BioBeers Friday, Badgers, News and other Random Stuff

As if I haven’t pestered you all anough already BioBeers is this Friday at ImQuest Biosciences Friday February 18th starting at 4:30 PM. I am getting Ribs from RibCity, so please do RSVP so I can get the right amount. RSVP’s trickling in thus far and I am giving you multiple choices. You can RSVP by emailing me, leaving a comment or go on the MeetUp or LinkedIn sites (both require FREE registration). Badger, badger as in “Her hungry fingers tore at my shirt buttons like wild badgers” (a hilarious episode of Prairie Home Companion I listened to on the way back from Fredericksburg VA last week http://is.gd/UWzJWF can’t help it that I am a radio junkie). 

Speaking of Badgers, Akonni was in the news this week for signing a licensing agreement with USAMRIID which covers covers nucleic acid sequences, primers, and probes that will serve as the basis for multiplexed molecular tests for Bacillus anthracis, vaccinia/orthopox virus, Yersinia pestis, and Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus. How neat is that?

Speaking of neat stuff, you all may know that I have been working on an inexpensive, hand held thermocycler (LavaAmp).  Well, so compatriots of ours, Tito Janokoswski and crew with pearl biotech, have released a DIY $500 thermocycler.  It’s based on the standard tube format PCR in aluminum block, so I don’t consider this a threat at all to our low resource, low power, portable device, but cool news nonetheless out of the DIYBio guys.  They also have the Open Gel Box, which I contributed to.  Keep it up!

So back to FredCoBio and stuff happening here BioElectronics is poised for huge growth.  I know I haven’t blogged about them in a while, but their patch works and it’s not expensive and it’s really the only thing out there.  I think it’s awesome!!

The all new Fredcobio coming

It has been a pretty good year in Fredcobio, I am glad to say, and the end of the year is ramping up to be amazing.    Many of you know that I have been working a contract with MedImmune assisting in the validation of the new Frederick Manufacturing Center.  That contract ended suddenly 9although it was expected) last week, so now I am back wheeling and dealing and looking at what I am going to do next.

I’ve been neglecting my two start-ups and building on my recent, newly elected status as the Grand Poobah of Biotech in Frederick first official Biotech Ambassador of the Frederick Chamber of Commerce (which I announced at the last Biobeers).  As such, we’ve had a couple of very preliminary meetings with interested parties from the Chamber, OED, FITCI,  the City of Frederick and a few other interested partners and I think there are a lot of good things we can do together.  Most of these ideas, these delusions of grandeur are just that:  ideas.  We need to transform our ideas into action and start getting some stuff done.

What do I mean by that?  First of all, everyone wants more information about things like funding and where to get it and how much is available, but we also need to start talking more with each other.  There are over 50 biotech companies or quasi-government (even “real government”) agencies in Frederick County and we don’t even know what we all do for a living.  I’m talking about better networking and business and commerce between just the local companies.  Well, that’s a start.  What we really need to do is communicate with all of the people at NCI and the various and sun-dried agencies behind the barbed wire fence that is Ft Detrick and find out what they’re doing. Speaking of which, a couple of very newsworth things have popped up on my radar screen over the past couple of days.

One of them is an excellent resource I’ll bet no one is even paying attention to off base, and we should be: Free Lectures at Ft Detrick by various agencies.  You can find the whole calendar here:  http://is.gd/gS3wv

I used to try to post them, but got tired of doing that and I don’t even think anyone was watching.  But as a “for example”, there are at least three different lecture series going on now, the one called  CCR Grand Rounds is hosting a lecture Tuesday 11/23 by Frederick R. Appelbaum, M.D. who is the Director, Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center entitled “The Grand Challenges of Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation.” How cool does that sound? And did I mention it’s free? Well, not exactly free. I bet some of our tax money is being used somehow.  All of the details are here: http://is.gd/gS483

Ansd another thing I thought was interesting, passed along by Frank at SAIC-Frederick is this list of qualifying ”Therapeutic Discovery Project Grants” for the State of Maryland from IRS.gov.  The list is pretty long, but I think you’ll recognize for names familiar to Fredcobio such as ImQuest, Akonni, BioElectronics and BioAssay Works.  Over $48MM in grants awarded to Maryland over the past 2 years, just on this “qualifying” delineation.    My memory tells me more than $1.5BB is being spent at Ft Detrick alone this year (a lot of bricks and mortar as well as research).

I almost forgot to mention the next BioBeers date is set:  Friday December 10th.  I’m going to be improving the blog and likely moving our LinkedIn and Google groups over to a MeetUp platform in the coming weeks. So stay tuned, Fredcobio campers.

The Near Eastern Origin of Cat Domestication in Fredcobio

I am always amazed at the breadth and depth of scientific research going down in our own back yard. I bet you didn’t know that this 2007 paper in Science was partially done in Frederick: The Near Eastern Origin of Cat Domestication

A few weeks back I went to Olive’s, on a whim, and ended up chatting with this cat Carlos who works at the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at NCI over a martini or two.  Fascinating stuff.   The research shows that wildcats (Felis silvestris) were initially domesticated in the Near East, probably coincident with agricultural village development in the Fertile Crescent.  Interestingly, cats differ from other domesticated animals in that they seem to provide no real benefit to humans aside from catching rodents in the early grain stores & companionship.

The Science text is a very detailed technical account and is followed up with a more elaborate, “scientifically toned down” article in the June 2009 edition of  Scientific American.

Some conclusions of this article

Unlike other domesticated creatures, the house cat contributes little to human survival.  Researchers have therefore wondered how and why cats came to live among people.

Experts traditionally thought that the Egyptians were the first to domesticate the cat, some 3,600 years ago. But recent genetic and archaeological discoveries indicate that cat domestication began in the Fertile Crescent, perhaps around 10,000 years ago, when agriculture was getting under way.

The findings suggest that cats started making themselves at home around people to take advantage of the mice and food scraps found in their settlements.

In an article published in PNAS in 2009, the authors delve into the differences between Natural vs. Artificial Selection.  Interesting stuff:

We perceive today, as did Darwin, that natural selection is the environmentally driven mechanistic process by which more advantageous traits are, on the whole, passed on to succeeding generations more often than less advantageous traits because of differential reproduction of the individuals possessing them. Sexual selection is a natural process of intraspecific competition for mating rights. Artificial selection, generally the motive force behind domestication, is often equated with selective breeding. This often amounts to prezygotic selection (where mates are chosen by humans) versus postzygotic selection (where the most fit progeny reproduce differentially) as in natural selection. Although natural selection plays a considerable role in the evolution of many traits (e.g., disease resistance) during the animal domestication process, sexual selection is effectively trumped by the human-imposed arrangements of matings and often by the human desire for particular secondary sexual characters. Artificial selection is a conscious, if unintentional, process, and therefore is generally considered to be effected only by humans.

This is exactly the kind of research we’re doing at Ft Detrick that I think would be brilliant to get out to people by a yet to be established mechanism. I wonder if The various agency “partners” at Ft Detrick even track this stuff?

Spring Research, a Festival at NCI-Frederick, Ft Detrick

I had a great time at the Spring Research Festival at Ft Detrick on Thursday.  I posted a quick slide show in YouTube (can’t figure out how to embed the bloody slide shows in WordPress straight from Picasa).

I spent more than half the time walking through the posters.  There must have been at least 200 posters up.  It’s really amazing the research being done there by the various agencies.  I wish I could figure out a way to get it publicized more!  I have been working with Frank at SAIC-Frederick to try and publish more of their press releases, since they are not always picked up by the wire services or local papers.

My slide show features a number of shots of the various infectious disease, vaccine presentations, but there is just as  much, if not more, Cancer & developmental biology stuff.

So we’ll just keep bridging gaps one at a time.

Catching Up

I’ve been busy in the lab the past couple days and haven’t had a chance to update an number of interesting stories I’ve stumbled across.  First things first.  you all need to be reprimanded for being Web 2.0 phobic.  Thus far, only 6 people have signed up on the FredCoBio Google Group.  Shame on you.  What are you waiting for, Christmas? Sign up here by selecting the “Join This Group” mouse over in the right column.  In all fairness, this is partially my fault since I didn’t have things set up correctly in the first announcement.

Now on to some interesting news.  As reported in the Frederick News Post, in the Gazette and then picked up by a number of other News feeds, Life Technologies won a $250,000 from the Governator and will be adding at least another 50 jobs in Frederick.  this at a time when Osiris is paring back in Columbia and other non-bio groups are laying off in Frederick.  I am so glad to see Life Tech is getting everything back on track.

In a very significant report I was reading this morning, Qiagen (HQ in the EU with facilities in MoCo) has come out with a $5 HPV test that will likely save millions of lives in the developing world. This effort was funded, in part, by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation.  I know this is directly FredCoBio, but only the most dedicated reader will recall that the first generation of this HPV test is what brought yours truly to the Free State.  The Old Molecular Diagnostics Division of Life Technologies chaperoned the HPV test through FDA approval and I am proud to have participated in the effort.  unfortunately, this was in 1989 and it’s taken nearly 20 years for this test to find a significant market for growth and the good science to back it up.  There are even some who believe this was the first DNA diagnostic test approved by the FDA and most of it was done by Frederick Countians.  We knew 20 years ago this test would eventually replace the Pap smear and this may finally be the straw that breaks the Pap smears speculum.

In other interesting news, the NCI has announced Priorities for Stimulus money spending over the next couple of years.  It is not specifically stated in the article, but these priorities are certain to shape the way the new NCI-Frederick at Riverside Park is going to be deployed and I can’t wait to see the results.

And finally, an interesting publication from NCI-Frederick in the April 7th issue of the journal Cancer Cell.  NCI-Frederick researchers, working with a team from the university of Maryland show that expression of RNF6 was increased in human prostate cancer tissues that do not respond to androgen ablation and is required for prostate tumor growth under androgen depleted conditions.  In plain English, this may result in a significant breakthrough i the treatment of advanced prostate cancer.

March Events in FredCoBio

As always, I try to post a monthly events calendar.  I’m not sure how many peoepl actually read it, but there are a number of great seminars on Ft Detrick this month.

I spent all weekend reading excerts from Jon Rowley’s (Dir. Cell Therapy R&D, Lonza-Walkersville and recovering blogger @ Regeneration Station) excellent editorial work on Tissue Engineering Part A  “Technologies for Enhancing Tissue Engineering: Materials and Environments for Guiding Stem Cell Function“.  More credibility to how FredCoBio is leading the world in Stem Cell innovation.

Anyway, on with the events post.  In particular, there are a number of different Stem-related talks being given.

Monday, March 02, 2009
2:00 PM		Bldg 549 Auditorium
	SANGER Sequencing and LIMS Users Meeting	Details
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
8:00 AM	Olivera J. Finn, PhD	Bldg 549 Conf. Rm B
	Immune Memory for Abnormal Self and Immunosurveillance	Details Series
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
9:00 AM	Jerry Pelletier, PhD	Bldg 549 Auditorium
	Translation Initiation as a Therapeutic Target	Details Series
Thursday, March 05, 2009
10:00 AM	Paul Wade, PhD	Bldg 549 Auditorium
	Mi-2/NuRD Complex: Gene Regulation in Cancer	Details
Friday, March 06, 2009
8:45 AM	Various Speakers	Bldg 10 Lipsett
	2nd NIH Mesothelioma Conference – Novel Agents and Approaches for Treatment of Mesothelioma	Details
12:00 PM	Dr. Lionel Ivashkiv	Bldg 549 Auditorium
	Regulation of Cytokine and TLR Signaling During Macrophage Activation	Details Series
Monday, March 09, 2009
2:30 PM	Elena Pasquale	Bldg 549 Auditorium
	Eph Receptors in Cancer	Details Series
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
8:00 AM	Alfred Singer, MD	Bldg 549 Conf. Rm B
	T Cells That See Antigens Independently of MHC	Details Series
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
12:00 PM	Steve Anderson	Bldg 549 Auditorium
	Endogenous Anti-Sense Transcripts Regulate the Human KIR Gene Cluster	Details Series
Thursday, March 12, 2009
12:00 PM	Hugh P. Cam, PhD	Bldg 549 Auditorium
	Epigenetic Control and Genome Organization by RNAi and Transposon-derived Proteins	Details
Friday, March 13, 2009
12:00 PM	Dr. Jeffrey Miller	Bldg 549 Auditorium
	NK Cells, Their Receptors and Implications for Cancer and Transplantation Therapy	Details Series
Monday, March 16, 2009
2:30 PM	Amy Tang, PhD	Bldg 549 Auditorium
	TBA	Details Series
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
8:00 AM	Frank Maldarelli, MD, PhD	Bldg 549 Conf. Rm B
	A Curative Intent: Evaluating Strategies to Eradicate HIV-1 Infection	Details Series
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
12:00 PM	Frank Cuttitta	Bldg 549 Auditorium
	Co-culture 2D/3D Angiogenesis/Lymphangiogenesis Assays for Drug Screening, Mimetics to the In Vivo Environment	Details Series
Thursday, March 19, 2009
1:00 PM	Dr. Paul Fox	Bldg 549 Auditorium
	Translational Control of Inflammatory Gene Expression	Details
Friday, March 20, 2009
12:00 PM	Dr. David Artis	Bldg 549 Auditorium
	Intestinal Immune Homeostasis: The Role of Commensal Bacteria	Details Series
Monday, March 23, 2009
3:00 PM	Michael Jung, PhD	Bldg 10 Lipsett
	Rational Drug Design for the Treatment of Hormone Refractory Prostate Cancer	Details Series
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
8:00 AM	Carlo M. Croce, MD	Bldg 549 Conf. Rm B
	Role of MicroRNA in the Pathogenesis of Human Cancer	Details Series
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
12:00 PM	Vinay Pathak	Bldg 549 Auditorium
	Novel Mechanisms of HIV-1 Resistance to Antiretroviral Drugs and APOBEC3 Restriction Factors	Details Series
Friday, March 27, 2009
10:00 AM	George Vande Woude	Bldg 549 Auditorium
	TBA	Details Series
12:00 PM	Dr. Harold Moses	Bldg 426 Conf. Rm
	TGF-beta Regulation of the Tumor Inflammatory Microenvironment	Details Series
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
8:00 AM	Michael R. Bishop, MD	Bldg 549 Conf. Rm B
	Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: Transformation of a Field	Details Series

Riid teams with NCSU in novel Anthrax Vaccine

There is a recent story popping up on a number of my news feeds.  I’ll just trace it back to the original North Carolina State Press release.

L. acidophilus bacteria near vaginal squamous epithelial cells, courtesy wikipedia

Researchers at North Carolina State University have discovered that the good bacteria found in dairy products and linked to positive health benefits in the human body might also be an effective vehicle for an oral vaccine that can provide immunity to anthrax exposure. The approach could possibly be used to deliver any number of specific vaccines that could block other types of viruses and pathogens.

The oral vaccine riding inside the good bacteria makes its way through the stomach and into the small intestine, an important immunological organ, where it easily and efficiently binds to cells that trigger an immune response – in this case, protection against anthrax in mice.

The finding, published the week of Feb. 16 in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that an oral vaccine can be as effective as one given by needle, a potentially huge advance in drug delivery. Most vaccines are proteins, and as such normally won’t maintain their effectiveness after being digested in the stomach.

The good bacteria – Lactobacillus acidophilus, a lactic acid bacteria – are naturally found in dairy products like milk and cheese, and are added by manufacturers to foods like yogurt. They are used in food fermentations, are safe for consumption and some are considered as probiotics that contribute to our general health and well-being.

Dendritic cells are the first line of immune cells outside the small intestine. In a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Todd Klaenhammer and colleagues developed an oral vaccine that protected mice from anthrax exposure. The vaccine targeted dendritic cells to trigger the mucosal immune system to respond to and elicit protection against anthrax. Via NCSU web site

This is a very interesting approach and I wonder why it hasn’t been tried before? Perhaps it has, but I wouldn’t mind having that anthrax vaccine in my yogurt.

I almost forgot to mention the local relevance.  The work was also conducted at USAMRIID under the guidence of S.J. Sandwick and T. Hoover.  Pretty sure that would’ve been done at Ft Detrick,.

At HCC, biotech students exploring new frontiers

Thursday’s article in the Herald-Mail on the Business of Biotech series features a couple of students in the Biotech program at HCC.  According to the article “HCC’s program is the only one of its kind in this area. The closest is a certificate program – but no degree – in medical lab technology offered by Allegheny College of Maryland, according to the Maryland Higher Education Commission. None was listed in Frederick County.

And no biotech degrees or certificates are offered by area colleges in Pennsylvania or West Virginia, according to officials in those states. “

I find that interesting ana congratulate HCC for leading the way with this essential education program in our area; however,  CCBC (Community College of Baltimore County) does offer an AA degree in Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing, so their statement is not really accurate.  I knew this because when I was working at UMBC Tech Center in Catonsville we tried to hire people out of this program.  Interestingly, we could never get a roster of graduating students to contact an no one ever called me about getting a job.

Looks like the HCC program is addressing this through associations with MedImmune, NCI-Frederick and SAIC.

And to correct my own error, I had said I wished that the article on Monday would identify the Biotech companies and the goods and services they produce.  Looks like that is the feature of Friday’s concluding article with features on both companies.

Scientistist & Their Desks

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time on the web, following Twitter messages and FriendFeed and reading blogs all over the world. Mostly science based, most of them from associations made in August at SciFoo or BioBar Camp in California.  Eva posted this video, which I think you would find if you went into just about any academic lab setting here in FredCoBio

Portrait Of A Scientist – Scientist and Their Desks from Imagine Science Films on Vimeo.

And I got this Science Blog meme from Blind.Scientist.  My answers follow

The Science Blog Meme

It started here and I got it from here. Here are my responses:

1. What is your blog about?

Anything releted to Biotechnology in Frederick County, MD (and occasionally else where).

2. What will you never write about?

Biotech in Montgomery County (unless it is a company that moved from FredCo to MoCo or has ties in MoCo)

3. Have you ever considered leaving science?

Yes.  After college, I was in Sales at Xerox and selling Windows in Upstate NY.  After a couple of years I realized that I would never be happy selling office equipment, so I got a lab job.  The rest is history.

4. What would you do instead?

I’d live on a beach somewhere, just fishing all day

5. What do you think science blogging will be like in 5 years?

More interactive and more people involved.

6. What is the most extraordinary thing that happened to you because of blogging?

Getting invited to SciFoo camp and meeting all of these famous people at Google.  Mind boggling.

7. Did you write a blog post or comment you later regretted?

Yes, one time I left a comment on PIMM when I was half in the bag late one night which I retracted.  I had to pull down a blog post last week, at the request of MATAN, inviting everyone to the Ground breaking at Riverside.  I was asked to post it by a former colleague, but apparently it was a “private” invitation.

8. When did you first learn about science blogging?

I owe it all to Attila at PIMM.  I was googling about making stem cells from afterbirth and found his famous post. We already had a home blog and this inspired me to start a work blog (and since my wife doesn’t let me post on the home blog any more.)

9. What do your colleagues at work say about your blogging?

“What is a blog?”

10. Extra credit: are you able to write an entry to your blog that takes the form of a poem about your research?

Never considered it, but maybe I’ll give it a try some time.  I don’t really do research, though.  I am an operations guy who makes stuff.

One more thing I found interesting this morning, again from PIMM.  A new Science based Search engine called VALDO.  Check out the PROTOCOLS page (search term Stem Cells added by me, but you can change to whatever interests you).  It’s really good and will be added to my Protocols & SOPS page momentarily.

Ft Detrick Spring Research Festival

Just a reminder that the Annual Spring Festival is being held again this year at the Fort on Wednesday and Thursday this week (May 14th & 15th).

The event is open to the public, you just need to tell the armed guards ou’re going to the Spring Festival or the “Tent Show”.

If you’ve never been there, it’s definitely worth a couple hours time, either chatting with the vendors or Poster presenters. This year appears to be unusual because it seems like every year there is either torrential downpour, oppressive heat and even worse, both in combination. Standing in that tent is not pleasant in 100% humidity and 100 degrees.

I also like the theme this year: The Cancer Tree. They will be giving out free seeds, although it appears you’ll have to be a presenter or a exhibitor.

Here’s the story on the tree:

The Cancer Tree (Camptothecaacuminata)Our Spring Research Festival tradition is to choose something found in nature—plant or animal—that produces substances shown to have biochemical activity in fighting or preventing disease. In past years, we have featured the rosy periwinkle of Madagascar, Catharanthus roseus , the marine cone snail, Conus textilis, the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis, the honeybee, Apis mellifera, and the gila monster (Heloderma suspectum and H. horridum). The “Cancer Tree,” a member of the tupelo family, is known by several additional non-scientific names: the Happy Tree and the Tree of Life. Those names are honestly earned. This is the tree that gave us the anticancer compound camptothecin, a substance found in the tree’s bark. The resulting drugs, topotecan and irinotecan hydrochloride are useful in treating breast cancers, ovarian cancer, colon cancer, malignant melanoma, small cell lung cancer, thyroid cancers, lymphomas and leukemias. The compounds, which have antiviral as well as anti-tumor properties, are also used for the treatment of AIDS. In 2002, the FDA approved another compound similar to topotecan as second-line therapy for certain cervical ovarian and lung cancers. The new compound, through regulating gene expression, can block growth of blood vessels that tumor cells need to survive. The tumor, deprived of its blood supply, can then shrink and die. The National Cancer Institute’s Developmental Therapeutics Program is responsible for the find. Giovanni Melillo, MD, together with colleagues Robert Shoemaker, PhD, and Nick Scudiero, PhD, devised a high-throughput screen for 2,000 compounds and found three other effective compounds in addition to the topotecan analog. The Cancer tree is native to China, growing up to 75 feet tall in warmer climates. In climates such as Maryland, the tree is easily grown from seed and can be kept indoors with ample warmth and bright light, when pruned to manageable size. The Spring Research Festival organizers, in a nod to both the cancer tree and to fostering biodiversity for the sake of research have ordered a supply of Camptotheca acuminata seeds, and will be awarding them to Festival participants. The recipients will receive instructions along with their botanic treasures to ensure that both have the best chances to live long and prosper.