Chavez widely mourned, but some hope change on way

Argentine supporters of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez gather in front of Venezuela's embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Venezuela's Vice President Nicolas Maduro announced that Chavez died on Tuesday at age 58 after a nearly two-year bout with cancer.(AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

Argentine supporters of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez gather in front of Venezuela's embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Venezuela's Vice President Nicolas Maduro announced that Chavez died on Tuesday at age 58 after a nearly two-year bout with cancer.(AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

Mexican supporters of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez embraces in front of Venezuela's embassy in Mexico City, Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Venezuela's Vice President Nicolas Maduro announced that Chavez died on Tuesday at age 58 after a nearly two-year bout with cancer. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

A crowd gathers at the Arepazo 2 restaurant in Doral, Fla., Tuesday, March 5, 2013, after hearing the news of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's death. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)

Argentine supporters of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez react as they gather in front of Venezuela's embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Venezuela's Vice President Nicolas Maduro announced that Chavez died on Tuesday at age 58 after a nearly two-year bout with cancer. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

Bolivia's President Evo Morales pauses during a news conference at the government palace in La Paz, Bolivia, Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Morales decreed seven days of mourning after Venezuela's vice president announced that Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez died on Tuesday. A teary-eyed Morales, one of Chavez's closest allies and most loyal disciples, declared that "Chavez is more alive than ever." (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

HAVANA, Cuba (AP) ? Some marked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's death with tears; others with cheers. There was deep mourning in Latin America, condolences from Europe and Asia and from Iran's president, predictions of great works in the afterlife.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, focused on "a new chapter" for Venezuela, following 14 years in which Chavez cast himself as bulwark against American domination.

Chavez, who died Tuesday, was seen as a hero by some for his socialist programs, his anti-U.S. rhetoric and gifts of cut-rate oil. Others considered him a bully who repressed his opponents.

A teary-eyed Bolivian President Evo Morales, one of Chavez's closest allies and most loyal disciples, declared that "Chavez is more alive than ever."

"Chavez will continue to be an inspiration for all peoples who fight for their liberation," Morales said Tuesday in a televised speech. "Chavez will always be present in all the regions of the world and all social sectors. Hugo Chavez will always be with us, accompanying us."

Chinese President Hu Jintao, who steps down this month, and his replacement, Xi Jinping, sent condolence letters to Vice President Nicolas Maduro, the interim president ahead of new elections.

"President Chavez was a great leader of Venezuela and a good friend to the Chinese people," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily media briefing. "He made significant contributions to the friendly cooperative relationship between China and Venezuela."

In its quest to secure resources for its fast-growing economy over the past decade, China has forged a useful friendship with Chavez centered on oil. Tens of billions of dollars in Chinese loans, repayable in oil, helped fund social programs and consumer goods giveaways that made Chavez popular. His anti-American policies and posturing was also looked upon positively by some in Beijing, though Chinese leaders were careful not to show public support.

In Cuba, President Raul Castro's government declared two days of national mourning and ordered the flag to fly at half-staff.

"It is with deep and excruciating sorrow that our people and the revolutionary government have learned of President Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias' decease," it said in a statement read on the nightly state TV newscast. "The Cuban people view him as one of their most outstanding sons."

Some islanders worried that the loss of the country's No. 1 ally, who has sent billions of dollars of oil to Cuba at preferential terms, could have a negative ripple effect there.

"It's a very tough blow. ... Now I wonder, what is to become of us?" said Maite Sierra, a 72-year-old Havana resident.

"It's troubling what could come now, first for Venezuela but also for Cuba," said Sergio Duran, a Havana resident. "Everything will depend on what happens in Venezuela, but in any case it will never be the same as with Chavez, even if Chavez's party wins" in upcoming elections.

In the United States, where relations with Venezuela were strained under Chavez, President Barack Obama issued a statement reaffirming Washington's support for the "Venezuelan people and its interest in developing a constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government."

"As Venezuela begins a new chapter in its history, the United States remains committed to policies that promote democratic principles, the rule of law, and respect for human rights," the statement read.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, like Chavez a frequent U.S. adversary, announced a day of mourning and compared Chavez to a saint, saying he will "return on resurrection day."

Ahmadinejad said he has "no doubt Chavez will return to Earth together with Jesus and the perfect" Imam Mahdi, the most revered figure of Shiite's Muslims, and help the two "establish peace, justice and kindness" in the world. He said he believes something "suspicious" caused the cancer that killed Chavez.

Republican U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida called Chavez's death "an opportunity for democracy in Venezuela."

Some of the estimated 189,219 Venezuelan immigrants living in the United States ? about half of them in Florida ? turned out cheering and waving their country's flag and expressed hope Tuesday that change would come to their homeland.

"We are not celebrating death," Ana San Jorge, 37, said amid a jubilant crowd in the Miami suburb of Doral. "We are celebrating the opening of a new door, of hope and change."

Wearing caps and T-shirts in the Venezuelan colors of yellow, blue and red, many expressed cautious optimism and concern.

"Although we might all be united here celebrating today, we don't know what the future holds," said Francisco Gamez, 18, at El Arepazo, a popular Venezuelan restaurant in Doral.

Several U.S. allies offered praise for Chavez, though some, like France's Socialist President Francois Hollande, noted that "not everyone shared" his political views.

In a statement, Hollande, who made social and economic justice a pillar of his campaign for France's presidency last year, praised Chavez' "undeniable will to fight for justice and development."

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in a statement that Chavez's death was "a heavy blow," but also said Venezuela would move on to "new times."

"Venezuela has great potential, and democracy and freedom are the right paths to realize this potential," Westerwelle said.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez declared three days of mourning nationwide. She and President Jose Mujica of neighboring Uruguay prepared to travel to Venezuela for the funeral.

In Nicaragua, a nation that broadly benefited from Venezuelan cut-rate oil, Rosario Murillo, the wife and spokeswoman of President Daniel Ortega, said Chavez is "one of the dead who never die."

"We are all Chavez," she said in televised comments.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter released a statement saying Chavez "will be remembered for his bold assertion of autonomy and independence for Latin American governments."

"We came to know a man who expressed a vision to bring profound changes to his country to benefit especially those people who had felt neglected and marginalized," Carter wrote. "Although we have not agreed with all of the methods followed by his government, we have never doubted Hugo Chavez's commitment to improving the lives of millions of his fellow countrymen."

At the United Nations, Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin called the death a tragedy.

"He was a great politician for his country, Latin America and the world. He played a very important role in the development of relations between Venezuela and Russia, so we feel very badly about it," Churkin said.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague sent condolences to Venezuela and the family of Chavez, who he said "left a lasting impression on the country and more widely" during his 14 years as president.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered condolences to Venezuela's people and said he hopes Chavez's death brings hope of a better future.

"At this key juncture, I hope the people of Venezuela can now build for themselves a better, brighter future based on the principles of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights," Harper said in a statement.

A wistful Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador and another of Chavez's closest allies, predicted Chavez would have a lasting influence. "We have lost a revolutionary, but millions of us remain inspired."

For good or ill, Chavez's influence was felt across Latin America. Alfonso Astorga, 65, a math teacher, was holding back tears as he walked into a store in a wealthy neighborhood of Santiago, Chile.

"He was an example of courage, struggle and passion for Latin America's integration," Astorga said. "The world loses a great man."

In Asia, people felt a sense of loss in countries including Vietnam. "Chavez had a very strong character," civil servant Nguyen Van Ngoc said in Hanoi. "The United States tried to exert influence in Latin America, but it couldn't do anything to countries like Venezuela and Cuba."

China's Internet, its freest court of public opinion, crackled with praise for Chavez for standing up to the U.S. and for his socialist policies.

"Chavez and the '21st century socialism' he advocated was a big bright spot after drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe sunk the world socialist movement in a low ebb, and he was known as an 'anti-American standard-bearer," Zhu Jidong of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' World Socialism Research Center wrote on his feed on Sina Corporation's Twitter-like microblog service. "Mourn this great fighter."

There was no shortage of emotional farewells to a socialist hero who some feel rivaled the revolutionaries of the 1960s.

Cuban folk singer Silvio Rodriguez, whose ode to revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara became famous, used the song's title words to bid farewell to Chavez on his blog.

"Hasta siempre, comandante," he wrote, Spanish for "Farewell forever, commander."

___

Christine Armario reported from Miami. Ron Depasquale at the United Nations, Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana, Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, Angela Charlton in Paris, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Minh V. Tran in Hanoi, Vietnam, Rob Gillies in Toronto and AP researcher Zhao Liang in Beijing contributed to this report.

___

Follow Peter Orsi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-06-Hugo%20Chavez-World%20Reactions/id-8fb0a1111104441eaa3d7b598e2fedf2

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What Do Whisker Wars Have To Do With Real Estate Investing?

Last year I stumbled on show called Whisker Wars on the IFC channel. The program is a reality show that revolves around the extreme facial hair lifestyle. ?The show is pretty interesting and coincidentally, my introduction to it coincided with my business partner?s quest to look like one of the show?s participants.

Last year I took several days off to celebrate Thanksgiving and spend time with my family. It was very relaxing and for several days I neglected to shave. By the third day, full of Whisker Wars motivation, I found myself asking, ?I wonder what I would look like with a beard??

Every so often this hair brained (excuse the pun) idea pops up in my head. For some reason the prospect of full-grown facial hair keeps coming back to me. Maybe it?s the draw of something new and different. It may also be the fact that until my late 20?s my scruff was limited to blotchy patches resembled to a skin growth more than a beard. The point is, I decided to let it grow for a few days and see how things turned out.

The results were predictable. In retrospect, I end up with the same results every time I get the itch.

By day 5, the beard was developing quite well. I no longer looked like a weekender delaying a good shave until Monday morning. Instead, the hair length made my attempt obviously intentional. I even shaved my neck to clean things up.

Day 6 was the turning point. That hair began to itch. In one day it went from ?cool and presentable? to looking shaggy and feeling uncomfortable.

?Things will get better in a few more days,? I told myself.

That brings us to this morning ? day 10. Looking in the mirror it was apparent that things had not gotten better. A few remaining ?bald spots? persisted from my youth, and the whiskers continued to itch. It was simply a mess.

So I did the only thing I could. With disappointment, I got rid of the facial hair until the next time.

By this point you?re probably wondering, what does this have to do with Real Estate Investing?

Every week I talk to at least one person who tells me about the next, best thing in Real Estate. It?s always a new strategy or system to make more money faster than ever before. When I run into these people months or even weeks later, the results never seem to meet the initial hype.

Just like my periodic facial hair adventures, I think there a lot of Real Estate investors that are drawn into the newest, greatest program or system. Maybe it?s the adventure of the unknown, or maybe it?s a pursuit to find that one idea that will give them success where it has eluded them in the past. For whatever reason, a lot of people find themselves looking at these programs saying, ?I wonder what I would look like with a beard??

Please understand ? I am not discounting all of the educators, coaches, programs and systems on the market. I endorse and promote those that I have used or found success with. Education is critical to any successful endeavor. But there are tried and true ways to make a lot of money in Real Estate investing. Focus and implement the proven systems before venturing into the unknown world of the newest, greatest thing.

Successful investors use wholesaling, fix and flip investing and rental properties to build cash flow and wealth. I suggest and practice concentration on the same.

The next time you?re tempted by the prospect of a new and exciting strategy, be prepared for the itch and bald spots of the scraggly beard that may result. Don?t wait until it gets ugly before taking out your razor for a nice clean shave.

Source: http://www.reiclub.com/realestateblog/what-do-whisker-wars-have-to-do-with-real-estate-investing/

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Human metabolism in health and disease mapped

Mar. 3, 2013 ? Building on earlier pioneering work by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, an international consortium of university researchers has produced the most comprehensive virtual reconstruction of human metabolism to date. Scientists could use the model, known as Recon 2, to identify causes of and new treatments for diseases like cancer, diabetes and even psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. Each person's metabolism, which represents the conversion of food sources into energy and the assembly of molecules, is determined by genetics, environment and nutrition.

The researchers presented Recon 2 in a paper published online March 3 in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Doctors have long recognized the importance of metabolic imbalances as an underlying cause of disease, but scientists have been ramping up their research on the connection as a result of compelling evidence enabled by the Human Genome Project and advances in systems biology, which leverages the power of high-powered computing to build vast interactive databases of biological information.

"Recon 2 allows biomedical researchers to study the human metabolic network with more precision than was ever previously possible. This is essential to understanding where and how specific metabolic pathways go off track to create disease," said Bernhard Palsson, Galletti Professor of Bioengineering at UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

"It's like having the coordinates of all the cars in town, but no street map. Without this tool, we don't know why people are moving the way they are," said Palsson.

He likened Recon 2 to Google mapping for its ability to merge complex details into a single, interactive map. For example, researchers looking at how metabolism sets the stage for cancerous tumor growth could zoom in on the "map" for finely detailed images of individual metabolic reactions or zoom out to look at patterns and relationships among pathways or different sectors of metabolism. This is not unlike how you can get a street view of a single house or zoom out to see how the house fits into the whole neighborhood, city, state, country and globe. And just as Google maps brings together a broad set of data -- such as images, addresses, streets and traffic flow -- into an easily navigated tool, Recon 2 pulls together a vast compendium of data from published literature and existing models of metabolic processes.

As a multi-scale representation of the human metabolic network, Recon 2 provides essential context for data being reviewed by researchers. Palsson and other scientists in the field have already successfully demonstrated the utility of such models in simple organisms such as yeast and E.coli. As a result, they have been able to engineer these organisms in the lab to improve the efficiency of ethanol production and predict drug resistance in bacteria.

One of the most promising applications for the network reconstruction is the ability to identify specific gene expressions and their metabolic pathways for targeted drug delivery. Large gene expression databases are available for human cells that have been treated with molecules extracted from existing drugs as well as drugs that are in development. Recon 2 allows researchers to use this existing gene expression data and knowledge of the entire metabolic network to figure how certain drugs would affect specific metabolic pathways found to create the conditions for cancerous cell growth, for example. They could then conduct virtual experiments to see whether the drug can fix the metabolic imbalance causing the disease.

Palsson's Systems Biology Research Group at UC San Diego built the first virtual reconstruction of the human metabolism network, known as Recon 1, in 2007 with a six-person team. It featured more than 3,300 known biochemical reactions documented in over 50 years of metabolic research. Recon 2, which contains more than 7,400 reactions, was built by bringing together researchers from dozens of institutions around the globe in a series of "jamboree" meetings to refine and consolidate the data used in the reconstruction. Palsson said this jamboree approach helped the group establish common standards to build a consensus reconstruction, simplify its usability for biomedical researchers, and increase its transparency.

Recon 2 is already proving its utility, according to Ines Thiele, a professor at the University of Iceland and UC San Diego alumna, who led the Recon 2 effort. Thiele earned her Ph.D. in bioinformatics as a student of Palsson's and was part of the original Recon 1 team. Several other UC San Diego alumni, and former Palsson students, participated in the consortium from their new institutions, including Neema Jamshidi (Ph.D., 2008, M.D., 2009), who is now interning at UCLA; Jason Papin (Ph.D., 2004), a professor at the University of Virginia; and Nathan Price (Ph.D., 2005), who is a professor at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Wash.

Thiele said Recon 2 has successfully predicted alterations in metabolism that are currently used to diagnose certain inherited metabolic diseases.

"The use of this foundational resource will undoubtedly lead to a myriad of exciting predictions that will accelerate the translation of basic experimental results into clinical applications," said Thiele. "Ultimately, I envision it being used to personalize diagnosis and treatment to meet the needs of individual patients. In the future, this capability could enable doctors to develop virtual models of their patients' individual metabolic networks and identify the most efficacious treatment for various diseases including diabetes, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases."

As much as Recon 2 marks a significant improvement over Recon 1, there is still much work to be done, according to the research team. Thiele said Recon 2 accounts for almost 1,800 genes of an estimated 20,000 protein-coding genes in the human genome. "Clearly, further community effort will be required to capture chemical interactions with and between the rest of the genome," she said.

Recon 2 will facilitate many future biomedical studies and is freely available at http://humanmetabolism.org.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - San Diego, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Ines Thiele, Neil Swainston, Ronan M T Fleming, Andreas Hoppe, Swagatika Sahoo, Maike K Aurich, Hulda Haraldsdottir, Monica L Mo, Ottar Rolfsson, Miranda D Stobbe, Stefan G Thorleifsson, Rasmus Agren, Christian B?lling, Sergio Bordel, Arvind K Chavali, Paul Dobson, Warwick B Dunn, Lukas Endler, David Hala, Michael Hucka, Duncan Hull, Daniel Jameson, Neema Jamshidi, Jon J Jonsson, Nick Juty, Sarah Keating, Intawat Nookaew, Nicolas Le Nov?re, Naglis Malys, Alexander Mazein, Jason A Papin, Nathan D Price, Evgeni Selkov Sr, Martin I Sigurdsson, Evangelos Simeonidis, Nikolaus Sonnenschein, Kieran Smallbone, Anatoly Sorokin, Johannes H G M van Beek, Dieter Weichart, Igor Goryanin, Jens Nielsen, Hans V Westerhoff, Douglas B Kell, Pedro Mendes and Bernhard ? Palsson. A community-driven global reconstruction of human metabolism. Nature Biotechnology, 03 March 2013 DOI: 10.1038/nbt.2488

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/Kv5Fe-FKAf4/130303155002.htm

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Socialmatic camera takes and prints Instagram pictures, runs Android

Socialmatic is hoping to hop on the Instagram popularity bandwagon by releasing its own camera specifically aimed at taking, sharing and printing Instagram pictures. The idea for this camera has been around for some time, but now the company has some specifics for us to see. The Socialmatic camera will have 16GB of storage with an SDcard slot, both Wifi and 3G connectivity and run Android as its base operating system. Running Android will enable it to share using the Instagram app, naturally, but you won't be constrained to just that network.

Tying into the retro theme, the camera will actually be Polaroid branded, and has a mechanism to print pictures directly in the camera. The design is an uncanny resemblance to the Instagram logo as well, which we doubt is going to help usability at all but certainly gets the point across on what this camera is meant for.

Socialmatic is targeting the first quarter of 2014 for commercial availability of the product, but no specifics are given regarding pricing.

Source: Socialmatic

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/D2zAGosDebQ/story01.htm

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Hulu part-owners Disney, News Corp. reportedly discuss buying each other out

The new owner of Hulu could turn out to be... one of the existing owners. After an aborted sale attempt in 2011, new rumors suggest current part owners Disney and News Corp are talking over the possibility of one buying the other's stake out. The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg both tag people with knowledge of the situation as their sources, indicating a disagreement over the video streaming website's business model -- it announced $695 million in revenue last year -- as a reason for the talks.

Reportedly News Corp. prefers a subscription based model, while Disney sees an advertising-focused approach as best. Both of them own about a third of the site, while Comcast / NBC Universal owns most of the remaining third but can't vote, and according to the rumors would remain as a minority investor if a buyout took place. Also playing into this is CEO Jason Kilar's announcement he will leave the company by the end of Q1, so hopefully any decision on its future are made by the time a new leader is in place.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

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Source: Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/01/hulu-part-owners-disney-news-corp-reportedly-discuss-buying-ea/

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'Rain Man'-like brains mapped at using MRIs and network analysis

Feb. 28, 2013 ? Combining hospital MRIs with the mathematical tool known as network analysis, a group of researchers at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley have mapped the three-dimensional global connections within the brains of seven adults who have genetic malformations that leave them without the corpus callosum, which connects the left and right sides of the brain.

These "structural connectome" maps, described in the upcoming April 15, 2013 issue of the journal Neuroimage, reveal new details about the condition known as agenesis of the corpus callosum, which is one of the top genetic causes of autism and was part of the mysterious brain physiology of Laurence Kim Peek, the remarkable savant portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the 1987 movie "Rain Man."

While some people born with agenesis of the corpus callosum are of normal intelligence and do not have any obvious signs of neurologic disease, approximately 40 percent of people with the condition are at high risk for autism. Given this, the work is a step toward finding better ways to image the brains of people with the condition, said Pratik Mukherjee, MD, PhD, a professor of radiology and biomedical imaging at UCSF who was the co-senior author of the research.

Understanding how brain connectivity varies from person to person may help researchers identify imaging biomarkers for autism to help diagnose it and manage care for individuals. Currently autism is diagnosed and assessed based on cognitive tests, such as those involving stacking blocks and looking at pictures on flip cards.

While the new work falls short of a quantitative measure doctors could use instead of cognitive testing, it does offer a proof-of-principle that this novel technique may shed light on neurodevelopment disorders.

"Because you are looking at the whole brain at the network level, you can do new types of analysis to find what's abnormal," Mukherjee said.

The Connection between the Brain Hemispheres and Autism Agenesis of the corpus callosum can arise if individuals are born missing DNA from chromosome 16 and often leads to autism.

Scientists have long puzzled over what the link is between this disorder and the autistic brain, said co-senior author of the paper Elliott Sherr, MD, PhD, professor of neurology and genetics especially since not all people with this malformation develop autism.

Doctors believe this is because the brain has a rich capacity for rewiring in alternative ways.

Pursuing this question, Mukherjee and Sherr turned to MRI and the mathematical technique of network analysis, which has long supported fields like civil engineering, helping urban planners optimize the timing of traffic lights to speed traffic. This is the first time network analysis has been applied to brain mapping for a genetic cause of autism.

The brain offers a significantly complicated challenge for analysis because, unlike the streets of a given city, the brain has hundreds of billions of neurons, many of which make tens of thousands of connections to each other, making its level of connectivity highly complex.

By comparing the seven rain man-like brains to those of 11 people without this malformation, the scientists determined how particular structures called the cingulate bundles were smaller and the neurons within these bundles were less connected to others in the brain. They also found that the network topology of the brain was more variable in people with agenesis of the corpus callosum than in people without the malformation.

The article, "The structural connectome of the human brain in agenesis of the corpus callosum" is authored by Julia P. Owen, a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF, with co-authors Yi-Ou Li, Etay Ziv, Zoe Strominger, Jacquelyn Gold, Polina Bukhpun, Mari Wakahiro, Eric J. Friedman, Elliott H. Sherr and Pratik Mukherjee. It appears in the April 15, 2013 issue of the journal Neuroimage, and is now published online ahead of print.

This work was funded by the National Institutes of Health through grant #R01NS060776, #R01NS060776 and #R01NS058721. Additional support was provided by a grant from the UCSF Sandler Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), via Newswise.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Julia P. Owen, Yi-Ou Li, Etay Ziv, Zoe Strominger, Jacquelyn Gold, Polina Bukhpun, Mari Wakahiro, Eric J. Friedman, Elliott H. Sherr, Pratik Mukherjee. The structural connectome of the human brain in agenesis of the corpus callosum. NeuroImage, 2013; 70: 340 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.12.031

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/1eptrw-_e7s/130228171357.htm

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Scientists find bone-marrow environment that helps produce infection-fighting T and B cells

Feb. 24, 2013 ? The Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern has deepened the understanding of the environment within bone marrow that nurtures stem cells, this time identifying the biological setting for specialized blood-forming cells that produce the infection-fighting white blood cells known as T cells and B cells.

The research found that cells called early lymphoid progenitors, which are responsible for producing T cells and B cells, thrive in an environment known as an osteoblastic niche. The investigation, published online February 24 in Nature and led by Dr. Sean Morrison, also establishes a promising approach for scientists to map the entire blood-forming system.

Scientists already know how to manufacture large quantities of stem cells that give rise to the nervous system, skin, and other tissues. But they have been unable to make blood-forming stem cells in a laboratory, in part because of a lack of understanding about the niche in which blood-forming stem cells and other progenitor cells reside in the body.

"We believe this research moves us one step closer toward the development of cell therapies in the blood-forming system that don't exist today," said Dr. Morrison, Director of the Institute and Professor of Pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center. "In understanding the environments for blood-forming stem cells and those of different kinds of progenitor cells, we can work toward reproducing those environments in the lab and growing cells that can be transplanted to treat a host of medical conditions."

These findings eventually may help increase the safety and effectiveness of bone-marrow transplants, such as those needed after healthy marrow is destroyed by radiation or chemotherapy treatments for childhood leukemia, Dr. Morrison said. The findings also may have implications for treating illnesses associated with loss of infection-fighting cells, such as HIV and severe combined immunodeficiency disease, better known as bubble boy disease.

The Nature study augments earlier work by Dr. Morrison and his team that showed endothelial cells and perivascular cells lining the blood vessels in the bone marrow create the environment that maintains haematopoietic stem cells, which produce billions of new blood cells every day. The latest study shows that bone-forming cells create the environment that maintains early lymphoid progenitors.

"Our research documents that there are different niches, or microenvironments, for blood-forming stem cells and restricted progenitors in the bone marrow," Dr. Morrison said. "One way that bone marrow makes different kinds of blood-forming cells is by compartmentalizing them into different neighborhoods within the marrow."

The researchers identified niches for stem cells and early lymphoid progenitors by determining which cells are the sources of a growth factor (CXCL12) necessary for the proliferation of those two populations of blood-forming cells. By taking the same approach for other growth factors in the bone marrow, researchers should be able to map the niches for every kind of blood-forming progenitor cell in the bone marrow, Dr. Morrison said.

The UTSW paper's first author is Dr. Lei Ding, a former postdoctoral research fellow at the Children's Research Institute and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at UT Southwestern. Dr. Ding is now an assistant professor at Columbia University.

Research support came from the HHMI and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by UT Southwestern Medical Center.

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Journal Reference:

1. Lei Ding, Sean J. Morrison. Haematopoietic stem cells and early lymphoid progenitors occupy distinct bone marrow niches. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nature11885

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/IFzoJpE0Wvk/130224142913.htm

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