LOS ANGELES, Oct. 31, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Response Genetics, Inc. (RGDX), a company focused on the development and sale of molecular diagnostic tests that help determine a patient's response to cancer therapy, will announce its third quarter 2013 financial results and give an operational update in a press release to be issued before the market opens on Thursday, November 7, 2013. The company will host a conference call that same day at 10:00 a.m. EST to discuss its financial results.

CONFERENCE CALL DETAILS

To access the conference call by phone on November 7 at 10:00 a.m. EST, dial (800) 537-0745 or (253) 237-1142 for international participants. A telephone replay will be available beginning approximately two hours after the call through November 9, 2013, and may be accessed by dialing (855) 859-2056 or (404) 537-3406. The conference passcode for both the live call and replay is 94263838.

To access the live and archived webcast of the conference call, go to the Investor Relations section of the Company's Web site at http://investor.responsegenetics.com/events.cfm. It is advised that participants connect at least 15 minutes prior to the call to allow for any software downloads that might be necessary.

About Response Genetics, Inc.

Response Genetics, Inc. (the "Company") is a CLIA-certified clinical laboratory focused on the development and sale of molecular diagnostic testing services for cancer. The Company's technologies enable extraction and analysis of genetic information derived from tumor cells stored as formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded specimens. The Company's principal customers include oncologists and pathologists. In addition to diagnostic testing services, the Company generates revenue from the sale of its proprietary analytical pharmacogenomic testing services of clinical trial specimens to the pharmaceutical industry. The Company's headquarters is located in Los Angeles, California. For more information, please visit http://www.responsegenetics.com.

Forward-Looking Statement Notice

Except for the historical information contained herein, this press release and the statements of representatives of the Company related thereto contain or may contain, among other things, certain forward-looking statements, within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Such forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties. Such statements may include, without limitation, statements with respect to the Company's plans, objectives, projections, expectations and intentions, such as the ability of the Company, to provide clinical testing services to the medical community, to continue to strengthen and expand its sales force, to continue to build its digital pathology initiative, to attract and retain qualified management, to continue to strengthen marketing capabilities, to expand the suite of ResponseDX(R) products, to continue to provide clinical trial support to pharmaceutical clients, to enter into new collaborations with pharmaceutical clients, to enter into areas of companion diagnostics, to continue to execute on its business strategy and operations, to continue to analyze cancer samples and the potential for using the results of this research to develop diagnostic tests for cancer, the usefulness of genetic information to tailor treatment to patients, and other statements identified by words such as "project," "may," "could," "would," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "plan" or similar expressions.

These statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of the Company's management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties, including those detailed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Actual results, including, without limitation, actual sales results, if any, or the application of funds, may differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that are subject to change based on various factors (many of which are beyond the Company's control). The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Read more here:
Response Genetics, Inc. to Release Third Quarter 2013 Financial Results and Host Conference Call on November 7, 2013

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

STAMFORD, Conn. -- Stamford's Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy's "Achieving Cancer Remission with Cell and Gene Therapies" event attracted more than 100 people to New York City last week.

More than 100 donors, scientists, biotech representatives and physicians attended the Tuesday night event at the Harvard Club of New York City, according to a news release.The event "highlighted recent tremendous strides made in combating cancer with cell and gene therapy treatments, and served as appreciation for donors who have committed time and funds to furthering research and clinical trials across the nation," according to the release.

Our donors have allowed top scientific minds to explore this new and promising avenue of cancer treatment, and their philanthropy is directly linked to the lives saved so far, said Barbara Netter, who co-founded the alliance in 2001 with her husband, Edward, in the release.

Netter later said that "much additional research needs to be funded in order to achieve the goal of the fully successful treatment of all types of cancer," according to the release. Netter has assumed the mantle of president of ACGT to "chart a strategic course for the organizations continued success" and further the goal, according to the release.

Guests at the evening event were treated to a reception at the Harvard Club, followed by a salutation from host Dr. Savio Woo, according to the release.

"Dr. Woo Chairman of ACGTs Scientific Advisory Council and Professor of Hematology and Oncology at the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City was instrumental in ACGTs founding over a decade ago," representatives said in the release.

Connie Burnett-West, a cancer survivor "who overcame a critical case lung cancer with gene and cell therapy treatment," also attended the event, according to the release.

Surgery and radiation werent options, and I was told I had limited hope for recovery, Burnett-West said in the release. But after a sixth-month course of gene therapy, Ive been in remission for over 10 years. I could not have imagined a treatment so easy and effective.

The evening also featured a presentation from three of ACGTs Research Fellows, including Carl H. June (M.D., University of Pennsylvania), Laurence Cooper (M.D., Ph.D., MD Anderson Cancer Center) and Michel Sadelain (M.D., Ph.D., Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center), according to the release. The three "spoke of the breakthroughs and growing momentum that gene and cell therapy has achieved with the support of ACGT," according to the release.

ACGT has the potential to provide less expensive and less harrowing cancer treatment and, ultimately, a cure, Dr. Carl June said in the release. And all of ACGTs life-saving work was funded through philanthropy.

More here:
Stamford's Alliance For Cancer Gene Therapy Celebrates In NYC

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is the most common disabling neurological disease of young adults. It most often appears when people are between 20 to 40 years old. However, it can also affect children and older people.

The course of MS is unpredictable. A small number of those with MS will have a mild course with little to no disability, while another smaller group will have a steadily worsening disease that leads to increased disability over time. Most people with MS, however, will have short periods of symptoms followed by long stretches of relative relief, with partial or full recovery. There is no way to predict, at the beginning, how an individual persons disease will progress.

Researchers have spent decades trying to understand why some people get MS and others don't, and why some individuals with MS have symptoms that progress rapidly while others do not. How does the disease begin? Why is the course of MS so different from person to person? Is there anything we can do to prevent it? Can it be cured?

This brochure includes information about why MS develops, how it progresses, and what new therapies are being used to treat its symptoms and slow its progression. New treatments can reduce long-term disability for many people with MS. However, there are still no cures and no clear ways to prevent MS from developing.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neuroinflammatory disease that affects myelin , a substance that makes up the membrane (called the myelin sheath) that wraps around nerve fibers (axons). Myelinated axons are commonly called white matter. Researchers have learned that MS also damages the nerve cell bodies, which are found in the brains gray matter, as well as the axons themselves in the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerve (the nerve that transmits visual information from the eye to the brain). As the disease progresses, the brains cortex shrinks (cortical atrophy).

The term multiple sclerosis refers to the distinctive areas of scar tissue (sclerosis or plaques) that are visible in the white matter of people who have MS. Plaques can be as small as a pinhead or as large as the size of a golf ball. Doctors can see these areas by examining the brain and spinal cord using a type of brain scan called magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

While MS sometimes causes severe disability, it is only rarely fatal and most people with MS have a normal life expectancy.

Plaques, or lesions, are the result of an inflammatory process in the brain that causes immune system cells to attack myelin. The myelin sheath helps to speed nerve impulses traveling within the nervous system. Axons are also damaged in MS, although not as extensively, or as early in the disease, as myelin.

Under normal circumstances, cells of the immune system travel in and out of the brain patrolling for infectious agents (viruses, for example) or unhealthy cells. This is called the "surveillance" function of the immune system.

Surveillance cells usually won't spring into action unless they recognize an infectious agent or unhealthy cells. When they do, they produce substances to stop the infectious agent. If they encounter unhealthy cells, they either kill them directly or clean out the dying area and produce substances that promote healing and repair among the cells that are left.

Read more from the original source:
Multiple Sclerosis: Hope Through Research: National Institute of ...

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

The Gene Therapy Research Program is focused on the development of gene therapy and genetic engineering technologies for the application to cancer, transplantation, and regenerative medicine.

The main focus is cancer gene therapy. It is a promising new approach in which genes delivered directly to cancer cells will serve as the blueprint for therapeutic proteins that kill the cells from within or will provoke an immune response so that the body rejects the cells. While this method promises to be more effective with fewer side effects than current chemotherapy, the efficiency of delivering genes has proven to be a major obstacle to its success. Many strategies for gene therapy have involved the use of certain viruses as vehicles ("vectors") for gene delivery, because viruses have evolved efficient ways to insert their genes into human cells. By removing the viral genes that naturally allowed the virus to spread from cell to cell, these vectors were made safer; however, over the last decade, it has been found that the efficiency of these disabled viruses in infecting tumors and delivering genes is too low to be therapeutically useful.

Dr. Noriyuki Kasahara was one of the first to demonstrate that by making retrovirus vectors that are less disabled and hence can take advantage of the natural process of virus replication and spread from cell to cell, their efficiency is greatly improved for gene delivery targeted to human cancers. His group is now leading a consortium that is funded by a multi-institutional U01 award from the NIH; it includes collaborating groups at UC San Francisco, the University of Southern California, the National Gene Vector Biorepository, and biotech partner Tocagen Inc. in the development of this tumor-selective replication-competent retrovirus (RCR) vector system for clinical use. The Investigational New Drug (IND) application to conduct a first-in-man Phase I clinical trial for the RCR vector-mediated suicide gene therapy in brain tumor patients wasapproved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and this trial was initiated at UCLA in August 2010. Read Fall 2012 update on "Dr. Kasahara's group is now leading a consortium that has initiated a first-in-human clinical trial to test this novel gene therapy technology in brain cancer patients"

Other projects ongoing in the Gene Therapy Research Program focus on emulating and adapting the mechanisms used by tumors to evade or suppress the immune system and applying them toward achieving long-term graft survival in cellular transplantation. Dr. Kasahara's group was among the first to demonstrate that this capability can be achieved by using the gene transfer of small interfering RNA (siRNA) to silence specific tissue antigens (HLA) and thereby enhance the histocompatibility of donor cells to be transplanted into HLA-mismatched recipients. Furthermore, it is increasingly apparent that human adult and embryonic stem-cell-derived tissues, which do not initially express HLA, subsequently increase their levels of HLA expression as they differentiate into mature tissues. Hence, this strategy also has significant implications for regenerative medicine: Any non-autologous adult stem-cell-derived tissues and every embryonic stem-cell-derived tissue will eventually encounter the same problems of immune rejection that have long confronted the field of adult organ transplantation, and it is hoped that this strategy may represent an effective and fundamentally different approach to overcoming such problems by genetically modifying the donor-derived graft cells to evade the recipient's immune system instead of immunosuppressing the recipient host.

Learn more about our team

Noriyuki Kasahara, MD, PhDDirector, JCCC Vector Shared Resource & CURE Vector Core Facility Professor, Departments of Medicine and Molecular & Medical Pharmacology

Original post:
UCLA | Gene Research Therapy, Noriyuki Kasahara MD PhD ...

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston

Collaboration between Baylor College of Medicine, The Methodist Hospital and Texas Children's Hospital. Clinical research in the areas of stem cell transplantation, cellular therapy, and gene therapy.

The Center fosters a multidisciplinary approach to new research as well as collaborative research endeavors in the area of gene therapy. The Vector Core manufactures several recombinant viral vectors.

The research is focused on various aspects of gene therapy, such as understanding basic virology, efficient gene delivery into the nucleus of cells, and incorporation of these genes into the genome.

Dr. Curiel heads the center and is engaged in advancing the application of gene transfer methods for treatment of human disease. The efforts are focused on the development of improved vectors to accomplish targeted, cell-specific delivery.

Research in the laboratory has centered on the molecular biology of adeno-associated virus (AAV) in order to exploit the unique features of this virus to develop an efficient viral vector system for use in human gene therapy.

The Harvard Gene Therapy Initiative is headed by Dr. Richard Mulligan with the objective of promoting the use of gene therapy and to conduct research developing new gene delivery vector technologies.

Diseases of the lung, cardiovascular system, muscles, brain, and skin are focus areas of research as well as the development of gene therapy vectors and the identification of disease-causing genes.

The major goals of the Innovative Cancer Therapies Program will be to enhance communication and collaboration among investigators and to develop new funding opportunities.

The program has brought together regulatory, quality, product development, manufacturing and facilities engineering expertise to enable the translation of novel, experimental research into medicine for use in human clinical trials.

Original post:
Gene Therapy Research Institutes and Universities

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Researchers are looking at different ways of using gene therapy, including

Some types of gene therapy aim to boost the body's natural ability to attack cancer cells. Our immune system has cells that recognise and kill harmful things that can cause disease, such as cancer cells.

There are many different types of immune cell. Some of them produce proteins that encourage other immune cells to destroy cancer cells. Some types of therapy add genes to a patient's immune cells to make them better at finding or destroying particular types of cancer. There are a few trials using this type of gene therapy in the UK.

Some gene therapies put genes into cancer cells to make the cells more sensitive to particular treatments such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy. This type of gene therapy aims to make the other cancer treatments work better.

Some types of gene therapy deliver genes into the cancer cells that allow the cells to change drugs from an inactive form to an active form. The inactive form of the drug is called a pro drug.

After giving the carrier containing the gene, the doctor gives the patient the pro drug. The pro drug may be a tablet or capsule that you swallow, or you may have it into the bloodstream.

The pro drug circulates in the body and doesn't harm normal cells. But when it reaches the cancer cells, the gene activates it and the drug kills the cancer cells.

Some gene therapies block processes that cancer cells use to survive. For example, most cells in the body are programmed to die if their DNA is damaged beyond repair. This is called programmed cell death or apoptosis. But cancer cells block this process so they don't die even when they are supposed to. Some gene therapy strategies aim to reverse this blockage. Doctors hope that these new types of treatment will make the cancer cells die.

Some viruses infect and kill cells. Researchers are working on ways to change these viruses so that they only target and kill cancer cells, leaving healthy cells alone. This sort of treatment uses the viruses to kill cancer cells directly rather than to deliver genes. So it is not cancer gene therapy in the true sense of the word. But doctors sometimes refer to it as gene therapy.

One example of this type of research uses the cold sore virus (herpes simplex virus). The changed virus is called Oncovex. It has been tested in early clinical trials for advanced melanoma, pancreatic cancer and head and neck cancers.

More:
Gene therapy : Cancer Research UK : CancerHelp UK

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Oct. 30, 2013 Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the brain cancer that killed Sen. Edward Kennedy and kills approximately 13,000 Americans a year, is aggressive and incurable. Now a Northwestern University research team is the first to demonstrate delivery of a drug that turns off a critical gene in this complex cancer, increasing survival rates significantly in animals with the deadly disease.

The novel therapeutic, which is based on nanotechnology, is small and nimble enough to cross the blood-brain barrier and get to where it is needed -- the brain tumor. Designed to target a specific cancer-causing gene in cells, the drug simply flips the switch of the troublesome oncogene to "off," silencing the gene. This knocks out the proteins that keep cancer cells immortal.

In a study of mice, the nontoxic drug was delivered by intravenous injection. In animals with GBM, the survival rate increased nearly 20 percent, and tumor size was reduced three to four fold, as compared to the control group. The results will be published Oct. 30 in Science Translational Medicine.

"This is a beautiful marriage of a new technology with the genes of a terrible disease," said Chad A. Mirkin, a nanomedicine expert and a senior co-author of the study. "Using highly adaptable spherical nucleic acids, we specifically targeted a gene associated with GBM and turned it off in vivo. This proof-of-concept further establishes a broad platform for treating a wide range of diseases, from lung and colon cancers to rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis."

Mirkin is the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and professor of medicine, chemical and biological engineering, biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering.

Glioblastoma expert Alexander H. Stegh came to Northwestern University in 2009, attracted by the University's reputation for interdisciplinary research, and within weeks was paired up with Mirkin to tackle the difficult problem of developing better treatments for glioblastoma.

Help is critical for patients with GBM: The median survival rate is 14 to 16 months, and approximately 16,000 new cases are reported in the U.S. every year.

In their research partnership, Mirkin had the perfect tool to tackle the deadly cancer: spherical nucleic acids (SNAs), new globular forms of DNA and RNA, which he had invented at Northwestern in 1996, and which are nontoxic to humans. The nucleic acid sequence is designed to match the target gene.

And Stegh had the gene: In 2007, he and colleagues identified the gene Bcl2Like12 as one that is overexpressed in glioblastoma tumors and related to glioblastoma's resistance to conventional therapies.

"My research group is working to uncover the secrets of cancer and, more importantly, how to stop it," said Stegh, a senior co-author of the study. "Glioblastoma is a very challenging cancer, and most chemo-therapeutic drugs fail in the clinic. The beauty of the gene we silenced in this study is that it plays many different roles in therapy resistance. Taking the gene out of the picture should allow conventional therapies to be more effective."

Read more here:
Incurable brain cancer gene silenced: Gene regulation technology increases survival rates in mice with glioblastoma

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

By Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Chances of surviving lung cancer longer increase when treatment is personalized based on the genetics of the cancer, German researchers report.

Knowing the tumor's genetic signature can help doctors spot differences in cancer cells that may lead to a more accurate diagnosis and better-targeted therapy, the researchers explained.

"Gene classification and diagnosis has a profound impact on patients' survival," said study co-author Dr. Reinhard Buttner, a professor of pathology at University Hospital Cologne.

"Our data were collected from approximately 5,100 lung cancer patients and show that genotyping of lung cancer doubles overall survival in patients with two specific mutations -- EGFR-mutated and ALK-translocated," Buttner said.

Patients with those mutations who received personalized therapies showed survival advantages ranging somewhere between 12 months and 21 months.

The report was published Oct. 30 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The researchers found that although some lung cancer cells look the same under the microscope, they may actually be quite different genetically.

"Systematic profiling of gene mutations in lung cancer allows precise classification and diagnostics and predicts the efficacy of targeted and personalized therapies. Every lung cancer should be analyzed for mutations to find the best therapy," Buttner said.

Surprisingly, looking at two common types of lung cancer -- small-cell and large-cell -- from a genetic perspective actually ended up eliminating large-cell lung cancer as a distinct category, he said.

Read more here:
Gene Testing May Boost Lung Cancer Survival: Study

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Oct. 31, 2013 Researchers at Johns Hopkins say they have found that a gene already implicated in human speech disorders and epilepsy is also needed for vocalizations and synapse formation in mice. The finding, they say, adds to scientific understanding of how language develops, as well as the way synapses the connections among brain cells that enable us to think are formed. A description of their experiments appears in Science Express on Oct. 31.

A group led by Richard Huganir, Ph.D., director of the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, set out to investigate genes involved in synapse formation. Gek-Ming Sia, Ph.D., a research associate in Huganirs laboratory, first screened hundreds of human genes for their effects on lab-grown mouse brain cells. When one gene, SRPX2, was turned up higher than normal, it caused the brain cells to erupt with new synapses, Sia found.

When Huganirs team injected fetal mice with an SRPX2-blocking compound, the mice showed fewer synapses than normal mice even as adults, the researchers found. In addition, when SRPX2-deficient mouse pups were separated from their mothers, they did not emit high-pitched distress calls as other pups do, indicating they lacked the rodent equivalent of early language ability.

Other researchers analyses of the human genome have found that mutations in SRPX2 are associated with language disorders and epilepsy, and when Huganirs team injected the human SRPX2 with the same mutations into the fetal mice, they also had deficits in their vocalization as young pups.

Another research group at Institut de Neurobiologie de la Mditerrane in France had previously shown that SRPX2 interacts with FoxP2, a gene that has gained wide attention for its apparently crucial role in language ability. Huganirs team confirmed this, showing that FoxP2 controls how much protein the SRPX2 gene makes and may affect language in this way. FoxP2 is famous for its role in language, but its actually involved in other functions as well, Huganir comments. SRPX2 appears to be more specialized to language ability. Huganir suspects that the gene may also be involved in autism, since autistic patients often have language impairments, and the condition has been linked to defects in synapse formation.

This study is only the beginning of teasing out how SRPX2 acts on the brain, Sia says. Wed like to find out what other proteins it acts on, and how exactly it regulates synapses and enables language development.

Roger Clem of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine also participated in the study.

This study was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (grant number P50MH084020) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (grant number NS050274).

More:
Gene found to foster synapse formation in the brain

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Oct-2013

Contact: Megan Fellman fellman@northwestern.edu 847-491-3115 Northwestern University

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the brain cancer that killed Sen. Edward Kennedy and kills approximately 13,000 Americans a year, is aggressive and incurable. Now a Northwestern University research team is the first to demonstrate delivery of a drug that turns off a critical gene in this complex cancer, increasing survival rates significantly in animals with the deadly disease.

The novel therapeutic, which is based on nanotechnology, is small and nimble enough to cross the blood-brain barrier and get to where it is needed -- the brain tumor. Designed to target a specific cancer-causing gene in cells, the drug simply flips the switch of the troublesome oncogene to "off," silencing the gene. This knocks out the proteins that keep cancer cells immortal.

In a study of mice, the nontoxic drug was delivered by intravenous injection. In animals with GBM, the survival rate increased nearly 20 percent, and tumor size was reduced three to four fold, as compared to the control group. The results will be published Oct. 30 in Science Translational Medicine.

"This is a beautiful marriage of a new technology with the genes of a terrible disease," said Chad A. Mirkin, a nanomedicine expert and a senior co-author of the study. "Using highly adaptable spherical nucleic acids, we specifically targeted a gene associated with GBM and turned it off in vivo. This proof-of-concept further establishes a broad platform for treating a wide range of diseases, from lung and colon cancers to rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis."

Mirkin is the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and professor of medicine, chemical and biological engineering, biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering.

Glioblastoma expert Alexander H. Stegh came to Northwestern University in 2009, attracted by the University's reputation for interdisciplinary research, and within weeks was paired up with Mirkin to tackle the difficult problem of developing better treatments for glioblastoma.

Help is critical for patients with GBM: The median survival rate is 14 to 16 months, and approximately 16,000 new cases are reported in the U.S. every year.

Read the original:
Incurable brain cancer gene is silenced

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Written by Patrick Dixon

Futurist Keynote - Articles and Videos - Biotechnology, Genetics, Gene Therapy, Stem Cells

Video on Genetic Engineering

Genetic engineering is the alteration of genetic code by artificial means, and is therefore different from traditional selective breeding.

Genetic engineering examples include taking the gene that programs poison in the tail of a scorpion, and combining it with a cabbage. These genetically modified cabbages kill caterpillers because they have learned to grow scorpion poison (insecticide) in their sap.

Genetic engineering also includes insertion of human genes into sheep so that they secrete alpha-1 antitrypsin in their milk - a useful substance in treating some cases of lung disease.

Genetic engineering has created a chicken with four legs and no wings.

Genetic engineering has created a goat with spider genes that creates "silk" in its milk.

Genetic engineering works because there is one language of life: human genes work in bacteria, monkey genes work in mice and earthworms. Tree genes work in bananas and frog genes work in rice. There is no limit in theory to the potential of genetic engineering.

Here is the original post:
Genetic Engineering: What is Genetic Engineering?

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Cost of GMO Food Labeling

Big Biotech loves to claim that GMO labels on food would be costly and drive up the price of food for consumers. But Joanna Shepherd-Bailey, PhD, and renowned tenured law professor from Emory, has issued a report that shows that GMO labeling would likely result in no increase in consumer costs at all.

New Report by Earth Open Source

However, a large and growing body of scientific and other authoritative evidence shows that these claims are not true. On the contrary, evidence presented in this report indicates that GM crops:

Based on the evidence presented in this report, there is no need to take risks with GM crops when effective, readily available, and sustainable solutions to the problems that GM technology is claimed to address already exist.

Conventional plant breeding, in some cases helped by safe modern technologies like gene mapping and marker assisted selection, continues to outperform GM in producing high-yield, drought-tolerant, and pest- and disease-resistant crops that can meet our present and future food needs.

Read more from the original source:
Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology - Organic Consumers Association

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Few topics in agriculture are more polarizing than genetic engineering (GE), the process of manipulating an organisms genetic materialusually using genes from other speciesin an effort to produce desired traits such as higher yield or drought tolerance.

GE has been hailed by some as an indispensable tool for solving the worlds food problems, and denounced by others as an example of human overreaching fraught with unknown, potentially catastrophic dangers.

UCS experts analyze the applications of genetic engineering in agricultureparticularly in comparison to other optionsand offer practical recommendations based on that analysis.

Supporters of GE in agriculture point to a multitude of potential benefits of engineered crops, including increased yield, tolerance of drought, reduced pesticide use, more efficient use of fertilizers, and ability to produce drugs or other useful chemicals. UCS analysis shows that actual benefits have often fallen far short of expectations.

While the risks of genetic engineering have sometimes been exaggerated or misrepresented, GE crops do have the potential to cause a variety of health problems and environmental impacts. For instance, they may produce new allergens and toxins, spread harmful traits to weeds and non-GE crops, or harm animals that consume them.

At least one major environmental impact of genetic engineering has already reached critical proportions: overuse of herbicide-tolerant GE crops has spurred an increase in herbicide use and an epidemic of herbicide-resistant "superweeds," which will lead to even more herbicide use.

How likely are other harmful GE impacts to occur? This is a difficult question to answer. Each crop-gene combination poses its own set of risks. While risk assessments are conducted as part of GE product approval, the data are generally supplied by the company seeking approval, and GE companies use their patent rights to exercise tight control over research on their products.

In short, there is a lot we don't know about the risks of GEwhich is no reason for panic, but a good reason for caution.

See the rest here:
Genetic Engineering in Agriculture | Union of Concerned Scientists

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Genetic Engineering

Genetic engineering, also known as recombinant DNA technology, means altering the genes in a living organism to produce a Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) with a new genotype. Various kinds of genetic modification are possible: inserting a foreign gene from one species into another, forming a transgenic organism; altering an existing gene so that its product is changed; or changing gene expression so that it is translated more often or not at all.

Genetic engineering is a very young discipline, and is only possible due to the development of techniques from the 1960s onwards. Watson and Crick have made these techniques possible from our greater understanding of DNA and how it functions following the discovery of its structure in 1953. Although the final goal of genetic engineering is usually the expression of a gene in a host, in fact most of the techniques and time in genetic engineering are spent isolating a gene and then cloning it. This table lists the techniques that we shall look at in detail.

1

cDNA

Read the original here:
Genetic Engineering - BiologyMad

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct manipulation of an organism's genome using biotechnology. New DNA may be inserted in the host genome by first isolating and copying the genetic material of interest using molecular cloning methods to generate a DNA sequence, or by synthesizing the DNA, and then inserting this construct into the host organism. Genes may be removed, or "knocked out", using a nuclease. Gene targeting is a different technique that uses homologous recombination to change an endogenous gene, and can be used to delete a gene, remove exons, add a gene, or introduce point mutations.

An organism that is generated through genetic engineering is considered to be a genetically modified organism (GMO). The first GMOs were bacteria in 1973; GM mice were generated in 1974. Insulin-producing bacteria were commercialized in 1982 and genetically modified food has been sold since 1994. Glofish, the first GMO designed as a pet, was first sold in the United States December in 2003.[1]

Genetic engineering techniques have been applied in numerous fields including research, agriculture, industrial biotechnology, and medicine. Enzymes used in laundry detergent and medicines such as insulin and human growth hormone are now manufactured in GM cells, experimental GM cell lines and GM animals such as mice or zebrafish are being used for research purposes, and genetically modified crops have been commercialized.

IUPAC definition

Process of inserting new genetic information into existing cells in order to modify a specific organism for the purpose of changing its characteristics.

Note: Adapted from ref.[2]

[3]

Genetic engineering alters the genetic makeup of an organism using techniques that remove heritable material or that introduce DNA prepared outside the organism either directly into the host or into a cell that is then fused or hybridized with the host.[4] This involves using recombinant nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) techniques to form new combinations of heritable genetic material followed by the incorporation of that material either indirectly through a vector system or directly through micro-injection, macro-injection and micro-encapsulation techniques.

Genetic engineering does not normally include traditional animal and plant breeding, in vitro fertilisation, induction of polyploidy, mutagenesis and cell fusion techniques that do not use recombinant nucleic acids or a genetically modified organism in the process.[4] However the European Commission has also defined genetic engineering broadly as including selective breeding and other means of artificial selection.[5]Cloning and stem cell research, although not considered genetic engineering,[6] are closely related and genetic engineering can be used within them.[7]Synthetic biology is an emerging discipline that takes genetic engineering a step further by introducing artificially synthesized genetic material from raw materials into an organism.[8]

If genetic material from another species is added to the host, the resulting organism is called transgenic. If genetic material from the same species or a species that can naturally breed with the host is used the resulting organism is called cisgenic.[9] Genetic engineering can also be used to remove genetic material from the target organism, creating a gene knockout organism.[10] In Europe genetic modification is synonymous with genetic engineering while within the United States of America it can also refer to conventional breeding methods.[11][12] The Canadian regulatory system is based on whether a product has novel features regardless of method of origin. In other words, a product is regulated as genetically modified if it carries some trait not previously found in the species whether it was generated using traditional breeding methods (e.g., selective breeding, cell fusion, mutation breeding) or genetic engineering.[13][14][15] Within the scientific community, the term genetic engineering is not commonly used; more specific terms such as transgenic are preferred.

Read more here:
Genetic engineering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

GeneTests is a medical genetics information resource developed for physicians, genetic counselors, other healthcare providers, and researchers.

GeneTests comprises: A Laboratory Directory of over 600 international laboratories offering molecular genetic testing, biochemical genetic testing, and specialized cytogenetic testing for more than 3000 inherited disorders. A Clinic Directory of over 1000 international genetics clinics providing diagnosis and genetic counseling services to patients and their families with known or suspected inherited disorders.

GeneTests searches retrieve links to GeneReviews chapters and related genetic testing information. Note that GeneReviews are NIH-funded and developed and maintained by the University of Washington, Seattle (see http://www.genereviews.org for more information).

The new GeneTests has an updated look and new search functions. It includes all clinical laboratory test listings and genetics clinics listings posted on the former GeneTests site as of May 23, 2013. It does not currently include the non-disease related testing/services of clinical laboratories, test-specific comments, or research laboratories that were part of the original GeneTests site.

Over time, more information and user-friendly features for laboratories, clinics, and users will be added. We welcome your thoughts and suggestions on how to improve GeneTests. Please email us at GeneTests@genetests.org or fill out our user survey.

To find out more about the new GeneTests, please read this letter by Roberta (Bonnie) Pagon MD, Medical Director, GeneTests.

Use of this website assumes acceptance of the disclaimer.

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GeneTests

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

DNA from the Beginning is organized around key concepts. The science behind each concept is explained by: animation, image gallery, video interviews, problem, biographies, and links. DNAftb blog: It's the season of hibernation, something I've always wished I could do. Oh, to wrap up in a ball, sleep away the winter, and wake to a beautiful spring day like Bambi! Although the thought has always intrigued me, it never really occurred to me what a feat hibernation actually is. It turns out that all of the bears, squirrels, rabbits ... that I thought were just sleeping, are breaking biological laws!! If I was to stay dormant for 5 months, without food or drink and little to no movement in freezing temperatures [...] Feature: We have relaunched the Weed to Wonder site as a flexible "e-book" that can be viewed as a website, an app, or a printable PDF. Mailing List Gene News - Genome hacker uncovers largest-ever family tree Find the DNALC on: Language options:

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DNA from the Beginning - An animated primer of 75 experiments that ...

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Scientists have made great advances in understanding important environmental causes of obesity as well as identifying several genes that might be implicated. Major efforts are now directed toward assessing the interactions of genes and environment in the obesity epidemic.

Obesity results when body fat accumulates over time as a result of a chronic energy imbalance (calories consumed exceed calories expended). Obesity is a major health hazard worldwide and is associated with several relatively common diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and some cancers.

In recent decades, obesity has reached epidemic proportions in populations whose environments offer an abundance of calorie-rich foods and few opportunities for physical activity. Although changes in the genetic makeup of populations occur too slowly to be responsible for this rapid rise in obesity, genes do play a role in the development of obesity. Most likely, genes regulate how our bodies capture, store, and release energy from food. The origin of these genes, however, might not be recent.

Learn more about obesity and genetics.

Any explanation of the obesity epidemic has to include both the role of genetics as well as that of the environment. A commonly quoted genetic explanation for the rapid rise in obesity is the mismatch between todays environment and "energy-thrifty genes" that multiplied in the past under different environmental conditions when food sources were rather unpredictable. In other words, according to the "thrifty genotype" hypothesis, the same genes that helped our ancestors survive occasional famines are now being challenged by environments in which food is plentiful year round.

It has been argued that the thrifty genotype is just part of a wider spectrum of ways in which genes can favor fat accumulation in a given environment. These ways include the drive to overeat (poor regulation of appetite and satiety); the tendency to be sedentary (physically inactive); a diminished ability to use dietary fats as fuel; and an enlarged, easily stimulated capacity to store body fat. Not all people living in industrialized countries with abundant food and reduced physical activity are or will become obese; nor will all obese people have the same body fat distribution or suffer the same health issues. This diversity occurs among groups of the same racial or ethnic background and even within families living in the same environment. The variation in how people respond to the same environmental conditions is an additional indication that genes play a role in the development of obesity. This is consistent with the theory that obesity results from genetic variation interacting with shifting environmental conditions.

The indirect scientific evidence for a genetic basis for obesity comes from a variety of studies. Mostly, this evidence includes studies of resemblance and differences among family members, twins, and adoptees. Another source of evidence includes studies that have found some genes at higher frequencies among the obese (association studies). These investigations suggest that a sizable portion of the weight variation in adults is due to genetic factors. However, identifying these factors has been difficult.

Scientists have made great advances in understanding important environmental causes of obesity as well as identifying several of the many genes that might be implicated. Major efforts are now directed toward assessing the interactions of genes and environment in the obesity epidemic. The translation of these efforts into public health practice, from a genomic point of view, will take time.

Learn more about using family history to promote health.

Fortunately, there is a simple way for public health genomics to start reducing the effects of obesity in populations. It is through the use of family history. Family history reflects genetic susceptibility and environmental exposures shared by close relatives. Health care practitioners can routinely collect family health history to help identify people at high risk of obesity-related disorders such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and some forms of cancer. Weight loss or prevention of excessive weight gains is especially important in this high-risk group. Any health promotion effort to reduce the adverse impact of obesity in populations may be more effective if it directs more intensive lifestyle interventions to high-risk groups (high-risk prevention strategy). However, such strategies should not detract from the population prevention strategy, which recommends that regardless of genetic susceptibility and environmental exposure, all people should follow a healthful diet and incorporate regular physical activity into their daily routine to help reduce the risk of obesity and its associated conditions.

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CDC Features - Obesity & Genetics - Centers for Disease Control ...

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

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The Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) regulates cellular therapy products, human gene therapy products, and certain devices related to cell and gene therapy. CBER uses both the Public Health Service Act and the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act as enabling statutes for oversight.

Cellular therapy products include cellular immunotherapies, and other types of both autologous and allogeneic cells for certain therapeutic indications, including adult and embryonic stem cells. Human gene therapy refers to products that introduce genetic material into a persons DNA to replace faulty or missing genetic material, thus treating a disease or abnormal medical condition.

Although some cellular therapy products have been approved, CBER has not yet approved any human gene therapy product for sale. However, the amount of cellular and gene therapy-related research and development occurring in the United States continues to grow at a fast rate. CBER has received many requests from medical researchers and manufacturers to study cellular and gene therapies and to develop cellular and gene therapy products. In addition to regulatory oversight of clinical studies, CBER provides proactive scientific and regulatory advice to medical researchers and manufacturers in the area of novel product development.

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Follow this link:
Cellular & Gene Therapy Products - Food and Drug Administration

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

D #39;AGE Sheep Placenta Extract / Stem Cell Therapy
D #39;AGE is one of our most precious project, we created the environment and incorporated sand glass into the visual, all the sand effects details was crafted with a lot of TLC.

By: ExpressoFX

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D'AGE Sheep Placenta Extract / Stem Cell Therapy - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Toronto, Canada & Kyriat Weizmann, Israel (PRWEB) October 31, 2013

Hemostemix Ltd. and BioForum have announced a jointly-sponsored symposium entitled Cell Therapy an evolving industry to be held November 4 at the Dan Hotel in Tel Aviv, Israel.

The event will feature invited speakers including Dr. Elmar Burchardt, Pfizers Vice President of Regenerative Medicine and cell therapy executives from Canada, United States, India, and Israel. The seminar will brief attendees on global industry trends, discuss optimal cell therapy product development, review the impact of CROs on clinical trial outcomes, present key elements of cellular product analytics, outline cell therapy business models, and engage in an open dialogue about the potential keys to cell therapy being a pillar of future healthcare.

We are pleased to play a role in hosting an event which highlights the global cell therapy industry, stated Hemostemix President and founder, Dr. Valentin Fulga. With this seminar, and others planned, we want to facilitate an information-exchange and dialogue between investors, clinicians, and scientists that will promote a greater understanding of how cell therapies will shape the future of medicine.

Bioforum is excited to provide what it believes will be an important and useful seminar in this exciting new field of science and medicine, stated Yehudith Wexler, Chairperson of Bioforum. For more information about the seminar, click here.

This seminar is part of a series of presentations intended to introduce the company and its platform technology to a wide audience in the context of the cell therapy industrys progress and maturation. This includes a recent keynote presentation (Synergetic Cell Population a powerful tool for autologous therapies) delivered October 23rd in Orlando, FL and an upcoming presentation (A peripheral blood-derived cellular population can be differentiated into neural like progenitor cells) at the TERMIS-AM 2013 Conference to be held November 10-13in Atlanta, Georgia.

About Hemostemix Ltd

Hemostemix Ltd is a Canadian-Israeli company developing and commercializing innovative blood-derived cell therapies for medical conditions not adequately addressed by current treatments with an operating research, development and manufacturing facility in Kiryat Weizmann Science Park, Ness Ziona. For more information see http://www.hemostemix.com.

About Bioforum

Established in 1998, Bioforum provides a wide range of services in the areas of Education and Training, Clinical Data, Regulatory Submissions and Clinical Supply (inPACK). Bioforum's strategic lines of business combine professional services, process optimization, technology and education. Bioforum maximizes their costumers benefits by providing cost effective outsourcing and consultation services for the pharmaceutical, medical and medical device industries. For more information about Bioforum, see http://www.bioforum.co.il.

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Hemostemix Hosts Cell Therapy Industry Seminar

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

30 October 2013 Last updated at 14:39 ET By Helen Briggs BBC News

Offering genetic testing to lung cancer patients can potentially save lives, research suggests.

A study of 5,000 patients found genetic profiling of lung tumours boosted survival rates through better targeting of chemotherapy drugs.

The findings, reported in Science Translational Medicine, pave the way for personalised medicine.

Cancer Research UK said matching patients to a personalised treatment is still in its infancy.

The standard way to diagnose lung cancer is to look at cells from a tumour under the microscope.

On this basis, lung cancer can be classified into different tumour types, which helps doctors make decisions about the best treatment to offer.

However, in recent years scientists have made progress towards understanding how cancer can be better treated by matching drugs to the genetic make-up of a tumour.

A team led by Dr Roman Thomas, of the Max Planck Research Group in Cologne, Germany, carried out genetic testing on lung tumour samples from about 5,000 patients to spot genetic differences in lung cancer cells.

Our findings provide support for broad implementation of genome-based diagnosis of lung cancer

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Gene testing raises lung cancer hope

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Home > Newsroom > Texas A&M gene study aimed at enhanced cotton fiber breeding Texas A&M| October 31, 2013

A new study by Texas A&M University cotton researchers and breeders will take advantage of new high-throughput sequencing technology to rapidly advance cotton genetics research and breeding.

Their goal: maintain U.S. cotton's competitiveness in the world cotton market, according to Dr. Hongbin Zhang, professor of plant genomics and systems biology and director of the Laboratory for Plant Genomics and Molecular Genetics in College Station.

The three-year, $500,000 National Institute for Food and Agriculture-funded study, will be conducted by Zhang, along with Dr. Meiping Zhang, Texas A&M AgriLife Research associate research scientist; Dr. C. Wayne Smith, Texas A&M professor of cotton breeding and soil and crop sciences associate department head, and Dr. Steve Hague, associate professor of cotton genetics and breeding in the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Cotton Improvement Lab.

"Cotton is the leading textile fiber and a major bioenergy oilseed crop in Texas and the U.S., with an annual economic impact of about $120 billion in the U.S.," Zhang said.

"In our previous studies, we have already constructed the first genome-wide physical map of Upland cotton, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the cotton in Texas and the U.S." he said. "We are also using the physical map as a platform to sequence the cotton genome."

Also, they previously developed a population of 1,172 recombinant inbred lines that are essential to fine map the cotton genome and genes of economic importance for fiber and oilseed production, Zhang said.

They phenotyped seven of the traits important for fiber quality and yield in 200 of those lines and their parents using three replicated field trials for three years at College Station. The researchers then sequenced and profiled the gene expressions in the developing fibers of those lines, Zhang said.

"Now we want to develop a new and advanced breeding system in cotton, such as gene-based breeding, where we are selecting the target traits based on the genes controlling the traits, gene activities and gene interaction networks."

The long-term goals are to clone the genes that control all major traits of cotton fiber quality and fiber yield, determine their molecular basis and regulation mechanisms, and develop fiber gene-based toolkits, enabling enhanced cotton fiber breeding, he said.

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Texas A&M gene study aimed at enhanced cotton fiber breeding ...

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

A new study by Texas A&M University cotton researchers and breeders will take advantage of new high-throughput sequencing technology to rapidly advance cotton genetics research and breeding.

Their goal: maintain U.S. cottons competitiveness in the world cotton market, according to Dr. Hongbin Zhang, professor of plant genomics and systems biology and director of the Laboratory for Plant Genomics and Molecular Genetics in College Station.

Dr. Hongbin Zhang, Texas A&M University professor of plant genomics, harvests the fibers of the cotton population that they are working on in the project for genetic analysis and mapping of fiber traits. (Texas A&M AgriLife Research photo)

The three-year, $500,000 National Institute for Food and Agriculture-funded study, will be conducted by Zhang, along with Dr. Meiping Zhang, Texas A&M AgriLife Research associate research scientist; Dr. C. Wayne Smith, Texas A&M professor of cotton breeding and soil and crop sciences associate department head, and Dr. Steve Hague, associate professor of cotton genetics and breeding in the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Cotton Improvement Lab.

Cotton is the leading textile fiber and a major bioenergy oilseed crop in Texas and the U.S., with an annual economic impact of about $120 billion in the U.S., Zhang said.

In our previous studies, we have already constructed the first genome-wide physical map of Upland cotton, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the cotton in Texas and the U.S. he said. We are also using the physical map as a platform to sequence the cotton genome.

Also, they previously developed a population of 1,172 recombinant inbred lines that are essential to fine map the cotton genome and genes of economic importance for fiber and oilseed production, Zhang said.

They phenotyped seven of the traits important for fiber quality and yield in 200 of those lines and their parents using three replicated field trials for three years at College Station. The researchers then sequenced and profiled the gene expressions in the developing fibers of those lines, Zhang said.

Now we want to develop a new and advanced breeding system in cotton, such as gene-based breeding, where we are selecting the target traits based on the genes controlling the traits, gene activities and gene interaction networks.

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Texas Cotton: Gene Study Aimed at Enhanced Fiber Breeding ...

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WEDNESDAY, Oct. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Chances of surviving lung cancer longer increase when treatment is personalized based on the genetics of the cancer, German researchers report.

Knowing the tumor's genetic signature can help doctors spot differences in cancer cells that may lead to a more accurate diagnosis and better-targeted therapy, the researchers explained.

"Gene classification and diagnosis has a profound impact on patients' survival," said study co-author Dr. Reinhard Buttner, a professor of pathology at University Hospital Cologne.

"Our data were collected from approximately 5,100 lung cancer patients and show that genotyping of lung cancer doubles overall survival in patients with two specific mutations -- EGFR-mutated and ALK-translocated," Buttner said.

Patients with those mutations who received personalized therapies showed survival advantages ranging somewhere between 12 months and 21 months.

The report was published Oct. 30 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The researchers found that although some lung cancer cells look the same under the microscope, they may actually be quite different genetically.

"Systematic profiling of gene mutations in lung cancer allows precise classification and diagnostics and predicts the efficacy of targeted and personalized therapies. Every lung cancer should be analyzed for mutations to find the best therapy," Buttner said.

Surprisingly, looking at two common types of lung cancer -- small-cell and large-cell -- from a genetic perspective actually ended up eliminating large-cell lung cancer as a distinct category, he said.

In addition, genotyping identifies many cancer mutations that might be targeted with therapies in new clinical trials, Buttner said.

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Gene Testing May Boost Lung Cancer Survival: Study: MedlinePlus

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