BioElectronics in the news, Again!

BioElectronics has been all over the FNP lately. That’s because they have a great product!

From Today’s FNP:

Frederick-based BioElectronics Corp. is one of 18 firms to receive a combined $4.4 million for new collaborative research projects between Maryland companies and University of Maryland faculty.

BioElectronics makes ActiPatch, a drug-free, anti-inflammatory patch that reduces swelling. The company, located at 4539 Metropolitan Court, was awarded $258,788 from the University of Maryland Industrial Partnerships Program. The money will fund oral surgery research, beginning in March.

BioElectronics develops and markets ActiPatch medical devices that deliver pulsed electromagnetic frequency therapies that accelerate healing in soft-tissue injuries.

I started an experiment this week using the ActiPatch to determine if this has an effect on my amniotic hu-MSC’s in vitro.  I had a couple of available conditions in my plate, so I decided to throw a T-25 flask sitting on an Actipatch in during the differentiation cycle to see what happens.  My objective is to determine the potential of the cells o differentiate into neurons, as previous studies have shown a significat population of neuronal precursors.
Although I don’t have any evidence, I would theorize that the ActiPatch may be playing some role in stem cell trafficing related to wound healing.  There is an ambiguous connection between the CNS and immune response, which is  an element of wound healing.  I think it will be interesting to see.

I can tell that after 5 days in culture, there are some marked morphological differences between my ActiPatch culture, the control plate and other conditions.  Should know more by the end of the month.

Good Stuff from NCI

I ran across an article the other day on the NIH web site about a break through discovery made by a group in Frederick.

Just a cut and paste from the NIH web site:

Scientists Find Antibody that Can Potently Neutralize Two VirusesIn laboratory experiments, scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and their colleagues supported by the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), have discovered an antibody that neutralizes two viruses classified as henipaviruses. Nipah virus (NiV) and Hendra virus (HeV) are highly infectious agents that transitioned from infecting flying foxes in the mid-1990s to causing fatal disease in humans and livestock in Australia, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, and Singapore. Recent outbreaks have resulted in encephalitis and acute respiratory distress, person-to-person transmission, and up to 70 percent fatality rates. The finding appears in the Feb. 15, 2008, issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Antibodies are proteins that are found in blood or other bodily fluids of vertebrates and are used by the immune system to identify and neutralize foreign molecules, including bacteria and viruses. According to study author Dimiter S. Dimitrov, Ph.D., of NCI’s Center for Cancer Research in Frederick, Md., “We hope that with further research this antibody can save human lives. The insights offered about how it works also could potentially provide a starting point for the development of tools for targeting other diseases.”

The first step in countering infections caused by these viruses is to find antibodies that can neutralize them. Viral neutralization is the process by which an antibody alone or an antibody plus another molecule, called complement, block the infectivity of a virus. Zhongui Zhu, Ph.D., of Dimitrov’s group and their NIAID-supported collaborator Christopher Broder, Ph.D., of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Md., had previously identified antibodies to NiV and HeV by panning a large antibody library against a soluble form of the protein that makes up the HeV shell. One of these antibodies, m102, exhibited a strong ability to neutralize both NiV and HeV.

In their current experiment, the researchers created an improved version of m102, called m102.4, by using a complex procedure called in vitro maturation. The m102.4 version is even more potent than its parent antibody, m102, and can neutralize both HeV and NiV without a loss of cross-reactivity, which is the ability of an antibody that is specific for one target, or antigen, to bind to a second antigen. The researchers believe that the m102.4 clone is the first fully human antibody that is capable of potently neutralizing both HeV and NiV. Their results suggest that m102.4 may prove useful as a therapeutic for treatment of diseases caused by henipaviruses. Their initial experiments in small mammals called ferrets found that m102.4 was well tolerated, exhibited no adverse effects, and retained high neutralizing activity, which may point to this antibody’s potential for clinical use as a preventive agent, a diagnostic probe, or an antiviral therapeutic.

“The generation of a potent antibody against both HeV and NiV could help control outbreaks in geographical regions susceptible to henipaviruses, and result in a benefit for mankind,” said Dimitrov. He also noted that the laboratory technology they used for the maturation of antibodies is being used for the development of antibodies against cancer.

This study was a collaboration with investigators Katharine N. Bossart, Ph.D., and Lin-Fa Wang, Ph.D., from Geelong, Victoria, Australia, where there is a high-level safety and security facility for testing the antibody.

For more information on Dimitrov’s laboratory at CCR Frederick, please go to http://ccr.cancer.gov/staff/staff.asp?profileid=5749.

For more information about cancer, please visit the NCI Web site at http://www.cancer.gov, or call NCI’s Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237).

NIAID is a component of the National Institutes of Health. NIAID supports basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose and treat infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria and illness from potential agents of bioterrorism. NIAID also supports research on basic immunology, transplantation and immune-related

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation’s Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

---

Reference:
Zhu Z, Bossart K, Bishop KA, Grameri G, Dimitrov AS, McEachern JA, Feng Y, Middleton D, Wang L, Broder CC, Dimitrov DS. Exceptionally Potent Cross-Reactive Neutralization of Nipah and Hendra Viruses by a Human Monoclonal Antibody. The Journal of Infectious Diseases, February 15, 2008.

---

HSRL Goes Bowling

    My neighbor here at FITCI, HSRL Pathology, is moving to a former bowling alley in Thurmont.

I heard this was coming, but didn’t know all of the details until reading an article in today’s FNP.  We may be seeing a lot of change at FITCI in the coming months, as fleadling companies prepare to leave the nest.  My own little gig hasn’t grown to more than a single person operation, with a little help from my friends.  With HSRL leaving and BridgePath Scientific, Advanced Product Enterprises and Integrated Biotherapeutics all bursting at the seams, it looks like FITCI will have some space available, soon.

I also wanted to take a minute to welcome Jon from The Regeneration Station to Frederick County!  He is starting with a local company the first of March.  We had the chance to meet and chat when he came out a couple of weeks ago looking for a place to live.
It is nice to see the incubator concept is working and good luck to everyone moving onward and upward!

Mammalian Protein Localization Database

I found a write up in this week’s Genetic Engineering News about a web site from Australia that provides an interactive guide to the subcellular location of proteins.  I think it’s a pretty neat tool and will be add this to the Gene Jockey section momentarily.

Lab Space in Mo. Co is Scarce and Getting more Expensive

Which leads to the obvious question:  Why not move to Frederick?

This is according to a report published in the Feb 15th edition of Washington Business Journal.  Here’s the abstract (you’ll need a paid subscription to see the whole thing):

Owners of Washington-area lab space may have to start taking down “vacancy” signs and hiking rents, if the predictions of real estate insiders come true.

After enduring historic rates of empty biotech and lab space, local real estate brokers say the industry is back on a growth path and will require more square footage between now and the end of the decade.

“Before, there was a lag period between mature companies and companies still rising,” said Pete Briskman, a vice president of Texas-based The Staubach Co., who expects developers to build more speculative lab space in the next few years. “We’re seeing that lag being filled now by midstage companies.”

In an end-of-year report that Scheer Partners plans to release this month, the Rockville biotech real estate company projects that life sciences vacancy rates will fall from 8 percent this year to 5 percent next year and as low as 3 percent in 2010, even as rents climb from $27 per square foot to $36 in the same period.

Friday: Must post something

It is Friday, so I figured I had to post something. I have been busy fighting equipment at work and goofing around, in general.

So here a re a couple of newsworthy events, from my perspective.

From the Baltimore (and Washington) Business Journal, Montgomery County calls for new biotech, research campus near White Oak.  Having recently acquired about 115 acres for a mere $10MM (or only $87K per acre, that’s almost Frederick County pricing), they have issued an RFP in an attempt to integrate local Biotech with the near-by Federally funded Research Institutions, Universities and Hospitals.

Sounds like a good place to start a new stem cell RegMed lab, if you can stomach the traffic and the housing costs in that area, least you be forced to make to deary commute South on 270 every day!!  The NIH is moving a lot of stuff up to Frederick, but Montgomery County can keep their campus.  They don’t even have a BSL4 facility there nor do they have armed guards patrolling their perimeter.  Must mean the research happening up here is that much better, heh?

And another story I find interesting, reported by GenomeWeb Daily News  as preview to an article coming out in tomorrow’s edition of Science, is that the NIH Chemical Genomics Center, the National Toxicology Program, and the National Center for Computational Toxicology will collaborate under a “memorandum of understanding” to push EPA mandated toxicology studies away from in vivo animal research and to “in vivo and in vitro assays with lower organisms, and computational models for toxicology assessments.”

The EPA’s ToxCast program, launched in 2007, is currently profiling over 300 toxicants, most of which are pesticides.  This is currently done in vivo. In vitro systems have been used in Drug Discovery for a decade and employ rodent, dog, and non-human primate models routinely.

I would think it would be just as easy to make freshwater, North American fish models (not tropical Zebra fish).

I have always found it odd that the EPA dictates you kill a bunch of creatures to prove your product isn’t toxic.

Androgyny and the Potomac Bass

I ran across an interesting study over the weekend called Intersex (Testicular Oocytes) in Smallmouth Bass from the Potomac River and Selected Nearby Drainages published  by the American Fisheries Society and as reported by the US Geological Service.  This topic got quite a flurry of press coverage last year, from my recollection.

Technically the sampled populations were from the Shenandoah and the North Branch of the Potomac in West Virginia, but I wonder if something similar is occurring in the Monocacy or the Potomac proper as it boarders Southern Frederick County?  The study concluded that:

“a high incidence of intersex occurs in the Potomac watershed at sites where farming is most intense and where human population density is highest. The study also shows the greatest prevalence of this form of intersex, known as testicular oocytes (TO), occurs in the spring, just before and during the spawning season.”

with an assignable cause being an association:

“with known or suspected endocrine disrupting compounds in wastewater effluent, which are not removed during standard sewage treatment, and in runoff from farming operations. These compounds can include estrogen from birth control pills and hormone replacements, pesticides and fertilizers used on crops, and hormones from livestock operations.”

Interesting.  They report rates of immature oocytes in male gonads as high as 75%.  This is very good research that goes largely unnoticed aside from sensationalize headlines in the news.

The Journal of Visualized Experimention

I added a new link into my “SOPs and Protocols” page linking to the JoVE web site.  As blogged many times over at PIMM, JoVE is a really neat site chock full of video protocols, from the basics like Western Blotting to ones involving Immunohistochemistry of human neural stem cells.

Y’all need to check it out

Much a do about Nothing

I was listening to talk radio yesterday on the way home and they were talking about a recent news flash regarding a Dutch research report published on the PLoS Journal entitled Lifetime Medical Costs of Obesity: Prevention No Cure for Increasing Health Expenditure. The story was also featured on WIRED. I had to have a laugh at it. The conclusion was :

Although effective obesity prevention leads to a decrease in costs of obesity-related diseases, this decrease is offset by cost increases due to diseases unrelated to obesity in life-years gained. Obesity prevention may be an important and cost-effective way of improving public health, but it is not a cure for increasing health expenditures.

Which inspired me to do a little research where I found this diddy, published in the New England Journal in 1997:

The Health Care Costs of Smoking

Jan J. Barendregt, M.A., Luc Bonneux, M.D., and Paul J. van der Maas, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

Background Although smoking cessation is desirable from a public health perspective, its consequences with respect to health care costs are still debated. Smokers have more disease than nonsmokers, but nonsmokers live longer and can incur more health costs at advanced ages. We analyzed health care costs for smokers and nonsmokers and estimated the economic consequences of smoking cessation.

Methods We used three life tables to examine the effect of smoking on health care costs — one for a mixed population of smokers and nonsmokers, one for a population of smokers, and one for a population of nonsmokers. We also used a dynamic method to estimate the effects of smoking cessation on health care costs over time.

Results Health care costs for smokers at a given age are as much as 40 percent higher than those for nonsmokers, but in a population in which no one smoked the costs would be 7 percent higher among men and 4 percent higher among women than the costs in the current mixed population of smokers and nonsmokers. If all smokers quit, health care costs would be lower at first, but after 15 years they would become higher than at present. In the long term, complete smoking cessation would produce a net increase in health care costs, but it could still be seen as economically favorable under reasonable assumptions of discount rate and evaluation period.

Conclusions If people stopped smoking, there would be a savings in health care costs, but only in the short term. Eventually, smoking cessation would lead to increased health care costs.

The whole thing makes me laugh, really. I just thought some of you might find it amusing, too.

UPDATE 2/15:  Title changed from “Adieu” to “a do”. My wife says I am a bonehead….

More Tales About Cats and Virus

I picked up another story from the same group at NCI/SAIC-Frederick from GenomeWeb Daily News feed.

It would appear that if you have any questions about the feline genome, then Dr SJ O’Brien would be the person to speak with. I have always found it interesting, and quite different than myself, that people can get so deep and specific about a topic such as the cat genome. And this morning I have festered away quite a few hours on the topic myself. I find it fascinating that the authors are able to draw analogies between African Lion FIV and modes of transmission of HIV in humans.

The most recent article is actually available on from an “Open Access”, peer-reviewed journal, BMC Genomics. So, here’s the skinny on this publication (or should I say, just scratching the surface):

Conclusions

This study demonstrates the necessity of whole-genome analysis to complement population/gene-based studies, which are of limited utility in uncovering complex events such as recombination that may lead to functional differences in virulence and pathogenicity. These full-length lion lentiviruses are integral to the advancement of comparative genomics of human pathogens, as well as emerging disease in wild populations of endangered species.

Interestingly, in another featured article in the same publication, yet another “Frederick Connection”. One of the authors of the paper “A large-scale proteomic analysis of human embryonic stem cells“, Mahendra S Rao, was working closely with SuperArray on their Stem Cell platforms and then left to go to work across the street at Invitrogen.  I think that’s pretty cool!