Prof. Karin, from the University of California, San Diego, will receive the prize in the field of human health. He discovered the strong link between obesity, inflammation and cancer. The judges decided to award the prize to Prof. Karin for “his pioneering contribution that led to deciphering the molecular mechanism through which mammalian cells react to cytokines which cause inflammation, to adverse environmental conditions and also to various pathogens. His research laid the foundations for our understanding of the control mechanisms of transcription factor activities influenced by external stimulations, especially the transcription factors of the AP-1 family and NF-B. These discoveries led to the identification of new target protein cells that have recently been used to develop new medications for preventing and treating various malignant tumors.”

Prof. Polyakov, from Princeton University, will receive the prize in the field of science and technology. “He developed revolutionary theories that shaped our contemporary understanding of elementary particles in nature. In addition, he significantly contributed to condensed matter physics, statistical mechanics and mathematics. Among the ideas credited to him are topological structures (such as magnetic monopoles) in gauge field theories, which are important in understanding the confinement of quarks in the nucleus.
Polyakov also contributed to the foundations of string theory, the unification of quantum mechanics and gravity, and to the idea of duality between string theory and gauge field theory.”

The Technion’s prestigious Harvey Prize foresaw the winning of the Nobel Prize for two of the latest Nobel laureates – Elizabeth Blackburn (Medicine) and Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science (Chemistry). To date, 13 Harvey Prize winners have gone on to win the Nobel Prize.

The Harvey Prize was first awarded in 1972 from a fund established by the late Leo M. Harvey of Los Angeles in order to recognize those who have made great contributions to advancing humanity in science and technology and in human health, as well as advancing peace in the Middle East. Every year, prizes totaling $75,000 per winner are awarded from the fund’s income.

Among the winners of the prestigious Harvey Prize are scientists from the US, Great Britain, Russia, Sweden, France and Israel. These include Nobel Prize laureate Mikhail Gorbachev, former leader of the USSR, who was awarded the prize for his activities aimed at reducing regional tensions; Prof. Bert Sakmann who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine; Prof. Pierre-Gilles de Gennes who won the Nobel Prize in Physics; Prof. Edward Teller for his discoveries in solid state physics, atomic physics and nuclear physics; and Prof. William J. Kolff for his invention of the artificial kidney.

Proposals for candidates for the Harvey Prize are received from leading scientists and personalities in Israel and the world. The prize laureates are chosen by the Harvey Prize committee in a stringent process at the Technion.

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The method involves detecting human leukocyte antigens in the blood and analyzing them to see which kinds of peptides are attached. HLA molecules “ferry peptides from inside the cell to the cell surface,” Admon says.

Once the peptides are anchored to the cell surface, T cells check to see whether the peptides are normal or not. Normal cells release a small amount of HLAs into the bloodstream, but cancer cells release larger amounts — which slows down and confuses T cells. Admon and his team discovered that not only are peptides from cancerous cells being released to the cell surface and into the bloodstream, but that HLA molecules are still bound to those peptides. “It’s like a memory of a protein in the blood,” Admon says. “And with our new method, we can actually purify these HLA molecules from the blood and get enough material to purify the peptides that are bound to these molecules.”

After drawing a small amount of blood from a cancer patient, Admon and his postdoc Michal Bassani-Sternberg — who devised the method and was first author of the study published in PNAS in October — used immunoaffinity purification methods, passing the plasma through a column covalently bound with antibodies that attract HLA molecules. Once they washed the column to remove serum proteins, Admon and Bassani-Sternberg injected the peptides into an Orbitrap mass spectrometer to identify them. They were able to identify thousands of HLA peptides, some of which were cancer related, including tumor testis antigens, embryonic cancer antigens, and tumor-associated protein products. According to Admon, another advantage of this method is that immunoaffinity purification of the HLA molecules and their bound peptides provides researchers with an enrichment of five orders of magnitude of the biomarkers in the blood serum. The number of HLA molecules in the blood no longer matters, nor does the noise created by the other proteins in the blood.

The usefulness of the peptides as cancer biomarkers is not yet entirely clear, Admon notes. Although much work remains to be done, he is optimistic about this method’s potential in the clinic. “We think it’s going to be a universal method for finding cancer and other diseases,” he says. Before that can happen, however, the same research has to be repeated in large cohorts of patients and in healthy control subjects. Admon and his team are continuing their work and expanding beyond multiple myelomas and leukemias. The growing ubiquity — and falling cost — of mass spectrometry analysis could help make the team’s approach like this a common diagnostic test. “I envision it as a routine blood test, something rather simple,” Admon says. “But until it’s implemented in the clinic, there’s still a lot more work to do.

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The oncogenic cousin, known as SGK1, resembles the widely known AKT oncogene in structure, according to the study’s senior author Wenyi Wei, PhD, of the Department of Pathology at BIDMC and Assistant Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School (HMS).

“If we put the two proteins together, they are very similar,” explains Wei. “But in one important way they are very different. AKT is stable, it lives for a long time. But SGK1 has a very short lifespan, and proteins with short lifespans tend to be powerful. Everybody’s eye [has been] on AKT, but you have to wonder if this little cousin of AKT can do all the things AKT does.” Wei and his team, therefore, set out to better understand how cells control SGK1.

Previous research showed that the protein Rictor forms a multi-protein complex called mTORC2 that activates both AKT and SGK1. Wei’s team cultured cells lacking Rictor to observe the effect on SGK1. Surprisingly, they found that SGK1 levels increased.

“We said, that cannot be,” notes Wei. “How could we get rid of the protein kinase that activates SGK1 and still have the SGK1 levels be heightened?”

They found their answer when they observed that the cells weren’t producing more SGK1; rather, SGK1 was living longer. This suggested to the scientists that Rictor might be playing a role in the destruction of SGK1. And, in subsequent experiments, Wei found that SGK1 is indeed held in check by a protein complex made up of Rictor, Cullin-1, Rbx1, and possibly other components. The protein complex forms a cellular garbage collector called an E3 ligase that degrades SGK1 so it cannot build up.

“The protein Rictor is modular and multifunctional,” said Wei. “Its function depends on its partners.” This observation suggests that some proteins may act like a central machine that can work with a variety of attachments, the same way a construction vehicle can change its function depending on whether it’s wielding a bulldozer or a crane. “With further study,” he adds, “we may find more proteins [like Rictor] that have multiple functions. When a cell makes a protein this big, isn’t it a waste of energy to have only one function?”

Wei’s team further observed that once SGK1 begins to accumulate, it turns right around and interrupts the Rictor-Cullin1 complex, stifling it’s garbage collection activities. “It looks like a positive feedback loop that serves to increase SGK1,” says Wei.

“The novelty and significance of this work lies in the discovery of a role for Rictor in destroying SGK1, a key regulator of cell growth and cell death that is frequently associated with human cancers,” said Marion Zatz, PhD, who manages cell cycle grants at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “The finding suggests that faulty regulation of Rictor may play a part in some forms of cancer, and could offer us a new target for treating the disease.”

While the exact role of SGK1 in tumor growth isn’t yet clear, Wei speculates that SGK1 may play a role in cancer by hijacking a cell’s metabolism, just as its close cousin AKT does. “This mechanism we discovered may be part of what drives overexpression of SGK1,” he adds.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a patient care, teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School and consistently ranks in the top four in National Institutes of Health funding among independent hospitals nationwide. BIDMC is a clinical partner of the Joslin Diabetes Center and a research partner of the Harvard/Dana-Farber Cancer Center. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox. For more information, visit www.bidmc.org.

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BIOINFORM. For the Bio industry

This brand new magazine seems to be very promising since it helps the bio-community to be updated with the floating news in this industry and understand each other researchers and advance local and global collaboration. In BioInform one can find personal columns written by senior scientists , the favorite topics that involve stem cell research, Genetics, Neurology, a patent attorney that introduces us the patent world in biology and the wide legal aspects that stand behind it and all in all uses an economic approach that gives a sense of what is the true status of this industry and even runs a trivia section and a technological section for commercial advantages of the ever changing market.

The magazine is delivered for free at the different laboratories and biological facilities.

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10 more years!

Yes. It is about time to open your calendars and write down the next date: May 23-25 2011. ILSI-BioMed Israel 2011, that is.

The 10th international Life Science & Technology Week is just around the corner. Time do flies… The event follows the highly successful 2010 BioMed conference which attracted more than 6000 participants from 51 countries. What an event!

ILSI-BioMed 2011 will present high-quality program, featuring top-notch industry executives. Israel’s most innovative medical device and BioPharma entrepreneurs, major pharmaceutical companies, life science research leaders, policy makers and internationally prominent industry investors and the 4th international Stem Cell meeting.

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Getting your product to market as quickly as possible means your company management must navigate its way down the regulatory path wisely and efficiently. Recent changes in the regulatory environment in the U.S. and Europe can make this a challenging and confusing process.

Dr. Maria Donawa, Presdient, Roger Gray, Vice President, Quality and Regulatory, and Tami Abudi, Senior Associate, Clinical Affairs, will be presenting this half-day seminar in Israel on October 18 to help your company management steer its way clear of common problems that arise on the path to regulatory approval.

Complete program at http://www.donawa.com/medical-device/files/Oct10%20Seminar%20Program%20RLG%205Sep10.pdf. To register, contact Anita Baker at anita.b@signalbd.com.

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In people with longstanding type 2 diabetes who are at high risk for heart attack and stroke, lowering blood sugar to near-normal levels did not delay the combined risk of diabetic damage to kidneys, eyes, or nerves, but did delay several other signs of diabetic damage, a study has found.  The intensive glucose treatment was compared with standard glucose control.

These findings are from the NIH-funded Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) trial.  Although intensive treatment produced some beneficial changes, this approach was reported in 2008 to increase death rates. 

The new ACCORD findings appear June 29, 2010 in The Lancet’s special online diabetes issue, coinciding with a presentation of the study results at the American Diabetes Association’s 70th annual scientific sessions in Orlando.

Over time, diabetes damages the small blood vessels of the eyes, nerves, kidneys and other organs, leading to pain and disability.  Heart disease due to damaged large blood vessels is a major cause of death in persons with type 2 diabetes. The longer a person has diabetes, the greater the chances of serious complications, including vision loss and blindness, foot ulcers and amputations, kidney disease and kidney failure, and heart disease and stroke.

“In these ACCORD participants with established type 2 diabetes and additional risk factors for cardiovascular disease, intensive lowering of blood glucose reduced some markers of eye, nerve and kidney disease compared with standard glucose control, but the groups did not differ in the rate of progression to kidney failure, nerve disease, and major vision loss,” said lead author Faramarz Ismail-Beigi, M.D., Ph.D., of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland. 

The ACCORD clinical study compared the effect of intensive control of blood sugar, blood pressure, and blood lipids to standard, less-intensive treatments on the risk of major cardiovascular events in more than 10,000 adults with established type 2 diabetes.  The study’s intensive glycemia arm was halted in February 2008 due to excess deaths in that group.  At that time, participants in the intensively treated group were moved to standard glucose control.

At enrollment, ACCORD participants averaged 62 years of age and were obese.  In addition to having type 2 diabetes for an average of 10 years, about one-third had pre-existing heart disease, and the remainder had at least two additional cardiovascular disease risk factors. They also had high blood sugar, as measured by the hemoglobin A1C test, which shows average blood sugar in the preceding two to three months.  Half of participants had an A1C over 8.1 percent— above the currently recommended target for good control.   A1C values in people without diabetes are less than 6 percent.

Previously reported results showed that over about three-and-a-half years of follow up, participants in the intensive blood sugar group had a 22 percent higher risk of death (5 percent versus 4 percent) and a three times higher risk of seriously low blood sugar (10.5 percent versus 3.5 percent) compared with participants in the standard blood sugar control group.

A secondary goal of the ACCORD blood sugar trial was to determine the effects of near-normal glucose control compared with standard control on microvascular, or small blood vessel, damage to organs and tissues.  Earlier, well conducted clinical trials in patients with newly diagnosed type 1 and type 2 diabetes had proven lowering blood sugar levels reduced eye, nerve and kidney disease.  ACCORD builds on this earlier data by studying benefits of further reduction of glucose to targets near normal, and by studying participants with long-standing rather than newly diagnosed diabetes.

In ACCORD, the A1C target for the intensively treated group was less than 6 percent, a level seen in adults without diabetes and significantly lower than the levels tested in earlier trials.  The goal for standard control was an A1C of 7 to 7.9 percent, an average range achieved by individuals treated for type 2 diabetes in the United States.  Both groups were treated with Food and Drug Administration-approved diabetes medications, as prescribed by their study clinician.

Eye, nerve, and kidney complications in the two groups were compared after 3.7 years, when intensive control was halted, and again at the study’s end after 5 years.  When intensive glucose treatment was halted in the group receiving such treatment, half those participants had an A1C of 6.4 percent or lower, which rose to 7.2 percent at study end.  In the standard treatment group, that A1C measure was 7.5 percent, rising to 7.6 percent by the end of the study.

The treatment groups did not differ in the rate of progression to kidney failure, major vision loss, or advanced peripheral neuropathy, a common nerve problem in diabetes that usually begins as tingling or numbness in the feet.  However, people in intensive control had less deterioration in a vision test, and 20 percent fewer cataract surgeries compared with those in standard control.  They also had a 30 percent lower rate of protein leakage in the urine, a sign of kidney disease and increased risk of heart disease.  Testing for vibratory sensation, an indicator of nerve health, showed no difference between the groups, but the intensively controlled group scored better on other nerve tests. 

ACCORD is continuing follow-up to assess whether the early changes seen in this study will result in differences in blindness, nephropathy and neuropathy. “The study had a relatively short time period – 3.7 years – to see significant differences in serious complications.  Diabetes is a chronic disease, and prevention of complications should be measured over many years,” said Ismail-Beigi.

The effects of intensive blood sugar control on vision are consistent with findings from the ACCORD Eye Study, which explored the effects of intensive treatments on progression of diabetic retinopathy in a subset of about 3,000 ACCORD participants. The most common cause of vision loss in working-age Americans, diabetic retinopathy is a disease in which blood vessels in the eye’s light-sensitive retinal tissue are damaged by diabetes. Intensive blood sugar control was found to be beneficial in retarding the progression of diabetic retinopathy.

“ACCORD provides important data on the risks and benefits of intensive glucose control in people with established type 2 diabetes,” said Susan B. Shurin, M.D., acting director of the NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).  “Although increasing treatment to try to achieve near-normal blood sugar provides some benefit, clinicians and patients should note that this treatment strategy also potentially increases the risk of adverse effects in patients with additional risk factors for heart disease, such as those studied in ACCORD.” 

“Earlier landmark trials have proven that intensive glucose control early in the course of diabetes provides long-term benefits in reducing microvascular complications.  ACCORD fills an important gap by studying adults with diabetes later in the disease and examining even more stringent glucose control than that previously proven beneficial,” said Judith Fradkin, M.D., director of the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolic Diseases of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).  “This new information will help tailor therapy for individuals with long established diabetes who are at high risk of cardiovascular events or already have cardiovascular disease.” 

About 24 million people in the United States have diabetes. It is the main cause of kidney failure, limb amputations, and new onset blindness in adults and a major cause of heart disease and stroke. Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for up to 95 percent of all diabetes cases, becomes more common with increasing age.  It is strongly associated with obesity, physical inactivity, family history of diabetes, history of gestational diabetes (diabetes that occurs during pregnancy), and impaired glucose metabolism, and it is more common in minority groups.  The prevalence of diagnosed diabetes has more than doubled in the last 30 years, due in large part to the upsurge in obesity and aging of the population.

The NHLBI is the primary sponsor of ACCORD, with additional funding and scientific expertise contributed by the NIDDK. Other components of the NIH — the National Institute on Aging and National Eye Institute — as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, supported sub-studies. The following companies provided study medications, equipment, or supplies: Abbott Laboratories, Amylin Pharmaceutical, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, Bayer HealthCare LLC, Closer Healthcare Inc., GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, King Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Merck & Co., Inc., Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Novo Nordisk, Inc., Omron Healthcare, Inc., Sanofi-Aventis U.S., and Takeda Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Source: NIH News

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Following the opening words of the event’s organizers, ILSI and Kenes, the president of Israel Shimon Peres came up to the stage and surveyed the future of Israel, which will be based on advanced technologies and serve as an example to the entire world. In his own words, “Israel should become an international lab.” Amen to that.

Neither did the following opening keynote lecture disappoint. Sanofi-Aventis, the multinational pharmaceutical company and the world’s fourth-largest by prescription sales, has presented its new view of developing new products. The lecturer divided the pharmaceutical market into two distinct sections: the small biotechnology companies, and the large business companies. The first kind is usually headed by innovative and creative scientists whose expertise is thinking outside the box. They have good ideas, but they lack the experience needed to break through in the market. That’s what the big pharma companies do exceptionally well: they have all the experience and knowledge needed to succeed in the market, but they lack the ground-breaking minds that can be found in the smaller companies.

The solution, according to Sanofi-Aventis, lies in collaboration. Well, that didn’t require a genius to figure out. Then again, such a collaboration is not easily brought about. On the one hand, the employees of the large companies view themselves as superior to those from the smaller companies. On the other hand, the scientists in the small companies treat their projects as their own personal babies, and refuse to accept criticism and ideas for change. All the same, Sanofi-Aventis is determined to bring about fruitful collaborations between the Davids and the Goliaths of the world. To that purpose, they have cut down their portfolio by 40%, and rewired all the human resources and money that became available into new projects, with a core of efficient and competent employees who collaborate with a variety of other companies.

The end result: since 2010, sixty percent of the compounds in Sanofi-Aventis’ portfolio are developed via collaborations. Such collaborations can also promote projects that integrate knowledge and expertise from different fields, such as glucose sensors connected directly to an insulin pump, or robotic hands that connect to the nervous system.

Let us all hope that this trend – collaboration in place of a take-over – will become more common, and will bring about the development of novel technologies and products more efficiently and in a shorter amount of time.

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The purpose of the visit is to examine potential collaboration between the visitors and the new initiative in the Negev, BGU being one of the partners in the project. Prof. Rivka Carmi, president of the university, places a great amount of value in the initiative, which can be directed to promote the fields of life sciences and biotechnology in the area.

“Bio-Negev was founded so as to classify the Negev as an international center for the biotechnology and life sciences industry.” Says Dr. Shay Yarkoni, Bio-Negev’s CEO and chairman of the advisory board of the export institute in the life sciences field. Yarkoni, a medical doctor and a senior manager in the biotechnology industry, has emphasized that Bio-Negev is today the only cluster from Israel that is also a partner of the steering committee of the European CEBR, and that it will integrate resources and existing abilities (academic, clinical and industrial) and will act towards the establishment of industrial foundations in the area and serve as an epicenter that will attract monetary, organizations, management and human resources to the Negev.

Source: Ben-Gurion University’s press release

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The Coming ILSI–Biomed Israel 2010 Week: The Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute: Life Sciences Export Rose by 14% on the First Quarter of 2010, Summing up to the Total of ca. $1.7 Billion

“The first 2010 quarter export of the life sciences industry summed up to ca. $1.7 billion, an increase of about 14 percent compared to the same period last year. This increase is derived from a 15.4 percent increase in the export of medications, which has summed up to ca. $1.3 Billion; medical and surgical instrumentation had an increase of 7.5 percent, summing up to about $306 Million,” said Mr. Avi Hefetz, the Chief Executive Officer of the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute. The information, published based on an analysis made by the institute financial unit, was collected in view of the coming ILSI–Biomed Israel 2010 Week, the key annual life–sciences event in Israel, that will be held between June the 14th and the 16th, 2010 in the David Intercontinental hotel in Tel–Aviv.

Geographical Analysis made to the life sciences export data of the first quarter of 2010, shows that ca. 68 percent of the total export, constituting $1.1 Billion, were sent to North America, a 4 percent decrease compared to the same period last year. The export to the European union, ca. $346 Million, had a 23 percent rise compared to the same period last year. The export of the life sciences sector accounted for ca. 21 percent share of the total export. Mr. Avi Hefetz, the CEO of the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute said that compared to other sectors, the life sciences sector is not susceptible to the European union crisis. The export to Central and South America, ca. 2 percent of the life sciences sector total export, summed up to ca. $32 Million, with a 21 percent rise compared to the same period last year. The export to the Asia, ca. $76 Million, with a 19 percent rise compared to the same period last year, constituted about 4.5 percent of the sector total export. The sector export to Africa summed up to ca. $3.8 Million, which is about 0.2 percent of the sector total export during the first quarter.

The life sciences industry 2009 total export summed up to $6 Billion, 8 percent decrease compared to the same period last year. This decrease resulted from a 7 percent reduction in the medication export, which was ca. $4.6 Billion in the previous year. The clinical equipment and instrumentation export had a reduction of ca. 13 percent, summing up to $1.4 Billion.

Geographic division of the sector 2009 export shows that 71 percent of the total export, constituting $4.3 Billion, were to North America. The export to the European Union summed up to ca. $1.1 Billion and constituted 19 percent of the export of the entire sector. The export to Central and South America, ca. 2 percent of the life sciences industry total export, summed up to ca. $98 Million, and the export to the Asia, ca. $289 Million, constituted about 5 percent of the sector total export.

Two hundred and sixty five life sciences companies exported in 2009 more than $100,000: 31 exporters exported more than $10 Million, 47 exporters exported between $2 and $10 Million and 187 small exporters exported between $100,000 and $2 Million.

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