Scientists have unveiled a fully mapped human genome for the first time since … well … the last time they did it for the first time.

But the latest mapping initiative, led by — who else? — J. Craig Venter is special because it’s the most detailed genomic picture yet. The earlier sequences, one from a Venter team and the other from federally funded scientists, were released to great fanfare as the completion of the Human Genome Project, but examined only one set of human chromosomes. By looking at each set, from both mom and dad, scientists found much more diversity than the 2001 maps suggested.

read more at: http://blog.wired.com

A pharmaceutical company is developing a highly sensitive test that could catch the deadly disease in its early stages.

Lung cancer kills more Americans than any other cancer. Doctors know that smokers and former smokers are at much greater risk than the rest of the population, yet there’s no safe way to screen them, and lung tumors are rarely discovered in early, more curable stages.

Now researchers at a Gaithersburg, MD, pharmaceutical company say they have found that 99 percent of patients with all stages of lung cancer have detectable levels of a particular protein in their blood that healthy individuals do not. The company, Panacea Pharmaceuticals, is reporting encouraging preliminary results for its test for the protein this week at a conference of the American Association for Cancer Research. The company is working toward federal approval to market the test for high-risk patients.
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http://www.labautomation.org/LA08/

Aethlon Medical has developed a patented extracorporeal device, known as the Hemopurifier™, to address the treatment of viral conditions that are either resistant or evolve resistance to drug and vaccine therapies. The Hemopurifier converges the established scientific principals of hollow-fiber dialysis and affinity chromatography with the discovery of affinity agents that selectively bind envelope viruses. The result is an affinity treatment cartridge that separates and captures circulating viruses, viral proteins, and toxins before the occurrence of cell and organ infection. The treatment goal is to reduce viral load burden without drug toxicity so that the patient’s natural immunity can recover to wage an effective battle against viral infection. However, the mechanical nature of the Hemopurifier also allows it to be deployed in conjunction with other therapies including drugs and vaccines, if available. An additional benefit stems from treatment access, as the Hemopurifier has been designed for utilization in the global infrastructure of dialysis and continuous renal replacement machines already present in hospitals and clinics.
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“Our mission is to cure cancer. We partner with physicians, scientists, researchers, and others around the world to offer patients the most advanced radiotherapy treatments, including 3-D conformal therapy, SmartBeam™ IMRT, Dynamic Targeting™ IGRT and Dynamic Adaptive Radiotherapy DART™.“

Varian products include linear accelerators and accessories, plus a broad range of interconnected software tools for managing patient information, treatment planning, verification, delivery, and quality assurance.

by: www.varian.com

To stimulate breakthrough innovation in the field of genomic sequencing, the X PRIZE Foundation has launched a global competition with a $10 million prize to the first privately funded team that can sequence 100 human genomes in 10 days. For more information about the X PRIZE Foundation and our other prizes, please visit www.xprize.org.

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and Why not ?

“Pathway HT measures real-time events within each individual cell, so its like running hundreds of experiments at the same time”.

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What are the possibilities?

After the acquisition of 454 Life Sciences and Nimblegen, Roche Applied Science guaranteed his supremacy in a complete Workflow for Genomics Research. ::: SEQUENCING ::: MICROARRAYS ::: REAL-TIME PCR :::

The NEW Genome ROCHE Sequencer FLX System
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Click picture to 3D Flash Animation

Expanding upon the proven technology and solid performance of the Genome Sequencer 20 System, the next generation Genome Sequencer FLX System provides the flexibility to perform the broadest range of applications possible using one sequencing system.
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A company offers to generate and store stem cells from leftover IVF embryos.

It’s a new, rather dicey form of life insurance. A company in California called StemLifeLine has announced that it will offer a service to generate stem cells from excess frozen embryos stored after in vitro fertilization (IVF). The company promises a huge potential payoff: the cells could one day be used to treat disease in the buyers or in their families. But the service is already garnering criticism from some scientists and ethicists who say that without current medical uses for those cells, there’s no point in people paying for them.

“I think the company’s website overly hypes what may be possible,” says Lawrence Goldstein, director of the stem-cell research program at the University of California, San Diego. “They are almost guaranteeing that therapies are around the corner, and now is the time to start banking stem cells, but that strikes me as premature for the field.”
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