

Ontario Researchers Play Key Role in Identifying New Colorectal Cancer Gene

Researchers from Ottawa and Toronto played a key role in an international team that identified four new genes for colorectal cancer. The discovery, published online in Nature Genetics on November 16, 2008, examined 38,710 genetic markers in 13,315 individuals from four countries. A total of 10 genes have now been linked to colorectal cancer, and together these genes could predict up to a six fold increase in the lifetime risk of developing colorectal cancer.

The team included Drs. Brent Zanke, Tom Hudson and Steven Gallinger. Funding was provided by Genome Canada, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) and Cancer Care Ontario.

You can find more details on the Genome Canada website.

Proteomics & Metabolomics Victoria (PMV)

You might want to visit this new site at http://www.pmv.org.au

The web portal is intended to serve a variety of audiences including researchers, suppliers, and the public. In short pretty much anyone interested in Proteomics and Metabolomics.  The site is run by Proteomics and Metabolomics Victoria which is an incorporated association and is supported by the University of Melbourne, the State government of Victoria, and Melbourne Research Unit for Facial Disorders. There are  ‘Learn’, ‘Get Help’ , and ‘Purchase’ sections and the site it open to anyone who wished to participate or draw information.

Sign of the Times?

The hammers and cranes have stopped on the construction of  a new 20 storey building in Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District. One of our Genome Centre relatives, the Ontario Genomics Institute is well established in the MaRS Centre which was created as a non-profit innovation centre to help start-up companies in the high tech sector. California-based Alexandria Real Estate Equities was behind  the new addition to the complex, and was building it on speculation without government funding.  The company calls it a temporary halt and construction will resume when conditions improve. Work was also halted on construction of 2 similar ventures in San Francisco and New York also backed by Alexandria.

PAG 2009

Don’t forget to make plans to join Genome Alberta and several other Genome Centres and the Plant and Animal Genome Conference in San Diego January 10^th- 14^th.  Details on the conference are available on their website at http://www.intl-pag.org/  and the Canadian Genome Centres will be holding a reception during the conference for invited guests.

Latest Edition of the Canadian Bioinformatics Help Desk Newsletter

http://www.gchelpdesk.ualberta.ca/news/28nov08/cbhd_news_28nov08.htm

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

Brothers of Invention – November 2, 2008
http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/alumni/news.cfm?story=85172
The Wright Brothers, the Brothers Grimm, the Blues Brothers … throughout history and in many different disciplines, pairs of innovative brothers have repeatedly made their mark. And now, another pair of brothers has done so across disciplines. Brothers Sean Caulfield, ’96 MFA, ’92 BFA, an art professor, and Timothy Caulfield, ’90 LLB, ’87 BSc , a law professor—both at the U of A—have joined forces to create a new interdisciplinary project, “Imagining Science: An Artistic Exploration of Science, Society and Social Change,” part of the University’s “Festival of Ideas.”Part book, part gallery exhibit and all intellectual and creative exploration, “Imagining Science” combines the talents of 10 artists and 10 social scientists to address some of the most pressing issues in bioethics today. The project makes its debut on November 14, with a panel discussion at 5:00 p.m. at Enterprise Square, followed by the gallery opening of the artists’ work at the Art Gallery of Alberta at 7:00 p.m. A book, edited by the brothers and published by the University of Alberta Press, will also be available at both events. The Caulfields’ project examines the rapid changes to our world from advancements in genetics, biotechnology and human engineering, in particular the challenges and opportunities from recent technologies such as stem cell research, cloning and genetic testing. It also stresses the important role  art can play in critiquing these new technologies. Works vary from an essay by Trudo Lemmens about the controversy raised by the “plasticized pregnant woman” in the successful Body Worlds exhibition to a gallery installation of photographs by the British artist Christine Borland of SimMan, an eerily life-like, computer-controlled plastic man used by medical students as a training tool.

Extra-Nutritious Bioengineered Foods Still Years Away – November 3, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/02/AR2008110201939.html
For years, advocates of agricultural biotechnology have promised a future in which foods will be genetically engineered to give more nutrition and to prevent chronic diseases, in which crops will be modified to thrive in salty soil or hot or dry climates and in which consumers will benefit directly from science's ability to tweak other characteristics of plants. So far, however, that has generally not happened, and the main beneficiaries of agricultural biotechnology remain farmers battling pests and weeds that threaten staple crops such as soybeans, corn and cotton, as well as the companies that develop and produce genetically modified seeds. But last week, consumers were reminded of what might be available in the future. Researchers at the British-government-sponsored John Innes Center announced that they had developed a purple tomato that has high levels of beneficial anthocyanins -- antioxidants known to neutralize potentially harmful oxygen molecules, or free radicals, in the body and reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. The genes for the purple tomato came from snapdragons.

Could genetic research awaken racist attitudes? – November 17, 2008
http://www.physorg.com/news146158609.html
People are different, both physically and mentally, but genetically everyone is very similar. That's been the thought of scientists for decades now. But with population research becoming more and more common, the University of Alberta's Tim Caulfield is concerned that genetic research could awaken racist attitudes. Just last year Nobel Prize winning geneticist James Watson claimed there are genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence. These comments made international headlines and Watson later apologized. Caulfield knows that studying racial groups is important. For example, if a researcher is studying health disparities in the United States, they want to know why African Americans have poorer outcomes than those of European descent.
"In that case you're not saying that there's a biological difference because you're incorporating social and economic factors to that definition," said Caulfield. But it's cases where studies look to identify a gene in a population group where things can get complicated. For those research projects, Caulfield brought together an interdisciplinary group to discuss the concerns of the scientific community and come up with ways to avoid it. This group included professionals in anthropology, bioethics, clinical medicine and law among a number of others.

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Genome Alberta in Pictures

The Thousand Plant Gnome Project administered by Genome Alberta and funded by icORE and Alberta Advanced Education and Technology had a very successful media launch on November 14^th.  You can find a selection of pictures from the event at http://picasaweb.google.com/MikesGene/ThousandPlantProjectLaunch#  The pictures are posted under a Creative Commons Non-Profit licence so you are free to use them for non-commercial purposes by crediting Genome Alberta.

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