Bio Saga Blog - A Chronicle of Life Sciences & Informatics

BANGALORE, Indian Researchers have achieved a breakthrough, identifying a protein pathway that triggers cancer in the human body owing to its erratic behaviour. Researchers at Bangalore’s National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) led by Satyajit Mayor and Neha Vyas have identified what is known as the Hedgehog pathway and the ways in which it forms and leads to cancer. The researchers, who have published their work in the journal, Cell, say this pathway is formed when the proteins (called hedgehog), which are separate, get drawn to each other by electrostatic interactions between amino acids present around the proteins. A small cluster of proteins then gets formed and goes on to form a mega-cluster. This travels to other cells and creates effects that are good or bad — the cluster could be normal and help organ regeneration or tissue repair, or the cluster could get hyperactive and affect other cells, which is the sign that cancer is coming. Simply put, the NCBS research indicates...

The National Institutes of Health will allow the average award value of competing grants for fiscal 2008 to increase by three percent for fiscal 2009, in line with the three percent increase the institutes received under this year's budget appropriation from Congress, NIH said this week. NIH is predicting that this year's appropriation of $30.3 billion from the omnibus spending bill will allow its institutes and centers (ICs) to support approximately 9,800 new and competing research project grants. The ICs are expected to maintain the average number of new investigators as it did in the five most recent years, and to continue to use the NIH Director's Innovator Awards and the NIH Pathway to Independence awards within the common fund. The ICs also are expected to continue to use the NIH Director's Bridge Award Program, which gives continued but limited funding to meritorious investigators whose applications were close to the funding range of the relevant IC, but which ...

The Alzheimer Research Forum ( http://www.alzforum.org ), a dynamic, biomedical Web community that is heavily used by Alzheimer researchers around the world, is preparing to migrate to a new platform that will enable it to more fully exploit social networking (" Web 2.0 ") and the Semantic Web ("Web 3.0"). Founded 13 years ago when the Web was still in its infancy, the "Alzforum" has more than 5,000 registered members and is familiar to most Alzheimer scientists in the world. Ever since launching in 1996, the Alzforum Web site has been interactive, posting researchers' comments on published papers and research news. The site has published thousands of peer commentaries and mini-reviews by leading scientists in the field, and has established itself as the "go to" Web site for anyone who wished to be up to date on Alzheimer research. Members can post commentaries on any journal article or news story, and can participate in live discussion for...

Bangalore, India — Indian Life Sciences Informatics Company, Molecular Connections announced today, the launch of XTractor Premium ( www.xtractor.in/premium ), a new Knowledge Management Platform designed to enable Pharmaceutical Companies, Researchers, Scientists identify, verify and develop predictive relationships from PubMed Literature. “ The release of XTractor Premium reflects the evolution of our client’s knowledge management needs and our continued commitment to provide knowledge solutions which add value & bring better efficiencies in Drug discovery,” said Jignesh Bhate CEO Molecular Connections. Leveraging the ability to transform DATA to KNOWLEDGE to assist experts is crucial to the success of drug development today. XTractor Premium offers several enhancements over the beta version in managing large volume of published biomedical data to accelerate decision making in drug discovery. Data Search: One would be able to perform searches over the entire XTra...

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have demonstrated that a gel composed of small, woven protein fragments can successfully carry and release proteins of different sizes, potentially enabling the delivery of drugs such as insulin and trastuzumab (Herceptin). Researchers can control the rate of release by changing the density of the gel, allowing for continuous drug delivery over a specific period of time. The team is led by Shuguang Zhang, associate director of MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering. The gel, known as a "nanofiber hydrogel scaffold," enables a gradual release of the proteins from the gel over hours, days or even months. The gel itself is eventually broken down into harmless amino acids - the building blocks of proteins. Peptide hydrogels are ideally suited for drug delivery as they are pure, easy to design and use, non-toxic, non-immunogenic, bio-absorbable, and can be locally applied to a particular tissue. Composed of self-assembli...

Roche has reached an agreement with Innovatis to buy the cell analysis company for €15 million ($19.5 million), the Swiss life sciences firm said today. Roche said that the acquisition of the Bielefeld, Germany-based company, which focuses on automated cell analysis solutions including cell counting, viability testing, and cell function, fits with its strategy to strengthen its cell research market offerings. Innovatis will become a fully integrated part of Roche Applied Science, and it will develop and market its products through that part of Roche's diagnostics division. Roceh said that Innovatis' technology will complement its existing cell analysis products and is synergistic with its xCelligence technology, which was launched last year. " Roche has been one of our key customers for many years, in particular since the successful development of our cell analysis technology over 10 years ago," Innovatis CEO Michael Grohmann said in a statement. Roche said it ex...

The personal genetics service firm 23andMe , the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, and the Parkinson's Institute and Clinical Center announced yesterday that they are enrolling 10,000 people to be part of a new Parkinson's disease community. The effort is aimed at establishing the resources necessary for future genome-wide association studies and other research initiatives. In an effort to entice individuals with Parkinson's disease to participate, 23andMe is slashing the price of its service from $399 to $25 for a limited time for up to 10,000 individuals with Parkinson's disease who sign up through the Parkinson's Institute or the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who is married to 23andMe co-founder Ann Wojcicki, will ante up an undisclosed amount of cash to subsidize the genotyping costs. To be eligible, individuals must have physician-diagnosed Parkinson's disease and agree to provide saliva samples and fill ...