Category Archives: Molecular Genetics

When researchers first discovered a louse egg on an ancient human hair, they realized that head lice have itched human scalps for more than 10,000 years.1 Alejandra Perotti, senior lecturer in the biological sciences department at the University of Reading, recently discovered an unexpected benefit of these pesky insects. In a study published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, Perotti showed that the glue that attaches louse eggs, or nits, to hair preserved human DNA for more than 2,000 years, enabling her team to analyze mummies genetics without disturbing their remains.2 She used this nondestructive technique to track the migratory paths of ancient humans through South America.

Researchers discover ancient human migratory patterns by analyzing DNA from a lice-infested mummy

Perotti, an invertebrate biologist who started collecting bugs at the age of two, visits archaeological sites across South America to study louse evolution. She recently collected nits from 2,000-year-old Argentinian mummies. Nits are incredibly difficult to remove because lice encase them in cement-like cylinders around hair. Because these casings contain crosslinked proteins and lipids that form strong, waterproof tubes, they protect louse eggs until they hatch.3,4 The cement is harder than the industrial gorilla glue. The lipids will protect anything inside; it will not get dry or humid, Perotti said. For archaeologists, louse glue has an added preservative perk that freezes nits in time. You find remains of lice in 95 percent of archaeological sites because we were very lousy in the past. It is very rare to find the insect; you [typically] find the nits, she added.

When Perotti examined the ancient Argentinian hairs, she couldnt believe her eyes. We had collected them (nit casings) to study the evolution of the lice, recounts Perotti. I checked them with these [fluorescent microscopy] techniques that we developed and started seeing that there was [human] DNA trapped in the glue!

The history of the parasite is a mirror of the history of the hostAlejandra Perotti, University of Reading

Not only could Perottis team see human nuclei, but they also managed to extract high-quality DNA from them.2 The scientists collected as much DNA from the nuclei trapped in six nit casings as they could from the same individuals entire tooth.3 It is a promising tool because it [identifies] a new source of well-conserved DNA when there is no other source, said Oleg Mediannikov, an evolutionary biologist at the Aix-Marseille University in France, who was not involved in the study. If well-conserved, even very old specimens may be studied using these techniques because this paper [shows that] louse cement may preserve DNA better than bones or teeth. However, Mediannikov cautioned that scientists should take every possible measure to prevent contamination when collecting and processing ancient samples due to modern sequencing methods sensitivity.

Louse cement glues human nuclei in place and preserves them in time

When analyzing the ancient Argentinian mummies DNA extracted from the nit cement, Perottis team gleaned some important insights into how ancient humans migrated and settled in South America. Scientists previously thought that ancient humans migrated from North Americas Pacific Coast and spread west- and eastward as they traveled into South America. According to this logic, central-west Argentinians would be related to the ancestors of the Incas. [Our results showed] that they traveled a completely different road about 2,000 years ago. They came from the northeast of the Amazon and walked south to cross into what is now Argentina, Perotti added. An unexpected migratory path.

Perotti next analyzed louse DNA from the eggs to test whether they told the same migratory story as that of the humans whose DNA they helped preserve. When she compared the ancient Argentinian louse DNA to their database, she found that they most closely matched lice from the north of the Amazon. So, they tell the same story; the history of the parasite is a mirror of the history of the host, Perotti said. It's really interesting, because this technique will allow us to study a lot of ancient remains without destroying them. You just need a few hairs.

References

1. A. Arajo et al., Ten thousand years of head lice infestation, Parasitol Today, 16(7):269, 2000.

2. M.W. Pedersen et al., Ancient human genomes and environmental DNA from the cement attaching 2,000 year-old head lice nits, Mol Biol Evol, msab351, 2021.

3. C.N. Burkhart et al., "Molecular composition of the louse sheath, J Parasitol, 85(3):559-61, 1999.

4. J.K. Park et al., "Characterization of the human head louse nit sheath reveals proteins with adhesive property that show no resemblance to known proteins, Sci Rep, 9(1):48, 2019.

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Ancient Mummies' Lousy View of the Past - The Scientist

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Genetics may have given European rabbits an edge and helped them colonise Australia from the east to the west coast starting 1859, a new study released August 22, 2022, has said.

The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) was first introduced to Australia when the First Fleet, a flotilla of British ships, landed in Sydney Harbour in 1788 with the intention of establishing a penal settlement. Five rabbits on board were released in the settlement.

Between 1788 and 1859, there were over 90 importations of rabbits into mainland Australia. But the animals did not spread across the continent.

Then, according to historians, an English settler named Thomas Austin asked his brother in Somerset, southwest England to send him some rabbits so that they could multiply and be hunted.

On October 6, 1859, Thomass brother James sent on board the ship Lightning a consignment of domestic and wild rabbits caught around the family property in Baltonsborough, southwest England.

On Christmas Day of that same year, the consignment arrived in Melbourne with 24 rabbits on board. These rabbits were taken to the property of Thomas Austin in Barwon Park, near Geelong in Victoria, the study noted.

By 1862, the rabbits sent by James had multiplied and numbered in the thousands. Rabbits spread across the entire continent within 50 years of 1859, at a rate of 100 km per year. This is considered the fastest colonisation rate for an introduced mammal ever recorded.

The researchersfrom the University of Cambridge and CIBIO Institute in Portugal studied historical records alongside new genetic data collected from 187 European rabbits mostly wild-caught across Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Britain and France between 1865 and 2018.

They wanted to know:

We managed to trace the ancestry of Australias invasive population right back to the southwest of England, where Austins family collected the rabbits in 1859, Joel Alves, lead author and a researcher at the University of Oxford and CIBIO Institute, was quoted as saying in a statement.

Our findings show that despite the numerous introductions across Australia, it was a single batch of English rabbits that triggered this devastating biological invasion, the effects of which are still being felt today, he added.

So what was special about these rabbits? Biological invasions are often aided by favourable ecological factors. As Europeans spread across Australia, they cleared the land for pastoral purposes and also hunted down native carnivores (such as the dingo).

But the researchers theorised that these factors should have also aided rabbits brought in the over 90 importations before 1859. Hence, they could not have helped the invasion.

The researchers then found that as Austins rabbits moved further away from Barwon Park, genetic diversity declined and rare genetic variants which occur in rapidly growing populations became more frequent.

Senior author Francis Jiggins from Cambridges Department of Genetics was quoted as saying: There are numerous traits that could make feral domestic rabbits poorly adapted to survive in the wild but it is possible that they lacked the genetic variation required to adapt to Australias arid and semi-arid climate.

To cope with this, Australias rabbits have evolved changes in body shape to help control their temperature.

So it is possible that Thomas Austins wild rabbits and their offspring, had a genetic advantage when it came to adapting to these conditions, Jiggins added.

Genetic mutations do give organismsa selective adaptiveness to survive in adverse environments / circumstances. These researchers have found some unique genetic signature in the rabbitsthrough which they would havegained invasiveness, K Thangaraj from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, told Down To Earth.

Rabbits breed very quickly. In ecology, there is R and K Selective Strategy of reproduction to increase numbers.

Rabbits usually use the R Selective Strategy where the mother gives birth to a large number of offspring multiple times in a year. This helps increase their numbers. Other lagomorphs such as talus-dwelling pikas in the Himalayas adopt a K Selective strategy and do not give birth to more than two to three juveniles annually, Sabuj Bhattacharya, scientist and research ethics and integrity officer, INSTEM, Bengaluru, told DTE.

Rabbits are one of the major invasive species in Australia threatening native flora and fauna and costing the agricultural sector an estimated $200 million per year.

The study, titled A single introduction of wild rabbits triggered the biological invasion of Australia was published in PNAS.

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'Gray blanket' over Australia: Genetics may have aided European rabbit invasion of continent in 1859, says study - Down To Earth Magazine

PEMBROKE Ben Bahr, a professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke since 2009, is a renowned researcher of dementia, including Alzheimers disease.

Scientists have been trying to determine ways to prevent and slow the onset of Alzheimers, which affects more than 5 million people in the United States.

Bahr has won several awards. In 2017, he became the first UNCP professor to receive the Oliver Max Gardner Award for his research the highest honor given by the UNC Board of Governors.

The Border Belt Independent asked Bahr a series of questions about his work and life in southeastern North Carolina. His responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Q: How did you get into Alzheimers research?

A: I was from California, and I went to University of California, Santa Barbara. I wanted a really good aquatic biology program. When I took my first marine biology course, it bored me to tears. Then I discovered courses like genetics and cell biology, which is really where I learned my passion for how cells work. I knocked on a lot of doors of professors to see who had room for an undergraduate who would make mistakes in the lab. I learned a lot, and turns out I was helping to identify targets for Alzheimers disease and other brain diseases. So I stayed in Santa Barbara and got my Ph.D. in chemistry.

Q: What have you found in your research?

A: Alzheimers disease is probably the most complicated and hair-pulling disease. Every time we think weve gotten close, somebody else discovers something and we say, Wait a minute, we have all that wrong. The big amyloid plaques that people see, everyone thought that was the disease. Turns out its the aftermath. Its a protein accumulation disease, or what we call a garbage accumulation disease. All the nerve cells and other cells are having trouble getting rid of material thats accumulating inside them.

We really needed to look at why these accumulation events were occurring and how we could get rid of them. It turns out every one of the cells in your brain and your whole body has little tiny things inside called lysosomes. Consider them like garbage disposals. My group discovered that there are self-repair mechanisms that try to get rid of those protein accumulation events. And I discovered through lysosomes that, as we age, our little garbage disposals dont work so well anymore. Now there are companies and even Harvard professors that focus on how we find drugs and other therapies to make lysosomes and the other protein-clearing machinery work hard.

I also was the first to get UNCP to handle patent law in 2014. Its well known that exercise and a really good diet helps reduce your risk of dementia. So we looked at ways that we could combine natural products. We tested to see what its doing to the lysosomes, and then we mixed this natural product into rat food. That natural product made the animals perform better on memory tests. We just want to publish the work and try to get a company interested in manufacturing and distributing the drug.

Q: Why come to Pembroke for your research?

A: I followed the direction of where the cool work was going. We decided to look for a different place, mostly because the wife was getting sick of the snow at the University of Connecticut. In Pembroke, they gave me a nice research space. They gave me the ability to work with lots of students. My biggest thrill is watching students catch that bug of research finding out they did something in a lab that no one else has done before. Theyve also allowed me to train students from all over the world. Ive actually worked with people from 30 different countries.

Q: How have you helped dementia research expand in the state?

A: With a big five-year grant from the National Institute of Health, Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill came together to form the Azheimers Disease Research Center. There are only 33 in the whole country, and North Carolina is now one of the few states with more than one center. (Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem also has a center). My job is to help up-and-coming young scientists whether theyre undergraduates, high school students, or just got their Ph.D. get training or at least exposure to the kind of work being done.

Twelve years ago, UNC Pembroke would have never thought that they would be connected to Duke and Chapel Hill to be part of this. But I kept pushing our biotech center to have enough research going on and get enough exposure that they came to us. I was just trying to raise up UNC Pembroke, so hopefully Im doing my job. Now Ive lost count of how many students have come through my lab and gone on to get their Ph.D. Theyre now working in places like Rutgers and Wake Forest. Its very exciting to see them come back and give talks to inspire students.

Q: What advice do you have for students interested in dementia research?

A: Dont be scared to walk in a laboratory and try. I cant tell you how many times a student has said, I cant do math, so I cant be in a lab. I tell them to just come in and practice with the math. Well see how your brain works, and Ill figure out a way to get you to understand.

You also have to fail on certain things. Youre going to make mistakes. But as soon as students are not scared of making a mistake, theyll come in and start working.

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Meet the UNC Pembroke professor leading research on Alzheimers disease - The Robesonian

Summary: A new genome-wide analysis of five reading and language based skills reveals a shared biological basis contributing to these skills.

Source: Max Planck Institute

What is the biological basis of our uniquely human capacity to speak, read and write?

A genome-wide analysis of five reading- and language-based skills in many thousands of people, published inPNAS, identifies shared biology contributing to these traits.

Findings from previous smaller genetic studies were not replicated.

The international teamled by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the Donders Institute in Nijmegen, the Netherlandsalso uncovered genetic links with language-related brain areas.

The use of spoken and written language is a fundamental human capacity.

We have known for many years that individual differences in the relevant skills must be influenced by variations in our genomes, says first author Else Eising from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (MPI) in Nijmegen.

This is the first time that datasets of tens of thousands of participants have been gathered together to really reliably investigate the many DNA variants that contribute.

The study represents the first output of the GenLang consortium, an international network of leading researchers interested in the genetics of speech and language. The consortium was founded by MPI director Simon Fisher, together with colleagues from multiple different countries.

The scientists were able to combine data from 22 different cohorts collected worldwide. While most participants were English speakers, some had other mother tongues (Dutch, Spanish, German, Finnish, French and Hungarian).

The large sample sizesup to 34,000 individuals per traitare suitable to investigate the contributions of several million common DNA variants, each with tiny effect size, via methods that have been successfully applied to biomedical traits.

Reading and language skills

For each cohort, researchers had previously tested participants on a range of different reading- and language-related skills. Three of these skills involved reading aloud of words (horse) or pronounceable nonwords (chove) and spelling.

A fourth skill was phoneme awareness, the ability to distinguish and manipulatespeech soundsin words, assessed by asking people to delete sounds (say stop without s) or to create spoonerisms (Paddington BearBaddington Pear).

Finally, in tests of nonword repetition, people are asked to repeat spoken nonwords of varying lengths and complexity (loddernapish), a task tapping speech perception, verbal short-term memory, and articulation.

DNA was also available for all the cohorts, enabling the GenLang team to carry out a so-called genome-wide association study (GWAS). The team used genetic correlation analyses to investigate whether the DNA variants involved in the five skills overlapped with each otherand with other cognitive and brain imaging traits.

If we can uncover the biological bases of skills involved in speaking and reading, we may learn more about how language evolved in our species, explains Eising.

In addition, we can better understand why there are individual differences in these skills, even in societies where most people receive similar high quality education towards literacy and language.

Reappraising the field

Results of the GenLang study showed that the five reading- and language-related traits are highly related at the genetic level, suggesting shared biological bases. While there was evidence of genetic overlaps with general cognitive ability (both verbal and nonverbal skills), correlations with nonverbal IQ were low.

The team did not replicate earlier findings from much smaller studies. We suspect that quite a few of the previously reported candidate gene associations with reading- and language-related traits in studies with small samples reflect false-positive findings, says Eising.

The researchers identified a genetic link withindividual differencesin the neuroanatomy of a language-related brain area, the left superior temporal sulcus. This brain region is known to be an important player (together with other areas) in the processing of spoken and written language. There was also a genetic link with parts of the DNA that play a regulatory role in the fetal brain.

Nature intertwined with nurture

This research shows the considerable value of team science approaches for understanding molecular genetic contributions to complex human traits like language, concludes Fisher.

The biology of reading- and language-related skills is highly complex. To develop these skills, exposure to language as well as education in reading are essential. Our work illustrates the intertwining of both nature and nurture in the development of language and literacy.

In the future, we hope to build on these efforts with genetically informative datasets covering a broader range of traits relevant forlanguage, for instance including abilities related to grammatical processing.

To more quickly and easily characterize reading andlanguage skillsin large groups of individuals, we will likely need development of tests that can be administered online, and this is a major focus of the GenLang consortium moving forward.

Author: Press OfficeSource: Max Planck InstituteContact: Press Office Max Planck InstituteImage: The image is in the public domain

Original Research: Open access.Genome-wide analyses of individual differences in quantitatively assessed reading- and language-related skills in up to 34,000 people by Else Eising et al. PNAS

Abstract

Genome-wide analyses of individual differences in quantitatively assessed reading- and language-related skills in up to 34,000 people

The use of spoken and written language is a fundamental human capacity. Individual differences in reading- and language-related skills are influenced by genetic variation, with twin-based heritability estimates of 30 to 80% depending on the trait. The genetic architecture is complex, heterogeneous, and multifactorial, but investigations of contributions of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were thus far underpowered.

We present a multicohort genome-wide association study (GWAS) of five traits assessed individually using psychometric measures (word reading, nonword reading, spelling, phoneme awareness, and nonword repetition) in samples of 13,633 to 33,959 participants aged 5 to 26 y.

We identified genome-wide significant association with word reading (rs11208009,P= 1.098 108) at a locus that has not been associated with intelligence or educational attainment. All five reading-/language-related traits showed robust SNP heritability, accounting for 13 to 26% of trait variability.

Genomic structural equation modeling revealed a shared genetic factor explaining most of the variation in word/nonword reading, spelling, and phoneme awareness, which only partially overlapped with genetic variation contributing to nonword repetition, intelligence, and educational attainment. A multivariate GWAS of word/nonword reading, spelling, and phoneme awareness maximized power for follow-up investigation.

Genetic correlation analysis with neuroimaging traits identified an association with the surface area of the banks of the left superior temporal sulcus, a brain region linked to the processing of spoken and written language. Heritability was enriched for genomic elements regulating gene expression in the fetal brain and in chromosomal regions that are depleted of Neanderthal variants.

Together, these results provide avenues for deciphering the biological underpinnings of uniquely human traits.

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Massive Genome Study Informs the Biology of Reading and Language - Neuroscience News

Gencove: Josh Mann

Gencove announced that Josh Mann has joined as chief commercial officer. He will be responsible for commercialization of Gencove's low-pass whole-genome sequencing software and service platform.

Mann comes to the firm from NeoGenomics Laboratories, where he was director of business development for informatics. He has also held executive roles at Sophia Genetics, TwinStrand Biosciences, and Meso Scale Diagnostics and spent eight years in sales at Qiagen.

Mann holds an MBA from the Julius Maximilians University of Wrzburg.

IsoPlexis: Nachum Shamir, Siddhartha Kadia, Michael Egholm

IsoPlexis has appointed Nachum "Homi" Shamir to its board of directors as a class II director. Shamir was most recently chairman and CEO of Luminex from 2014 through its sale to DiaSorin in 2021. Previously, Shamir was president and CEO of Given Imaging from 2006 through its sale to Covidien (now Medtronic) in 2014. Shamir currently serves on the board of directors of Strata Skin Sciences and as chairman of the boards of Mediwound and Cactus Acquisition.

IsoPlexis also said that it has accepted the resignations of Siddhartha Kadia and Michael Egholm from its board. IsoPlexis will continue to search for an additional board member and expects to fill this opening prior to its next annual meeting.

HTG Molecular Diagnostics: Thomas Dubensky

HTG Molecular Diagnostics has appointed Thomas Dubensky to its board of directors. Dubensky was the founding CEO of Tempest Therapeutics and currently serves as president of that company. He has also previously served as CSO of Aduro Biotech, Immune Design, and Anza Therapeutics, which he also cofounded.

For additional recent items on executive appointments, promotions, and departures in the omics and molecular diagnostics space, please see the People in the News page on our website.

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People in the News at Gencove, IsoPlexis, HTG Molecular, More - GenomeWeb

The Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine (FoLSM) is one of Europes largest and most prestigious centres for biomedical education and research. A powerhouse of discovery and innovation, our collective ambition is to deliver tangible improvements to patient care, population health and societal wellbeing. Our vibrant community is comprised of six Schools and a Centre for Education, over 1,200 academic and research staff, and over 6,000 talented students. The Faculty has developed strong links in both education and research with the other health related faculties and more broadly across the College to enable truly interdisciplinary and innovative approaches.

The School of Basic & Medical Biosciences within FoLSM now seeks to hire a Professor within the Department of Medical & Molecular Genetics. The department is home to 17 academic groups with a wide range of research interests and expertise across lab based and computational genetics and from basic discovery to clinical translation. There is an expectation that the successful candidate will carry out cutting edge research in their field, preferably human clinical genetics, so that we may better address the challenges of disease among all populations. The appointee will be an academic leader with significant experience in attracting research funding as PI and in publishing high quality outputs. Experience of fostering strong links with NHS providers would be advantageous.

Research and education at Kings benefits from multiple national and global partnerships and the Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC) of Kings Health Partners brings together world-class research, education and clinical practice for the benefit of patients. The Department shares the AHSCs commitment to ensuring faster translation and adoption of research innovation into clinical practice. The successful candidate will therefore bring the required skills to foster interdisciplinary partnerships that increase the reach of the Departments research and education and deliver impacts to benefit society.

The opportunity extends to applying for the role of Head of Department (3 years once renewable term) should this be of interest. The Head of Department will play a leading role in developing the Department through personal mentorship and leadership. The appointee will foster a stimulating, innovative and inclusive environment, enabling students and staff to thrive and develop. Regardless of position(s) applying for, please note that all applicants must have a PhD.

For further information about the role please visit https://jobs.kcl.ac.uk/professor-medical-molecular-geneticsand to apply for this role, please go to the Kings Career pages to submit the specified documentation. Informal enquiries may be made to the Kings Search Team; please contact Sarah Fraser or Matthew Granger at kings-search@kcl.ac.uk

The deadline for applications is11.59pmonWednesday 21st September2022.Interviews will be held inNovember 2022.

FoLSM is proud to hold an Athena SWAN Silver Award, and we expect our community to be committed to embedding an inclusive environment that celebrates and enables the diversity of our students and staff in everything that we do.

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Professor (with Head of Department potential), Department of Medical & Molecular Genetics job with KINGS COLLEGE LONDON | 304203 - Times Higher...

Kathy C. Cordes, a former Baltimore Sun artist who later worked at NASAs Space Telescope Institute on the Homewood campus of the Johns Hopkins University, died of congestive heart failure July 29 at Gilchrist Center in Towson. The former longtime Ednor Gardens resident was 71.

Kath was very smart and could easily have been a doctor or a scientist, said Ann Feild, a former Sun artist and Space Telescope Institute colleague and a longtime friend.

She had a strong work ethic, keen research, editorial and problem-solving skills. She was a unique artistic talent who had the ability to do realistic renderings and computer graphics as well as whimsical illustrations, she said. Her talents straddled the arena of art and ever-evolving digital technology.

And what a mind she had. It was wide, deep and expansive. She was also funny as heck and had a fabulous sense of the absurd. And [she was] nobodys fool.

Bonnie J. Eisenhamer, former education program manager in the Office of Public Outreach at NASAs Space Telescope Science Institute, worked closely with Ms. Cordes.

Kathy was one of a kind. She was delightful, pleasant, conscientious and dedicated, Ms. Eisenhamer said. She always went the extra mile to make sure things were right and adhered to national education standards. She always wanted to balance the creative while at the same time meeting our obligations. Ive worked with many artists and not all can do that.

Kathy Cheryl Cordes, daughter of Kenneth L. Cordes, a DuPont Co. chemical engineer, and Margaret A. Cordes, a special education teacher, was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and raised in its North Graylyn Crest neighborhood.

Kathy Cordes was a lab tech before working as an illustrator.

As a youngster, she attended dance, aerobatics and ballet classes, and was curious, as always, even then, said a sister, Holly Cordes Haegele of Pike Creek, Delaware.

After graduating from Brandywine High School, where she had been an exemplary student and a member of the drama club, Ms. Cordes first attended East Carolina University before matriculating to the University of Delaware, where she earned a bachelors degree in plant science. She also obtained a masters degree in psychology from Columbia University.

Early on, however, she spent a few years meandering. Drawn to science, and loving gardening, she got a degree in plant science, according to a 2019 Broadmead Retirement Community profile in Hunt Valley, where she had moved that year. But Kathy always drew and while working as a lab tech at a molecular genetics lab, she submitted some drawings to an anonymous ad in a Washington newspaper, that led to a series of jobs in news graphics.

Ms. Cordes worked for a subcontractor for the National Institutes of Health laboratory in Frederick doing DNA sequencing.

Kath had natural art skills and obviously could make more money doing that than working in the lab, Ms. Feild said. She could do the most realistic portraits and beautiful nature drawings, and could also do 1950s-inspired retro illustrations.

Ms. Cordes launched her career as a news artist when she went to work for United Press International in Washington, and later took a similar position with the The Mercury News, a newspaper in San Jose, California.

She returned to the East Coast and worked briefly for The Washington Times before joining The Sun as a staff artist and illustrator in the mid-1980s.

Twelve years later, Ms. Cordes joined the Office of Public Outreach at the Space Telescope Institute, home of the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes.

There Ms. Cordes worked closely with scientists and educators to convey complex astrophysics data to the lay public with graphics for the web and print publications, Ms. Feild said.

One of Ms. Cordes jobs was designing online teaching tools for Amazing Space a website for teachers and children. She considered it a dream job because it blended science, art and education, according to the Broadmead profile, and another favorite project was working on The Star Witness, a kids astronomy newspaper.

Vernon L. Simms was the chief of staff for the late U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings and also owned and operated a home improvement business.

Kathy was a special woman for sure, Ms. Eisenhamer wrote in an email. She could take a badly drawn idea I had and bring it to life. She always connected to what we needed even when we didnt know ourselves. She made work easier and a more enjoyable place to be.

Kathy had a passion for science and education and she believed in what she did. She was simply the best of the best.

Stratis Kakadelis, former deputy head of the Office of Public Outreach, was another close colleague.

Daily

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Kathy had exacting standards of her own no matter how low yours were. You couldnt have anyone better to work with, Mr. Kakadelis said. She did so much to bring the excitement of Hubble discoveries to students and educators. She really had a worldwide impact.

Mr. Kakadelis said they also shared concern caring for older parents.

[Jeffrey Martin Arnstein, an antiques restorer, dies]

Id get to work early and Kathy was always there, he said. She had a sofa chair in her office and Id plop down and we talked, not about work, but of the difficulties of caring for elderly parents. The humanity in her was amazing.

A tall and angular woman with thick gray hair and a face that was highlighted by rimless glasses and brightened by a seemingly endless welcoming smile, Ms. Cordes was an avid gardener who had turned her Rexmere Road home in Ednor Gardens into a floral showplace.

Other pastimes included gesture drawing, paper arts, shadow puppets, origami boxes and reading, writing and watching the sky, according to the profile. She was also an animal lover and participated in animal rescue. She rescued her beloved dog Ernie from the Baltimore Beltway and countless cats who called her Rexmere Road rowhouse their home.

Plans for a celebration-of-life gathering this fall are incomplete.

In addition to her sister, Ms. Cordes is survived by another sister, Judith Kay McClintock of Arden, Delaware.

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Kathy C. Cordes, a former Baltimore Sun artist who later worked at NASA's Space Telescope Institute, dies Baltimore Sun - Baltimore Sun

The arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis (AMS) is one of the most ancient and broadly occurring mutualistic associations between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). This intimate relationship improves plant mineral nutrient acquisition, which potentially enhances crop yield. In addition, AMS can increase plant tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. AMS also contributes to many ecosystem functions, improving soil aggregation, lowering fertilizer requirements, and reducing nutrient losses. Over the past two decades, several genes involved in AMS have been identified based on changes in symbiosis phenotypes in gene knockout or knockdown mutants.However, the relationship betweenplant SSPs and AMS remains largely unknown.

Recently, scientists from the University of Tennessee established a computational pipeline for genome-wide prediction of SSPs in plants and identified a number of plant SSP candidates that are potentially involved in AMS. Their comparative analysis revealed convergent changes in SSP gene expression and gene regulatory elements between monocot and eudicot species, as well as diversification of protein structure between AMF-inducible SSPs and their closely related homologs, suggesting that SSPs may have played an important role in the evolution of AMS in plants.

Our results indicate that convergence in SSP sequences and gene expression induced by fungi is related to convergent emergence of AMS in diverse plant species, and this is also the first plant kingdom-wide analysis on SSP, Dr. Yangsaid. In summary, the SSP candidates identified in this study lay the foundation for the experimental characterization of AMS-related genes to gain a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underlie the interactions between plants and AMF.

###

Reference

Authors

Xiao-Li Hu1,2, Jin Zhang3, Rakesh Kaundal4, Raghav Kataria4, Jesse L. Labb2, Julie C. Mitchell2, Timothy J. Tschaplinski2,5, Gerald A. Tuskan2,5, Zong-Ming (Max) Cheng1,6,*and Xiaohan Yang1,2,5,*

Affiliations

1Department of Plant Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA

2Biosciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA

3State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Silviculture, Zhejiang A&F University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 311300, China

4Department of Plants, Soils and Climate, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322, USA

5The Center for Bioenergy Innovation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA

6College of Horticulture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210095 China

AboutDr. Xiaohan YangandDr. Zong-Ming (Max) Cheng

Dr. Xiaohan Yang is a Senior Scientist in the Synthetic Biology Group in the Biosciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He obtained his Ph.D. degree (Horticulture/Plant Molecular Biology/Plant Breeding) from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. He is editor-in-chief of BioDesign Research (https://spj.sciencemag.org/journals/bdr/). His research covers plant genome editing, plant metabolic pathway engineering, plant-based biosensors, synthetic biology tool development, secure biosystems design, and plant genomics, with a focus on bioenergy crops and plant-microbe interactions to solve renewable energy and environmental challenges. He won an R&D 100 Award in 2018.

Dr. Zong-Ming (Max) Chengis the Editor-in-Chief of Horticulture Researchand also aJoint Professor at Nanjing Agricultural University and University of Tennessee. Dr. Cheng received his BS in Fruit Science from Nanjing Agricultural University in 1982 and his MS (in 1988) and Ph.D. (in 1991) from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, USA. Over the last 20 years, Dr. Cheng has been working on genetics, breeding, biotechnology, and genomics of fruit, ornamental, and forest trees at North Dakota State University (from November 1990 to July 2001), at University of Tennessee (August 2001 to the present), and jointly at Nanjing Agricultural University (September 2009 to the present). Dr. Cheng has (co)authored about 70 refereed publications, and his research has been funded by the USDA, DOE/CPBR, EPA/CPBR, NSF, and other public and industry sources. Dr. Cheng currently serves as an Associate Editor, Consulting Editor, and Guest Editor-in-Chief for several professional journals. Dr. Cheng was elected a Fellow of the American Society for Horticultural Sciences in 2012.

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Discovery of the interactions between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi - EurekAlert

When a patient suffers an ischemic stroke when a clot chokes off the blood supply of vital oxygen and nutrients to the brain those brain cells begin to die within minutes. The resulting tissue damage can lead to long term complications, including paralysis, memory loss, depression, difficulty controlling emotions, and changes in behavior.

There are currently no FDA-approved therapies for repairing the damage caused by a stroke.

Now, researchers at the University of Cincinnati and Case Western Reserve University have identified a new drug which may help repair not just limit stroke damage.

When a patient suffers an ischemic stroke brain cells begin to die within minutes.

The candidate, called NVG-291-R, led to neurorepair and improved motor skills in mice with surgically-induced ischemic strokes. While time is of the essence in stroke care, the team found that NVG-291-R worked even a week after the stroke.

After the treatment, theyre cognitively improved, their motor skills are improved and this is when we treat them from not just one day, but a full week after injury thats pretty cool, Jerry Silver, Case Western professor of neuroscience and co-author of the Cell Reports study, told New Scientist.

Focusing on neurorepair: Neurorepair is what sets the drug apart.

Most therapies being researched today primarily focus on reducing the early damage from stroke, Agnes (Yu) Luo, senior author and an associate professor in Cincinnatis Department of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, said in a statement.

However, our group has focused on neurorepair as an alternative, Luo said although the team also found that NVG-291-R reduced brain cell death to begin with.

The drug repaired the brain via two different mechanisms: by creating new connections between neurons called plasticity and by nudging baby neurons, from neuronal stem cells, to the site of the damage.

Case Western researchers had previously discovered that a molecule that floats in-between cells and is important to neurorepair, called chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans, can cause a stickiness when it gloms onto the receptors that are common in scar tissues. This stickiness hamstrings neurorepair.

The drug repaired stroke damage in mice, improving memory and motor skills.

Our drug prevents this stickiness so the tissue can be repaired, Silver told New Scientist.

Staining techniques showed new nerve fibers sprouting in damaged brain tissue after treatment with the drug.

Neurorepair in mice: To test their drug, the team surgically induced ischemic strokes in 40 mice, and injected them daily with either NVG-291-R or a saline solution beginning a week after their stroke.

The team compared how long it took mice to get out of a maze they had first learned before their stroke to gauge memory improvement, New Scientist explained. Those who had received the drug finished twice as fast, on average, as those who received the placebo.

To test motor function, the team and this is kind of cute, really put tape on one of the mouses paws. Mice who were injected with the drug removed the tape more than twice as fast.

Next steps: More research will be needed to determine if the drugs neurorepair abilities will translate to human stroke victims.

It also has not been tested against other forms of stroke, although Stanley Thomas Carmichael, chair of the neurology department at UCLA, told New Scientist that the same condition the drug targets on is present in other strokes, so it is a possibility. (Carmichael is unaffiliated with the research.)

After the treatment, theyre cognitively improved, their motor skills are improved and this is when we treat them from not just one day, but a full week after injury thats pretty cool.

If the neurorepair drug works in humans, it could represent an entirely new way to treat stroke to not just prevent damage, but actually fix it, even well after a stroke occurs.

The only current FDA-approved drug for treatment of stroke does not repair damage and must be administered within 4.5 hours of stroke onset, Luo said in the statement.

Most therapies being researched need to be applied within 24-48 hours of a strokes onset. A product that works to repair damage from stroke even a week after symptom onset would change the paradigm for stroke treatment.Wed love to hear from you! If you have a comment about this article or if you have a tip for a future Freethink story, please email us at [emailprotected]

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A new drug could repair stroke damage to memory and movement - Freethink

During the 2021-2022 flu season, influenza activity in the United States was lower than pre-pandemic levels despite increased reporting and testing, possibly owing to COVID-19 precautions, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

For the 2022-2023 season, CDC has updated recommendations for the annual vaccine to include a closer antigenic match to the A(H3N2) subclade that predominated in the 2021-2022 US season, the report notes.

"The 2021-22 influenza season was mild," lead author Angiezel Merced-Morales, MPH, and colleagues write in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. "Influenza activity continued from October 2021 through mid-June 2022, with A(H3N2) viruses predominating throughout the season."

"Since SARS-CoV-2 emerged in the United States in early 2020, influenza activity has been lower than that seen before the pandemic," add the authors, from the CDC's Influenza Division of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

"The adoption of COVID-19-related mitigation measures might have had an impact on the timing or severity of influenza activity," they write.

The US influenza surveillance system involves collaborations between CDC and state, local, and territorial health departments; clinical and public health laboratories; vital statistics offices; healthcare providers; and hospitals, emergency departments, clinics, and long-term care facilities.

CDC used the cumulative rates of influenza-related hospitalizations reported through FluSurv-NET, as well as a mathematical model to estimate the number of people with symptomatic influenza who had a medical visit, were hospitalized for, or died of influenza.

Using data available from early October 2021 through mid-June 2022, CDC estimated that influenza virus infection resulted in 8-13 million symptomatic illnesses, 3.7-6.1 million medical visits, 82,000-170,000 hospitalizations, and 5000-14,000 deaths.

Clinical laboratories tested more than 2.8 million respiratory specimens for influenza virus. Overall, 4.5% specimens tested positive, including 98.6% for influenza A and 1.4% for influenza B. Each week, between 0.1% and 9.9% of the specimens tested positive for influenza.

Of the nearly 900,000 specimens tested in public health laboratories, 2.8% were positive for influenza virus. Of these, 99.5% were positive for influenza A viruses and 0.5% were positive for influenza B viruses.

Among over 19,000 seasonal influenza A virus specimens that were subtyped, 0.1% were influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and 99.9% were influenza A(H3N2).

Of the A(H3N2) viruses with age data available, the proportions reported were 10% in people aged 0-4 years, 51% in those aged 5-24 years, 28% in those aged 25-64 years, and 11% those aged 65 years or older. The numbers of reported A(H1N1)pdm09, B/Victoria, and B/Yamagata viruses were too low to analyze by age group.

COVID-19 continued to dominate the deaths from pneumonia, influenza, and/or COVID-19 (PIC). According to the National Center for Health Statistics Mortality Surveillance System, the weekly percentage of PIC deaths remained above the epidemic threshold set at 1.645 standard deviations above the seasonal baseline during the entire 2021-2022 season.

Of the 387,112 PIC deaths, 71.6% of death certificates listed COVID-19 as an underlying or contributing cause of death and 0.6% listed influenza. These numbers indicate that PIC-related deaths were due primarily to COVID-19, not to influenza.

All 31 laboratory-confirmed influenza-related pediatric deaths reported to CDC were linked with an influenza A virus infection, and all 13 influenza A viruses with subtyping information were identified as A(H3N2).

All of the influenza viruses collected and tested for antiviral resistance by CDC were susceptible to zanamivir, and over 99% were susceptible to baloxavir, oseltamivir, and peramivir.

The US Food and Drug Administration's Vaccines and Related Biologic Products Advisory Committee has selected the composition of the 2022-2023 influenza vaccines on the basis of the World Health Organization's recommended Northern Hemisphere 2022-2023 influenza vaccine composition.

The committee updated the recommended A(H3N2) component for the 2022-2023 influenza vaccine to one that belongs to the subclade that predominated in the US during the 2021-2022 season, 3C.2a1b.2a.2. They made no changes to the A(H1N1)pdm09 or the B/Yamagata egg-based, cell-based, or recombinant vaccine recommended components.

Kevin McCarthy, PhD

Commenting on the report to Medscape Medical News, Kevin McCarthy, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Vaccine Research, said that influenza seasons are notoriously unpredictable.

"Behavioral changes brought about by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic changed long-standing patterns of influenza circulation," he noted in an email. "This year, the peaks of infection were blunted, the overall severity of the season was diminished, and the season was elongated.

"Our vaccines for the 2022-2023 season have been chosen to match viruses currently circulating during the protracted tail end of the 2021-2022 season," he said. "Perhaps this will help us more closely match the circulating and vaccine viruses.

"As we return to something closer to the pre-pandemic world, will influenza return to its long-held trends?" asked McCarthy, who was not involved in developing the report. "Unfortunately, we will only know after next year's report."

"Regardless of what the future holds," he advises, "receiving the 2022-2023 vaccine is the best way to prepare."

The authors agree.

"Receiving a seasonal influenza vaccine each year remains the best way to protect against seasonal influenza and its potentially severe consequences," they write.

Influenza surveillance reports for the US are published online weekly at https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly, and more information about influenza viruses, surveillance, vaccines, antiviral medications, and novel influenza A infections is at https://www.cdc.gov/flu.

The authors and McCarthy report no relevant financial relationships.

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Published online July 22, 2022. Full text HTML and PDF

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CDC Says Recent Flu Season Mild, Maybe Owing to COVID Precautions - Medscape