Animal Cell: Courtesy: National Human Genome Research Institute.

By far, one of the best sites on the web for learning about genomics is the NIH’s Talking Glossary of Genetic Terms. The website has a menu with a comprehensive list of relevant terms. Clicking on the hyperlinks gives you access to animated tutorials narrated by some of the best minds in the business along with non-copywrite images and 3D animations that help give viewers a clear understanding of the topic they are interested in.

For the experienced scientist, the website is a useful resource for helping explain to your friends and family exactly what you do in the lab and for finding illustrations to use in any way you choose (the site is in the public domain and therefore information may be freely distributed and copied).

For some extra fun, there is a “test your gene knowledge” quiz, which contains 10 questions that I expect all Canadian Biotechnologists to answer with ease. Here’s an example of a question below.

I took the test and scored a 10/10 and I am attaching the certificate below to prove it. (I’m not going to tell you how many times I took the test before I received a perfect score;-)

Woohooo! Perfect Score!

And of course, the Talking Glossary is also available on the app store. Be sure to check it out today!

Dr. Drucker was one of six recipients of the award, included among exceptional researchers in Canada whose achievements changed the course of health care delivery in their field of work.

Click here for the full story.

This stands in stark contract to the United State’s “scientific integrity policy” which allows scientists to speak to whomever they choose, whenever the choose. I love Canada, we are a bastion of freedom and equality for anyone that chooses to live here. Nonetheless, do you believe that these restrictions placed upon our federal scientists threaten our status of a True North Strong and Free?

A parody, you say? I hear these every day. My PI excused himself to ‘do some grant writing’ during a conference. We found him at the condo watching UFC wrestling.

The statement that I identify with the most is “in conclusion, more research is required.”

What about you?

For all cancers, the five-year prevalence rate was 1,490 cases per 100,000 people at the beginning of 2008. The five-year prostate cancer prevalence was 610 cases per 100,000 people. Thyroid, cervical, laryngeal and liver cancer had prevalence rates on the low end, with 53.1, 32.5, 10 and 6.2 cases per 100,000 people, respectively.

Despite their low prevalence rates, however, thyroid and liver cancer had relatively large increases in their rates. The biggest difference in cancer prevalence rates in men and women was for lung cancer, the prevalence rate of which declined slightly for men while it continued to increase among women. StatsCan said the increase in cancer prevalence could be attributed to several factors, including an aging population, improved disease detection because of advancements in screening technology, more extensive use of screening, increases in underlying disease risk factors and improved survival rates for people with cancer.

For ideal viewing, please maximize the video window by clicking on the full screen button in the bottom right hand corner of the video screen.

Here’s a clip of STOMP…just for comparison

1. Stirring during transfer helps maintain uniform conductivity and temperature. Failure to properly control buffer temperature may result in poor transfer and poses a potential safety hazard.

 

2. Electrophoretic transfer entails large power loads and consequently, heat generation. The tanks are effective thermal insulators and limit the efficient dissipation of heat; thus, simply placing the tank in the cold room is not enough to remove all of the heat generated during transfer. Effective cooling required for high-intensity field transfers and recommended for long, unsupervised runs can be provided using the cooling coil or Bio-Ice™ units included with your transfer device.

 

3. Evaluate transfer efficiency at various field strengths (V/cm), staying within the recommendations for each instrument. For transfers using high power, monitor the transfer carefully and use cooling as needed.

 

4. Perform a test run to determine the time required for complete transfer. Times may vary from 15 min to overnight, depending on many factors, including the power setting, gel percentage, and the size, shape, and charge of the protein.

Did you find these tips useful? For more great tips, check out the Protein Blotting Guide from Bio-Rad Laboratories.

“HCV is constantly mutating, which makes it difficult to develop antiviral therapies that target the virus itself,” says François Jean, Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Scientific Director of the Facility for Infectious Disease and Epidemic Research (FINDER) at UBC. “So we decided to take a new approach.”

In a nutshell, previous studies have shown that lipid metabolism plays a crucial role in propogating the hepatitis C virus (HCV). As such, the UBC team hypothesized that antiviral agents that interfered with master regulators of lipid homeostasis may prove to be an effective target against HCV viral propogation. Their study demonstrates that subtilisin/kexin-isozyme-1 (SKI-1) – or site-1 protease (S1P). inhibition effectively blocks HCV from establishing infection in hepatoma cells. SKI-1 and S1P are involved in controlin the expression of key enzymes of cholesterol and fatty-acid biosynthesis which are important for infecting hepatoma cells.

The full press release can be read at EurekAlert! and the original research can be viewed in PLoS Pathogens.

Citation:
Olmstead AD, Knecht W, Lazarov I, Dixit SB, & Jean F. (2012) Human Subtilase SKI-1/S1P Is a Master Regulator of the HCV Lifecycle and a Potential Host Cell Target for Developing Indirect-Acting Antiviral Agents. PLoS pathogens, 8(1). PMID: 22241994