Treating Brain Cancer using Vector

Since,we are isolated a genes from one plant/bacteria/animal and transormed in to suitable vector for their expression studies.For the first time, Researchers in san Diego,UV of california designed a novel viral vector (Toca 511) directly injected in to humans/patients to treat brain cancer cells.
Source: University of California, San Diego Health Sciences

MIT Video - Perpetual Ocean

Scientists at the NASA visualization studio have come up with this animation that shows ocean currents not directly visible to the eye.

Making Heart using clones

The most astonish thing that only eight cells are mainly involved in functioning of heart muscle.This eventually leads to support of many heart related cells proved in an experimental animal Zebra fish.

Reference: 10.1038/nature11045

Revolution in gene sequencing-by Oxford Nanopores

How It Works: The First Disposable, USB-Powered Genome Sequencer:

The first human genome sequence took 13 years and cost $3 billion — now, less than a decade later, a new company promises to sequence a full genome in 15 minutes for a song. If this exponential increase in efficiency and drop in price sounds like something out of the computing industry, that’s because it is. Multicore processors and customizable clusters are coming to gene sequencing, threatening to disrupt one of the most important industries in modern medicine.

Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd. says its new micro-sequencers — one of which is USB-powered and will retail for $900 — could be used quickly and easily in the field, identifying anything from viruses at airports to new species in the deep jungle. Here’s how it works.

To determine how nucleotide bases are arranged, most sequencing machines break a DNA strand apart and replicate it, amplifying it by several orders of magnitude. Computers suss out the nucleotide arrangements using a variety of methods, from dyes to other chemicals. Take the forthcoming $1,000-per-genome Ion Proton chip, for instance. It attaches DNA fragments to microscopic beads and spins them in microwells on a semiconductor chip. The wells are flooded with each of the DNA nucleotides, and the machine looks for matchups. When there’s a match, a positive hydrogen ion is released, and algorithms interpret the resulting voltage change to determine which bases matched, thereby building a chart of base arrangements.

Instead, Oxford Nanopore's technology keeps the purified DNA strand intact, passing it through a nanoscale biological “pore” made from a protein. Nanopores first entered the scene in the 1990s, but haven’t yet made it to market for a variety of reasons. Oxford Nanopore says recent advances in polymer chemistry have made its design possible.

The heart of the company’s design is a custom-designed nanopore, inserted into a polymer membrane that rests on top of a microwell. The membrane has a high electrical resistance, and a voltage is applied so a current passes through the nanopore. Each microwell has its own electrode. A user would pour some purified DNA into the cartridge, where it would flow over the membrane and through the nanopores. As the DNA strand passes through a pore, each of its nucleotides interrupts the current in a measurable way. This change in conductivity can be used to identify the nucleotide.

Whole arrays of nanopores and their microwells are embedded onto chips, using typical semiconductor manufacturing techniques, and these are inserted into a disposable cartridge. Each cartridge is built so the nanopores are tuned to sense specific molecules — like DNA, or maybe proteins, drugs or other compounds. A user inserts the cartridge into the sequencing node of choice: either the GridION node, which looks like an old-school VCR, or the MinION system, which is a slightly fat USB stick.

Each nanopore analyzes its sample independently of the others. This massively parallel approach allows for faster analysis, according to the company — the nanopores can read nucleotides in real time with low error rates. What’s more, the GridION nodes can be used as a customizable cluster, in the same way computers can — if you have two machines, you can either use them as two machines, or as one machine running twice as fast, as a company spokeswoman describes it. Users will be able to determine the configurations they want. The MinION devices can work in clusters, too, using the company’s software and a USB hub.

"Oxford Nanopore is as much an electronics company as a biotechnology company,” company CEO Gordon Sanghera said.

The company tried it out with the Phi X phage, a bacterial virus, sequencing the virus’ entire 54,000-base, or 5.4 kilobase, genome in one fell swoop. The first GridION machines to go on sale this year will read 100 kilobases, which is far longer than the DNA snippets used by most current sequencers. This will give a more accurate glimpse of DNA’s structure, the company says.

Initially, the GridION system will feature a node containing 2,000 nanopores, which can read DNA at hundreds of kilobases per second. The MinION cartridge can run 150 megabases per hour over its six-hour lifetime. By 2013, the company plans to start selling 8,000-nanopore nodes, each reading hundreds of kilobases. A cluster of 20 of these nodes would theoretically be able to sequence the 3.2 billion base pairs in a human genome within 15 minutes, Sanghera said...

For video click on the link

http://vimeo.com/36907534

http://www.ted.com/talks/questions_no_one_knows_the_answers_to.html?source=facebook#.T3DaCA0cTP9.facebook

A beautiful TED-Ed talk telling us why it is important to stay curious....njoi!! 

I've Got Your Impact Factor Right Here! - Adam Ruben

Adam Ruben, molecular biologist turned humorist at the Johns hopkins University, talks about his perspectives on journal publications, humoristically taking on the current system which according to him is pretty much antiquated, where researchers are made to toggle and prod their data to suit the whims of reviewers. The toll it takes to make the publication look 'acceptable', according to Ruben, requires a separate PhD. In his article, I've Got Your Impact Factor Rght Here, he talks about upcoming journals such as the 'Journal of Negative results in Biomedicine' and vouches for a paradigm shift in the way we get our results published, where even failed experiments are published, that would otherwise remain mere sob stories in many a laboratory log book.

North-Eastern India: The major Biodiversity Hotspot

A Research Group guided by Dr.S.D.Biju from University of Delhi have found a new species of amphibians in Northeastern India. He found lot of plant, caecilians and frog species.

Creepy: A newly discovered family of legless amphibians consisting of a worm-like mother and her eggs

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2104746/New-legless-amphibians-New-species-Chikilidae-discovered.html#ixzz1oFP9AYW9

Their discovery, published today in a journal of the Royal Society of London, gives yet more evidence that India is a hotbed of amphibian life with habitats worth protecting against the country's industry-heavy development agenda. It also gives exciting new evidence in the study of prehistoric species migration, as well as evolutionary paths influenced by continental shift. 'This is a major hotspot of biological diversity, but one of the least explored,' Biju said. 'We hope this new family will show the importance of funding research in the area. We need to know what we have, so we can know what to save.' His first effort in conserving the chikilidae was to give it a scientific name mirroring what the locals use in their Garo language. The chikilidae is a caecilian, the most primitive of three amphibian groups that also include frogs and salamanders. 'We hope when the locals see the name, and their language, being used across the world, they will understand this animal's importance and join in trying to save it,' Biju said. 'India's biodiversity is fast depleting. We are destroying these habitats without mercy.' The chikilidae's home in long-ignored tropical forests now faces drastic change under programs to cut trees, plant rice paddy, build roads and generate industry as India's economic growth fuels a breakneck drive in development. More industrial pollutants, more pesticides and more people occupying more land may mean a world of trouble for a creature that can be traced to the earliest vertebrates to creep across land. Biju - a botanist-turned-herpetologist now celebrated as India's 'Frogman' - has made it his life work to find and catalog new species. There are too many cases of 'nameless extinction,' with animals disappearing before they are ever known, he said. 'We don't even know what we're losing.' Amphibians are particularly vulnerable, and have drastically declined in recent decades.

The same sensitivity to climate and water quality that makes them perfect environmental barometers also puts them at the greatest risk when ecological systems go awry. Biju, however, is working the reverse trend. Since 2001, he has discovered 76 new species of plants, caecilians and frogs - vastly more than any other scientist in India - and estimates 30-40 percent of the country's amphibians are yet to be found. Within the chikilidae family, the team has already identified three species, and is on its way to classing three more, he said. The chikilidae's discovery, made along with co-researchers from London's Natural History Museum and Vrije University in Brussels, brings the number of known caecilian families in the world to 10. Three are in India and others are spread across the tropics in Southeast Asia, Africa and South America. There is debate about the classifications, however, and some scientists count even fewer caecilian families.

Because they live hidden underground, and race off at the slightest vibration, much less is known about them than their more famous - and vocal - amphibious cousins, the frogs. Only 186 of the world's known amphibious species are caecilians, compared with more than 6,000 frog species - a third of which are considered endangered or threatened. Even people living in northeast Indians misunderstand the caecilians, and rare sightings can inspire terror and revulsion, with farmers and villagers chopping them in half out of the mistaken belief that they are poisonous snakes. In fact, the chikilidae is harmless, and may even be the farmer's best friend - feasting on worms and insects that might harm crops, and churning the soil as it moves underground. Much remains to be discovered in further study, Biju said, as many questions remain about how the creatures live. So far, Biju's team has determined that an adult chikilidae will remain with its eggs until they hatch, forgoing food for some 50 days. When the eggs hatch, the young emerge as tiny adults and squirm away. They grow to about 4 inches, and can ram their hard skulls through some of the region's tougher soils, shooting off quickly at the slightest vibration. 'It's like a rocket,' Biju said. 'If you miss it the first try, you'll never catch it again.'

A possibly superfluous set of eyes is shielded under a layer of skin, and may help the chikilidae gauge light from dark as in other caecilian species. DNA testing suggests the chikilidae's closest relative is in Africa - with the two evolutionary paths splitting some 140 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed what was then a southern supercontinent called Gondwana, since separated into today's continents of Africa, Antarctica, Australia, South America and the Indian subcontinent. Biju's team worked best during monsoon season, when the digging is easier and chikilidae lay eggs in waterlogged soils. Gripping garden spades with blistered hands, the researchers along with locals they hired spent about 2,600 man hours digging for the elusive squigglers, usually found about 16 inches deep. 'It was backbreaking work,' said research fellow Rachunliu Kamei, who even passed out in the forest once, and some days found not even one specimen.

'But there is motivation in knowing this is an uncharted frontier,' said Kamei, lead researcher and main author of the study paper.