Chemoprevention Study Identifies miRNA-34c as Potential Surrogate Endpoint for Future Trials

January 17, 2013

By Molika Ashford

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Molika Ashford is a GenomeWeb contributing editor and covers personalized medicine and molecular diagnostics. E-mail Molika Ashford.

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After finishing his postdoc, Lei Xie started working at a pharmaceutical company where he saw firsthand the weaknesses of the one-drug-one-gene-one disease approach. Upon leaving industry, Xie returned to academia, set upon finding ways to improve the success rate of investigational treatments through so-called polypharmacology, an approach that aims to advance drugs that target disease-causing networks instead of inhibiting individual receptors.

In his research at CUNY's computational systems biology, molecular modeling, and bioinformatics lab, Xie aims to identify the targets of drugs across the whole genome and then map them into biological pathways and networks.
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McLean, Lombardo, et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Investigators with the J. Craig Venter Institute and other centers in the US and Russia describe the "mini-metagenome" approach they used sequence the genome sequence of a representative from the uncultivated bacterial phylum dubbed TM6. From swab samples collected from a biofilm in the sink of a hospital's public restroom, the team narrowed in on individual bacterial cells using fluorescence activated cell sorting and other techniques. After amplifying and sequencing DNA in individual bacteria cells, investigators put together an assembly comprised of reads from cells with shared 16S ribosomal RNA sequences, covering around 90 percent of the genome for a TM6 bug called TM6SC1.

Sex-stratified genome-wide association studies including 270,000 individuals show sexual dimorphism in genetic loci for anthropometric traits
Randall, Winkler, et al. PLOS Genetics

A PLOS Genetics study looks at genetic variants influencing traits such as height, weight, body fat, or waist and hip measurements that differ between men and women. Members of the international Genetic Investigation of Anthropometric Traits, or GIANT, consortium drew on data for 133,723 individuals for a meta-analysis aimed at finding sexually dimorphic genetic contributors to these and other anthropometric traits. That analysis, followed by a validation study involving more than 137,000 other individuals, led to variants at seven loci showing significant ties to waist-related traits in women but not men.
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The Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research has appointed David Lane to be its new scientific director, effective June 1. He succeeds Andrew Simpson, who was scientific director for five years, from 2007 to 2012. Lane is chief scientist at Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology, and Research, and he will retain that post in addition to his new role at Ludwig.

Kevin Hrusovsky is resigning his post at PerkinElmer as senior VP and president of the Life Science and Technology division. Hrusovsky will serve as a consultant to the company for up to one year, beginning in June. He joined PerkinElmer through the company's acquisition of Caliper Life Sciences, where he was CEO and president.
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GenomeWebinar: Advances in Single-Cell Genomics: Live Cell RNA and Circulating miRNA Detection

Sponsor: EMD Millipore

GenomeWeb and EMD Millipore invite you to view an archived webinar discussing new approaches to detect RNA at the single-cell level as well as new probes for the direct quantification of circulating miRNAs. In this free online seminar, recorded April 25, 2013, our expert panel shares protocols for improved RNA and miRNA detection.

On-demand recording available here.

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Chemoprevention Study Identifies miRNA-34c as Potential Surrogate Endpoint for Future Trials

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