How RNA interference can be a reminiscent of Woody Guthrie

This morning I found an article written by Thomas M. Burton in The Wall Street Journal titled as “Efforts to Block Gene in Huntington's”. Burton has interviewed with two companies involving a research project which its goal is curing Huntington’s disease with RNA interference technique that has been shown to work against Huntington's disease in laboratory tests with mice and other animals. Researchers suggest that tests on people with the disease could begin as soon as 2012.Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Medtronic Inc are two parts of this joint project. Alnylam which is led by researchers from Harvard and MIT Universities focus on construction of siRNA to block mRNA of disease proteins. On the other hand Medtronic is responsible for engineering of pumps and catheters that could deliver the siRNA (made by Alnylam) to the correct portion of the brain.

For me Huntington’s disease is reminiscent of Woody Guthrie as he died because of Huntington's disease. Maybe that’s why after reading this article I've had the “This Land Is Your Land” repeating in my head ever since.

Thermo Fisher instead of Lady GaGa on the iPad

I was reviewing the The 2010 Thermo Scientific Chromatography Columns and Consumables Catalog that i found the a link “ View the iPad version of the catalog online”.Wooo, an iPad-compatible version of its latest Thermo Scientific Chromatography Columns and Consumables catalog.

This online catalog for the iPad helps users to be just clicks away from an interactive version of the familiar printed Thermo Scientific Chromatography catalog that includes innovative searching and linking features. With a robust applications search tool, you can access to method development guides, application notebooks and other technical information, the online it can guide you through challenges on instruments  including HPLC, GC and SPE products.

Isn’t it nice? Keep your iPad in your hand in the lab or even in a party (!!!) and instead of listening to Bad Romance (Lady GaGa) read the  2010 Thermo Scientific Chromatography Columns and Consumables Catalog .

An Ethanol Plant Forced to Close because of Flooding In southern Queensland, Australia

Before beginning the New Year 2011 southern Queensland, Australia faced to a severe flooding. It goes without saying that it is a bad news for all industries located in that area and biotech industry is not an exception. The Dalby Bio-Refinery, Australia’s first grain-to-ethanol production facility, has been forced into temporary closure following severe flooding in the area. The reason for that seems to be the safety of the employees (a prudent decision) to travel to and from the site as Kevin Endres, chief executive of Dalby Bio-Refinery said (biofuels-news).

Dalby Bio-Refinery Limited (supposed to be the second largest ethanol producer in Australia after the Manildra group) is owned by two family companies; Petro Fuels & Lubricants of Toowoomba, owned by Chris and Ross Harrison, and the Queensland Fuels Group of Brisbane, owned by Mark and Tony Lowe .The plant started commissioning at 10th December 2008 and has since then been operational. The feedstock will be sorghum. The total cost of this project, including working capital, grain, chemical stocks, was approximately US$56 million (Ethanol Producer Magazine). 

As far as I remember they aimed to produce 82 million liters per annum. That's about 22 million U.S. gallons per year.Any way I hope that situation turns to normal for them as soon as possible.

$1.05M to Support Children

$1.05M have been awarded to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) by the U.S. Army in order to develop core facilities for whole genome sequencing (WGS ) of childhood disease. From my point of view this is a very good news for every body and specially genomics researches. I hope that this investment yield results.

Ref: GEN