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Battle Of The DNA Bulge May Help Thwart Cancer

alsi — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:03:58 +0000

Science Daily — HOUSTON, Sept 7, 2003 Studies at the University of Houston are shedding light on the mechanisms our bodies use to recognize and repair mistakes in our genetic code, mistakes that, left unchecked, could lead to cancer.

DNA is the body’s blueprint found in every cell, and it carries all our genetic information. Every time a living cell divides to make new cells, it must first make a copy of its DNA, or transcribe it, similar to the way monks used to transcribe old scrolls. If a DNA transcription error is made, the body’s “spellcheckers” may find it and fix it. But if they fail to detect and repair the mistake, the cell’s instructions are altered.

“When a mistake gets through, you have a problem that could lead to a dangerous mutation,” says B. Montgomery Pettitt, the Hugh Roy and Lille Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at UH. “If that mistake has turned a good instruction into a bad instruction that says ‘please make nonsense,’ then that could lead to cancer.”

Pettitt and his research group are studying a particular type of DNA transcription error called a bulge, as well as the protein “spellcheckers” professional liability insurance personal trainer for finding and repairing bulges.

“Some of the worst places to get these errors are in the genes that determine cell growth and death,” Pettitt says. “One of the characteristics of cancer cells is that they are essentially immortal, and they’re like Peter Pan they never grow up. So this inhibiting of normal cell death is one of the real problems.”

Ultimately, the UH studies may lead to more targeted cancer treatments, says Pettitt, who also is director of the Institute for Molecular Design at UH.

Pettitt will present his research on DNA bulges and recognition proteins Sept. 7 at the 226th annual American Chemical Society national meeting in New York, N.Y.

Pettit’s work describing DNA bulges comes fifty years after scientists first described what the normal structure of DNA looks like a ladder twisted into a helix, or coil. The sides of that ladder are made of sugar and phosphate groups, and the “rungs” are chemical building blocks called bases. There are four different bases, abbreviated A, G, T and C. A pair of bases, joined together, makes up each rung.

As DNA is being copied, a protein untwists and unzips the double helix that joins the base pairs. Another protein then comes along and begins synthesizing the appropriate bases to latch on to each side of the now separated strands, resulting in two new DNA strands. Pettitt and his group are error and omission insurance interested in the protein that proofs and checks the DNA strands for errors during this process. “Understanding what these proteins look for as they ‘proofread’ the DNA, where they look, and how they recognize a DNA bulge will help us better understand what goes wrong when the protein can’t recognize the errors,” Pettitt says.

A DNA bulge occurs where an extra base winds up on one side of the DNA strand.

“A bulge is like having a ladder with one extra rung that only goes halfway across,” Pettitt explains. The bulge can be either a missing base, or an extra one that has been inserted during the DNA copying process. Most bulges happen during replication.

In the research to be presented at the ACS meeting, Pettitt’s team looked at all the various ways a bulge can orient itself along the DNA strand. The researchers built sophisticated computer models of the bulges, based on experimental data. Their computer simulations help them determine how probable each of the various bulge orientation models is.

“No one has looked at these things in the way we have. What we found was that the bulge could sit there on the inside of the helix with nobody across from it, or it could flip outward and point into the solution,” Pettitt says. These were the most likely error insurance integrators liability omission professional system, but an errant base also could try to bully its way in to the strand and make weird distortions in the whole DNA ladder. “There’s a range of things that it can wind up doing,” Pettitt says. “We want to focus on the orientations that happen a lot, those that are very probable.”

As for how prevalent bulges are in general, Pettitt says, “this is something we’re definitely working on.”

The UH research is funded by the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.

Note: This story has been adapted from material provided by University Of Houston.

New Statement Proposes Ways To Stop Deadly Drug Errors Among Heart, Stroke Patients

alsi — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 12:28:13 +0000

Science Daily — DALLAS, Nov. 12 Better educating physicians, using computers to order drugs and improving the system for policing inappropriate medication use can help reduce potentially deadly errors among cardiovascular patients, according to a new American Heart Association scientific statement published in today’s Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Several reports have blamed medical errors for thousands of adverse events and deaths among patients in recent years. One study estimates that medical errors occur in 3.7 percent to 16.6 percent of hospitalized patients, contributing to at least 44,000 deaths in the United States each year. Data on deaths due to medical errors involving heart disease and stroke patients is more limited, but a small study of 182 deaths from cerebrovascular disease, pneumonia or heart attack suggests that 14 percent to 27 percent of the deaths may have been avoidable.

Additionally, a study of 203 cases of cardiac arrest concluded that half of the arrests may have been prevented, says Jane E. Freedman, M.D., a member of the American Heart Legal professional liability insurance Committee on Acute Cardiac Care and lead author of the statement. Medication error was the most common cause of potentially preventable arrest, occurring in 44 percent of cases. Mistakes can be made while prescribing, transcribing, dispensing, administering or monitoring medication. Sometimes the incorrect drug is prescribed or dispensed, while other times drug dosages are so high that they are toxic. Another error is creating a dangerous combination with other drugs.

Noting the small size of the studies, Freedman says, “There really isn’t any good general data regarding death caused by medication error among cardiovascular patients. But whatever the exact figures are, it is clear from what we know that patient safety can be improved.

“We need to figure out how to best police errors and develop a system to evaluate how big a problem medical errors are in cardiac care,” says Freedman, an associate professor of medicine, pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at Boston University School of Medicine.

According to The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error and Prevention, a medication error is “. . .any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm, while the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer.”

Nurse professional liability insurance for reducing deaths due to medication error highlighted in the statement include:

* Improve reporting of medication errors.Staff self-reporting, currently the most common method of reporting errors, catches fewer than half of adverse events, Freedman says. “Many doctors are afraid of litigation, a dilemma that must be addressed as part of the overall solution.”

* Develop a system to control errors.”Computers are helping,” Freedman says. “Some hospitals, for example, have computerized systems that say, ‘Don’t use these two drugs together.’”Other suggestions: Use streamlined protocols that consider all recent drugs the patient has been prescribed. Also, use standardized order forms that include prompts to record a patient’s weight if needed to calculate the correct dosage.

* Improve education.”We have to better train doctors to be aware of drugs with similar names,” she says. For example, the calcium channel blocker Cardene can be confused with the calcium channel blockers Cardizem or Cardizem SR, or the narcotic codeine. Physicians should refer to fibrinolytic or broker error and omission insurance drugs by their full generic or brand names and avoid abbreviations even in their handwritten orders.Doctors also need to be educated about using newer medications. For example, if a new, accountant professional liability insurance weight heparin is substituted for traditional unfractionated heparin, the dosage of other medications may change too, she notes.

* Address errors of omission.”While not always considered a safety error, this is a big problem in cardiac care,” Freedman says. “Studies show that not everyone leaving the hospital who should be getting potentially lifesaving medications such as beta blockers or aspirin are getting them.”

Finally, Freedman says, adverse events occur due to poor handwriting. “If you scribble a prescription rather than type it, the chances of medication error are so much greater,” she says. “This error should never happen.”

Coauthors are Richard C. Becker, M.D.; Jesse E. Adams, M.D.; Steven Borzak, M.D.; Robert L. Jesse, M.D.; L. Kristin Newby, M.D.; Patrick O’Gara, M.D.; John C. Pezzullo, M.D.; Richard Kerber, M.D.; Bernice Coleman, M.D.; Joseph Broderick, M.D.; Sally Yasuda, M.D.; and Christopher Cannon, M.D.

Note: This story has been adapted from material provided by American Heart Association.

Immigrant Children Misdiagnosed As Language-impaired

alsi — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:11:42 +0000

Read source of it on the Immigrant Children Misdiagnosed As Language-impaired site

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Paradis’ study was funded by the Alberta Heritage Foundation forMedical Research and by the Social Sciences and Humanities Professional liability insurance quote of Canada.

Note: This story has been adapted from material provided by University of Alberta.

The Case Of The ‘Second Tongue’

alsi — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 09:21:24 +0000

Science Daily — Body piercing is popular today in the United States and other western societies. One common type of body piercing is tongue piercing, which involves placing a “barbell”-type stud through the tongue. But wearing a tongue stud puts people at risk for chipped teeth, recessed gums, and nerve damage, warns the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD).

However, most people don’t realize that getting an oral piercing also places them at risk for developing a fatal infection or, in some cases, a home inspector error omission insurance, according to a report in the January/February 2006 issue of General Dentistry, the AGD’s clinical, peer-reviewed journal.

In the report, a young woman’s pierced tongue developed a large, round lump adjacent to the piercing. The lump, which she called her “second tongue,” didn’t hurt, nor was it infected, but it was growing. This mass was determined to be a scar tissue formation. Engineering professional liability insurance was noted after oral hygiene was increased (frequent use of mouthwash and hydrogen peroxide mouthwash) and the tongue stud was replaced with a shorter shaft.

“Keep the wound clean. Make sure the bar is short so food and bacteria won’t enter the site,” advises Ellis Neiburger, DDS, lead author of the study. “Replace the metal barbell heads with plastic ones.”

The number of adults between ages 21 and 31 who have their tongue pierced continues to increase, notes Melvin K. Pierson, DDS, FAGD, AGD instant insurance liability professional quote, despite his efforts to educate his patients about the dangers.

Although this article cited an extreme case, there are some very common dangers associated with tongue piercing. Unclean piercing equipment can cause other infections, such as bloodborne hepatitis. Also, if a patient is not instructed to avoid touching the piercing, they might spread infections with their own fingers.

“I see a lot of damage caused by piercing—-tooth fractures, tooth chips. Patients don’t see the relation between them and piercing, which weakens the tooth. The damage is almost always in the pre-molars, the middle teeth, almost parallel to the piercing,” says Dr. Pierson. “The best way to prevent damage is to not get your tongue pierced.”

“I don’t recommend piercing,” says Dr. Pierson. “Because of the risks associated with this nursing professional liability insurance procedure, if someone is considering an oral piercing, he or she should discuss it with their medical or dental professional.”

Hazards of tongue piercing:
• Infection due to unsterile instruments.
• Pierced blood vessel or artery.
• Development of scar tissue.
• Tooth fractures and chips.

Note: This story has been adapted from material provided by Academy of General Dentistry.

Source: The Case Of The ‘Second Tongue’

Dramatic Increases Seen In College Students’ Mental Health Problems Over Last 13-years

alsi — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:55:47 +0000

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Article: “Changes in Counseling Center Client Problems Across 13 Years,” Sherry A. Benton, Ph.D., John M. Robertson, Ph.D., Wen-Chih Tseng, M.Ed., Fred B. Newton, Ph.D., and Stephen L. Benton, Ph.D., Kansas State University; Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Vol. 34, No. 1.

Full text of the article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office or at http://www.apa.org/journals/pro/press_releases/february_2003/pro34166.html

The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC, is the largest scientific and professional error and omission insurance appraiser error and omission insurance psychology in the United States and is the world’s largest association of define error insurance omission. APA’s membership includes more than 155,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 53 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting human welfare.

Note: This story has been adapted from material provided by American Psychological Association.

Source: Dramatic Increases Seen In College Students’ Mental Health Problems Over Last 13-years

Mission Linguistic: Interactive Technologies To Teach GIs Arabic Language And Culture

alsi — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 12:27:41 +0000

Originaly from: Mission Linguistic: Interactive Technologies To Teach GIs Arabic Language And Culture

Science Daily — To teach soldiers basic Arabic quickly, USC computer scientists are developing a system that merges artificial intelligence with computer game techniques.

The Rapid Tactical Language Training System, created by the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Center for Research in Technology for Education (CARTE) and partners, tests soldier students with videogame missions in animated virtual environments where, to pass, the students must successfully phrase questions and understand answers in Arabic.

Members of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces will be using the 80-hour system, now being completed at CARTE’s headquarters in the USC Viterbi School’s Information Sciences Institute.

To watch a video version of this story, go to: http://www.isi.edu/~jmoore/Mankin/MankinTLWeb.mov.

“Most adults find it extremely difficult to acquire even a rudimentary knowledge of a language, particularly in a short time,” said CARTE director W. Lewis Johnson.

“We’re trying to build an improved model of instruction, one that can be closely tailored to both the needs and the abilities of each individual student,” Johnson said.

Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point studying Arabic tried an early version of the system in October 2003 and offered suggestions. December trials by enlisted personnel at Ft. Bragg were encouraging and led to making the material more accessible.

Johnson leads a six-person CARTE team that is spearheading the effort. The Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Naval Research are funding the work. The Rapid Tactical Language Training System is one of several instructional programs in a DARPA initiative aimed at developing active learning tools.

Part of the system, the “Mission Skill Builder,” resembles an intensive version of the language laboratory programs that have been in use for generations. in these students imitate and practice words and phrases pronounced by native speakers.

“While our system is similar to drill-and-practice language programs that have been in use for some time, the Skill Builder incorporates some important innovations,” Johnson said.

These include:

speech recognition technology that is able to evaluate learner speech and detect common errors;

pedagogical agent technology that provides the learner with tailored feedback on his performance; and

a learner model that dynamically keeps track of what aspects of the language the learner has mastered and in what areas the learner is deficient.

Along with linguistic skills, the program also instructs students in non-linguistic cultural matters of importance in communication.

“People don’t just communicate with words,” Johnson said.

“In face-to-face conversation, nonverbal behavior such as gesture, posture, gaze, head movements and facial expression play an important role in coordinating a successful exchange,” said ISI research scientist Hannes Hogni Vilhjalmsson, a specialist in modeling human nonverbal communication.

“Wrong appraiser error and omission insurance of nonverbal cues or the wrong nonverbal responses can lead to serious misunderstanding and escalate hostility,.” he said. “It is important to include all of these behaviors when teaching conversation skills in a foreign language.”

Exposing learners to realistic face-to-face situations, and training them to be culturally sensitive, prepares students to “become effective social players as well as speakers in the new language,” Vilhjalmsson said.

Points covered in culture training include:

social skills necessary to build rapport with local people;

appropriate degrees of politeness to use in different social situations;

how to disagree with someone without offending; and

how to respond to offers to hospitality.

Gesture training includes common Arabic gestures that a Westerner might misinterpret (for example, Arabs may roll their eyes to mean “no̶ and American gestures (such as thumbs-up) that an Arab might misinterpret.

The examination or application part of the training system, the “Mission Practice Environment,” is even more challenging, offering students an unscripted, professional liability insurance provider test of their mastery of these elements.

In this segment, students wearing earphones and microphones control a uniformed figure moving through a Lebanese village, complete with outdoor coffee bar. They meet animated Arabic speakers, who (thanks to artificial intelligence-driven voice-recognition programs) can carry on free-form conversations.

“These AI figures can understand what the students say, if it’s said correctly - or won’t, if it isn’t. And they will respond appropriately,” said Johnson, CARTE’s director.

“In typical videogame fashion, the idea is to get to the next level,” Johnson said. “In this game, in order to get to the next level, the learner has to master the linguistic skills.”

The program already has features to adapt it to each individual user, noting consistent errors or insurance agent error omission coverage, which can be targeted for extensive or remedial practice.

Researchers have completed garage insurance liability seven hours of the program. The full program will have about 80 hours of instruction and introduce perhaps 500 carefully chosen words of the “Levantine” Arabic spoken in Lebanon. If all goes as planned, the system may be deployed next year.

“We here in the Department of Foreign Languages are very excited about the Tactical Language Training System and the new capabilities that it can provide to military language learners, including our cadets,” said Col. Stephen LaRocca of the Department of Foreign Languages at West Point.

“This system allows learners to rehearse real-world tasks in the most realistic environment technology can provide,” LaRocca said. Working with CARTE on the project are the USC Integrated Media Systems Center; UCLA’s Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing; and Micro Analysis & Design Inc., of Boulder, Colo.

CARTE is headquartered at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI), which is part of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Besides Johnson and Vilhjalmsson, the ISI researchers involved include Stacy Marsella, Catherine M. LaBore, Dimitra Papachristou, Carole Beal, Nicolaus Mote, Shumin Wu, Hartmut Neven, Ulf Hermjakob, Mei Si, Nadim Daher and Gladys Saroyan.

For more information, go to the Tactical Language Project Home Page at: http://www.isi.edu/isd/carte/proj_tactlang/index.html.

Note: This story has been adapted from material provided by University Of Southern California.

New DNA Mapping Tool May Accelerate Human Genome Work

alsi — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 10:33:13 +0000

Science Daily — MADISON - A new technology that maps an organism’s entire genome from single DNA molecules could ratchet up the race to decipher complex genomes, from food crops to human beings.

Researchers report in the Friday, Sept. 3, issue of the journal Science their completion of the first whole genome assembled by a process called shotgun optical mapping. Scientists developed a physical map of Deinococcus radiodurans, a bacteria with the unusual ability to resist high levels of radiation.

These new types of maps “may become an health care professional liability insurance resource for large-scale genome sequencing projects,” says David Schwartz, a professor of genetics and chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Schwartz joined UW-Madison this summer from New York University in Manhattan, where he spent the past decade as part of a team of scientists developing the system.

Schwartz says his laboratory is currently using optical mapping technology to map at high resolution the human genome, and predicts his process will reduce the amount of time required to achieve that monumental scientific goal.

Optical mapping can be done in a fraction of the time it takes conventional DNA mapping or sequencing, Schwartz says. The usual approach is to decode the chemical base pairs of individual genes and gradually put them all together, one by one. Optical mapping provides an automated process to create a single, complete snapshot of a genome with very small amounts of material.

Its advantages include the ability to analyze differences between individual genomes. By comparing maps of hundreds of individual human genomes, for example, scientists could pinpoint the origin of genetic diseases, understand the ca professional liability insurance of trait inheritance, or examine the dynamic process behind DNA repair.

“The goal is to develop the ultimate data base of genetic information, and a source of analysis that will help us make sense out of the whole thing,” Schwartz says. “What’s nice about optical mapping is you can look at the whole genome, not just little snippets.”

One can think of optical mapping as an entire map of the United States, whereas conventional sequencing would be thousands of detailed maps of every city in the nation, he says. Optical mapping data works in concert with architect professional liability insurance DNA sequence data, linking both together in a complete and seamless description of a genome.

Optical mapping begins by preparing DNA molecules on a glass surface. Normally rolled like a ball of yarn, Schwartz uses a flow between two surfaces to straighten the DNA. He then applies an enzyme to the prepared molecules that literally clips the molecular strands into tiny segments, producing landmarks that reveal important features of genome error and omission insurance for insurance agent.

Next, each segment of a DNA molecule can be measured and defined by an automated scanning technology that uses fluorescence microscopy. The process is repeated roughly 100 times in order to weed out errors and get overlapping results. Those measurements provide the raw material for the optical map.

The laboratory already has completed maps of two other organisms and has another project to map the rice genome, an important milestone since rice is the most relied-upon food crop in the world.

Schwartz says Jie-Yi Lin, his former NYU graduate student, was instrumental in the success of this project. Bud Mishra and Thomas Anantharaman, professors of computer science and mathematics at NYU, developed unique statistical and error and omission insurance south carolina programs that helped overcome errors in the chemical outputs. Their contributions helped automate the process and make it more universally applicable to other genomes, Schwartz says.

Owen White and Craig Venter of the Institute for Genomic Research recognized the value of the optical map and leveraged this data for their own sequencing efforts. Ken Minton and Michael Daly at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences used optical mapping data in their studies of how DNA repairs itself after damage.

The D. radiodurans bacteria in Schwartz’s study has long interested scientists. It was originally discovered in the 1950s thriving in canned meat that had been irradiated to supposedly kill bacteria. Because of its high resistance to radiation, the Department of Energy is interested in exploring its potential for naturally removing toxins from the environment.

Federal sponsors include the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Note: This story has been adapted from material provided by University Of Wisconsin, Madison.

Source: New DNA Mapping Tool May Accelerate Human Genome Work

Finding A Cure For Cancer: The Holy Grail Of Science

alsi — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:55:50 +0000

Science Daily — To find a cure for cancer, the modern-day plague of our society – is synonymous to finding the holy grail of science.

At a recent EuroDYNA conference in Brno, Czech Republic, scientists from around Europe came together to share their research carried out in the field of genetics and cell nucleus architecture. A greater understanding of the body’s building blocks might ultimately lead to a better understanding of human diseases.

Understanding DNA damage

Jiri Bartek from the Danish Cancer Society in Copenhagen in Denmark, is one step closer to understanding the route of cancer through his work on cell response to DNA damage. By using a UV laser to damage DNA strands inside tumour cells, the Copenhagen team is able to directly observe the different checkpoints in the cell.

Each time a cell divides its genetic information must be doubled in order for the genes to remain the same. A cell that is about to become tumorous can not make this genome replication and division without errors. To spot errors in the genetic material cells have evolved mechanisms to slow down or block cell division (so called cell-cycle checkpoints), promote DNA repair, or eliminate damaged, hazardous cells by engaging a cellular suicide program. How cells make the choice between life and death in response to DNA damage is critical not only for the fate of each cell, but also for avoiding life-threatening diseases such as cancer.

In cells with an early pre-tumorous change, the entire checkpoint network is activated. The system puts an end to such cells or blocks their division by a process of cellular senescence. On the other hand, defects in the DNA damage response machinery, or a phenomenon of checkpoint adaptation (when the cell arrest is long-term and not irreversible) may allow the cell to escape from the DNA damage-imposed blockade and despite its damaged DNA, it may multiply. This can give birth to a tumour.

Bartek and his team have found that if an inhibitor called Chk1 kinase is added, this ends what is called the G2-phase cell cycle checkpoint, a mechanism that is often still preserved in cancer cells, and this can tip the balance of error and omission insurance decisions towards cell death. This strategy might be useful to sensitise cancer cells to treatment with DNA-damaging irradiation or student professional liability insurance drugs, by eliminating the sick cells. Although a cure for cancer is still far away, this has great implication for the future of cancer research.

The team is also looking in depth at the pathways of repair in response to DNA damage and they have found that a whole host of proteins rapidly congregate in and around the damage site and begin repair. When the repair proteins fail to fully repair the DNA damage, there is a danger of the DNA lesion to be fixed as a mutation, and eventually this might lead to a cell becoming tumorous.

“If we can understand the function of these preventative proteins, we can learn how cancer develops and then better prevent or treat it, “ says Simon Accountant professional liability insurance from the Danish Cancer Society team.”

Understanding the pathways

The understanding of individual disease response pathways is increasing as Pavel Kovarik from the Max F. Perutz Laboratories at the University of Vienna has demonstrated. He is looking at two signalling pathways which are regulated by stress or interferon and related to immune response. Although both pathways can be activated by independent stimuli, an immune response is only obtained when both pathways are acting on the gene at the same time. This happens when the body is defending itself against pathogens and tumours. By looking at the order, location and contribution of stress and interferon induced changes on chromatin modifications (DNA damage) and nuclear architecture, our understanding of gene expression regulation will improve. This will open up new possibilities to combat disease.

Measuring radiation

There is still a lot to learn about DNA damage response. The conference emphasized that current research is only scratching the surface but EuroDYNA’s efforts have brought about exciting new methods such as the ion microbeam developed by Anna Friedl and colleagues from the University of Munich.

“We want to understand what is disturbed by ionizing irradiation, and what are the cellular responses to these disturbances, in order to further understand how ionizing radiation induces cancer or cell death. People currently start to think not only about DNA damage and mutations, but also about epigenetic disturbances, for example alterations in chromatin structure, which may affect gene expression, “ said Friedl. “We came up with the idea of using an ion microbeam in 1999 but it has taken us a long time to make our idea happen”

By using several types of ions all with different velocities she can transmit energy levels of different strengths through a substrate and induce very precise double-strand DNA breaks. UV lasers can also be used to target individual cells or even subcellular regions, and they are cheaper and much easier to handle, but the ion beam has the advantage of using real ionizing radiation.

In reality, UV lasers would not be harmful humans but the effect from ionizing radiation (background, medical applications and so on) is inevitable. Friedl.’s work gives the ability to make detailed observations of the effects of ionizing radiation on individual cells, research which might ultimately give us an idea of the effects of radiation treatment on cancer patients

“Another important point is intercellular communication. Can a cell that has experienced radiation damage give signals to undamaged cells and change the behaviour of these cells” Friedl questions?

Friedl.’s work is preliminary but she and her team have found a first gene product (Mdc1) that appears to be required for inhibiting mobility of damaged chromatin. If damaged chromatin were allowed to move around in the cell nucleus, chances would be higher for DNA ends from different breaks to meet, and this might increase the frequency of chromosome aberrations.

To sum up the conference, it was clear that pan-European collaboration was the driving factor making this research possible.

“It is important to note that these kind of projects require a close collaboration of nuclear physicists, cell biologists and error and omission liability insurance”, commented Friedl about her project.

Note: This story has been adapted from material provided by European Science Foundation.

Read source of it on the Finding A Cure For Cancer: The Holy Grail Of Science site

News - Fire barrel event may fizzle out

alsi — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:36:46 +0000

Read more on News - Fire barrel event may fizzle out site
A 400Professional liability error and omission insurance flaming tar barrel tradition has come under threat because the Devon organisers cannot get insurance cover.

Every year in November, burning barrels are rolled through the streets of Ottery St Mary, with some even carried on people’s backs.

Past events have raised thousands of pounds for charity.

Professional general liability insurance have not been able to obtain insurance this time because of a claim made after last year’s event.

With the claim being processed, the normal insurers will no longer provide public liability insurance which is needed should anything happen to an individual.

Ottery carnival broker error and omission insurance Andy Wade, who heads the organising committee, said it was the first time he could remember a claim being made.

‘Most unfortunate’

He said they would continue to search for alternative ways of obtaining the correct insurance for the 4 November event.

“It would be most unfortunate if it could not go ahead. I am convinced there is an answer out there somewhere,” he said.

The event was nearly cancelled in 2003 after insurers also pulled out.

The tradition is believed to have originated from pagan rituals to ward off evil spirits.

Breast Conserving Treatment An Option For Women With Implants

alsi — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:21:14 +0000

Source: Breast Conserving Treatment An Option For Women With Implants

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ASTRO is the largest radiation oncology society in the world, with morethan 8,000 members who specialize in treating patients with broker error and omission insurance. As a leading organization in radiation oncology, biology andphysics, the Society is dedicated to the advancement of the practice ofradiation oncology by promoting excellence in patient care, home inspector error omission insurance for educational and professional development, promotingresearch and disseminating research results and representing radiationoncology in a rapidly evolving socioeconomic healthcare environment.

Note: This story has been adapted from material provided by American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.