Monthly Archives: August 2010

Facilitating standardized genome annotations

Faster and more reliable genome sequencing has meant that the number of personal genome sequences available is increasing rapidly, yet the analysis of personal human genome sequences has been hampered by the lack of a standard file format to facilitate comparative analyses. In this month’s issue of Genome Biology, Karen Eilbeck and colleagues present GVF,… Read more »

Biology

New Book: Recent Advances in Human Retroviruses, Principles of Replication and Pathogenesis

A new book “Recent Advances in Human Retroviruses: Principles of Replication and Pathogenesis” has been published this month by World Scientific Press.  A description of this book can be viewed at the following link https://www.worldscibooks.com/lifesci/7629.html .  This book is edited by three Retrovirology editors, Andrew ML Lever, Kuan-Teh Jeang, and Ben Berkhout.  It is somewhat… Read more »

Biology

Hereditary Angioedema: Management Consensus 2010 – a thematic series

Allergy, Asthma and Clinical Immunology has published its first thematic series, reviewing the current  consensus on the treatment of the potentially fatal condition, hereditary angioedema. Hereditary angioedema is a rare genetic disease that causes the rapid swelling of the limbs, face, intestinal tract, larynx or trachaea. The disease, which affects 1 in 50,000 people globally, is… Read more »

Biology

Sequencing of a tumor and its metastases

In an article just published in Genome Biology, Steven Jones and colleagues at the British Columbia Cancer Agency have used next generation sequencing to monitor the development of a tumor as it metastasized and used the genomic information to inform treatment. Cancers are known to accumulate mutations as they progress, and there are several mutations… Read more »

Biology

Microbicide gel reduces risk of HIV infection in women – Breakthrough research from AIDS 2010 conference

The Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) announced the ground-breaking results of a clinical trial of a new microbicidal vaginal gel at the XVIII International AIDS Conference in Vienna. The efficacy trial provides evidence that the antiretroviral-based microbicides can reduce the risk of sexual transmission of HIV and genital herpes in women… Read more »

Biology

Skewed X inactivation in mammals

In an article just published in Genome Biology, Andrew Clark and his colleagues at Cornell describe an intriguing bias that they have found in transcription from the X chromosome. In mammals, females have two X chromosomes whereas males only have one. This means that if expression from the two X chromosomes was equal, females would… Read more »

Biology

Skeletal Muscle is now accepting submissions!

BioMed Central is delighted to announce Skeletal Muscle, a new open access journal that focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying the biology of skeletal muscle is now accepting submissions. Skeletal Muscle is overseen by co-Editors-in-Chief Kevin P. Campbell (University of Iowa), David J. Glass (Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research) and Michael A. Rudnicki (Ottawa Hospital Research… Read more »

Biology