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Live Conference Coverage AACR 2020 in Real Time: Monday June 22, 2020 Mid Day Sessions

Posted in Biological Networks, Biomedical Measurement Science, Cancer - General, Cancer and Current Therapeutics, CANCER BIOLOGY & Innovations in Cancer Therapy, Cancer Informatics, CAST - Alternative to CRISPR/Cas9, Computational Biology/Systems and Bioinformatics, Conference Coverage with Social Media, CRISPR/Cas9 & Gene Editing, Funding Opportunities for Cancer Research, Genomic Expression, Health Economics and Outcomes Research, Metabolomics, REAL TIME Conference Coverage Twitter's Hashtags and Handles per Presentation/session, Transposon-encoded CRISPR–Cas systems direct RNA-guided DNA integration, tagged , , , , , , on June 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »


Live Conference Coverage AACR 2020 in Real Time: Monday June 22, 2020 Mid Day Sessions

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, PhD

This post will be UPDATED during the next two days with notes from recordings from other talks

Follow Live in Real Time using

#AACR20

@pharma_BI

@AACR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Register for FREE at https://www.aacr.org/

 

AACR VIRTUAL ANNUAL MEETING II

 

June 22-24: Free Registration for AACR Members, the Cancer Community, and the Public
This virtual meeting will feature more than 120 sessions and 4,000 e-posters, including sessions on cancer health disparities and the impact of COVID-19 on clinical trials

 

This Virtual Meeting is Part II of the AACR Annual Meeting.  Part I was held online in April and was centered only on clinical findings.  This Part II of the virtual meeting will contain all the Sessions and Abstracts pertaining to basic and translational cancer research as well as clinical trial findings.

 

REGISTER NOW

 

Pezcoller Foundation-AACR International Award for Extraordinary Achievement in Cancer Research

The prestigious Pezcoller Foundation-AACR International Award for Extraordinary Achievement in Cancer Research was established in 1997 to annually recognize a scientist of international renown who has made a major scientific discovery in basic cancer research OR who has made significant contributions to translational cancer research; who continues to be active in cancer research and has a record of recent, noteworthy publications; and whose ongoing work holds promise for continued substantive contributions to progress in the field of cancer. For more information regarding the 2020 award recipient go to aacr.org/awards.

John E. Dick, Enzo Galligioni, David A Tuveson

DETAILS

Speakers >John E. Dick
Awardee: John E. Dick
Princess Anne Margaret Cancer Center, Toronto, Ontario
For determining how stem cells contribute to normal and leukemic hematopoeisis
  • not every cancer cell equal in their Cancer Hallmarks
  • how do we monitor and measure clonal dynamics
  • Barnie Clarkson did pivotal work on this
  • most cancer cells are post mitotic but minor populations of cells were dormant and survive chemotherapy
  •  only one cell is 1 in a million can regenerate and transplantable in mice and experiments with flow cytometry resolved the question of potency and repopulation of only small percentage of cells and undergo long term clonal population
  • so instead of going to cell lines and using thousands of shRNA looked at clinical data and deconvoluted the genetic information (RNASeq data) to determine progenitor and mature populations (how much is stem and how much is mature populations)
  • in leukemic patients they have seen massive expansion of a single stem cell population so only need one cell in AML if the stem cells have the mutational hits early on in their development
  • finding the “seeds of relapse”: finding the small subpopulation of stem cells that will relapse
  • they looked in BALL;;  there are cells resistant to l-aspariginase, dexamethasone, and vincristine
  • a lot of OXPHOS related genes (in DRIs) that may be the genes involved in this resistance
  • it a wonderful note of acknowledgement he dedicated this award to all of his past and present trainees who were the ones, as he said, made this field into what it is and for taking it into directions none of them could forsee

Monday, June 22

1:30 PM – 3:30 PM EDT

Virtual Educational Session

Experimental and Molecular Therapeutics, Drug Development, Cancer Chemistry

Chemistry to the Clinic: Part 1: Lead Optimization Case Studies in Cancer Drug Discovery

How can one continue to deliver innovative medicines to patients when biological targets are becoming ever scarcer and less amenable to therapeutic intervention? Are there sound strategies in place that can clear the path to targets previously considered “undruggable”? Recent advances in lead finding methods and novel technologies such as covalent screening and targeted protein degradation have enriched the toolbox at the disposal of drug discovery scientists to expand the druggable ta

Stefan N Gradl, Elena S Koltun, Scott D Edmondson, Matthew A. Marx, Joachim Rudolph

DETAILS

Monday, June 22

1:30 PM – 3:30 PM EDT

Virtual Educational Session

Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Molecular and Cellular Biology/Genetics

Informatics Technologies for Cancer Research

Cancer researchers are faced with a deluge of high-throughput data. Using these data to advance understanding of cancer biology and improve clinical outcomes increasingly requires effective use of computational and informatics tools. This session will introduce informatics resources that support the data management, analysis, visualization, and interpretation. The primary focus will be on high-throughput genomic data and imaging data. Participants will be introduced to fundamental concepts

Rachel Karchin, Daniel Marcus, Andriy Fedorov, Obi Lee Griffith

DETAILS

  • Variant analysis is the big bottleneck, especially interpretation of variants
  • CIVIC resource is a network for curation, interpretation of genetic variants
  • CIVIC curators go through multiple rounds of editors review
  • gene summaries, variant summaries
  • curation follows ACSME guidelines
  • evidences are accumulated, categories by various ontologies and is the heart of the reports
  • as this is a network of curators the knowledgebase expands
  • CIVIC is linked to multiple external informatic, clinical, and genetic databases
  • they have curated 7017 clinical interpretations, 2527 variants, using 2578 papers, and over 1000 curators
  • they are currently integrating with COSMIC ClinVar, and UniProt
  • they are partnering with ClinGen to expand network of curators and their curation effort
  • CIVIC uses a Python interface; available on website

https://civicdb.org/home

The Precision Medicine Revolution

Precision medicine refers to the use of prevention and treatment strategies that are tailored to the unique features of each individual and their disease. In the context of cancer this might involve the identification of specific mutations shown to predict response to a targeted therapy. The biomedical literature describing these associations is large and growing rapidly. Currently these interpretations exist largely in private or encumbered databases resulting in extensive repetition of effort.

CIViC’s Role in Precision Medicine

Realizing precision medicine will require this information to be centralized, debated and interpreted for application in the clinic. CIViC is an open access, open source, community-driven web resource for Clinical Interpretation of Variants in Cancer. Our goal is to enable precision medicine by providing an educational forum for dissemination of knowledge and active discussion of the clinical significance of cancer genome alterations. For more details refer to the 2017 CIViC publication in Nature Genetics.

U24 funding announced: We are excited to announce that the Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ICTR) program of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded funding to the CIViC team! Starting this year, a five-year, $3.7 million U24 award (CA237719), will support CIViC to develop Standardized and Genome-Wide Clinical Interpretation of Complex Genotypes for Cancer Precision Medicine.

Informatics tools for high-throughput analysis of cancer mutations

Rachel Karchin
  • CRAVAT is a platform to determine, categorize, and curate cancer mutations and cancer related variants
  • adding new tools used to be hard but having an open architecture allows for modular growth and easy integration of other tools
  • so they are actively making an open network using social media

Towards FAIR data in cancer imaging research

Andriy Fedorov, PhD

Towards the FAIR principles

While LOD has had some uptake across the web, the number of databases using this protocol compared to the other technologies is still modest. But whether or not we use LOD, we do need to ensure that databases are designed specifically for the web and for reuse by humans and machines. To provide guidance for creating such databases independent of the technology used, the FAIR principles were issued through FORCE11: the Future of Research Communications and e-Scholarship. The FAIR principles put forth characteristics that contemporary data resources, tools, vocabularies and infrastructures should exhibit to assist discovery and reuse by third-parties through the web. Wilkinson et al.,2016. FAIR stands for: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable. The definition of FAIR is provided in Table 1:

Number Principle
F Findable
F1 (meta)data are assigned a globally unique and persistent identifier
F2 data are described with rich metadata
F3 metadata clearly and explicitly include the identifier of the data it describes
F4 (meta)data are registered or indexed in a searchable resource
A Accessible
A1 (meta)data are retrievable by their identifier using a standardized communications protocol
A1.1 the protocol is open, free, and universally implementable
A1.2 the protocol allows for an authentication and authorization procedure, where necessary
A2 metadata are accessible, even when the data are no longer available
I Interoperable
I1 (meta)data use a formal, accessible, shared, and broadly applicable language for knowledge representation.
I2 (meta)data use vocabularies that follow FAIR principles
I3 (meta)data include qualified references to other (meta)data
R Reusable
R1 meta(data) are richly described with a plurality of accurate and relevant attributes
R1.1 (meta)data are released with a clear and accessible data usage license
R1.2 (meta)data are associated with detailed provenance
R1.3 (meta)data meet domain-relevant community standards

A detailed explanation of each of these is included in the Wilkinson et al., 2016 article, and the Dutch Techcenter for Life Sciences has a set of excellent tutorials, so we won’t go into too much detail here.

  • for outside vendors to access their data, vendors would need a signed Material Transfer Agreement but NCI had formulated a framework to facilitate sharing of data using a DIACOM standard for imaging data

Monday, June 22

1:30 PM – 3:01 PM EDT

Virtual Educational Session

Experimental and Molecular Therapeutics, Cancer Chemistry, Drug Development, Immunology

Engineering and Physical Sciences Approaches in Cancer Research, Diagnosis, and Therapy

The engineering and physical science disciplines have been increasingly involved in the development of new approaches to investigate, diagnose, and treat cancer. This session will address many of these efforts, including therapeutic methods such as improvements in drug delivery/targeting, new drugs and devices to effect immunomodulation and to synergize with immunotherapies, and intraoperative probes to improve surgical interventions. Imaging technologies and probes, sensors, and bioma

Claudia Fischbach, Ronit Satchi-Fainaro, Daniel A Heller

DETAILS

Monday, June 22

1:30 PM – 3:30 PM EDT

Virtual Educational Session

Survivorship

Exceptional Responders and Long-Term Survivors

How should we think about exceptional and super responders to cancer therapy? What biologic insights might ensue from considering these cases? What are ways in which considering super responders may lead to misleading conclusions? What are the pros and cons of the quest to locate exceptional and super responders?

Alice P Chen, Vinay K Prasad, Celeste Leigh Pearce

DETAILS

Monday, June 22

1:30 PM – 3:30 PM EDT

Virtual Educational Session

Tumor Biology, Immunology

Exploiting Metabolic Vulnerabilities in Cancer

The reprogramming of cellular metabolism is a hallmark feature observed across cancers. Contemporary research in this area has led to the discovery of tumor-specific metabolic mechanisms and illustrated ways that these can serve as selective, exploitable vulnerabilities. In this session, four international experts in tumor metabolism will discuss new findings concerning the rewiring of metabolic programs in cancer that support metabolic fitness, biosynthesis, redox balance, and the reg

Costas Andreas Lyssiotis, Gina M DeNicola, Ayelet Erez, Oliver Maddocks

DETAILS

Monday, June 22

1:30 PM – 3:30 PM EDT

Virtual Educational Session

Other Articles on this Open Access  Online Journal on Cancer Conferences and Conference Coverage in Real Time Include

Press Coverage

Live Notes, Real Time Conference Coverage 2020 AACR Virtual Meeting April 28, 2020 Symposium: New Drugs on the Horizon Part 3 12:30-1:25 PM

Live Notes, Real Time Conference Coverage 2020 AACR Virtual Meeting April 28, 2020 Session on NCI Activities: COVID-19 and Cancer Research 5:20 PM

Live Notes, Real Time Conference Coverage 2020 AACR Virtual Meeting April 28, 2020 Session on Evaluating Cancer Genomics from Normal Tissues Through Metastatic Disease 3:50 PM

Live Notes, Real Time Conference Coverage 2020 AACR Virtual Meeting April 28, 2020 Session on Novel Targets and Therapies 2:35 PM

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Hypertriglyceridemia: Evaluation and Treatment Guideline

Posted in Biomarkers & Medical Diagnostics, Biomedical Measurement Science, Cardiovascular Pharmacogenomics, Cardiovascular Research, Chemical Biology and its relations to Metabolic Disease, Chronic Thromboembolic Pulmonary Hypertension (CTEPH) and Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH), Clinical Diagnostics, Clinical Genomics, Diabetes Mellitus, Disease Biology, Endocrine Diseases, Epigenetics and Cardiovascular Risks, Frontiers in Cardiology and Cardiovascular Disorders, Lipid metabolism, Liver & Digestive Diseases Research, Metabolism, Myocardial Metabolism, Nutrition, Nutrition Disorders, Nutritional Supplements: Atherogenesis, lipid metabolism, Obesity, Origins of Cardiovascular Disease, Pancreatic adenocarcinoma classifier, Pancreatic cancer, Population Health Management, Population Health Management, Genetics & Pharmaceutical, tagged , , , , , , on January 22, 2019| 1 Comment »


Hypertriglyceridemia: Evaluation and Treatment Guideline

Reporter and Curator: Dr. Sudipta Saha, Ph.D.

 

Severe and very severe hypertriglyceridemia increase the risk for pancreatitis, whereas mild or moderate hypertriglyceridemia may be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Individuals found to have any elevation of fasting triglycerides should be evaluated for secondary causes of hyperlipidemia including endocrine conditions and medications. Patients with primary hypertriglyceridemia must be assessed for other cardiovascular risk factors, such as central obesity, hypertension, abnormalities of glucose metabolism, and liver dysfunction. The aim of this study was to develop clinical practice guidelines on hypertriglyceridemia.

The diagnosis of hypertriglyceridemia should be based on fasting levels, that mild and moderate hypertriglyceridemia (triglycerides of 150–999 mg/dl) be diagnosed to aid in the evaluation of cardiovascular risk, and that severe and very severe hypertriglyceridemia (triglycerides of >1000 mg/dl) be considered a risk for pancreatitis. The patients with hypertriglyceridemia must be evaluated for secondary causes of hyperlipidemia and that subjects with primary hypertriglyceridemia be evaluated for family history of dyslipidemia and cardiovascular disease.

The treatment goal in patients with moderate hypertriglyceridemia should be a non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level in agreement with National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel guidelines. The initial treatment should be lifestyle therapy; a combination of diet modification, physical activity and drug therapy may also be considered. In patients with severe or very severe hypertriglyceridemia, a fibrate can be used as a first-line agent for reduction of triglycerides in patients at risk for triglyceride-induced pancreatitis.

Three drug classes (fibrates, niacin, n-3 fatty acids) alone or in combination with statins may be considered as treatment options in patients with moderate to severe triglyceride levels. Statins are not be used as monotherapy for severe or very severe hypertriglyceridemia. However, statins may be useful for the treatment of moderate hypertriglyceridemia when indicated to modify cardiovascular risk.

 

References:

 

https://www.medpagetoday.com/clinical-connection/cardio-endo/77242?xid=NL_CardioEndoConnection_2019-01-21

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19307519

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23009776

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6827992

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22463676

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17635890

 

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Personal Care Chemicals and Puberty Onset

Posted in Biochemical pathways, Biomarkers & Medical Diagnostics, Biomedical Measurement Science, Cancer - General, Cell Biology, Chemical Biology and its relations to Metabolic Disease, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Childhood cancer, Disease Biology, Endocrine Diseases, Reproductive Andrology, Embryology, Genomic Endocrinology, Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis and Reproductive Genomics, tagged , , , , , , on December 16, 2018| Leave a Comment »


Reporter and Curator: Dr. Sudipta Saha, Ph.D.

 

Over the past 20 years, studies have shown that girls and possibly boys have been experiencing puberty at progressively younger ages. This is troubling news, as earlier age at puberty has been linked with increased risk of mental illness, breast and ovarian cancer in girls and testicular cancer in boys. Researchers found that daughters of mothers who had higher levels of diethyl phthalate and triclosan in their bodies during pregnancy experienced puberty at younger ages. The same trend was not observed in boys. So, researchers suspected that girls exposed to chemicals commonly found in toothpaste, makeup, soap and other personal care products before birth may hit puberty earlier.

 

Diethyl phthalate is often used as a stabilizer in fragrances and cosmetics. The antimicrobial agent triclosan — which the FDA banned from use in hand soap in 2017 because it was shown to be ineffective — is still used in some toothpastes. Researchers suspected that many chemicals in personal care products can interfere with natural hormones in human bodies, and studies have shown that exposure to these chemicals can alter reproductive development in rats. Chemicals that have been implicated include phthalates, which are often found in scented products like perfumes, soaps and shampoos; parabens, which are used as preservatives in cosmetics; and phenols, which include triclosan.

 

However, few studies have looked at how these chemicals might affect the growth of human children. This present study at UC Berkeley, USA recruited pregnant women living in the farm-working, primarily Latino communities of Central California’s Salinas Valley between 1999 and 2000. While the primary aim of the study was to examine the impact of pesticide exposure on childhood development, the researchers used the opportunity to examine the effects of other chemicals as well. The scientists measured concentrations of phthalates, parabens and phenols in urine samples taken from mothers twice during pregnancy, and from children at the age of 9. They then followed the growth of the children — 159 boys and 179 girls — between the ages of 9 and 13 to track the timing of developmental milestones marking different stages of puberty.

 

The vast majority — more than 90 percent — of urine samples of both mothers and children showed detectable concentrations of all three classes of chemicals, with the exception of triclosan which was present in approximately 70 percent of samples. The researchers found that every time the concentrations of diethyl phthalate and triclosan in the mother’s urine doubled, the timing of developmental milestones in girls shifted approximately one month earlier. Girls who had higher concentrations of parabens in their urine at age 9 also experienced puberty at younger ages. However, it is unclear if the chemicals were causing the shift, or if girls who reached puberty earlier were more likely to start using personal care products at younger ages.

 

The limitations are that these chemicals are quickly metabolized and one to two urinary measurements per developmental point may not accurately reflect usual exposure. The study population was limited to Latino children of low socioeconomic status living in a farmworker community and may not be widely generalizable. But, this study contributes to a growing literature that suggests that exposure to certain endocrine disrupting chemicals may impact timing of puberty in children.

 

References:

 

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/prenatal-exposure-chemicals-personal-care-products-may-speed-puberty-girls?utm_source=fiat-lux

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30517665

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24781428

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30203993

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25173057

 

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June 4, 2018 – Department of Defense Medical Innovation and Biodefense Forum, BIO 2018! at Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

Posted in Bio Instrumentation in Experimental Life Sciences Research, Bioengineering & reverse engineering design, Biological Engineering, Biomarkers & Medical Diagnostics, Biomedical Measurement Science, BioTechnology - Venture Creation, Conference Coverage with Social Media on June 4, 2018| Leave a Comment »


June 4, 2018 – Department of Defense Medical Innovation and Biodefense Forum, BIO 2018! at Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

Announcement

Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN,

https://mybio.org/profile/member/2029564?profile_tabs=profile

Founder and Director of LPBI Group will be in attendance covering the event in REAL TIME

https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2018/05/26/bio-2018-june-4-7-2018-at-boston-convention-exhibition-center/

@pharma_BI

@AVIVA1950

for

#BIO2018

@BIOConvention

9:00 AM–12:00 PM Jun 4, 2018

bio2018-mybio-sessionicon-session
Department of Defense Medical Innovation and Biodefense Forum
Speakers
  • How DoD can assist Industry to commercialize technologies
  • How the coordination in the Infectious disease takes place
  • Manufacturing for DoD
  • Infrastructure to manage across Government RFP Process
  • Devices requires detailed engineering for use in Field hospitals
  • Regulatory, Scheduling and Engineering problems
  • Development is for all the Forces of the US and for all the Forces of US Allies — design for CIvilian first respnders as well
  • Some partners are commercial Partners, they need to approach DoD with novel product concept
  • FDA approved vs Right to Try – DoD uses both
  • Small business Program, success in bringing product to market
  • 20 years ago: Communities of interest – 20 orgs community common goals in Health Care, rehabilitation after coming home,
  • MROC – Conference in Florida DoD to explain the Public the process of engagement with Do
  • Interagency partnership
  • DoD starts with good ideas, concept studies – innovators
  • Collaborations with Academia, we are available to be approached
  • DoD will partner with small businesses to avoid the Regulatory process  – to save time and resources in the commercialization process
  • How a civilian concept FITS the needs of DoD
  • Sustaining an innovation along the years
  • Need for small business to approach DoD to make the contact
  • Where is a small business in the Development cycle? DoD can help calibrate
  • A System of Systems: Diagnostics drive decisions
  • develop partnerships in consortia
  • Six month to vaccinate 17,000 with a Vaccine for EBOLA
  • DoD of respective countries are collaborating with US DoD
  • Threat environment changes over time vs modify known threats
  • Monoclonal antibody – the Industry developed the manufacturing technology and DoD is user of Industry products
  • All research for the Joint Force, Chemical, Biological,
  • Short time to market solutions are of interest for DoD to identify
  • Military relevance: Key for funding
  • Announcements of DoD on WHAT PROBLEMS DoD tries to solve
  • DoD and HHS — aligned for common solution to avoid redundancy
  • Development of profilaxix is very expensive, DoD budget has competing goals: Next soldier suit,
  • FDA and DoD need to collaborate for DoDs needs
  • Order transaction authority,
  • Congress set aside a budget for small businesses to use accounting systems for Small business to interact with DoD
  • How to get a digital signal to the brain: Expertise in many disciplines: EE, Ethomology
  • Delivery, test , evaluation, develop sensors, IS to manage threats, Diagnostics,
  • How to do Business with Industry?
  • Congress asked for a Consorsium to engage with Industry in a different form than we engaged before
  • Partnerships for out of the box thinking and going quickly – the appetite for is greater then evr before
  • Successful area: Diagnostics – adoptation of existing diagnostics for military applications
  • Platform technologies: Metabolic, Vaccines,
  • Leverage existing technologies to solve DoD concerns
  • involved with MCS help Government to learn how to build their Office
  • Genomic, Proteomics, therapeutics candidates, Prophylaxis as Vaccines
  • In the event of an outbreak: clinicians, 1st responders
Panel 2: Clay Holloway, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Joint Project Manager, Medical Countermeasure Systems (JPM-MCS)
  • Partnering is key
  • capability requirements: broad spectrum capabilities
  • Decision tools to be used at studies for data analysis for decision making
  • Risks in partnership: DoD needs to evaluate ideas for next generation to SKIP one generation
  • How to used different agreement strategically? Streamline DoD Methods
  • Have continuous access to assets

 

LOCATION

Room 205ABC, Level 2

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Top TEN Graduate School Search – Biological Sciences Programs – Ranking by USNews.com

Posted in Biomedical Measurement Science, Scientific Publishing, Scientist: Career considerations on March 27, 2018| Leave a Comment »


Top TEN Graduate School Search – Biological Sciences Programs

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

 

School Program Rank
Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Department of Biology

Cambridge, MA
#1Tie
Stanford University – Department of Biology

Stanford, CA
#1Tie
University of California–Berkeley – College of Letters and Science

Berkeley, CA
#1Tie
California Institute of Technology – Division of Biology

Pasadena, CA
#4Tie
Harvard University – Programs in Biological and Biomedical Sciences

Boston, MA
#4Tie
Johns Hopkins University – Biology Department

Baltimore, MD
#6Tie
Princeton University – Department of Molecular Biology

Princeton, NJ
#6Tie
University of California–San Francisco – Graduate Division

San Francisco, CA
#6Tie
Yale University – Combined Program in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences

New Haven, CT
#6Tie
Cornell University

Ithaca, NY
#10Tie

SOURCE

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/search?program=top-biological-sciences-programs&name=&sort=program_rank&sortdir=asc

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The viability of Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) level as fertility marker

Posted in Biomedical Measurement Science, Cell Biology, Cell Biology, Signaling & Cell Circuits, Clinical Diagnostics, Diagnostics and Lab Tests, Endocrine Diseases, Evidence-based decision-making, Human aging, Methods, Population Health Management, Reproductive Andrology, Embryology, Genomic Endocrinology, Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis and Reproductive Genomics, Reproductive Biology & Bio Instrumentation, tagged , , , , on November 15, 2017| Leave a Comment »


Reporter and Curator: Dr. Sudipta Saha, Ph.D.

 

Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH), is secreted by growing follicles that contains the egg or ovum. According to regular practice low AMH and high Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) are generally considered as indicators of diminished egg quantity in a female. But, there are several cases the female conceived absolutely normally without any support even after low AMH was reported.

 

Therefore, a new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association declares that AMH doesn’t dictate a woman’s reproductive potential. Although AMH testing is one of the most common ways that doctors assess a woman’s fertility. Present research says that all it takes is one egg each cycle and AMH is not a marker of whether a female can or cannot become pregnant. So, for women who haven’t yet tried to get pregnant and who are wondering whether they are fertile, an AMH value isn’t going to be helpful in that context. In addition, AMH is not necessarily a good marker to predict that whether one has to cryopreserve her eggs. So, practically doctors don’t yet have a way to definitively predict egg quality or a woman’s long-term ability to conceive, but age is obviously one of the most important factors.

 

The above mentioned study followed 750 women between the ages of 30 and 44 who had been trying to conceive for three months or less. During the 12-month observation period, those with low AMH values of less than 0.7 were not less likely to conceive than those who had normal AMH values. The study had various limitations, however, that are worth noting. The researchers only included women who did not have a history of infertility. Women who sought fertility treatments (about 6 percent) were withdrawn. And only 12 percent of the women were in the 38-to-44 age range. In addition, the number of live births was unavailable.

 

Among women aged 30 to 44 years without a history of infertility who had been trying to conceive for 3 months or less, biomarkers indicating diminished ovarian reserve compared with normal ovarian reserve were not associated with reduced fertility. These findings do not support the use of urinary or blood FSH tests or AMH levels to assess natural fertility for women with these characteristics. The researchers’ next want to see whether low AMH is associated with a higher risk of miscarriage among the women who conceived.

 

Although AMH testing isn’t designed to be an overall gauge of a woman’s fertility, it can still provide valuable information, especially for women who are infertile and seeking treatment. It can assist in diagnosing polycystic ovarian syndrome, and identify when a woman is getting closer to menopause. Previous research also showed that AMH is good predictor of a woman’s response to ovarian stimulation for in vitro fertilization and therefore it can predict the probability of conceiving via in vitro fertilization (I.V.F.).

 

References:

 

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2656811?JamaNetworkReader=True

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/health/fertility-test-ovarian-reserve.html

 

https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/26/11/2925/656065

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3339896/

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27179263

 

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The immune system clock of pregnancy

Posted in Biochemical pathways, Biomarkers & Medical Diagnostics, Biomedical Measurement Science, Embryology, HealthCare IT, Immunodiagnostics, Immunology, Innovation in Immunology Diagnostics, Placenta, Population Health Management, Reproductive Andrology, Embryology, Genomic Endocrinology, Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis and Reproductive Genomics, tagged , , , , , , on September 13, 2017| Leave a Comment »


Reporter and Curator: Dr. Sudipta Saha, Ph.D.

 

Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have completed the first-ever characterization of the meticulously timed immune system changes in women that occur during pregnancy. The findings were published in Science Immunology revealed that there is an immune clock of pregnancy and suggest it may help doctors predict preterm birth.

 

The timing of immune system changes follows a precise and predictable pattern in normal pregnancy. Although physicians have long known that the expectant mother’s immune system adjusts to prevent her body from rejecting the fetus, no one had investigated the full scope of these changes, nor asked if their timing was tightly controlled.

 

Nearly 10 percent of U.S. infants are born prematurely, arriving three or more weeks early, but physicians lack a reliable way to predict premature deliveries. Previous research at Stanford and other places suggested that inflammatory immune responses may help in triggering early labor. It suggested that if scientists identify an immune signature of impending preterm birth, they should be able to design a blood test to detect it.

 

The researchers used mass cytometry, a technique developed at Stanford, to simultaneously measure up to 50 properties of each immune cell in the blood samples. They counted the types of immune cells, assessed what signaling pathways were most active in each cell, and determined how the cells reacted to being stimulated with compounds that mimic infection with viruses and bacteria.

 

The researchers developed an algorithm that captures the immunological timeline during pregnancy that both validates previous findings and sheds new light on immune cell interaction during gestation. By defining this immunological chronology during normal term pregnancy, they can now begin to determine which alterations associate with pregnancy-related pathologies.

 

With an advanced statistical modeling technique, introduced for the first time in this study, the scientists then described in detail how the immune system changes throughout pregnancy. Instead of grouping the women’s blood samples by trimester for analysis, the model treated gestational age as a continuous variable, allowing the researchers to account for the exact time during pregnancy at which each sample was taken. The mathematical model also incorporated knowledge from the existing scientific literature of how immune cells behave in nonpregnant individuals to help determine which findings were most likely to be important.

 

The study confirmed immune features of pregnancy that were already known. Such as the scientists saw that natural killer cells and neutrophils have enhanced action during pregnancy. The researchers also uncovered several previously unappreciated features of how the immune system changes, such as the finding that activity of the STAT5 signaling pathway in CD4+T cells progressively increases throughout pregnancy on a precise schedule, ultimately reaching levels much higher than in nonpregnant individuals. The STAT5 pathway is involved in helping another group of immune cells, regulatory T cells, to differentiate. Interestingly, prior research in animals has indicated that regulatory T cells are important for maintaining pregnancy.

 

The next step will be to conduct similar research using blood samples from women who deliver their babies prematurely to see where their trajectories of immune function differ from normal.

 

This study revealed a precisely timed chronology of immune adaptations in peripheral blood over the course of a term pregnancy. This finding was enabled by high-content, single-cell mass cytometry coupled with a csEN algorithm accounting for the modular structure of the immune system and previous knowledge. The study provided the conceptual backbone and the analytical framework to examine whether disruption of this chronology is a diagnostically useful characteristic of preterm birth and other pregnancy-related pathologies.

 

References:

 

http://immunology.sciencemag.org/content/2/15/eaan2946.full

 

http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2017/09/immune-system-changes-during-pregnancy-are-precisely-timed.html

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3078586/

 

http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v19/n5/full/nm.3160.html?foxtrotcallback=true

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14758358

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Trends in Sperm Count

Posted in Biomedical Measurement Science, Cell Biology, Clinical Diagnostics, Epigenetics and Environmental Factors, Population Health Management, Reproductive Andrology, Embryology, Genomic Endocrinology, Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis and Reproductive Genomics, Reproductive Biology & Bio Instrumentation, Statistical Methods for Research Evaluation, tagged , , , , , on July 27, 2017| Leave a Comment »


Trends in Sperm Count

Reporter and Curator: Dr. Sudipta Saha, Ph.D.

 

There has been a genuine decline in semen quality over the past 50 years. There is lot of controversy about this as there are limitations in studies that have attempted to address it. Sperm count is of considerable public health importance for several reasons. First, sperm count is closely linked to male fecundity and is a crucial component of semen analysis, the first step to identify male factor infertility.

Reduced sperm count is associated with cryptorchidism, hypospadias and testicular cancer. It may be associated with multiple environmental influences, including endocrine disrupting chemicals, pesticides, heat and lifestyle factors, including diet, stress, smoking and BMI. Therefore, sperm count may sensitively reflect the impacts of the modern environment on male health throughout the life span.

This study provided a systematic review and meta-regression analysis of recent trends in sperm counts as measured by sperm concentration (SC) and total sperm count (TSC), and their modification by fertility and geographic group. Analyzing trends by birth cohorts instead of year of sample collection may aid in assessing the causes of the decline (prenatal or in adult life) but was not feasible owing to lack of information.

This rigorous and comprehensive analysis found that SC declined 52.4% between 1973 and 2011 among unselected men from western countries, with no evidence of a ‘leveling off’ in recent years. Declining mean SC implies that an increasing proportion of men have sperm counts below any given threshold for sub-fertility or infertility. The high proportion of men from western countries with concentration below 40 million/ml is particularly concerning given the evidence that SC below this threshold is associated with a decreased monthly probability of conception.

Declines in sperm count have implications beyond fertility and reproduction. The decline reported in this study is consistent with reported trends in other male reproductive health indicators, such as testicular germ cell tumors, cryptorchidism, onset of male puberty and total testosterone levels. The public health implications are even wider. Recent studies have shown that poor sperm count is associated with overall morbidity and mortality. While the current study is not designed to provide direct information on the causes of the observed declines, sperm count has been plausibly associated with multiple environmental and lifestyle influences, both prenatally and in adult life. In particular, endocrine disruption from chemical exposures or maternal smoking during critical windows of male reproductive development may play a role in prenatal life, while lifestyle changes and exposure to pesticides may play a role in adult life.

These findings strongly suggest a significant decline in male reproductive health, which has serious implications beyond fertility concerns. Research on causes and implications of this decline is urgently needed.

 

REFERENCES

Temporal trends in sperm count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis 

Hagai Levine, Niels Jørgensen, Anderson Martino‐Andrade, Jaime Mendiola, Dan Weksler-Derri, Irina Mindlis, Rachel Pinotti, Shanna H Swan. Human Reproduction Update, July 25, 2017, doi:10.1093/humupd/dmx022.

Link: https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/humupd/dmx022.

Sperm Counts Are Declining Among Western Men – Interview with Dr. Hagai Levine

https://news.afhu.org/news/sperm-counts-are-declining-among-western-men?utm_source=Master+List&utm_campaign=dca529d919-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_07_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_343e19a421-dca529d919-92801633

J Urol. 1983 Sep;130(3):467-75.

A critical method of evaluating tests for male infertility.

Albertsen PC, Chang TS, Vindivich D, Robinson JC, Smyth JW.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6688444

Hum Reprod. 1993 Jan;8(1):65-70.

Estimating fertility potential via semen analysis data.

Bartoov B1, Eltes F, Pansky M, Lederman H, Caspi E, Soffer Y.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8458929

Lancet. 1998 Oct 10;352(9135):1172-7.

Relation between semen quality and fertility: a population-based study of 430 first-pregnancy planners.

Bonde JP1, Ernst E, Jensen TK, Hjollund NH, Kolstad H, Henriksen TB, Scheike T, Giwercman A, Olsen J, Skakkebaek NE.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9777833

Hum Reprod Update. 2010 May-Jun;16(3):231-45. doi: 10.1093/humupd/dmp048. Epub 2009 Nov 24.

World Health Organization reference values for human semen characteristics.

Cooper TG1, Noonan E, von Eckardstein S, Auger J, Baker HW, Behre HM, Haugen TB, Kruger T, Wang C, Mbizvo MT, Vogelsong KM.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19934213

J Nutr. 2016 May;146(5):1084-92. doi: 10.3945/jn.115.226563. Epub 2016 Apr 13.

Intake of Fruits and Vegetables with Low-to-Moderate Pesticide Residues Is Positively Associated with Semen-Quality Parameters among Young Healthy Men.

Chiu YH1, Gaskins AJ2, Williams PL3, Mendiola J4, Jørgensen N5, Levine H6, Hauser R7, Swan SH8, Chavarro JE9.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27075904

Reprod Toxicol. 2003 Jul-Aug;17(4):451-6.

Semen quality of Indian welders occupationally exposed to nickel and chromium.

Danadevi K1, Rozati R, Reddy PP, Grover P.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12849857

Fertil Steril. 1996 May;65(5):1009-14.

Semen analyses in 1,283 men from the United States over a 25-year period: no decline in quality.

Fisch H1, Goluboff ET, Olson JH, Feldshuh J, Broder SJ, Barad DH.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8612826

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Genomic Diagnostics: Three Techniques to Perform Single Cell Gene Expression and Genome Sequencing Single Molecule DNA Sequencing

Posted in Analytical Instruments Industry, Bio Instrumentation in Experimental Life Sciences Research, BioIT: BioInformatics, NGS, Clinical & Translational, Pharmaceutical R&D Informatics, Clinical Genomics, Cancer Informatics, Biological Networks, Gene Regulation and Evolution, Biomarkers & Medical Diagnostics, Biomedical Measurement Science, Cell Biology, Cell Biology, Signaling & Cell Circuits, Computational Biology/Systems and Bioinformatics, DNA repair, Drug Discovery Chemistry, Gene Regulation and Evolution, Genetics & Innovations in Treatment, Genome Biology, Genomic Testing: Methodology for Diagnosis, Meta-analysis of transcriptome data, Microfuidics, Transcriptomics, tagged , , , , , on July 4, 2017| Leave a Comment »


Genomic Diagnostics: Three Techniques to Perform Single Cell Gene Expression and Genome Sequencing Single Molecule DNA Sequencing

Curator: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

 

This article presents Three Techniques to Perform Single Cell Gene Expression and Genome Sequencing Single molecule DNA sequencing

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The BioPharma Industry’s Unrealized Wealth of Data, by Ben Szekely, Vice President, Cambridge Semantics

Posted in Big Data, BioIT: BioInformatics, BioIT: BioInformatics, NGS, Clinical & Translational, Pharmaceutical R&D Informatics, Clinical Genomics, Cancer Informatics, Biomedical Measurement Science, Computational Biology/Systems and Bioinformatics, HealthCare IT, Intelligent Information Systems, Meta-analysis of transcriptome data, tagged on June 21, 2017| Leave a Comment »


The BioPharma Industry’s Unrealized Wealth of Data, by Ben Szekely, Vice President, Cambridge Semantics

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

 

 

The BioPharma Industry’s Unrealized Wealth of Data

by Ben Szekely, Vice President of Solutions and Pre-sales, Cambridge Semantics

 

Solving the great medical challenges of our time reside within patient data. Clinical trial data, real-world evidence, patient feedback, genetic data, wearables data and adverse event reports contain signals to target medicines at the right patient populations, improve overall safety, and uncover the next blockbuster therapy for unmet medical needs.

However, data sources are large, diverse, multi-structured, messy and highly regulated presenting numerous challenges. As result, extracting value from data are slow to come and require manual work or long-poll dependencies on IT and Data Science teams.

Fortunately, there are new ways being adopted to take better advantage of the ever-growing volumes of patient data.  Called ‘Smart’ Patient Data Lakes (SPDL), these tools create an Enterprise Knowledge Graph built upon foundational and open Semantic Web technology standards, providing rich descriptions of data and flexibility end-to-end.  With the SPDL, biopharma researchers can:

  • Quickly on-board new data without requiring up-front modeling or mapping, ingesting data from any source versus months or weeks of preparation
  • Dynamically map and prepare data at analytics time
  • Horizontally scale in cloud or on-prem infrastructure to 100’s of nodes – allowing billions of facts to be analyzed, queried and explored in real-time   

The world’s BioPharma and research institutions are sitting on a wealth of highly differentiating and life-saving data and should begin to realize its value via Smart Patient Data Lakes (SPDL).

 

 

CONTACT: Nadia Haidar

Global Results Communications ∙ 949-278-7328 ∙ nhaidar@globalresultspr.com

 

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