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University of Florida eliminates Computer Science Department

Monday, April 23, 2012

There are  budget cuts and layoff everywhere. We have already heard before that Florida State dissolved academic departments to fight the financial crisis. And now the University of Florida is going to eliminate Computer Science Department, a really disturbing move. From Steven Salzberg’s blog:

The University of Florida announced this past week that it was dropping its computer science department, which will allow it to save about $1.7 million.  The school is eliminating all funding for teaching assistants in computer science, cutting the graduate and research programs entirely, and moving the tattered remnants into other departments.

 

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A collection of videos for discussion of ethical and social issues in developmental biology – Stem cells: II. Desperate patients and people who want to take advantage of their situation

Monday, March 26, 2012

In my last post, I provided several links to general introductions of stem cells. In this post, I will share several documentaries that show how bad people are taking advantage of desperate patients who have heard stem cells therapy may give them a last hope.

II. Desperate patients and people who take advantage of their situation

1. BBC Panorama – Stem Cells & Miracles (2009)

(2015-02-22) Youtube.com has taken this BBC video off from their site.

2. CBS 60 Minutes – Stem Cell Snake Oil (2010)

 

This is part 1 of the show; here are the links to part 2, part 3 and part 4.

3. CBS 60 Minutes – Stem cell fraud (2012)

Youtube link

CBS link

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2012-03-24 new articles we read this week

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Development

  1. Vogel G. Reproductive biology. Potential egg stem cells reignite debate. Science. 2012 Mar 2;335(6072):1029-30. PubMed PMID: 22383817.

Scientific career

  1. Mervis J. Scientific careers. Is motherhood the biggest reason for academia’s gender imbalance? Science. 2012 Mar 2;335(6072):1030-1. PubMed PMID: 22383818.

Genomics

  1. Xu X, Hou Y, Yin X, Bao L, Tang A, Song L, Li F, Tsang S, Wu K, Wu H, He W, Zeng L, Xing M, Wu R, Jiang H, Liu X, Cao D, Guo G, Hu X, Gui Y, Li Z, Xie W, Sun X, Shi M, Cai Z, Wang B, Zhong M, Li J, Lu Z, Gu N, Zhang X, Goodman L, Bolund L, Wang J, Yang H, Kristiansen K, Dean M, Li Y, Wang J. Single-cell exome sequencing reveals single-nucleotide mutation characteristics of a kidney tumor. Cell. 2012 Mar 2;148(5):886-95. PubMed PMID: 22385958.
  2. Hou Y, Song L, Zhu P, Zhang B, Tao Y, Xu X, Li F, Wu K, Liang J, Shao D, Wu H, Ye X, Ye C, Wu R, Jian M, Chen Y, Xie W, Zhang R, Chen L, Liu X, Yao X, Zheng H, Yu C, Li Q, Gong Z, Mao M, Yang X, Yang L, Li J, Wang W, Lu Z, Gu N, Laurie G, Bolund L, Kristiansen K, Wang J, Yang H, Li Y, Zhang X, Wang J. Single-Cell ExomeSequencing and Monoclonal Evolution of a JAK2-Negative Myeloproliferative Neoplasm. Cell. 2012 Mar 2;148(5):873-85. PubMed PMID: 22385957.

Systems biology

  1. Angermann BR, Klauschen F, Garcia AD, Prustel T, Zhang F, Germain RN, Meier-Schellersheim M. Computational modeling of cellular signaling processes embedded into dynamic spatial contexts. Nat Methods. 2012 Jan 29;9(3):283-9. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1861. PubMed PMID: 22286385.
    • Commentary: Sneddon MW, Emonet T. Modeling cellular signaling: taking space into the computation. Nat Methods. 2012 Feb 28;9(3):239-42. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1900. PubMed PMID: 22373909.

Imaging

  1. Allan C, Burel JM, Moore J, Blackburn C, Linkert M, Loynton S, Macdonald D, Moore WJ, Neves C, Patterson A, Porter M, Tarkowska A, Loranger B, Avondo J, Lagerstedt I, Lianas L, Leo S, Hands K, Hay RT, Patwardhan A, Best C, Kleywegt GJ, Zanetti G, Swedlow JR. OMERO: flexible, model-driven data management for experimental biology. Nat Methods. 2012 Feb 28;9(3):245-53. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1896. PubMed PMID: 22373911.
  2. Ragan T, Kadiri LR, Venkataraju KU, Bahlmann K, Sutin J, Taranda J, Arganda-Carreras I, Kim Y, Seung HS, Osten P. Serial two-photon tomography for automated ex vivo mouse brain imaging. Nat Methods. 2012 Jan 15;9(3):255-8. doi:  10.1038/nmeth.1854. PubMed PMID: 22245809; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3297424

Genetics

  1. Wang X, Chen X, Yang Y. Spatiotemporal control of gene expression by a light-switchable transgene system. Nat Methods. 2012 Feb 12;9(3):266-9. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1892. PubMed PMID: 22327833.

 

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Building cheap machines with LEGO for research

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

I am so envious of these people who can build a useful machine by LEGO which can save money. The building part itself must be a lot of fun!


From boingboing.net:  LEGO robots in the laboratory

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2012-03-11 new articles we read this week

Monday, March 12, 2012

Evolution

  1. Ramani AK, Chuluunbaatar T, Verster AJ, Na H, Vu V, Pelte N, Wannissorn N, Jiao A, Fraser AG. The majority of animal genes are required for wild-type fitness. Cell. 2012 Feb 17;148(4):792-802. PubMed PMID: 22341449.
  2. Loehlin DW, Werren JH. Evolution of shape by multiple regulatory changes to a growth gene. Science. 2012 Feb 24;335(6071):943-7. PubMed PMID: 22363002.

Psychology and human behaviour

  1. Pazda AD, Elliot AJ, Greitemeyer T. Sexy red: Perceived sexual receptivity mediates the red-attraction relation in men viewing woman. J Exp Soc Psychol. 2012; 48: 787-790
  2. Cohen S, Schulz MS, Weiss E, Waldinger RJ. Eye of the Beholder: The Individual and Dyadic Contributions of Empathic Accuracy and Perceived Empathic Effort to Relationship Satisfaction. J Fam Psychol. 2012 Feb 27. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22369462.

Men like it when women let them know when they’re happy. Women like it when men share their anger and frustration.

Evidently we women see a man’s willingness to share negative feelings as a sign that he’s invested in the relationship. Cohen says: “That’s telling her something about his availability to engage in the conflict.”

Men feel exactly the opposite about those moments of conflict: They see it as a threat to the relationship. Instead, Cohen says, “They do derive satisfaction when their girlfriends or wives are happy.”

Stem cells/ development

  1. White YA, Woods DC, Takai Y, Ishihara O, Seki H, Tilly JL. Oocyte formation by mitotically active germ cells purified from ovaries of reproductive-age women. Nat Med. 2012 Feb 26;18(3):413-21. doi: 10.1038/nm.2669. PubMed PMID: 22366948; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3296965.
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2012-02-16 New articles we read this week

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Stem cells/ regeneration

  1. Makkar RR, Smith RR, Cheng K, Malliaras K, Thomson LE, Berman D, Czer LS, Marbán L, Mendizabal A, Johnston PV, Russell SD, Schuleri KH, Lardo AC, Gerstenblith G, Marbán E. Intracoronary cardiosphere-derived cells for heart regeneration after myocardial infarction (CADUCEUS): a prospective, randomised phase 1 trial. Lancet. 2012 Feb 13. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22336189.
    • News coverage by the BBC

Genetics/Genomics

  1. MacArthur DG, Balasubramanian S, Frankish A, Huang N, Morris J, Walter K, Jostins L, Habegger L, Pickrell JK, Montgomery SB, Albers CA, Zhang ZD, Conrad DF, Lunter G, Zheng H, Ayub Q, DePristo MA, Banks E, Hu M, Handsaker RE, Rosenfeld JA, Fromer M, Jin M, Mu XJ, Khurana E, Ye K, Kay M, Saunders GI, Suner MM, Hunt T, Barnes IH, Amid C, Carvalho-Silva DR, Bignell AH, Snow C, Yngvadottir B, Bumpstead S, Cooper DN, Xue Y, Romero IG; 1000 Genomes Project Consortium, Wang J, Li Y, Gibbs RA, McCarroll SA, Dermitzakis ET, Pritchard JK, Barrett JC, Harrow J, Hurles ME, Gerstein MB, Tyler-Smith C. A systematic survey of loss-of-function variants in human protein-coding genes. Science. 2012 Feb 17;335(6070):823-8. PubMed PMID: 22344438.
    • Commentary: Quintana-Murci L. Genetics. Gene losses in the human genome. Science. 2012 Feb 17;335(6070):806-7. PubMed PMID: 22344433.

Development

  1. Inaba M, Yamanaka H, Kondo S. Pigment pattern formation by contact-dependent depolarization. Science. 2012 Feb 10;335(6069):677. PubMed PMID: 22323812.

Funding

  1. Mervis J. U.S. budget. Science spared brunt of ax in budget request. Science.  2012 Feb 17;335(6070):783-4. PubMed PMID: 22344417.

Academic career

  1. Kaminski D, Geisler C. Survival analysis of faculty retention in science and engineering by gender. Science. 2012 Feb 17;335(6070):864-6. PubMed PMID: 22344445.
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3-D printing for regenerative medicine

Thursday, February 23, 2012

There is an interesting news article “Printing Muscle” from Technology Review about using 3-D printers to print muscle cells so that they may assume a 3-D shape that resembles muscle fiber. The idea sounds interesting, because one can potentially print tissues or even organs that have complicated cellular composition in 3-D for regenerative medicine.

 

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A collection of videos for discussion of ethical and social issues in developmental biology – Stem cells: I. Introduction to the topic

Monday, February 13, 2012

Over the years, I have been leading a discussion about the ethical and social issues of stem cells research in my class and have used a few useful videos on various aspects. You may find them useful too.

I. Introduction to the topic

References

Here are two recent scientific references that give the current status of iPSCs research and compared that with hESCs, as well as the challenges ahead in research and ethical issues.

  1. Robinton DA, Daley GQ. The promise of induced pluripotent stem cells in research and therapy. Nature. 2012 Jan 18;481(7381):295-305. PubMed PMID: 22258608.
  2. Hug K, Hermerén G. Do we still need human embryonic stem cells for stem cell-based therapies? Epistemic and ethical aspects. Stem Cell Rev. 2011 Nov;7(4):761-74. PubMed PMID: 21461713.

This reference is a general scientific review on various ways that one can reprogramming cells that may potentially be used for therapeutic purposes.

  1.  Gurdon JB, Melton DA. Nuclear reprogramming in cells. Science. 2008 Dec 19;322(5909):1811-5. Review. PubMed PMID: 19095934.
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2012-02-12 new articles we read this week

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Delta-Notch

  1. Luo H, Jin K, Xie Z, Qiu F, Li S, Zou M, Cai L, Hozumi K, Shima DT, Xiang M. Forkhead box N4 (Foxn4) activates Dll4-Notch signaling to suppress photoreceptor cell fates of early retinal progenitors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Feb 8. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22323600.

Stem Cells

  1. Robinton DA, Daley GQ. The promise of induced pluripotent stem cells in research and therapy. Nature. 2012 Jan 18;481(7381):295-305. doi: 10.1038/nature10761. PubMed PMID: 22258608.

Imaging

  1. Miller EW, Lin JY, Frady EP, Steinbach PA, Kristan WB Jr, Tsien RY. Optically monitoring voltage in neurons by photo-induced electron transfer through molecular wires. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Feb 7;109(6):2114-9. Epub 2012 Jan 24. PubMed PMID: 22308458.

Eye Disease

  1. Beltran WA, Cideciyan AV, Lewin AS, Iwabe S, Khanna H, Sumaroka A, Chiodo VA, Fajardo DS, Román AJ, Deng WT, Swider M, Alemán TS, Boye SL, Genini S, Swaroop A, Hauswirth WW, Jacobson SG, Aguirre GD. Gene therapy rescues photoreceptor blindness in dogs and paves the way for treating human X-linked retinitis pigmentosa. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Feb 7;109(6):2132-7. Epub 2012 Jan 23. PubMed PMID: 22308428.

Genomics

  1. Kaiser J. Cell biology. Donation spurs a cell observatory–and bigger plans. Science. 2012 Feb 3;335(6068):514. PubMed PMID: 22301289.
  2. Normile D. Genomics. China’s sequencing powerhouse comes of age. Science. 2012 Feb 3;335(6068):516-9. PubMed PMID: 22301291.
  3. Brar GA, Yassour M, Friedman N, Regev A, Ingolia NT, Weissman JS. High-resolution view of the yeast meiotic program revealed by ribosome profiling. Science. 2012 Feb 3;335(6068):552-7. Epub 2011 Dec 22. PubMed PMID: 22194413.
  4. Iverson V, Morris RM, Frazar CD, Berthiaume CT, Morales RL, Armbrust EV. Untangling genomes from metagenomes: revealing an uncultured class of marine Euryarchaeota. Science. 2012 Feb 3;335(6068):587-90. PubMed PMID: 22301318.
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2012-02-05 new articles we read this week

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Development

  1. Balaskas N, Ribeiro A, Panovska J, Dessaud E, Sasai N, Page KM, Briscoe J, Ribes V. Gene regulatory logic for reading the sonic hedgehog signaling gradient in the vertebrate neural tube. Cell. 2012 Jan 20;148(1-2):273-84. PubMed PMID: 22265416; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3267043.
  2. Lassar A. Finding MyoD with a little help from my friends. Nat Cell Biol. 2012 Feb 2;14(2):116. doi: 10.1038/ncb2421. PubMed PMID: 22298038.
    • An interesting personal account of the discovery of MyoD.

Retinal Regeneration

  1. Qin Z, Kidd AR 3rd, Thomas JL, Poss KD, Hyde DR, Raymond PA, Thummel R. FGF signaling regulates rod photoreceptor cell maintenance and regeneration in zebrafish. Exp Eye Res. 2011 Nov;93(5):726-34. Epub 2011 Sep 17. PubMed PMID: 21945172; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3243491.
  2. Hochmann S, Kaslin J, Hans S, Weber A, Machate A, Geffarth M, Funk RH, Brand M. Fgf Signaling is Required for Photoreceptor Maintenance in the Adult Zebrafish Retina. PLoS One. 2012;7(1):e30365. Epub 2012 Jan 26. PubMed PMID: 22291943; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3266925.

Genetics

  1. Visscher PM, Brown MA, McCarthy MI, Yang J. Five Years of GWAS Discovery. Am J Hum Genet. 2012 Jan 13;90(1):7-24. PubMed PMID: 22243964.

Genomics

  1. Baker M. Structural variation: the genome’s hidden architecture. Nat Methods. 2012 Jan 30;9(2):133-7. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1858. PubMed PMID: 22290183.
  2. Xiong Q, Ancona N, Hauser ER, Mukherjee S, Furey TS. Integrating genetic and gene expression evidence into genome-wide association analysis of gene sets. Genome Res. 2012 Feb;22(2):386-97. Epub 2011 Sep 22. PubMed PMID: 21940837.

Imaging

  1. Cox S, Rosten E, Monypenny J, Jovanovic-Talisman T, Burnette DT, Lippincott-Schwartz J, Jones GE, Heintzmann R. Bayesian localization microscopy reveals nanoscale podosome dynamics. Nat Methods. 2011 Dec 4;9(2):195-200. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1812. PubMed PMID: 22138825.
    • Commentary: Lidke KA. Super resolution for common probes and common microscopes. Nat Methods. 2012 Jan 30;9(2):139-41. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1863. PubMed PMID: 22290184.
    • This looks like an interesting article that talks about how to use common fluorescent setup for super-resolution imaging.
  2. Xu K, Babcock HP, Zhuang X. Dual-objective STORM reveals three-dimensional filament organization in the actin cytoskeleton. Nat Methods. 2012 Jan 8;9(2):185-8. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1841. PubMed PMID: 22231642.

Gene Regulatory Network

  1. Damle SS, Davidson EH. Synthetic in vivo validation of gene network circuitry. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Jan 11. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22238426.
  2. Weaver J. New signaling chemicals spur worms to seek company. PLoS Biol. 2012 Jan;10(1):e1001240. Epub 2012 Jan 10. PubMed PMID: 22253575; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3254651.
  3. Gross L. Built-in Timer Delays Differentiation. PLoS Biol. 2012 Jan;10(1):e1001254. Epub 2012 Jan 31. PubMed PMID: 22303284.
  4. van Dijk AD, van Mourik S, van Ham RC. Mutational robustness of gene regulatory networks. PLoS One. 2012;7(1):e30591. Epub 2012 Jan 25. PubMed PMID: 22295094; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3266278.

Ageing

  1. Heidinger BJ, Blount JD, Boner W, Griffiths K, Metcalfe NB, Monaghan P. Telomere length in early life predicts lifespan. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Jan 9. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22232671.

Brg1

  1. Curtis CD, Griffin CT. The chromatin-remodeling enzymes BRG1 and CHD4 antagonistically regulate vascular Wnt signaling. Mol Cell Biol. 2012 Jan 30. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22290435.

Funding

  1. Macilwain C. Funding in 2012: “great recession” starts to bite. Cell. 2012 Jan 20;148(1-2):14-6. PubMed PMID: 22265395.
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