Oh Snap. Spit in a Tube, Share Your DNA

Hmm, I wonder how many people in Frederick County just got this email?

Personal Genome Project July 26, 2011Dear PGP Participant, We beginning to collect saliva samples from enrolled PGP participants.

Saliva Collection Opportunity for 100 volunteers We are looking for 100 PGP participants who are willing to receive a saliva collection kit in the mail and use it to return several saliva samples as directed within a specific time period (Aug 1 – Aug 15 2011).  We plan to ship 100 kits on Monday August 1, 2011.  We ask that volunteers return the saliva samples in the pre-paid mailing package no later than Monday August 15th. If we have more than 100 volunteers sign-up for this pilot study, we will prioritize PGP participants who satisfy the following criteria: (a) participants who have uploaded existing genetic data to their public profile (b) participants who have completed the Participant Survey, available here: https://my.personalgenomes.org/users/participant_survey (c) participants who reside in the continental United States Saliva samples submitted to the PGP will be used for a variety of research purposes, some not foreseeable at the time of collection.  Currently, the PGP plans to study to saliva samples in several ways, including: telomere measurement, whole genome sequencing, and epigenetic profiling. Any saliva you submit may be analyzed for these or other purposes, as described in the PGP consent form.  We also plan to evaluate low-cost saliva collection kits and protocols for working with saliva samples.  This saliva collection is in cooperation with TeloMe, a company interested in performing telomere analysis on PGP participants. Telomere analysis, genome sequences, and other data will be shared with PGP participants and made publicly available according to the procedures outlined in the consent form.  As with other forms of specimen analysis in the PGP, results are not guaranteed and the analysis may take months, or possibly a year or more, to complete. Timeline: July 26th (Tuesday): Announcement email sent to all enrolled PGP participants. July 28th (Thursday): Deadline for PGP participants to volunteer for this saliva collection opportunity. July 29th (Friday): Email applicants and let them know whether they have been selected. August 1st (Monday):  Begin to mail 100 saliva kits via USPS standard mail. August 15th (Monday): We request participating volunteers to return saliva samples no later than Monday, August 15th. We plan to expand saliva collection to everyone in the research study as soon as we evaluate our performance with processing these 100 samples.  So, if you are not selected for this round, there will be additional opportunities in the near future. Do you wish to volunteer for this effort?  You can learn more and sign-up here: https://my.personalgenomes.org/pages/studies

Thanks for your time and support of the PGP. Sincerely,   PGP Staff

Biotech Connect

The Dog Days of Summer are here and the Biotech Livin’ in Frederick is easy……

I’m setting up a couple of events you all may be interested in.  First and foremost, working on the next BioBeers in August at “The Incubator” aka the Frederick Innovative Technology Center or FITCI for short.  I have one firm sponsor and could use one or two more, if you are interested.  No date, at his point in time.

Just got out of a great meeting at the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce with Frank and SAIC-Frederick.  We’re setting up, with Frank’s help, the next Tech Connect for Bio event at the Chamber.   What we are trying to do is to peel the onion back a bit deeper and give local companies more insight into what is going on at Fort Detrcik and how they can participate as either a partner in providing goods and services or in licencing out technologies developed on the Fort for commercial purposes.   This is the main reason Jim Hartley and I started BioBeers in the first place.  Jim is working with our old (I say that with the best intent) friend Deb on this amazing system they have developed:

You need to scroll over to the right hand column and pick the “SAIC-Frederick Targeted Protein Delivery” icon to see their video.  I don’t know how to copy and attach a flash file.  As you’ll see from the viseo, they even roped in another former LifeTech employee, Dave Hoekzema, to lead the commercialization effort.  It’s like the holy trinity of innovation that the fools formerly in charge of  Invitrogen jettisoned.

The third thing is an event I am helping to set up.  Lilypons Water Gardens has an annual wine festival and Dog Jumping contest.  You know those events you may have seen on ESPN where the dog sprints down a dock and leaps as far as they can into the water chasing a decoy?   So I was there in my official capacity as a  Chamber of Commerce Ambassador talking to Margret about trying to find out if they could use spent grains from beer making as fish food and she mentions their annual event, The Puppy Palooza on Sept 3rd & 4th.  Margret mentioned that the crowd was more of a “beer crowd” than a wine crowd and if I knew anyone she could talk to about making this a Beerfest?  In case you didn’t know, we have a local brewery call “Flying Dog.”  I know some people there and we’re going to make it happen.  The 1st ever Flying Dog competition at Lilypons sponsored by Flying Dog and hopefully represented by all of the local breweries.  Stay tuned!

June BioBeers in July: Proof it happened

After a near wash-out, loading kegs into the truck in a torrential downpour, we managed to get June BioBeers in July into the books.

There are some pictures HERE.  I’d load them directly on the web site, but I find it intellectually stimulating to make people work for a living.  Heck, I loaded kegs in a rain storm, the least y’all can do is click on a link.  Here’s another one to the LinkedIn group.

Who would like to host the next event (in August) at their site?