Category Archives: Molecular Medicine

SAN DIEGO, May 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --Hitachi High-Tech Corporation ("Hitachi High-Tech") has entered into a strategic partnership (the Partnership) with Invivoscribe, Inc. ("Invivoscribe"),

a global provider of blood cancer testing kits and services, by undertaking a minority investment-based, third-party allotment of shares. The Partnership aims to accelerate the molecular diagnostics and precision medicine businesses of both companies by combining Invivoscribe's technology, assay and bioinformatics development, global clinical testing, and international regulatory expertise with Hitachi High-Tech's core expertise in measurement and analysis systems technologies.

Invivoscribe is a privately-held,California-based life science corporation with seven wholly-owned subsidiaries in five countries, including clinical laboratories in four countries. Invivoscribe is engaged in three core business functions: 1) testing servicesfor blood cancers, 2) global sales and distribution of test kits and licensing bioinformatics software, and 3) the development and commercialization of companion diagnostics to support pharmaceutical approval of new oncology treatments.

Hitachi High-Tech'sAnalytical & Medical Solutions Business aims to support emerging businesses in the life science and healthcare industries while building out its own in vitro diagnostics (IVD) business. This Partnership is part of Hitachi High Tech's growth strategy of strengthening this molecular diagnostics business, whose mission is to contribute to the early detection and treatment of cancer, and discover newdrugs,by providing molecular cancer diagnostics to all people, thereby realizing a healthy and secure society.

Through this strategic partnership, Hitachi High-Tech aims to cooperate across development, manufacturing, sales and testing services, while developing systems that provide solutions that better address the on-site needs of cancer diagnosis and monitoring throughout the course of treatment.

"Invivoscribe is excited at the synergistic opportunities, combining our core expertise in global standardization of tests and bioinformatics, our clinical lab services, and our processes for developing custom companion diagnostics from analytical/clinical validations through international regulatory approvals and commercialization, with Hitachi's expertise in instrumentation development and manufacturing,"said Jeffrey Miller, CEO and founder of Invivoscribe. "Hitachi manufactures and distributes in vitro diagnostic instruments that we currently use to standardize testing for the international community; we are looking forward to further deepening our Partnership so we can advance precision medicine worldwide."

"Hitachi High-Tech has been strengthening its molecular diagnosis business centered on genetic testing. By combining Invivoscribe's testing service business with our equipment business, we aim to build a unique business model and provide a wide range of services to medical professionals," said Yoshimitsu Takagi, Vice President and Executive Officer, and General Manager, Analytical & Medical Solution Business Group of Hitachi High-Tech.

About Invivoscribe

Invivoscribe has been Improving Lives with Precision Diagnostics for more than twenty-five years, advancing the field of precision medicine by developing and selling standardized reagents, tests, and bioinformatics tools to more than 700 customers in 160 countries. Invivoscribe also has a significant impact on global health working with pharmaceutical companies to accelerate approvals of new drugs and treatments by supporting international clinical trials, developing, commercializing companion diagnostics, and providing expertise in both regulatory and laboratory services. With its proven ability to provide global access to distributable reagents, kits, and controls, as well as clinical trial services through our international clinical lab subsidiaries (LabPMM), Invivoscribe has demonstrated it is an ideal partner. For additional information please visit: http://www.invivoscribe.com or contact Invivoscribe at: customerservice@invivoscribe.com.

About Hitachi High-Tech

Hitachi High-Tech, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is engaged in activities in a broad range of fields, including manufacture and sales of clinical analyzers, biotechnology products, and analytical instruments, semiconductor manufacturing equipment and analysis equipment. and providing high value-added solutions in fields of social & industrial infrastructures and mobility, etc. The company's consolidated revenues for FY 2021 were approximately JPY 576.8 billion [USD 5.1 billion]. For further information, visit http://www.hitachi-hightech.com/global/

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Hitachi High-Tech and Invivoscribe partner to advance molecular diagnostics and precision medicine - Longview News-Journal

For many of us today, death will not be the end. We dont mean that in a metaphysical sense and this isnt a weirdly calm preamble to announcing the onset of a zombie apocalypse were talking about organ donation. Thanks to this life-saving procedure, a good number of us may literally still be pumping iron, posing and, um, pooping, long after we die.

But as smart as our scientists are, there are some parts of the body that just dont donate well. While organs like kidneys or livers can be put on ice for hours to slow damage from lack of oxygen, tissue from the central nervous system becomes non-viable in less than four minutes after death. And frustratingly, exactly why this happens, and whether its reversible, has not been well understood. Until now.

We were able to wake up photoreceptor cells in the human macula, which is the part of the retina responsible for our central vision and our ability to see fine detail and color, explained Fatima Abbas, a postdoctoral researcher at the John A. Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah, in a statement. In eyes obtained up to five hours after an organ donors death, these cells responded to bright light, colored lights, and even very dim flashes of light.

Abbas is lead author of a new study, published this week in the journal Nature, aimed at figuring out how neurons die and potential ways to revive them. Using human retinas as a model for the central nervous system, the team made a series of discoveries that will, they write, enabl[e] transformative studies in the human central nervous system, rais[e] questions about the irreversibility of neuronal cell death, and provid[e] new avenues for visual rehabilitation.

While the researchers were indeed able to revive the photoreceptor cells, initially at least, things didnt look good. Until now, it hasnt been possible to get the cells in all of the different layers of the central retina to communicate with each other the way they normally do in a living retina, explained study co-author Anne Hanneken, a retinal surgeon, and Scripps Research Associate Professor at the Department of Molecular Medicine of the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego.

The reason, they realized, was oxygen deprivation. So they set about finding a way to overcome the damage caused by lack of oxygen, with study co-author and fellow Moran Eye Center scientist Frans Vinberg designing a special transportation unit that could restore oxygenation and other nutrients to eyes taken from organ donors within 20 minutes of death.

That wasnt the only invention Vinberg brought to the experiment. He also came up with a device that could stimulate these retinas to produce electrical activity, and measure the output. Thanks to this technique, the team were able to break another barrier: the first-ever recording of a b wave signal from the central retina of postmortem human eyes.

In living eyes, b waves are a type of electrical signal associated with the health of the inner layers of the retina so to have been able to stimulate them in postmortem eyes is really important. It means that the layers of the macula were communicating again, just like they do when were alive, to help us see.

We were able to make the retinal cells talk to each other, the way they do in the living eye to mediate human vision, Vinberg explained. Past studies have restored very limited electrical activity in organ donor eyes, but this has never been achieved in the macula, and never to the extent we have now demonstrated.

It may be a small result the macula is only about 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) in diameter, after all but it has huge implications. As it stands, death is a state partially defined by neuron death, which so far has proven irreversible. If neurons can in fact be restored to living quality, perhaps it will force us to once again reconsider what counts as dead and maybe well see the Grim Reaper staved off even longer than weve already managed.

Of course, even if that is where this discovery leads eventually, there are more pressing matters at hand as anybody who wears glasses can attest. And the team are confident their results will have big advantages for the future of vision research too: Going forward, well be able to use this approach to develop treatments to improve vision and light signaling in eyes with macular diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration, Hanneken pointed out.

The slew of new results hint at a way for future researchers to study neurodegenerative diseases throughout the body, not just in the eyes, but its importance for vision research cant be overstated. The study has already broken ground for its revival of b waves, and the team suspect theyve also discovered the mechanism responsible for rate-limiting the speed of human central vision; the techniques also open the door to developing visual therapies on working human eyes, saving researchers the ethical concerns of using non-human primates (and even more so for human primates) or the scientific problems that come with using lab mice (who have no macula.)

All they need now is more eyes.

The scientific community can now study human vision in ways that just arent possible with laboratory animals, said Vinberg. We hope this will motivate organ donor societies, organ donors, and eye banks by helping them understand the exciting new possibilities this type of research offers.

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Scientists Bring Life To Eyes That Died Five Hours Earlier - IFLScience

Aviadobio Ltd

AviadoBio Announces Formation of Scientific Advisory Board

Includes prominent international scientific and clinical pioneers across neurodegeneration research, neurosurgical drug delivery and neurological gene therapy

SAB will provide expert insight and guidance as the Company progresses its pipeline of gene therapies targeting devastating neurodegenerative diseases such as Frontotemporal Dementia and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

London, UK, May 12, 2022 AviadoBio, a pioneering, pre-clinical stage, gene therapy company focused on developing and delivering transformative medicines for people with neurodegenerative disorders, announces that it has established a Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) comprising world-leading experts in neurodegenerative diseases, neurosurgical drug delivery and gene therapy development.

The newly formed SAB will provide expert guidance to AviadoBio on its current and future research and development strategy, which involves the progression of its lead program in frontotemporal dementia (FTD) into the clinic, advancing the Companys preclinical pipeline, including for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and building out the Companys nervous system targeted delivery platforms.

The SAB will be led by Co-founder Prof. Chris Shaw, who currently serves as Chief Scientific and Clinical Advisor and developed AviadoBios technology in his laboratory at Kings College London, with the support of the UK Dementia Research Institute. Chris is a world-renowned Neurologist and Neuroscientist, who brings a deep understanding of brain architecture and disease pathogenesis and is driven by a career-long goal of delivering effective treatments to his patients.

Lisa Deschamps, CEO of AviadoBio, said: "Attracting such an esteemed and diverse group of neurodegenerative disease, neurosurgery and gene therapy experts to the AviadoBio team is a testament to the strength of our differentiated approach. Each member of the SAB brings unrivalled scientific expertise and in-depth knowledge that will be particularly invaluable as we progress our lead program for FTD into the clinic later this year.

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Professor Chris Shaw, commented: I am delighted to Chair AviadoBios Scientific Advisory Board, which includes world-leading experts in their respective fields. The first therapies we are developing address unmet needs of people affected by FTD and ALS. These are devastating diseases with no approved treatments, and I look forward to working with the Board to advise the AviadoBio team in their drive to develop novel therapies capable of transforming the lives of patients and families.

The AviadoBio SAB members are as follows:

Professor Chris Shaw MBChB, MD, Co-founder AviadoBio and Professor of Neurology and Neurogenetics, Kings College London, UK

Professor Krystof Bankiewicz MD, PhD, Tenured Professor, Vice Chair of Research, Director, Brain Health and Performance Center, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Department of Neurological Surgery

Professor Don Cleveland PhD, Professor of Medicine, Neurosciences, and Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Ludwig Cancer Research, University of California, San Diego, USA

Professor Jonathan Rohrer MBBS, PhD, Professor of Neurology, UCL, London, UK

Professor Steven Gill MD, Chief Medical Officer, Neurochase Ltd and Hon. Professor of Neurosurgery, University of Bristol, UK

Professor Merit Cudkowicz MD, MSc, Julieanne Dorn Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School Chief, Neurology Service, Massachusetts General Hospital Director, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital, Tenured Professor, Vice Chair of Research, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Department of Neurological Surgery

Assistant Professor Heather Gray-Edwards DVM, PhD, Assistant Professor of Radiology at UMMS, member of the Horae Gene Therapy Center

Professor Christian Haass PhD, Professor of Biochemistry Ludwig-Maximilians, University Munich, Germany

Omar Khwaja MD PhD, Chief Medical Officer, VectivBio AG

ENDS

About AviadoBio

At AviadoBio, our mission is to transform the lives of people living with neurodegenerative disorders by developing and delivering transformative gene therapies for diseases including frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The Companys technology is based on pioneering research from Kings College London and the UK Dementia Research Institute. AviadoBios unique platform combines next-generation gene therapy design with deep neuroscience expertise and a novel neuroanatomy-led approach to drug delivery. AviadoBios investors include New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Monograph Capital, Advent Life Sciences, EQT Lifesciences, Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF), F-Prime Capital, Johnson & Johnson Innovation JJDC, Inc. (JJDC), and LifeArc.

The company is developing AVB-101 for patients with FTD-GRN. AVB-101 is an investigational AAV gene therapy designed to slow or stop disease progression by delivering a functional copy of the GRN gene throughout the central nervous system to restore progranulin levels.

For more information, please visit http://www.aviadobio.com and follow us at Twitter @AviadoBio and LinkedIn AviadoBio.

About Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) and FTD with GRN mutations (FTD-GRN)

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is of the second most common form of dementia in people under the age of 65 after Alzheimers disease. It affects 50,000 to 60,000 patients in the U.S. and over 100,000 in the E.U. Approximately one third of FTD cases are familial and linked to autosomal dominant mutations in three genes including the granulin gene (GRN) and FTD-GRN represents 5-10% of all patients with FTD. Progressive degeneration of the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain is characteristic of FTD, and is associated with progressive decline of behaviour, decision-making, language and emotion, typically leading to death within 7-10 years of diagnosis. There are currently no approved treatments to stop or slow the progression of FTD or FTD-GRN.

Contact:

For media enquiries:

Consilium Strategic CommunicationsChris Gardner, Angela Gray, Sukaina Virji+44 (0) 20 3709 5700AviadoBio@consilium-comms.com

References:

Boxer AL. Miller BL. Alzheimer Dis Assoc Disord. 2005;19 Suppl 1:S3-6

Hogan DB, et al. Can J Neurol Sci. 2016;43 Suppl 1:S96-S109

Olney NT, et al. Neurol Clin. 2017;35(2): 339374

Greaves CV, et al. J Neurol. 2019;266(8):20752086

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AviadoBio Announces Formation of Scientific Advisory Board - Yahoo Finance UK

Medical College of Wisconsin Research CenterRenamed in Mellowes Family Honor

MILWAUKEE, May 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) has dedicated its Genomic Sciences and Precision Medicine Center as the Linda T. and John A. Mellowes Center for Genomic Sciences and Precision Medicine in honor of the couple's $10 million gift to support new research and for MCW faculty studying the potential the human genome has to treat a wide variety of diseases.

The gift is the largest philanthropic investment in the genomic sciences received by MCW, and establishes three new endowed chairs in precision oncology, precision medicine, and bioinformatics and data analytics. Additionally, an endowed innovation and discovery fund will support the center's strategic research objectives.

"John and I are thrilled to make this gift, which we see as an investment in the future of medicine," said Linda Mellowes. "We feel confident that the work of the center will attract intellectual talent to our region and lead to medical breakthroughs and new treatments for patients and families."

"We are deeply grateful to Linda and John for their generosity and for the trust this gift represents in our work as researchers and clinicians," said Raul Urrutia, MD, director of the Mellowes Center and the Warren P. Knowles Chair of Genomics and Precision Medicine. "As we seek to transform how patients are diagnosed and treated, we are proud to have them as partners."

Razelle Kurzrock, MD, FACP, associate director of clinical research for the MCW Cancer Center and associate director of precision oncology at the Mellowes Center has been appointed as the inaugural holder of the Linda T. and John A. Mellowes Endowed Chair of Precision Oncology to advance her research in cancer, including rare cancers.

MCW and its clinical partners, Froedtert Hospital and Children's Wisconsin have a strong record of achievements in the genomic sciences, dating back to the Human Genome Project and the 1999 founding of the MCW Human and Molecular Genetics Center. In 2010, MCW became the first institution in the world to deploy genetic sequencing to diagnose and recommend a treatment for a rare pediatric disease.

SOURCE Medical College of Wisconsin

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Milwaukee-Area Family Invests $10 Million in Genomic Sciences and Precision Medicine Research - PR Newswire

OXFORD, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PrecisionLife Limited, a global techbio company using its deep insights into disease biology and patient stratification to drive precision medicine in chronic diseases, is pleased to announce a partnership with Sano Genetics, a genetic research platform enabling patients to participate in ethical research projects, to advance understanding of the long-term effects of coronavirus infection (long COVID).

The project will include analysis of Sano Genetics data from 3,000 UK adults suffering from long COVID symptoms using PrecisionLifes proprietary combinatorial analytics platform to identify risk-factors and potential drug targets.

It is estimated that 5-30% of Covid patients will go on to have long-term complications and, with over 500M people worldwide confirmed as having been infected, the need for better diagnostics and treatments is large.

PrecisionLifes combinatorial analytics platform is uniquely able to identify the drivers of complex disease biology at an unprecedented level of resolution. This new study aims to advance researchers understanding of why some people, even those with mild original COVID infections, are at risk of developing debilitating long COVID symptoms, and discover novel drug targets and drug repositioning candidates with associated patient stratification biomarkers that could lead to new treatments to help long COVID sufferers.

Under the agreement, Sano Genetics will provide access to its long COVID patient population dataset to PrecisionLife for analysis. Sanos research participants always remain in full control of their data and can select which research programmes they want to take part in on a case-by-case basis. In 2021 Sano Genetics received support via UK Government funding body Innovate UK to anonymously gather genomic DNA data and patient reported outcomes from 3,000 UK adults suffering from long COVID symptoms. One of the key goals of the study is to ensure that the population demographics of the UK are reflected in the data so that the research outcomes are both accurate and representative.

Early in the pandemic, PrecisionLife delivered world leading insights into COVID-19, being the first to identify 68 genes that were associated with serious disease and hospitalization in COVID-19 patients1, and confirming the predicted severe disease risk factors in a clinical dataset2. Since then, over 70% of these gene targets have been independently validated by other research projects around the world. In addition, PrecisionLife revealed opportunities for 29 approved drugs to be repurposed as COVID-19 treatments targeting the associated genes, 13 of which are being evaluated in clinical trials with COVID-19 patients.

Dr Patrick Short, CEO and co-founder of Sano Genetics, said: Learning to live with COVID and manage its health consequences has long term public health and economic implications. An estimated 1.7 million people in the UK have reported experiences of long COVID, with symptoms lasting longer than four weeks.

Understanding how our genetics influence our response to COVID-19 is key to better protecting vulnerable people and developing effective treatments. PrecisionLifes analysis of Sano Genetics data will enable this deep biological understanding.

Dr Steve Gardner, CEO of PrecisionLife, said: Long COVID is a major public health issue. Most sufferers have no clear path for engaging with the healthcare system, as diagnosis is uncertain and the complex symptoms and causes of the disease are not yet fully understood. In our 2020 study, we noted a range of cardiovascular, immunological, and neurological changes in COVID-19 patients and want to understand whether these are transient or permanent.

We are confident that this study into the long-term effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection, working in partnership with Sano Genetics, will deliver valuable insights to enable a better understanding of long COVID vulnerabilities and ultimately ensure that personalized treatments are directed towards those patients that need them most.

Access images HERE

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About PrecisionLife

PrecisionLife is changing the way the world looks at predicting, preventing, and treating chronic diseases. Its proven, scalable, and unique AI and combinatorial analysis platforms generate more insights from patient data than anyone else on the planet to understand the drivers of disease biology and stratify patients at an unprecedented level of resolution.

Understanding disease biology better uniquely enables PrecisionLife to power patient-focused precision drug discovery and predict and prevent chronic diseases to transform outcomes in healthcare, delivering a new age of better, more personalized therapy options to improve health, for everyone.

PrecisionLife is a private company headquartered near Oxford, UK and operations in Aalborg and Copenhagen, Denmark, Warsaw, Poland and Cambridge, MA, USA.

For more information see http://www.precisionlife.com

Follow us on LinkedIn (precisionlifeAI) and Twitter (@precisionlifeAI)

About Sano Genetics

Based in Cambridge, UK, Sano Genetics was founded in 2017 by three students of genomics: Charlotte Guzzo (COO), Patrick Short (CEO) and William Jones (CTO). It helps accelerate precision medicine research by finding people who wish to contribute to studies and helping them do so effortlessly and on their terms. Its platform adopts innovations widespread in other sectors, such as user-friendly digital interfaces, dynamic individualised feedback and an emphasis on privacy, packaged as an end-to-end service that lets people power global studies from their own homes.

Sano is a member of the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative, led by researchers from the Finnish Institute for Molecular Medicine, the Broad Institute of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and will share de-identified data with this international group of scientists. Sano Genetics has been awarded 133,000 by Innovate UK to offer Long COVID patients free DNA testing kits they can use at home.

For more information see http://www.sanogenetics.com

Follow us on LinkedIn (Sano Genetics) and Twitter (@sanogenetics)

1 Taylor, K., Das, S., Pearson, M., Kozubek, J., Pawlowski, M., Jensen, C.E., Skowron, Z., Mller, G.L., Strivens, M. and Gardner, S. (2020). Analysis of genetic host response risk factors in severe COVID-19 patients. medRxiv. 10.1101/2020.06.17.20134015

2 Combinatorial Analysis of Phenotypic and Clinical Risk Factors Associated with Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients. Frontiers in Digital Health. https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2021.660809 (July 2021)

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Biotech Partnership to Accelerate Understanding of Genetics of Long Covid and Help Identify New Treatments - Business Wire

The BDN Editorial Board operates independently from the newsroom, and does not set policies or contribute to reporting or editing aticles elsewhere in the newspaper or onbangordailynews.com.

Maine has the highest COVID case rate in the country. This isnt a headline from the height of the delta variant surge this winter. This is a BDN headlinefrom Wednesday, when the state reported more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases.

The sad truth about the COVID pandemic is that it is not over.That means we need to continue with the precautions that have been shown to reduce the transmission of the virus and to lessen the severity of an infection if you do test positive for COVID. That means getting vaccinatedand boosted. People over 50 and those who are immunocompromised as eligible for a third booster shot. It also means wearing a maskin crowded indoor settingsand gathering outdoors as much as possible.

Maine has had the highest case rate in the country for nearly a week. On Sunday, Maine reported 407 cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That was by far the highest of any state in the country. Vermont followed with 395 and Rhode Island had 385 cases per 100,000 residents. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have much higher case rates than these states.

The small bit of good news is that Maines case rate hasdroppedfrom the 421 cases per 100,000 that the CDC reported on Friday.

Case numbers nationally are likely an undercountas many people now use at-home tests, which are not reported to state medical agencies.

There has also been an increase COVID hospitalizationsin the state. On Monday, there were 209 Mainersinfected with the virus in hospitals across the state. Last week was the first time hospitalizations surpassed 200since February. Hospitalizations in Maine peaked at 436 in January, during the omicron surge.

Mondays hospitalizations were up from 143 just 10 days earlier, a 46 percent increase.

Because of the nations highest case rate and rising hospitalizations, masks are once again recommendedwhen indoors in halfof the states counties, including Penobscot and Cumberland. Bangor public schools again began requiring masksfor students, staff and visitors on Monday.

We realize that these numbers and warnings are tiring and, frankly, depressing. But, as we continue to learn to live with COVID, heeding public health warningsis one of the best protections we have.

Ignoring the warnings will not make the virus go away, Eric J. Topol is a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, wrote in a recent columnpublished by the BDN. It keeps getting fitter and more transmissible, while our human qualities of fatigue and complacency feed right into the viruss remarkable opportunism.

We are all tired of COVID, and the restrictions and uncertainty that it brings. But, as Topol writes, that fatigue and complacency makes all of us vulnerable to the virus. The precautions that we should all be familiar with masking, gathering outside and getting vaccinated are still essential to reversing the worrying COVID trends.

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Precautions still warranted as COVID hasn't gone away - Bangor Daily News

Keith Yamamoto, Ph.D., a cellular and molecular pharmacologist and biologist and the vice chancellor for science policy and strategy at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), was chosen by the membership of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to serve as the organizations president-elect. Yamamotos term begins immediately, and he will serve as president-elect for one year, followed by one year as AAAS president and then one year as immediate past-president.

During the annual election, held April 7-21, 2022, AAAS members also elected two new members of the AAAS Board of Directors: Susan Rosenberg, Ph.D., the Ben F. Love Chair in Cancer Research at the Baylor College of Medicine, and Jane Maienschein, Ph.D., University Professor and director of the Center for Biology and Society at Arizona State University. Rosenberg and Maienscheins terms also begin immediately, and each will serve for four years on the Board.

Im excited for AAAS to benefit from the expertise of Keith, Susan and Jane as the organizations newest president-elect and Board members. Their perspectives will be instrumental as AAAS continues its essential work to advance science and serve society, said Sudip S. Parikh, Ph.D., chief executive officer of AAAS and executive publisher of theSciencefamily of journals.

Susan Amara, Ph.D., chair of the AAAS Board of Directors, added: I look forward to collaborating with Keith, Susan and Jane as they join the AAAS Board of Directors. The diversity of disciplines and backgrounds they represent echoes the diversity of AAAS membership and will be invaluable as we work together in service of the associations mission.

Outreach to promote scientific literacy and an appreciation for using evidence to understand and solve the worlds problems is not just for scientists. It's for everyone, Yamamoto shared. This is one key area he believes AAAS must continue to promote.

He recounted his early experiences with public outreach while pursuing his Ph.D. in biochemical sciences at Princeton University under his thesis adviser, Bruce Alberts who later became editor-in-chief of Science. Alberts brought area high schoolers onto campus to learn more about science and recruited assistant professors and students, including Yamamoto, to create experiments to share how science can be interesting and fun and important a rewarding experience for all involved.

But when Alberts sought to expand the program, he received pushback. Alberts was told he should be working in the lab. Undeterred, he persisted in his efforts.

The experience, Yamamoto said, Convinced me that scientists have responsibilities that go beyond their work in their laboratories to do things that advance the scientific enterprise.

In his candidacy statement distributed to AAAS Membership in advance of the annual election, he also identified two other priorities for AAAS.

First, AAAS can promote policies and practices that ensure a diverse, equitable and inclusive scientific enterprise. Science is a global enterprise thats going to move forward best if its practiced by a diverse workforce that approaches scientific problems from different perspectives and points of view, Yamamoto said.

Second, AAAS can focus on building a continuum from fundamental discovery to societal impact, so that scientists can visualize the real effects of their work on societal issues, and in so doing, may alter the work we do, or the ways we do it, he said.

Because of the breadth and scope of its transdisciplinary, international membership, AAAS should be a leading voice in these conversations, now more than ever, Yamamoto noted.

Keith will contribute significant experience in science policy to AAAS, both at the federal and state levels, said UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS. He brings a deep knowledge of biology and the transdisciplinary push toward precision medicine. He understands the many roles that scientists play in society. And he is committed to advancing diversity in science.

Yamamoto brings to AAAS a significant background in science policy. He became UCSFs first vice chancellor for science policy and strategy in 2015, but he has held a range of leadership roles there since joining the institution as a faculty member in 1976. In addition to his groundbreaking research on signaling and transcriptional regulation by nuclear receptors, Yamamoto has served as chair of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, vice dean for research in the School of Medicine and vice chancellor for research.

Outside of UCSF, he co-chairs the Science & Technology Action Committee (along with Parikh and others), which brings together nonprofit, academic, foundation and corporate leaders to encourage U.S. investments in science and technology research, development, and education.

A member of AAAS since 1977, he was elected as Fellow of AAAS in 2002 recognized for his scientifically or socially distinguished efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications. He has served two terms on the AAAS Committee on Nominations and has participated in several AAAS forums and roundtables for science and public policy.

Newly elected members of the AAAS Board of Directors Susan Rosenberg and Jane Maienschein bring a wealth of scientific expertise to the governing body, which is responsible for the affairs of the association.

Rosenbergs research at the Baylor College of Medicine focuses on molecular mechanisms of genome instability in evolution, antibiotic resistance, and cancer. Rosenberg served as a Council Delegate for the AAAS Section on Biological Sciences and has conducted extensive work on the AAAS Governance Modernization Working Group. She was elevated to the rank of AAAS Fellow in 2010.

In addition to serving as a University Professor of History of Science at ASU, Maienschein leads the universitys Center for Biology and Society, which promotesresearch, education and engagementrelated to the study of the life sciences and their interconnections with society. She also serves as a Fellow and runs the history program at the Marine Biological Laboratory. Maienschein has served as Chair and Council Delegate for the AAAS Section on History and Philosophy of Science, as well as Chair of the Section on Societal Impacts on Science and Engineering. She has also served on the History Committee for the 150th year-anniversary and on the Program Committee. She joined the ranks of AAAS Fellows in 1996.

Maienschein noted that her scientist father gave her a AAAS gift membership in 1976, and she has remained a lifelong member, committed to the vision and values. Instead of advocating for science in a vacuum, AAAS promotes science for the benefit of all people, emphasizing education and communication, and recognizing that science exists in a complex and messy society and often has to deal with uncertainty. As AAAS approaches its 175th anniversary, I look forward to helping launch the next 175, she said.

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Election Results Are In: Keith Yamamoto to Serve as AAAS President-Elect - AAAS

Washington University in St. Louis will award five honorary degrees during its 161st Commencement May 20.

During the ceremony, which will begin at 9 a.m. on Francis Olympic Field, the university also will bestow academic degrees on approximately 3,800 members of the Class of 2022.

Mae Jemison, MD, the first woman of color to become a NASA astronaut and to travel into space, founder of two companies and creator of an international science camp to increase science literacy, will deliver the Commencement address and receive an honorary doctor of science degree.

The other honorary degree recipients and their degrees are:

Sotomayor will not be on campus for the Commencement ceremony. A recording of the justice being presented her honorary degree while she visited the university last month will be shown during the ceremony. She spoke before a crowd of more than 3,000 students, faculty and staff during a question-and-answer session April 5 in the Field House.

At age 16, Jemison entered Stanford University, where she earned a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering and fulfilled the requirements for a bachelor of arts in African and Afro-American studies in 1977.

She then attended medical school at Cornell University and earned a doctor of medicine degree in 1981. During medical school, she volunteered in Kenya and at a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand. After completing a medical internship, she volunteered with the Peace Corps as a medical officer in Liberia and Sierra Leone from 1983 until 1985 before working as a general practice physician in Los Angeles.

Pursuing a dream since childhood, she applied for and was admitted into NASAs astronaut training program in 1987, eventually becoming the first woman of color astronaut.

She was a science mission specialist for NASAs space shuttle Endeavour, STS-47 Spacelab, in September 1992. During the eight-day flight that orbited the Earth 127 times, she performed experiments in material science, life sciences and human adaptation to weightlessness and was a co-investigator on a bone cell research experiment.

After leaving NASA in 1993, she started the Jemison Group Inc., a technology consulting firm integrating critical socio-cultural issues into the design of engineering and science projects.

Jemison now leads 100 Year Starship (100YSS), a bold, far-reaching nonprofit initiative to assure the capabilities exist for human travel to another star within the next 100 years.

In 1994, she founded the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence, which focuses on building critical thinking skills, experiential teaching methods and science literacy. Through the foundation, she launched an international science camp, The Earth We Share, to engage youth in hands-on, interdisciplinary STEM education.

Washington University has welcomed Jemison to campus on two other occasions. In 2005, she delivered an Assembly Series lecture, Exploring the Frontiers of Science and Human Potential, and in 2015, she participated in Engineers Week, sponsored by the McKelvey School of Engineering.

A world-renowned scientist, Kobilka is known for his discoveries related to G-protein-coupled receptors, key proteins that govern many aspects of hormonal communication between cells in the body. Along with Robert Lefkowitz, MD, of Duke University, Kobilka received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2012 for these discoveries.

Kobilka earned a bachelor of science degree in biology and chemistry, summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, in 1977. He earned his medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine in 1981 and completed his residency in internal medicine at Washington University School of Medicine and what was then Barnes Hospital.

In 1984, Kobilka joined Lefkowitzs lab at Duke as a postdoctoral fellow. There, he conducted the early part of the work that would lead to recognition by the Nobel committee. Kobilka and his colleagues cloned the gene responsible for coding the receptor for the hormone adrenaline. The research helped identify an entire family of receptors called G-protein-coupled receptors. About half of all medications in use today act through this type of receptor.

Kobilkas lab at Stanford has focused on understanding the structure and function of G-protein-coupled receptors at the molecular level. In particular, his lab is known for its work defining and imaging high-resolution 3D crystal structures of this type of receptor using X-ray crystallography.

He also has shown the structure of these receptors when they are bound to the hormone on the outside of the cell and when they are activating the G protein inside the cell. His detailed structural analyses could lead to more precise medications that only activate the specific desired receptor, reducing unwanted side effects.

President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor on May 26, 2009, to serve as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

When she was sworn in Aug. 8, 2009, she became the first Latina justice and the third woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

Sotomayor was born in the Bronx, New York, to Puerto Rican parents. She graduated as valedictorian from Cardinal Spellman High School in New York City. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1976 from Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta. In 1979, she earned a JD from Yale Law School, where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

She thereafter served as an assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorneys Office from 19791984. She then litigated international commercial matters in New York City at Pavia & Harcourt, where she was an associate and then partner from 19841992. Sotomayor served on multiple New York City boards that included affordable housing for low-income homeowners, civil rights issues, and public funding for political candidates.

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. Between 1992 and 1998, she presided over roughly 450 cases at the U.S. District Court.

In 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where she served from 19982009. While serving as a federal judge, she lectured at Columbia Law School and was an adjunct professor at New York University Law School.

The first case she heard after assuming the role of associate justice of the Supreme Court was Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, where she dissented from the majority, which held in favor of the rights of corporations in campaign finance.

During her time on the Supreme Court, Sotomayor has become known for her concerns for the rights of defendants; dissenting on issues of race, ethnicity and gender; and calls for criminal justice reform.

Andy Taylor joined Enterprise Holdings Inc., the privately held business founded in 1957 by his father, Jack Taylor, at the age of 16. He began his career by washing cars during summer and holiday vacations and learning the business from the ground up.

Enterprise Holdings owns the Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Alamo Rent A Car and National Car Rental brands, which include nearly 10,000 neighborhood and airport locations. The company has franchisee locations in more than 90 countries and territories. Enterprise Holdings is the largest car rental company in the world and the only investment-grade company in the U.S. car rental industry.

After earning his bachelor of science degree in business administration from the University of Denver in 1970, Taylor opted to gain some initial experience outside of the family business and began working for RLM Leasing, a Ford Motor Co. affiliate in San Francisco.

He returned to Enterprise three years later. Enterprise had a fleet of 5,000 cars. In 1976, he became the general manager of Enterprise Rent-A-Cars St. Louis regional operations, was promoted to president and chief operating officer in 1980, chief executive officer in 1991, chairman in 2001 and executive chairman in 2013.

Andy and his wife, Barbara Taylor, are generous supporters of Washington University and other St. Louis institutions. In 2017, they gave $10 million to establish the Taylor Family Scholarship Challenge, which lifted Washington Universitys Leading Together campaigns total for scholarships above $500 million, a record amount.

Altogether, the Taylor family and Enterprise Holdings have given $70 million for the Enterprise Holdings Scholars program, which is the universitys largest scholarship fund.

Last month, the Taylor Geospatial Institute was launched in St. Louis. The institute brings together eight leading Midwest research institutions, including Washington University, to collaborate on research into geospatial technology. Taylor, who provided funding through a legacy investment, said, It is my hope that this institute will cement St. Louis as the worlds true center for geospatial excellence.

Barbara Taylors commitments to the St. Louis community include her long involvement with the Saint Louis Art Museum, for which she is an honorary trustee. She has served as the museums Friends Board president, a museum trustee and vice president and president of the art museums Board of Commissioners a position appointed by the St. Louis County executive.

The first woman to hold the presidents office, she played a key role in the museums expansion, culminating in the opening of the new East Building in 2013.

Barbara Taylor serves on the board and executive committee of Forest Park Forever and has served as a trustee for Webster University, Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School, the Junior League of St. Louis and the St. Louis Childrens Hospital Friends Board.

Barbara and her husband, Andy Taylor, have provided leadership and support to a broad range of St. Louis institutions. In addition to helping fund scholarships, Barbara and Andy Taylor and the Crawford Taylor Foundation committed $20 million to the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in 2012 to fund the Taylor Family Institute for Innovative Psychiatric Research. In 2019, the Taylors committed an additional $10 million to the Taylor Family Institute, which is designed to advance the science underlying the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric illnesses.

In 2016, Andy and Barbara Taylor gave $21 million to the Saint Louis Art Museum to endow the museums directorship, which is named for Barbara. They previously provided $15 million for a new wing and sculpture garden at the museum.

In 2009, the Taylors received the Jane and Whitney Harris St. Louis Community Service Award, which is given annually to a couple dedicated to improving the St. Louis region through service, generosity and leadership. In 2018, the Taylors were recognized with Washington Universitys Robert S. Brookings Award for their dedication to the university.

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Five to receive honorary degrees at Washington University's 161st Commencement - The Source - Washington University in St. Louis - Washington...

By Digital Comms | May 12, 2022

Researchers from UBCs faculty of medicine have been awarded over $2.5 million from Canadas Stem Cell Network (SCN) to advance six regenerative medicine research projects and clinical trials.

The funding is part of a $19.5 million investment by SCN in 32 projects across Canada. The investment is the largest in SCNs history, made possible through increased funding by the Government of Canada in 2021. Stem cells have traditionally fuelled the field of regenerative medicine which is focused on regrowing, repairing or replacing damaged or diseased cells, organs and tissues.

The largest of the UBC-led projects funded by SCN will receive $1M to conduct research and a clinical trial for one of the worlds first genetically engineered cell replacement therapies for type 1 diabetes. The project aims to support the development of a potential functional cure for type 1 diabetes.

The six projects led by UBC faculty of medicine researchers are:

Dr. Nika Shakiba, assistant professor, school of biomedical engineering

Project: Elucidating the competitive advantage of aberrant pluripotent stem cells in suspension bioprocesses

$300,000 Early Career Researcher Jump-Start Awards

Dr. Carl de Boer, assistant professor, school of biomedical engineering

Project: Decoding human cis-regulatory logic in development to treat disease

$300,000 Early Career Researcher Jump-Start Awards

Dr. Sheila Teves, assistant professor, department of biochemistry and molecular biology

Project: Transcription regulation of hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes during maturation and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

$300,000 Early Career Researcher Jump-Start Awards

Dr. Pamela Hoodless, professor, department of medical genetics, school of biomedical engineering

Project: Pathways of cell identity in human liver organoids

$250,000 Impact Awards

Dr. David Thompson, clinical assistant professor, department of medicine

Project: Clinical trial of the first gene-edited cell replacement therapy for type 1 diabetes

$1,000,000 Clinical Trial Awards

Dr. Michael Underhill, professor, department of cellular and physiological sciences

Project: Novel therapeutic strategies to promote liver regeneration

$399,200 Fueling Biotechnology Partnerships

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UBC Medicine researchers awarded over $2.5 million from Canada's Stem Cell Network - UBC Faculty of Medicine

May 13, 2022 By Sherry DiBari

As a young man, Willy Wriggers was fascinated by optical instruments.

Childhood gifts of a microscope and a telescope led to a love of science, especially astronomy and biology.

"I started studying water in dirt puddles outside and was interested in bacteria and also looking at the stars," he said. "I learned all the star constellations when I was 8 or 9."

In high school, Wriggers was active in his high school's astronomy club, edited the club's magazine, "Rosa Ursina," and led tours and presentations on the cosmos.

"That experience became sort of a blueprint for what I did later as a scientist and educator," he said.

Today, his focus is on life at a molecular level.

Wriggers, the Frank Batten Chair of Mechanical Aerospace Engineering and Bioengineering at Old Dominion University, develops 3D computer modeling techniques to help scientists refine and reconstruct electron microscopy (EM) images.

Wriggers has collaborated with Jing He, a professor in ODU's Department of Computer Science, since 2015. His contribution is the application and understanding of deep learning in the computational environment.

The work will "help biological electron microscopists bridge a broad range of resolution levels from atomic to living organism-level," Wriggers said.

Those images can help scientists explain biomolecular structures - complex assemblies made up of nucleic acids and proteins.

"Trying to understand these structures at the atomic detail helps you understand the function of the biological machine - you understand how muscle works at the atomic level, you know how the metabolism of ATP (adenosine triphosphate, the "fuel" of all living things) drives complex cellular processes," Wriggers explained in a recent interview. "How that is actually done with proteins is really fascinating."

Wriggers and He specialize in modeling actin filaments - a fibrous, gel-like material inside a cell or inside muscle that is responsible for cell movements and muscle contraction.

"We are one of only five or six researchers in the world doing this kind of work," he said.

Electron microscopy utilizes a beam of accelerated electrons to view molecular structures - something not possible with a traditional light microscope.

However, in order not to destroy the sample, the electron dose must be very low. This results in a low-resolution image lacking complete detail.

Before computer modeling, scientists would superimpose a model of the complete structure on the EM image by hand - a process that was time-consuming and not reproducible.

Twenty-five years ago - as advances in computing were just beginning - Wriggers saw a potential solution. "I thought to myself, 'Why isn't anyone trying to use computers to do this automatically?'"

In response, Wriggers developed Situs, a software package that could dock the low-resolution EM images to computer-generated 3D models. The program helped fill in missing artifacts caused by deficiencies in electron microscopes and to refine what Wriggers calls "noisy" imaging.

"It put me on the map almost 25 years ago, and essentially drove my entire academic career," he said.

An Introduction to Computers

Wriggers' grew up in Ingolstadt, Germany, headquarters of the Audi car company.

His father and grandfather both worked there, and Wriggers, like many teenagers, worked there in the summers.

That experience would lead to a lifelong love for cars and machinery.

In college, Wriggers gravitated toward physics and emerging computer technologies.

"People were just starting with computers, and I realized that computers could play a big role in physics," he said.

In 1992, he left Germany for a yearlong exchange program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign."The reason why I'm still here is because I didn't exchange back," he said with a laugh.

For Wriggers, it was an exciting time to be at Illinois. The physics department was just one floor down from the research and development arm of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and they were in the process of developing Mosaic, the first commercially available internet browser, and the CAVE, a virtual-reality environment.

"It was really like the center of the universe to be at the Beckman Institute during that time," he said.

Wriggers was one of the first researchers to implement virtual reality for 3D biological structures. It was innovative research for someone whose first experience with a computer was at age 21.

His dissertation focused on the first simulation of newly discovered motor proteins. It was all based on application - other people wrote the software - something Wriggers would eventually do as well.

Wriggers developed Situs as a post-doctoral student at University of California, San Diego and then as an assistant professor at The Scripps Research Institute on the same campus.

Finding a Home at ODU

When he was 32, he received a $1.2 million National Institute of Health grant. The funding has ensured that Wriggers' work would continue - from California to the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and now at ODU. The grant has been renewed continuously since 2001.

"Wriggers' work is a model of the quality of research that weaves engineering and medicine here at Old Dominion University and at the College of Engineering," said Khan Iftekharuddin, interim dean of the Batten College of Engineering and Technology. "We value his contributions as a researcher, professor and friend."

Wriggers left academia for a few years to participate in the development of the Anton supercomputer at D.E. Shaw Research in New York City. The privately funded team achieved the first millisecond-length molecular dynamics simulation in 2010, which was a major breakthrough in biomolecular modeling.

Later, when he was looking for a university to renew his own NIH-funded project and lab, biomachina.org, life led him to ODU.

"When I got this offer, I thought, 'Wow, they really believe in me,'" he said. "I'm really super grateful to ODU for enabling me to continue my independent research."

Wriggers also welcomed the multidisciplinary opportunities at ODU - including the opportunity to work with ODU Motorsports.

"I used to ride a motorcycle. I used to fly glider planes," he said. "I liked everything that moved."

"Coming here and seeing that there was an active motorsports lab in this building," he said, "I was really fascinated by that."

As an adviser, Wriggers worked with the students to install sensors on the cars and measure the vehicle's parameters and dynamics. "We used that to improve lap times and better understand the performance of the vehicles," he said.

For Wriggers' next project, the sky's the limit.

"I hope to find time to go back to an aerospace or optical astronomy project where I can apply our computational tools," he said. "I think that would be really exciting.

"One of the great benefits of ODU is that there are no limits here in terms of what I can do."

Away from Campus

Wriggers lives at Chic's Beach in Virginia Beach with his wife Hilary and two sons. The family plays various instruments. In his free time, you may find Wriggers and his sons performing at open mics and on the local blues jam circuit at venues like Froggies or Jerry's Indian River.

A professor in the Biological Sciences Department at ODU, Gaff offered insight on staying safe, diagnosing tick-borne diseases and the impact climate change is having on tick populations. (More)

The Strome College of Business professor was among those recognized at the Faculty and Administrative Service Recognition Luncheon. (More)

Peter Schulman, who was named an Eminent Scholar, and Helen Crompton, who won the A. Rufus Tonelson Award, were among the honorees. (More)

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Computer Modeling is at the Heart of Willy Wriggers' Research - Old Dominion University