Health Meaning

inhabitants of the Faroe Islands could become the first World population to offer whole genome sequencing for free, researchers announced at a meeting on personal genomes at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory last week. The project, called Fargen, aims to sequence the entire genome of each citizen and use information for health care and research in the autonomous Danish dependency. A pilot project sequencing the genomes of 100 individuals is ongoing; if money can be found, the remaining 50,000 Faroes could follow over the next five years, scientists say.

Under the program, participants in the archipelago of 18 islands would not get individual reports, but their genome sequence would be linked to their medical records. "Doctors can then request the information when needed," says Bogi Eliasen, a political scientist at the Department of Health Faroese who runs the program. In this way, scientists hope to minimize the chances of people accidentally discovering the information they do not want to know and work around some of the ethical issues surrounding genetic testing. However, freedom of information act gives citizens access Faroese to their medical records, so that anyone truly interested in their sequence could get even .

researchers in other countries, such as Iceland, Estonia and the UK are currently building national genetic biobanks. Fargen presents particular similarities to the project launched by deCODE genetics ., a company in Reykjavik, hunting for disease genes in Icelanders But deCODE, a commercial project, has experienced financial problems, political and legal; some of his plans were approved by the Supreme Court and ice. Eliasen expects fewer problems on the Faroe Islands. The islands had a heated debate on the issue, which began in 1999, when the territory deCODE approached with a plan to include the population in his hunt for genes. This idea was rejected, but the debate resulted in a 05 law allowing the construction of a data bank Faroese, said Eliasen.

In 09, the islands have also launched a public effort to identify people with carnitine deficiency carrier (CPC), a disease that can lead to sudden death in young adults and is a hundred times more common in isolated people Faroese population than elsewhere. Almost half of citizens were deliberately selected for the genetic defect, which can be treated by supplementing carnitine. The first five genomes sequenced by Illumina, a sequencing company that manufactures machines and is involved in the project will be people with CTD.

Scientists hope that the new project will give an overview of various other diseases and population genetics of the Faroe Islands. "This project is first and foremost on improving health care for all citizens, but of course it will be very valuable for research as well," said Eliasen. The project cost would be about 50 $ millions, if sequencing prices continue to fall at the current rate. so far, we do not know where most of the money will come from, though.

scientific value of the project will depend on how many citizens sign for it, warns Markus Nöthen geneticist from the University of Bonn in Germany. "This is a bold step, but it will only succeed if enough people participate," he said. but Hans- Hilger Ropers, director at the Max Planck Institute for molecular genetics in Berlin, said it would be much cheaper and more useful scientifically to focus on patients with certain diseases. "as it is, the biggest advantage of the project can demystify the genome identifying many variations that are common in healthy adults and have little or no clinical relevance, "he said.

Ropers is convinced that other rich countries will follow suit, however, and that such projects are needed. "They will lay the groundwork for the expected implementation of sequencing the genome as a universal diagnostic test for genetic risk," he said.

While the Faroe Islands have many factors promoting implementation, including a national health care system with medical records digitized, small government, centuries worth of detailed genealogical information and a public Risk- informed genetic test there are still obstacles. How Faroese data will be open for research while protecting the information on individuals are not clear, for example. One of the objectives of the pilot phase is to find ways to ensure privacy, said Eliasen. "We are certainly not planning a Faroese Facebook genomics."

The rules of a $ 10 million jump in genome sequencing just a little easier and a little more difficult. Archon Genomics X PRIZE presented by MEDCO was created in 06 by the X PRIZE Foundation in Playa Vista, California, to promote the rapid development of cheap, accurate sequencing of the human genome for medical purposes. At the time, the goal was to decipher 100 human genomes in 10 days for an all-inclusive cost of less than $ 10,000 piece. Although eight organizations finally signed for the challenge, no fact tried to do the sequencing.

Since then, sequencing costs have fallen, putting the human genome in the range of $ 10,000. But respect the 10-day limit has remained an impossible deadline. And the foundation and the sequencing community has never really worked out how to judge the price. Consequently, they decided to start over.

Today in Nature Genetics and a New York City press conference, Larry Grant Campany Kedes and the X PRIZE Foundation put the revised challenge, which includes a period less tight and other changes.

Under the new rules, from January 3, 2013, the gun goes off on a race to sequence the genomes of 100 centenarians who are identified by the foundation. The deadline is 3 February, not January 13, but winning the full price will require that each genome costs no more than $ 1,000. Entries must also meet strict requirements for accuracy, 1 error per million bases, and completeness 98%.

"I think [that price] can achieve," said Granger Sutton, a biologist for calculating the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland. "But also beat all other standards will be very difficult."

If no one succeeds, judges will award any prize in different categories as long as the entries meet certain minimum standards. If more than one group meets the requirements of the grand prize, the winner will be the one who finishes first.

The objective is to show that it is possible to sequence the human genome accurately at low cost, with the hope that the collection of this data will eventually become routine in the clinic. By choosing healthy people over 100 and making that data available to scientists, the organizers also hope the cooperation will lead to new perspectives on longevity and healthy aging, says Kedes.

The organizers and their advisers have also spent the last 2 years to come with a cost effective way to judge the sequenced genomes, inviting input from the community. They will not be comparing genomes subject to each other; instead when the contest is going on, they have already sequenced parts of 25 genomes with multiple technologies, using a variety of techniques to ensure that each base this set is correct. They will then compare quotes these corrected sequences. Accounts will also go on the costs to ensure that every penny was accounted for, said Kedes. But he still works with sequencers come with the final rules.

The foundation will be in contact with the original eight participants, but Kedes predicted that some leave because they are companies that once focused on DNA sequencing, but today changed the priorities. Other organizations who originally said they are not interested, as Illumina, now could be serious contenders, said Sutton. Since the contest will be how long, "most likely to compete are those that can change that [technology] they have," said Sutton. Again, "you can never be sure of what exists."

The National University of Singapore (NUS) today announced that it has found no evidence of research misconduct by Yoshiaki Ito, a high-profile cancer researcher accused of manufacturing data. However, the conclusion does not resolve the underlying dispute and long-running science-whether a gene known as RUNX3 is a tumor suppressor.

A group led by Yoram Groner of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, published a paper in Development Mechanism in 01, in part concluded that RUNX3 could be found in the gastrointestinal tract. A year later, a team led by Ito and colleagues according to Cell paper RUNX3 suppresses gastric cancer. since the two discussed their respective positions at conferences and in publications. Groner last document claiming refute allegations of Ito appeared online Aug. 8 in EMBO Molecular Medicine . But he went further, filing a formal complaint with the university that the experimental results of Ito "could not be achieved in the first place," he said Science . In accordance with standard procedures, NUS has launched an investigation that led to today's statement:

The September 20, 2011, NUS began looking into a complaint that had received wide publicity in the lay and scientific media suggesting possible research misconduct by Professor Yoshiaki Ito. The complaint received by NUS linked to the assertion that some Prof Ito data published in 02 can not be reproduced. We have now completed our review in accordance with our research integrity procedures, and find no evidence of misconduct in research by Professor Ito. NUS notes that this issue was the subject of a long and open scientific disagreement. honest differences in interpretations or judgments of data are best addressed by further research and scholarship.

"I am very heartened that NUS rid me of research misconduct," Ito wrote in a statement. The argument on RUNX3 should continue. Ito added that the expression of RUNX3 in the human gastrointestinal tract, as the group reported, was confirmed independently by others. "All personal decisions regarding NUS Dr. Ito's not my business, "Groner wrote in an email. But it fell on its scientific pretensions." my only concern in this case is the removal of the research literature misinformation and misleading published in 02 cell paper (that of Ito group), "he writes.

The Obama administration took power with the promise that the policy would not trump science, but many say now that he has not always lived up to this commitment.

Fallout continues today to yesterday's announcement of emergency contraception by Kathleen Sebelius, head of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). For the first time anyone could remember, HHS annulled a decision of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Specifically, Sebelius said she would not allow Plan B, the emergency contraceptive to be sold without prescription to those under 17 years, a step that the FDA had approved. (Currently, it is available over the counter only to 17 and over ;. Teens and tweens younger need a prescription to access) In a statement, Sebelius said that 10% of the younger cohort could use the Plan B are barely 11 years old and can not use the drug correctly. These girls have "significant behavioral and cognitive differences" compared to older teens, she explained.

The decision was immediately attacked by health groups of breeding, who said the argument Sebelius is contrary to science. in a carefully worded statement, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg has also resisted Sebelius. Hamburg noted that "I reviewed and thoughtfully considered the data, clinical information and analysis provided by the "drug experts from the FDA," and I agree ... it is adequate and reasonable, well supported, and the scientific evidence that Plan B One-Step is safe and effective and should be approved for a nonprescription use for all females of childbearing potential. "

Plan B has been the source of much controversy during the presidency of George W. Bush. Then, the FDA has been accused of putting politics before science and resist movement to provide Plan B over the counter to adults and teenagers alike. critics now see something similar in the current administration. As the new York Times noted in a news story, "the Obama administration takes a socially conservative position on Plan B, one closer to that of the Bush administration than many of his own liberal supporters. "

many professional groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics ( . AAP) approve making Plan B available over the counter to anyone partly, this is because time is of the essence: for Plan B to prevent pregnancy, ideally it should be taken within 72 hours unprotected sex, although some studies say it can work up to 0 hours. In a 05 document without order approving Plan B for girls, AAP lamented that pharmacies often do not store the drug and only 35% of surveyed 320 pharmacies Pennsylvania said they could fill an order the day it requested.

President Barack Obama, asked at a press conference today if politics had trumped science in the Plan B decision, walked a delicate line. He defended Sebelius and said he agreed with his decision, but noted that he had stayed out of the process. Sebelius, he said, "could not be sure" that preadolescent girls know how to use a drug that "may end up having a negative effect. ... When it comes to 12 or 13 years, the question is," can we have confidence that they could use Plan B properly? And his judgment was that there was not enough evidence "for this. (The former head office FDA Women's Health Susan Wood, was quoted elsewhere as saying that many other much riskier medications, such as acetaminophen, are widely available without a prescription.)

This is not the first time the Obama administration reversed the scientists, including his own. In September, President Obama rejected the new air pollution standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. In late 09, faced with an outcry, Sebelius refused to approve the recommendations of a working group that challenged the value of donated mammograms before age 50.

A few days after Science fully retracted the controversial article in 09 suggesting that a virus called XMRV plays a role in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), the only other supporting document a link between a mouse-related virus and the mysterious condition was officially removed from the scientific record. Yesterday, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ( PNAS ) issued a redemption notice, signed by the seven authors of the 2010 study, which, as Science paper, had come under fire virologists.

"In my mind, they would have done this months ago," says Jonathan Stoye of the National Institute of Medical Research Council for Medical Research in London, who co-authored a study in PLoS ONE in May questioned the results of PNAS paper [

the study PNAS , the principal researcher was Shyh-Ching Lo of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has played a special role in the 2-year-old saga that erupted on link XMRV supposed to CFS. News about the first study appeared on the Web after one of the authors, Harvey Alter of the clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), reviewed the work at a meeting in Croatia in May 2010. at the time, the science document on XMRV written by Judy Mikovits of the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Reno, Nevada, and colleagues, was under siege, as a number of other studies have failed to replicate data. Alter, a highly respected virologist and winner of an Albert Lasker Award, said Mikovits was right after all, creating excitement among patients eager to find the cause of their elusive disease.

But when PNAS finally published the paper in August 2010, some retrovirologists disputed the authors' claim that their study supported the work of Mikovits. The viral sequences detected in CFS patients by Lo, Alter, and their colleagues were not part of XMRV, but another large group of virus, murine leukemia virus (MLV) -related virus.

However, the work seems to allude to a viral link to this debilitating condition. Using PCR, the team found MLV-related DNA sequences in 32 of 37 CFS patients, and only three of 44 healthy controls. Blood samples from CFS patients back to the 190s, but the team was able to take the eight fresh blood of patients and found DNA evidence of MLV in seven of them. In the 15 years the virus seems to have evolved, the researchers wrote, which is what would be expected for a long term retroviral infection but not if the findings were the cause of the contamination.

But this latter finding actually turned out to be its Achilles heel. In PloS ONE paper Stoye and others argued that the viral DNA sequences identified in fresh samples were very unlikely to have evolved from viruses found 15 years ago. Phylogenetic analysis more sophisticated from a team led by Greg Towers of University College London, published in the Journal of Virology last October, argued the same. "The only realistic explanation," the paper concluded, was that the patient samples or PCR reagents "were contaminated with DNA from the mouse."

Towers said Lo, Alter, and their co-authors has never publicly responded to the article by his team. But they seem to have accepted its conclusions, citing the phylogeny of Towers as one of the reasons for the withdrawal.

The redemption notice cites other reasons. There was not enough left of the original patient samples to be tested by independent researchers, writing team, and additional work to find antiviral antibodies in patients and to isolate the actual virus failed. In addition, the researchers themselves are not able to find MLV in blind MultiLab study group called Blood XMRV Scientific Research Working in which they participated, and which included five samples of their patients original SFC. The group published its findings in Science in September.

Lo and Alter did not respond to interview requests. Press officers at NIH says Alter was on vacation and sent Science initiated a statement "instead of interviews," which resembled closely the text of the retraction and contained no further details.

the retraction removes the only newspaper still left suggesting a role for murine virus in CFS. support for the study of Lo and Alter also come from Maureen Hanson of Cornell University, who has meetings also reported the discovery of MLV sequences as in CFS patients. in an e-mail to Science Insider, Hanson wrote that she did not present these results for publication, "because we can not determine whether these results were due to contamination. "Hanson believes MultiLab a second large study, led by Ian Lipkin of Columbia University, will provide the final answer." I reserve judgment until he is over, "she said.

Michel Kazatchkine announced today that it has decided to resign as Executive Director of the Global Fund the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Kazatchkine, French clinical immunologist who led the Global Fund for 5 years, will remain until March to allow an orderly transition.

Kazatchkine said in a message to staff and partners he left following the decision of the Board of the Global Fund in November to appoint an executive director to oversee a new plan "processing" for future operations. The Director General, which was announced today, will report to the board, not the executive director. "Although I remain fully committed to the Global Fund and its mission, I find that I should not continue as Executive Director in these circumstances," wrote Kazatchkine.

The new General Manager, Gabriel Jaramillo , is a native Colombian and Brazilian citizen who previously worked as CEO of Sovereign Bank. "My priorities for the global Fund are to achieve maximum efficiency, accountability and concrete results that save lives," said Jaramillo in a statement. "Essentially, we start with a reorganization that emphasizes simplicity, discipline and rigor, with grant management as the main business of the institution." It will begin on 1 February.

Global Fund Observer ( GFO ), a newsletter that watchdog of the Global Fund announced today that "this decision by the Council to transfer many responsibilities of Dr Kazatchkine someone else was born from the concern of the Board that the Fund's management leadership was not sufficiently effective. " GFO also noted that the starting Kazatchkine also comes in response to questions, he asked the world earlier this month on the role of Director General Fund. The fund said that all senior managers would report to the CEO rather than the Executive Director, whose role was new "to be determined".

This article has been corrected. Gabriel Jaramillo will start as CEO on February 1 and not on 1 December.

There is little to encourage biomedical researchers in the budget proposal the president released today: the proposal would take the National Institutes of budget (NIH ) health at current levels of $ 30,860,000,000.

While the budgets of most of the 27 NIH institutes remained stable NIH would move some money around through "priorities," said principal NIH deputy director Lawrence Tabak after a press conference today. The agency wants to add $ 64 million, an increase of 11%, the National Centre for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS). The increase would include $ 40 million for the Cures Acceleration Network (now funded at $ 10 million).

To release these funds, NIH wants to cut $ 51 million of the IDEA program, which are grants for states that get relatively modest funding NIH and administered by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Last year, Congress gave NIH great increase compared to what he had asked, so it was a place to cut, Tabak said. Another cut of $ 28 million will come from the budget now- $ 194 million budget of the national study of children within the Office of the Director. The massive study plans to follow the health of 100,000 children to adulthood has found ways to save money by changing recruitment strategies and the use of "existing infrastructure," said Tabak .

To squeeze more subsidies from the budget target of apartment is an increase of 8% of new subsidies, to 672, for a total of 9415 - NIH will put in new grant management policies square. ongoing subsidies will be reduced by 1% below the 2012 level, competing grants not inflationary increases in the coming years, and the NIH will add a new layer of review proposals from researchers who already have at least 1.5 $ million in funding.

However, the success rate is projected to rise slightly for all the lowest time this year from 18% to 19%, says NIH. And although new grants will increase the total number of grants awarded will actually drop 56-35888.

Tabak emphasized the positive: "I think this budget allows us to support an increased number of new and competing grants it is up 8% This budget allows us to continue the implementation of NCATS us. feel is very important. and this budget enables us to pursue our priorities in the basic sciences, scientific innovation and of course support for new researchers. "

But advocates of biomedical research have been disappointed." Overall, we are aware of the overall fiscal position, but we are still very concerned about the proposed freeze, "said David Moore, Director government relations for the Association of American Medical Colleges. It would be the 10th consecutive year that the NIH budget has not kept pace with inflation of biomedical research, he said. Therefore, in dollars adjusted for inflation, "we would be 20% below where we were ten years ago," says Moore.

A new $ 80 million for Alzheimer's research which was announced last week does not come from the NIH budget, but the health Fund Prevention and public of the Ministry of health and social Services, which is a pot of money created by the 2010 law of care health. Tabak said NIH is not known whether the funding is for 1 year or continue in the coming years

Correction :. the proposed reduction in the institutional development Awards (IDeA) program of $ 51 million, not $ 48 million.

After 20 years of research and almost as many years of defense industry groups to court for control of their data , government scientists can finally publish two documents showing that miners exposed to diesel fumes have an increased risk for triple lung cancer. The study could have significant impact on a future review of federal and international safety requirements for exposure to diesel fumes.

The Diesel Exhaust 11.5 million $ Miners Study (DEMS) -run jointly by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) -Follow 12,315 miners eight mines in Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, and Wyoming. An industry coalition denounced the study as flawed almost from the start and took the government to court several times. The industry coalition has won a court ruling in 01 after the government has mismanaged a deposit of the procedure, which requires scientists to submit all data and research draft documents before publication, for review period of 0 days.

After a review process by peers throughout the year, the DEMS scientists recently presented to the industry and other copies of two major documents they plan to publish in the Journal of the National cancer Institute . The mining coalition has made no official response, but in mid-February, the 0-day waiting period began to decline, Henry Chajet, a lawyer based in Washington DC and lobbyist for Mine Awareness Resource Group ( MARG), a part of the judicial affairs, sent a letter to at least four scientific journals warning that they risked unspecified consequences if they published the study. (For more on the letter of Chajet, and the merits of the case, see this post.)

Today marks the 91st day after the DEMS scientists submitted to JNCI . With the ongoing legal case (currently on appeal before a federal court in New Orleans) and the possibility of future complications, scientific Dems wasted no time either publication paper (available here and here; NCI and NIOSH also summarized the results here and here).

Debra Silverman, an NCI epidemiologist and lead author of one of the documents of DEMS, is the only original scientific DEMS still working on since its creation in 1992. Then she said groups of industry often challenge studies in the workplace, "in my career, I encounter something like this case. ... it was longer and more difficult. It is perhaps record, I'm not sure. "

rather than comment directly, Chajet issued a statement expressing" disappointment "and claiming that government scientists never turned on all the data and documents they should have before publication . He accused DEMS violate congressional directives and court orders, and criticized the study for being "11 years late and $ 9 million over budget."

Both JNCI papers discuss further aspects of DEMS data. The first, a cohort-analysis paper led by NIOSH, looked all deaths among miners with lung cancer, and other causes. The second, a case-control analysis document managed by Silverman and NCI, focused on the victims of one lung cancer, and controlled for smoking, other respiratory diseases, and previous employment in areas at high risk . Both studies showed consistent and significant results: a risk multiplied by three for lung cancer overall, and increased risk five times for the most heavily exposed to diesel exhaust minors. ( JNCI also published an editorial on the study.)

The timing of the publication of DEMS data is critical because two prestigious groups, the International Agency for Research on cancer and the US National Toxicology Program are set to review their standards on the health risks of diesel exhaust. Their decisions could have financial consequences for many diesel engine users, particularly in lawsuits claiming damages.

Although NIOSH and NCI said in a joint statement that "it will be for regulators to determine if the current acceptable level should be lowered," they added that the DEMS results "should be widely applicable to other workers with similar levels of exposure to diesel exhaust. "

the DEMS study was considered revolutionary at the time because it controlled for factors such as smoking, and because selected mines that produce non-metallic substances such as limestone, potash and salt. These mines do not expose minors to potential carcinogens, such as asbestos, radon and silica, which has . DEMS allowed to better isolate the effects of work around machinery with diesel in enclosed spaces

About 20 years test for the published study, Silverman said, "It was so important to public health that it was worth supporting the challenges. " She added: "It is a very good day for us,"

last year, as part of our coverage of the 10th anniversary of the human genome science took a long look at the ethical dilemmas facing geneticists when they search on the given DNA unexpectedly turns mutation or genetic variation that could harm the health of a person, or that of their families. For example, if a DNA sequencing researchers in a study Pedigree discovers a man has a mutation that promotes Alzheimer's disease, should they track down the owner of the DNA and let him know?

Yesterday, as part of a special collection of papers Genetics in Medicine these supposedly results incident, a working group convened by the National Institutes of Health published a series recommendations on how this sensitive information should be handled. The most provocative theme of the report is a strong call for biobanks, the sites are given more DNA stored for use by outside scientists, to assume greater responsibility for the restitution of these conclusions. Traditionally, experts have argued that the researcher generate an accidental result, or their institutional review board, should assume this obligation.

The working group, headed by Susan Wolf, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, a professor specializing in bioethics law, spent two years collecting data and comments on incidental findings. The group does not contend that the principal investigators are not responsible for the return of such information. But it recommends that each biobank has set up a multidisciplinary committee to deal with accidental discoveries and to create a linked "Central Advisory Body" that would maintain overall consistency on the issue in biobanks.

Biobank officials may be reluctant to take on this new delicate function, neurologist Robert Green of Boston University, said Science last year

"ethicists sit around a table and talk about" the importance of the return of DNA results, "but if you talk to people like me who actually helped the execution biobanks, you can not imagine how we are unable to do so, "says Green. Biobanks should reach the hundreds of thousands who have already shared and request DNA samples if they might want to return information; Currently, almost all consent forms biobank say that genetic results will not be returned. While informed consent forms change, then banks might need to interact with researchers unsure about what to share with a DNA donor and to make decisions, often on a case by case basis, before recontact a participant with a potentially overwhelming search result.

In Nature news story on the new report, Ellen Wright Clayton of the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, also expressed concern for formalization of a system of return of incidental findings to DNA suppliers: "It is unfortunate that the authors of the consensus statement did not address the financial implications of what they offer, because that they have in mind will be expensive and difficult, especially when the funding success is as low as it has ever been. "

In a provocative article published this week, researchers say they have found a way to link a person's DNA to their anonymous genetic data in some type of public research database. But the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which hosts one of the largest such databases, said that it does not take new measures to prevent someone from using the method of violating privacy. This contrasts with the response of NIH 4 years ago when a similar study prompted the agency to extract genetic information from its public websites.

The question then the relevant studies that compared the DNA variations called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in people with and without disease to find disease risk markers. NIH began publishing online SNP results grouped hundreds of people, thinking privacy is not violated. But scientists reported in PloS Genetics as if they had a sample of the DNA of an individual, they could link it to SNP results of that person in a public DNA pool. (NIH and the Wellcome Trust) removed the data from public sites; NIH now only allows researchers to download data pooled studies approved SNP diseases.

These access barriers are less common for a different type of genetic data derived measurements of gene activity by analyzing the levels of RNA in a tissue sample. Because these gene expression data was not thought to be traceable to an individual, the researchers regularly filed RNA results in public databases. An example is Omnibus (GEO) the gene expression database of NIH, which holds nearly 1,000 data sets for testing gene expression on human tissue. Anyone can search for data for people who participated in, say, a study of breast cancer or childhood obesity.

Now it seems that these RNA data may be linked to the DNA of a person after all. Eric Schadt and colleagues at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York reported this week Nature Genetics they have developed a technique for generating a SNP personal profile, or "bar code "DNA for an individual based on the results of gene expression. This means that, in principle, if someone had a DNA sample from a participant in a study stored in GEO, they could design a SNP barcode match a sample of GEO, and examine the biological data that participant.

Despite consequences similar to those of 08 PloS Genetics paper a remote but real possibility that the participants of the research could be identified NIH is not as concerned this time. In a statement, the agency said that while leaders of the NIH "examine the conclusions" and its implications, "NIH sees no need to change its data sharing practices at the time." spokesman for the Institut National Human Genome Research Larry Thompson explains that the risks appear low because the group did Schadt requires "a complex statistical tool" and "this is not an easy thing to do." the attitude of the NIH was different there 4 years, he said, because "it was the first time," the NIH and felt that he should "go to extreme caution."

Schadt said he did not expect NIH to impose new limits on access to data. His message, he said, was "to show that in fact there may be no way to protect the privacy" of individual genetic data. Instead of blocking access, said Schadt, NIH must educate people there is a chance that their data will remain confidential and will count on the protections "downstream" such as genetic discrimination laws instead.

Attorney Dan Vorhaus, who runs the blog Genomics law Report, should "the idea that we can promise a complete separation of data and identity is now largely discredited." Vorhaus said that NIH should update its data sharing policy to require that the study volunteers be told that the confidentiality of their genetic data can not be guaranteed. "Participants must understand the risk and be free to take that risk if they wish," said Vorhaus.

Although the statement on whether to publish two studies of H5N1 bird flu controversy appears to be declining, researchers must continue conform to a voluntary moratorium on certain types of studies of the virus, a senior US science official said today.

There should be "an extension of the moratorium", originally scheduled to expire on March 20, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), told a US Senate panel aujourd 'hui. "The question is for how long."

The comments came at a hearing held by the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in the risk posed by search "dual-use" which carries both benefits and risks. The hearing was motivated in large part by the H5N1 controversy, said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the chairman of the committee. "Although this question seems to have been resolved, it will reappear and we can not simply" kick this can down the road "and to deal with it on an ad hoc basis when this happens again."

Four witnesses, including Fauci, discussed the process that led to a decision by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) to support the publication of two documents, and new government rules US designed to identify taxpayer-funded research concern dual-use before it starts. They also responded to criticism of the process NSABB by one of the panel members, Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, in a letter first obtained by Science Insider.

Look for more details on the future of hearing Science Insider.

Tabloid journalists-have long Known That You can discover dirty secrets by going through people's garbage. Now, Researchers-have done something similar in the name of science, we Albeit grander-scale-and smellier. They-have Analyzed the sewage of 19 European cities to find out how much of some illicit drugs people de ces cities consume.

"The technology needs further Top work and validation, aim this paper That it is shows a feasible approach for Estimating drug use was large scale," says Fritz Sörgel, head of the Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research in Nuremberg , Germany, Who Was not Involved in the work.

To put figures on illicit drug use, Researchers Routinely use surveys, Supplemented by data from Police and customs. Purpose They Have beens pushing for more accurate and objective methods to estimate the water equivalent Consumed. One possibility is to sample the sewage of a city and look for chemical traces of the drugs or metabolites created Themselves When a drug passes through the human body. "The surveys tell you what people take, but not how much, not how big the market is," says Kevin Thomas, a toxicologist at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research in Oslo and one of the authors of the new paper. "Sewage Tells You That."

During one week in March 2011, Thomas and colleagues file Managed daily samples Representing 24 hours of sewage flow from 21 sewage treatment plants in 19 cities across Europe-from Antwerp to Zagreb. The samples Were Analyzed for traces of five different drugs by local labs selon a fixed protocol.

Cannabis consumption Appeared to be similar Throughout Europe-ALTHOUGH the Researchers Did not test for it in cities all-purpose There Were striking regional differences in the use of --other drugs. Cocaine use per capita Was Highest in Belgium and --other parts of west and central Europe, aim lower in the north and the east. Ecstasy use aussi Was Highest in the Belgian city of Antwerp, London, and cities in the Netherlands. More residues of Both drugs Could Be found During the weekend. Meanwhile, methamphetamine levels per capita Were Highest in Scandinavian cities and Budweis in the Czech Republic. "This is really a snapshot of the drug flow through thesis European cities in March 2011," says Thomas.

Some of the peaks May be due to drug producing Rather than consumption, HOWEVER, Thomas sureties. For instance, sewage from cities in the Netherlands and Antwerp in Belgium Showed high levels of amphetamines, drank previous surveys suggest the use of drugs is Actually Those two to three times lower there than in the rest of Europe. Some of the substances May get into the sewer system from illicit drug producing labs qui cluster in the area. And a spike in the ecstasy load in Utrecht, the Netherlands, might be due to a drug Bust That coincided with the testing. "We are going with the theory That They tried to get rid of the evidence by shoving it down the toilet," says Thomas.

In the study, published in Science of the Total Environment , the Researchers estimate That overall, around 355 kilograms of cocaine Was used in Europe every day During the week of the study. "Purpose That Number is just a rough estimate, since we extrapolated from cities to whole countries," says Thomas.

Sörgel, a pharmacologist, guarantees there is more uncertainty in the numbers Because much is still unclear about drug metabolism in the body. The authors ASSUMED That is average, 38% of a cocaine dose is Excreted. "How good value really is That still needs to be shown," says Sörgel.

Meanwhile, Thomas and colleagues-have started a follow-up study That will include at least one U.S. city. Samples already-have-been and file Managed Thomas hopes to present the data at a conference in Austria in May 2013. The study will Provide the first Direct comparison of what is going down the drain in the United States and Europe.

There may be new hope in the search for "the pill" for men, a male contraceptive that would more effective than condoms and more easily reversible than vasectomy. A compound called JQ1, which was originally developed as a cancer therapy, can also cause reversible infertility in male mice without apparent side effects in rodents or their offspring, the researchers report today. The compound is not ready for testing in healthy men, but it offers a promising avenue in the search for an improved male contraceptive. "I am delighted to see a new potential approach," explains reproduction biologist William Bremner of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, who was not involved in the study.

Scientists have struggled for decades to find ways to block reversibly and safely male fertility. Bremner said several key challenges stand in the way: First, men produce millions of sperm a day compared to typical single egg of a woman produces each month. Second, there is a "blood-testis barrier" which blocks many blood-borne compounds from reaching the area in which sperm are produced. Finally, any potential drug should be extremely safe and will not cause lasting genetic damage to sperm cells or their precursors.

JQ1 was originally developed as an anticancer agent, says James Bradner, a chemical biologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and one of the authors of the article. It was designed to inhibit a protein called BRD4, which helps regulate cell division and is known to be involved in a type of aggressive skin cancer. Bradner has high hopes that inhibitors of Brd4 as JQ1 become cancer therapies, but he and his colleagues knew that BRD4 is also closely linked to a protein called BRDT, which helps control cell division in the testes. So they collaborated with Martin Matzuk, a reproduction biologist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, to test JQ1 as a potential contraceptive in mice.

The researchers report today in Cell that after 6 weeks of daily injections of sperm JQ1 The numbers of animals was reduced by almost 0%. Only 5% of the remaining spermatozoa were able to swim correctly, compared to 85% of the spermatozoa in the control mice. After 3 months of treatment, none of the mice were able to produce offspring, although their sexual behavior was normal. The compound had no apparent effect on the production of testosterone and other hormones produced by the testicles. Researchers have also shown that the effect is reversible. One or two months after stopping treatment, all the mice were again able to father as many smaller than control mice and testicular size and sperm of animals counts returned to normal levels between 1 and 3 months after stopping treatment. The treatment did not cause obvious side effects in mice, and the offspring of treated animals revealed no abnormalities.

The compound appears to target sperm development both before and after meiosis, the special cell division that form sperm and eggs, said Matzuk. This means that fewer sperm precursor cells in the testicles, and some of those who go to produce functional sperm.

Bradner, father of twins 18 months, jokes that he took "one gram per day" JQ1 recently. But he and Matzuk caution that researchers need to find a new compound that interacts with only testicular BRDT protein and has no impact BRD4 or related proteins that are present in most cells of the body, before clinical trials can begin. "We need one which is extraordinarily specific" Bradner said. Matzuk said that the crystal structure of BRDT interacting with JQ1, which colleagues from the University of Oxford have developed, will provide valuable clues.

Debra Wolgemuth, a reproduction biologist at Columbia University Medical Center, who studied BRDT, agrees. "If you take the healthy people in their twenties and giving them a drug, you want to be very sure that this does not affect anything else," she said. "The bar for safety and efficiency is as high as you can get." She and her colleagues tested compounds that disrupt vitamin A metabolism, which have also shown promise as male contraceptives. However, she noted that mouse lives are not sufficient to test the possible long-term effects of drugs that people might want to be able to take decades. primate experiments, meanwhile, are prohibitive, and funding is scarce. "I am very excited when new developments come along a field that has been terribly neglected for too long," she said. "The more goals we pursue, the better."

in 1998, toddler son Leslie Gordon Sam was diagnosed with an extremely rare and always fatal disease, progeria syndrome Hutchinson-Gilford, much like premature aging. Immediately, Gordon, a doctor, decided to do everything possible to change the sad prospect of the disease, the average age of death is 13: She gained a doctorate and formed a foundation that has allocated millions for research on progeria. This week, Gordon co-authors of a publication that describes the first clinical trial of a drug for progeria. She is optimistic that the drug helped children, including Sam, who participated. But others say that the results are difficult to interpret and it is not known therapy made a difference.

Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome is caused by a spontaneous mutation in the design of a known gene LMNA , which codes for a protein called prelamin A. Progeria patients experience an accumulation of an abnormal version of prelamin a in their cells that, among other changes, deforms the nucleus and modifies gene expression. Although they appear normal at birth, toddlers with progeria do not develop properly, and as seniors, they begin to lose hair and body fat, and suffer stiffness and atherosclerosis . In 05, a group led by Stephen Young, a cardiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, showed that a class of drugs called farnesyl transferase inhibitors (FTI) appeared to normalize the cells with progeria, and in 06, his team reported similar success in the disease mouse model.

The Progeria Research Foundation Gordon launched a test called an FTI lonafarnib, which had been tested without success in cancer. Twenty-five children-who account for 75% of those who are known to have the disease worldwide when the trial began, were followed closely for at least 2 years on lonafarnib. To measure success, the researchers focused on weight gain, which in children with progeria is progressing at a snail's pace. In the trial, nine children had an average weight gain of 0.52 kg per year, slightly more than a pound, an improvement over virtually no weight gain the previous year. The other 16 children had either no significant change in their rate of weight gain or lost weight during the study. The results were published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

Gordon is excited not only weight gain, but also by arterial stiffening measures evaluated in 18 children. In all but one, improved measurement, suggesting the ship had become more flexible and potentially reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes. "We can change anything on the cardiovascular system has implications for health," said Gordon.

Others are not so sure. "I'm afraid we interpret the sound" in the data, rather than seeing real evidence of benefits, says Harry Dietz, a pediatric cardiologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. "It is a complex document and hard to interpret, in my opinion," agrees Nicolas Lévy , molecular genetics director at the Children Hospital of Timone in Marseille, France, who helped lead a group that identified the gene mutation behind progeria in 03.

lonafarnib test research Foundation Progeria ended in 2010, but the base is now monitoring 45 children from 24 countries who take drugs and cholesterol drugs pravastatin and zoledronate, which prevents fractures. The two cells in a treated standardized progeria flat and mice with a version of the disease. Levy and his colleagues are now conducting a separate trial, testing the last two drugs on 12 children with progeria. They hope to present their findings soon.

An expanded version of this story appears in the September 28 issue of Science.

The day after his disciplinary dismissal of Tokyo University for "damaging the honor or the university's credibility "Hisashi Moriguchi maintained in an interview with science Insider that he has really contributed to a revolutionary experience to treat a patient with heart disease with cardiac muscle cells derived from induced pluripotent own patient's stem (iPS) cells. He admitted making mistakes, and there is doubt on its claims. But for this one case, "I'm very confident," he said.

At a meeting of two hours-plus at a hotel in Tokyo on October 20, Moriguchi was polite, friendly and relaxed , despite being unhappy with how he was rejected by Todai, as the University of Tokyo is known. he noted that he had promised to cooperate with the investigations now under way to determine what happened and the possible misuse of research funds. "I had said that whatever the judgment of the committee, I will resign to take responsibility for causing trouble," he said. But, "Even before these committees reached conclusions, the University of Tokyo suddenly decided on a disciplinary dismissal, "he added. He said he wanted to keep his job long enough to produce a proof of interest for investigators to his computer and files in his laboratory at the Todai hospital. But with the cut off access, "it will be very difficult to cooperate," although he said he intends to do the best he can.

Moriguchi also disappointed his coauthors are deserting. Some have asked publishers to remove their names papers; others say they do not see the final versions of some papers on their names. Moriguchi insisted that for all the several articles in which he was the corresponding author, he always showed them to her co-authors. He stressed that he was primarily responsible for the reported work, but turned to his colleagues for discussion and advice. Those who do not wish to be listed as co-authors should have said so, he said. It heard to ask co-authors to have their names removed from contributions to the Exchange protocol read about it in the Japanese press. "I am shocked," he said. "At least they should have contacted the corresponding author," he said.

He admitted making mistakes. An identical statement in two articles published online this year Scientific Reports reads: "The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of our institutions." On one of the documents of Harvard Medical School and the University of Tokyo are listed in parentheses. Another document lists these institutions and medical and dental Tokyo University (TMDU). Moriguchi said he has not received approval from the review board. He said he thought it was a fine line on the approval of the draft board was necessary for the research described. Including the declaration on paper "was a failure of the procedure," he said. He added that he has already informed Scientific Reports he would return the papers.

Moriguchi also wants to correct misunderstandings about his affiliations. Contrary to the statements of Harvard University, he was a visiting scientist for only one month at the end of 1999, Moriguchi insists he spent a full year there as a visiting scientist from November 1999 to November 00 and then established an affiliation continues in 06. He showed a letter signed in February 06 by Raymond Chung, director of hepatology header logos and addresses of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, informing that Moriguchi "when you visit here, you will have appointed guest speaker, Harvard medical School, and Consultant in medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, after arrival here."

despite the "while visit "sentence Moriguchi insisted he was a current position. (Says a spokesperson for MGH, Susan McGreevey, Science he was appointed temporarily to facilitate the participation of Moriguchi in a 06 event when Moriguchi is not present, the appointment was immediately canceled and technically lasted only one day.) Moriguchi also submitted a request in July 2011 patent for "Methods and compositions for cell reprogramming," who calls himself and Chung as the inventors and designated assignee as "the General Hospital Corporation, Boston, MA, "the MGH legal entity. (McGreevey said the application is withdrawn.) "If I had no connection (at MGH and Harvard) they would not file a patent application," he said.

He also explained that he acquired the expertise to conduct sophisticated experiments in cell biology by studying and working on his own. with an undergraduate degree in nursing and in health promotion a Masters, completed in 1995 from TMDU, Moriguchi first worked for reflection on health policy in Tokyo, and in August 1999 joined the University of Tokyo research Center for Advanced science and technology, where he worked on issues policy related to the evaluation of drugs and medical economics. he said he realized in 06, he wanted to meet the challenge of developing innovative drugs himself. he said he rented a room near the campus, set up a laboratory, and himself taught experimental techniques. Later, it maintained a similar arrangement in a rented facility in the Boston area where he worked by himself on iPS cells, the development of a method of creating iPS cells from somatic cells using chemical products. He funded the research of his own pocket, he said. At one point he said he cultivated heart cells derived from pig iPS cells and then a collaborator, he refused to identify the transplanted pig. After the experience of pork well, he used his center area of ​​Boston culture 30 million heart muscle cells which, according to him, were injected into a heart disease patient in mid-2011. He believes the patient is doing well. But he said his surgeon collaborator, he declined to name, cut the contact for unknown reasons. "Maybe because of the publicity," said Moriguchi.

Moriguchi agreed that his strange story "is hard to believe, as he is. That's why I want to gather and present evidence. "

Like the program of the Pakistan polio has made significant progress in the fight to eradicate the disease, he was hit by a devastating bout of violence. Six workers of the vaccination campaign were killed yesterday and today, and two others were injured in attacks in Karachi and Peshawar in the northwest part of the country.

health officials have suspended three days of the country's mass vaccination campaign over Karachi while investigating the attacks and strengthen security to protect the health of workers. Authorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where Peshawar is located, intends to go ahead with vaccinations because they believe that the attack is not related to the activities of polio.

The attacks come five months after two incidents where two polio workers have been shot and another was killed in Karachi. In mid-October, another worker polio was shot dead in Quetta in Baluchistan province.

Yesterday, a male polio worker was shot and now four women were killed in about 20 minutes of each other in three apparently coordinated attacks in the slums of Karachi, including Gadap where the shooting took place in July. Another woman was killed in Peshawar. Taliban insurgents have repeatedly threatened the campaign workers, but so far no one has claimed responsibility for the current or prior attacks. Pakistani officials and international groups that support the campaign against polio are still trying to piece together what happened, said Bruce Aylward, who heads the Initiative for Global Polio Eradication (GPEI) at the World Trade Organization Health in Geneva, Switzerland.

"The implications of how [of the attacks] execution beyond polio," Aylward said, because targeting health workers will deprive Pakistani children receive other health services base as well. Local leaders and community authorities have "learned to take responsibility and ensure that the message is that this is not acceptable," said Aylward.

Pakistan is one of three other hotspots of polio in the world. After cases skyrocketed in 2011, the country has intensified its eradication efforts, and there have been only 56 cases so far this year, down from 173 this time last year. The worst reaction to these "horrible, terrible" events would be to let the opportunity be squandered, Aylward said. Planning is already underway for the vaccination campaigns in January in the low transmission season is called when the "virus is at its lowest," he said, and GPEI will continue to support polio drive in Pakistan after . "We will get this done."

as lifestyle, parasitism obviously works. Long before human ancestors crawled down trees, profiteer leeches were already are at home in the guts and veins of primitive vertebrates. These tough little pests have arrived on the scene there-140 at least 270 million years ago million years earlier than previous records intestinal parasites, according to new evidence discovered by chance in the fossil record. When examining fossilized feces sharks (main photo) collected in southern Brazil, the researchers noticed a strange group of oval objects. Let's look closer, they realized they had found a case tapeworm eggs bearing an uncanny resemblance to those produced by modern parasites today. Eggs lids (indicated by the blue arrows in inset) feature, or small teapot lid flaps of such characteristics tapeworm eggs, which have helped researchers identify conclusions. These findings, they wrote in PLOS ONE , are exceptionally rare; old fossil, the less chance of finding signs of tiny parasites, which can have fragile once colonized. The "amazing" new specimen contains 93 tiny eggs, they write, each measuring about the same width of a human hair. Some eggs appear swollen, suggesting that they still contain the fabric former tapeworms babies. A eggs same holds what appears to be a developing larva. If the egg is ranked as the first known evidence of tapeworm parasites in vertebrates, indicating that this particular parasite has been afflicting other animals since the days of the supercontinent Pangaea solid. And more than likely, it will remain for millennia to come.

See Science Shots .

Would you compare the impact of smoking in Estonia and Argentina? A massive release of data today by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, Seattle, allows thousands of other comparisons of health data from 187 countries over the 2 decades.

In the latest update of the global burden of disease, injury, risk factors and study Study2010, the IHME researchers led by Christopher Murray provide analysis at the country level of mortality and disability due to 291 diseases and injuries, and 67 risk factors to 20 age group worldwide. The website has a rich set of visualization tools that allow visitors to explore the statistics for specific conditions, age groups, and periods of time.

Murray says these tools are a crucial part of the project. "We have put great efforts to try to make information accessible to a wide audience ... who should be engaged in debates about health," he said. "There is a huge amount of wealth details for each country here. It will take time to sort through them. I hope this will trigger a wave of questions "about how best to tackle the health problems of the world.

The red of the area that you live on the map to the right, the greater the risk of contracting dengue, a painful viral disease that further research is much more widespread than previously thought.

There is no vaccine, nor are there drugs to treat dengue, which is spread by mosquitoes and known colloquially as "breakbone fever" for the pain it produces. Severe dengue patients recover spontaneously with medical support, but complications sometimes lead to death. There are four types of viruses. Infection immunizes you to this particular type of dengue for life, but infection with a second type increases the probability of a serious illness.

"Dengue is one of the few infectious diseases increasing its global spread and the number of cases per year," said Jeremy Farrar, clinical and infectious disease specialist at the University of Oxford Unit clinical research in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. For public health interventions are effective, "it is crucial that we understand where the disease is present and have an understanding of where it can be tomorrow." But knowledge of dengue was based on incomplete reports, a lack of data on mild cases, and rough approximations that produced "back-of-the-envelope estimates," says Farrar.

to get a better handle on the spread and incidence of the disease, Farrar and epidemiologist Simon Hay of Oxford University in the UK formed a team who compiled 8,300 reports of dengue cases and considered a new evidence on risk factors such as population growth in urban areas where the virus-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito develops and may bite more humans in rapid succession. Then, using new techniques modeling, they concluded that in 2010, dengue has sent 96 million people in clinics or did miss school or work, while another 294 million had mild or asymptomatic infections. The total of 30 million is more than three times the cases of dengue from 50 to 100 million annual currently supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), the ratio of online research today Nature .

Duane Gubler, a dengue expert at Duke University-National Graduate Medical School Singapore Singapore who was not involved in the study, is relieved. "Finally, there is good data based on evidence that confirms what I am saying for years, that the" low ball to WHO figures grossly underestimate the true burden of dengue. "If anything, Gubler suspect the estimate is low because, among other things, the team drew on some community-based studies childhood infections in adults when the rates may be higher. "However, I think it is an excellent article that will greatly contribute to our understanding of this disease," adds he.

The new results will not affect the clinical management of dengue . But the authors believe their more precise mapping of the distribution of the disease and the best estimate of total infections will help those responsible for public health planning efforts against mosquitoes and future vaccination campaigns and measure their impact . And, Farrar said, the team intends to continue to refine what he says is always an estimate of the burden of disease, using better data as it becomes available.

New MERS case. MERS coronavirus. Or, if things really go wrong-the MERS pandemic. Here's how the world could soon be talking about the new virus that surfaced in the Arabian Peninsula last summer and it was rattling from health experts. In a move that may end up more than 7 months of confusion, an international group of scientists and public health officials recommend once the new virus called Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

The group plans to release a document recommending the new name, said Raoul de Groot, a veterinary virologist at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, who coordinated the effort. De Groot Coronavirus chairs the Task Force of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), who took the initiative to find a new name widely accepted. The study group has no power to enforce the use of the name, however; it will be up to researchers deciding to adopt the nickname.

New name comes as Saudi Arabia reported 13 new cases of the virus, including seven deaths in just the last 5 days. The wave over a month after the last reported case, a 73 year-old from Abu Dhabi, who died in Munich on 26 March-fresh worries triggered the virus could begin to spread between humans and trigger a global epidemic. To date, the total number of reported cases is 30, including 18 deaths.

Confusion reigned over the new name since the virus was reported by Ali Mohamed Zaki, an Egyptian microbiologist which isolates in June 2012 of a patient in a Jeddah hospital in Saudi Arabia, where he worked at the time. Zaki sent the virus to Ron Fouchier virology group at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, Netherlands, which characterized further in an article published in m Bio in November. Alexander Gorbalenya a coronavirologist at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and Vice President of ICTV, was co-author and the group tentatively called HCoV virus-EMC / 2012, short for human coronavirus-Erasmus MC.

The reference to the Dutch laboratory did not sit well with the health authorities in Saudi Arabia, who said Zaki lacked permission to send the virus to Rotterdam first. However, most researchers agreed HCoV-EMC as the name to use. Some have dropped the "EMC", however, and called the virus simply HCoV, a name that could be confusing because there are five other human coronaviruses. The World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the more neutral "novel coronavirus" as originally -abbreviated Ncov but more recently as Ncov-a name which, by its nature, was not made to last.

pathogens Naming is a sensitive issue. Historically, many-or agents of infectious diseases the diseases themselves-are named after the place where they were found. But increasingly, scientists and officials of public health have been reluctant to this system to avoid stigmatizing a particular country or city. When a new type of severe pneumonia began spreading in Asia in 03, the WHO officials have coined the term acute severe respiratory syndrome (SARS) to prevent the disease from being named "Chinese flu" or something similar . (As it happened, the name ruffled feathers in Hong Kong anyway, because the official name of the city is Hong Kong, the region-a fact that WHO Special Administrative had neglected.)

for similar reasons, researchers agree that naming the new virus, a distant cousin of SARS after Jeddah and Saudi Arabia would not be wise; Fouchier said it why he named it after his laboratory instead. MERS refers to a much larger area and does not distinguish one country, De Groot said, "I do not think it needs to be stigmatizing" infections with the new virus have so far been found in. residents of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. It was also a group of three patients in the UK, the first who is suspected of having contracted the virus while traveling in Saudi Arabia.

de Groot said the group spent a lot of effort to find a name that all parties could agree. a representative of the Saudi Ministry of Health will be one of the signatories of the declaration , WHO has been consulted and agreed with the new name as well, he said

the new name is only a recommendation and that the hopes of the study group will be widely adopted, but it has no power to enforce, Gorbalenya said. Indeed, ICTV has the sole authority to classify and name the whole virus species. MERS-CoV does not appear to be a species by itself, said Gorbalenya; the researchers found genetic evidence of bat coronaviruses that are likely to be in the same species. (Similarly, a species called human betacoronavirus 1 contains both OC43, a human cold virus, bovine coronavirus.) The coronavirus study group will then propose a name for the species, which may be different from MERS -CoV.

in 09, a global collaboration of scientists, public health agencies and businesses ran to make a vaccine against a pandemic flu virus, but the majority was not ready until the pandemic had peaked. Now, researchers have developed an alternative, faster strategy when a pandemic influenza virus surfaces: Just squirt genes for the protective antibodies in the nose of people. The method, which borrows ideas both gene therapy and vaccination, but neither-protects mice against a range of influenza virus in a new study.

James Wilson, a leading gene therapy researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, credits the idea of ​​a meeting with Bill Gates in April 2010. Wilson had investigated whether a harmless gene therapy virus tool called adeno-associated virus (AAV) may be used as gene delivery vehicle to treat hereditary diseases such as cystic fibrosis and hemophilia. Gates, whose foundation focuses on global health, "asked if the approach of AAV-mediated could be used in the context of a pandemic or emerging infection," recalls Wilson.

Wilson was intrigued by the idea. Build off of animal studies by researchers from AIDS and his own work with cystic fibrosis, he wondered whether an AAV designed could deliver genes encoding antibodies to influenza to cells lining the airways of people . If it worked, these so-called epithelial cells produce antibodies to the flu right on the site where the virus is trying to establish an infection.

A key problem early on was to decide which antibodies to make, because there are many different flu strains; a one-size-fits solution would be ideal. Then, in a 2011 paper Science immunologist Antonio Lanzavecchia in Biomedicine Research Institute in Bellinzona, Switzerland, reported the isolation of a "neutralizing antibodies" rarely able to fight many strains flu.

Wilson and colleagues designed to carry AAV gene rare antibody. When they delivered the virus into the noses of mice and ferrets, the epithelial cells of the animals produced antibodies wish they were then "challenged" the animals with a range of dangerous flu virus that no single vaccine can outsmart, including H5N1, which kills birds and humans and the H1N1 that caused the infamous 1918 pandemic . As they report today in Science Translational Medicine , antibodies provided strong protection against the disease in most cases.

"It is a excellent study, "Lanzavecchia said, noting that much credit must be given to researchers who first published a similar experience with the AIDS virus in 02." This is a new application of an approach initiated by other groups " he said. "The main question is: How do you use this approach is the prevention of gene therapy for sustainable flu?"

The problem, he explains, is that the strategy is different from the vaccination, in which the immune system of the body produces antibodies and remembers how to do it for years, even decades . In this case, AAV acts as a Trojan and leads epithelial airway cells to make antibodies; the question is how long they will continue to do so.

Philip Johnson, a molecular virologist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who did the work earlier and with AAV antibodies against the simian version of the AIDS virus, showed in an experiment monkey published in Nature Medicine in 09 that its vector has worked for over a year. However, AAV came up short in about 3 months in a monkey of experience in the study of Wilson. Johnson said a key difference is that it injected into a muscle, which has long-term cells, while the vector Wilson sprayed into the nose. Airway epithelial cells that the method relies on are continuously poured, he said.

Wilson agreed that three months of protection is "not optimal" during an influenza pandemic. He is currently working on ways to increase the sustainability and said his goal is 6 months. But the goal is not to make the vector always produce antibodies, he said. That's partly because of security concerns. Wilson led a famous gene therapy study with an adenovirus vector that killed a patient, Jesse Gelsinger, in 1999, a major setback for the entire field. Although AAV has never caused harm to a human being, there is always the unknown with artificial viral vectors.

Wilson sees his work as an interim measure until researchers understand how to make a vaccine that elicits neutralizing antibodies. But now, despite intense efforts, researchers have been unable to develop a vaccine that triggers the production of these powerful molecules. "We still have a ways to go," he said, "and until that happens, we'll just keep plugging away at it."

The British government is heading for a new type of in vitro fertilization that would allow patients with mitochondrial diseases to avoid transmitting the disease to their children. The technique is controversial because it involves the introduction of new DNA into a human embryo. But a public consultation earlier this year revealed widespread support for the technique.

The Ministry of Health announced today that it will develop draft guidelines to allow fertility clinics to offer the technique. The proposed guidelines would be released for public comment later this year, and Parliament could vote on a final version next year.

Mitochondria are energy generators of the cell, and they carry their own DNA, called mitochondrial DNA. Mutations in these genes cause mitochondrial diseases, which can affect various organs, including the heart, liver, eyes and brain. These diseases are transmitted from mother to child, because the egg provides most of the mtDNA of an embryo. (Sperm have mitochondria, but most disintegrate after fertilization.)

The technology in question transferring sperm nuclear DNA and the egg of potential parents in a second egg provided by a donor who healthy mitochondria, of which the nuclear DNA has been eliminated. The technique is still in development and not yet considered ready to try in humans. But the potential is promising enough that the government has decided to move forward, said Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies said in a statement. "It is right that we seek to introduce this lifesaving treatment as soon as possible," said Davies.