BioMed Central Blog
LabArchives and the BioMed Central Research Awards
Guest blog post by Earl Beutler, President and CEO of LabArchives, sponsors of BioMed Central's Open Data Award. This has also been posted to LabArchives' Blog.
I have just returned from London where, among other things, I was proud to represent LabArchives in presenting the BioMed Central “Open Data Award” that was sponsored by our organization. At the well attended 6th Annual event, BioMed Central’s Research Awards celebrated excellence in scientific research made freely available through open access publishing within their portfolio of over 200 journals and are much like the “Academy Awards” for science.
We are very proud to be sponsoring the Open Data Award this year and are also very excited about our recently announced partnership with BioMed Central. As you may know, LabArchives offers a web-based solution for the problem of storing, organizing, sharing and publishing scientific data. Investigators who use LabArchives are able to automatically share data sets with individuals or with the public at large and can easily assign a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to these data.
BioMed Central authors can obtain a complimentary subscription to LabArchives that enables them to store up to 100 MB of data, a portion or all of which can be published in connection with, or separately from, a journal article.
As the scientific community continues to embrace the concept of open data, it is important that the process of sharing information be as simple and seamless as possible. At LabArchives, we are dedicated to creating easy-to-use and affordable products to bring this important goal to fruition.
The Open Data Award seeks to recognize researchers who have published in BioMed Central journals and have demonstrated leadership in the sharing, standardization, publication, or re-use of biomedical research data. This year we genuinely had the strongest shortlist yet, with excellent nominees from fields as diverse as microbiology, health geographics, rheumatology, clinical medicine, genomics and chemistry.
This year, the winning paper was “The International Stroke Trial database” by Peter AG Sandercock, Maciej Niewada, Anna Członkowska, and the International Stroke Trial Collaborative Group, published in the journal, Trials.
Peter Sandercock and colleagues published “The International Stroke Trial database” paper and data set in the journal Trials with the primary purpose of making individual patient data from the International Stroke Trial (IST) available for public use. With more than 19,000 patients this was one of the largest randomized trials ever conducted in acute stroke. The results of the International Stroke Trial were first published in the Lancet in 1997 but the data, which are highly valuable for secondary research, were not publicly available until this article was published, in April 2011.
Sharing and publishing clinical trial data is much needed to improve the reliability and efficiency of health research but remains very uncommon, particularly on such a large scale. Included with the paper was a spreadsheet with the anonymized data from the many patients in the trial. As well as being transparent the authors have been responsible and adhered to available best practice guidelines on protecting anonymity. The paper got the judges’ attention right from the start of and the decision was, remarkably and uniquely for this award, unanimous.
The authors should be commended for their efforts to make such a large amount of data available as data sharing on this scale in clinical medicine shows real leadership. The background care patients received in the nineties is representative of stroke trials currently ongoing in developing countries making the data particularly helpful for planning new trials in these areas – which face a future epidemic of non-communicable diseases such as stroke.
In addition to the well-deserved recognition for their contribution, the authors receive a cash award which we hope will serve as a small token of the appreciation from the publishing and scientific communities, as well as an additional incentive for other scientists to publish important data that may more quickly advance the progress of science in ending disease and improving our understanding of the world around us.
LabArchives is very proud to be participating in these awards, and looks forward to continuing our involvement for many years to come. I would like to personally thank the members of the BioMed Central team who organized and attended the Awards and created a truly enjoyable evening for me personally as well as everyone in attendance.
Posted by Iain Hrynaszkiewicz at 17:15 Comments (0)
Register now to receive the next Current Controlled Trials (CCT) newsletter
The first edition of the Current Controlled Trials quarterly
newsletter was published in April 2012, and we hope that our users find this
newsletter informative. If you missed it, you can register to receive future editions. We
encourage you to share these updates with friends and colleagues and to send
any feedback you may have on the current issue or on content that you would
like to see in future issues.
The ISRCTN register works closely with the Department of Health and has been involved in a national initiative, ‘UK Clinical Trials Gateway (UKCTG)’, which aims to bring clinical trials to the attention of a wider audience. The key to the success of the UKCTG is providing the public with easy to understand information about clinical trials running in the UK. In June 2011, the ISRCTN register introduced a new lay summary field to include a plain English description of the trial, which is unique amongst trial registries.
To further promote transparency in clinical research and reduce reporting bias, in 2011 BioMed Central launched the initiative ‘threaded publications’, which puts trial registration – the first in a sequence of publications about a trial which might also include protocols and results – at the forefront of transparent reporting.
Finally, in 2012 we will be surveying our users on the functionality of the ISRCTN database and are eager to hear from trialists, researchers, systematic reviewers, health policy makers, patients and health professionals about how we can improve the database. To find out more please register to receive the newsletter, or submit your feedback online.
Posted by Smitha Vadakkeparambil at 16:50 Comments (0)
Male infertility and DNA repair genes
Infertility is an important clinical problem, with around one in seven couples having difficulty conceiving. There are many possible causes, and abnormal semen accounts for around 40–50% of infertility. This includes conditions such azoospermia, where sperm is absent in the semen, and oligospermia, where only a very low concentration of sperm is present.
Although there are many treatment options for infertility, further work is required to identify the underlying causes in order to uncover new therapeutic targets and risk factors. In a research article published in BMC Medicine, Guixiang Ji and colleagues discovered a number of new genetic risk factors for male infertility.
The authors focused their studies on DNA mismatch repair genes, which have a critical role in the maintenance of sperm DNA. Defects in sperm DNA are known to be involved in male infertility, but the cause of such problems is poorly understood. Ji and colleagues showed that single nucleotide polymorphism genetic alterations in the mismatch repair genes MLH1, PMS2 and MSH5 are risk factors for azoospermia and oligospermia. The authors also identified a number of genetic changes responsible for sperm DNA damage in men with normal sperm counts, which could confer risk of infertility.
Together, the results indicate that genetic alterations in mismatch repair genes increase the risk of male infertility. The findings increase our understanding of the role of genetic factors in sperm DNA damage, and could have important implications for analysing the success of assisted reproduction. In the future, 
this research should be extended to look at the interactions between different genes, as well as between genes and environmental factors that could also influence the risk of male infertility.
Posted by Claire Tree-Booker at 12:13 Comments (0)
Sustainability of open access publishing in Africa
Science and innovation are key to sustainable development in Africa. Access to, and maximum visibility of, research underpin this. Open access allows free access to and distribution of published articles meaning that individuals aren’t limited to just seeing content from the journals they have subscribed to. Authors retain copyright of their work through a Creative Commons attribution license. They or anyone else can distribute it and reuse it as needed. The resulting increased prominence of published work plays a role in the development of research culture. Open access also provides international visibility, which raises the profile of African research and enables researchers to participate more fully in the international community. African journals which focus on regionally relevant results are vital, and need support. Enabling them to be open access brings the all of the benefits just described.
Discussions at the Open Access Africa conference, held in Kumasi in October 2011 highlighted the need for a conversation to be started to discuss how to ensure that open access research and journals published from Africa could be supported and be made sustainable. There are many parties discussing ways to create long term solutions for funding open access research in Africa, including governmental and non-governmental bodies, universities, research funders and editors and publishers of journals of importance to African researchers. On 17th May, the key actors from these groups came together at a meeting, hosted by the Wellcome Trust and BioMed Central, to share experience and knowledge with the aim of coming up with some ideas for long-term solutions for open access research funding within Africa. Topics discussed included what sustainability actually means for open access research and journals in Africa, capacity building for researchers wanting to publish their research and for those wishing to run open access journals in Africa, how to build commitment and buy in from funders, institutions and key influencers in African research, and how to ensure effective communication and advocacy for OA in Africa. The meeting concluded by agreeing a set of actions concerning sustainability, capacity building and advocacy that we will take forward in anticipation of a second meeting to be held in Capetown, in early November.
Participants included representatives from AJOL, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bioline International, BioMed Central, Carnegie Corporation, DFID, INASP/ Publishers for Development, KNUST, Medicins Sans Frontiers, Pan African Medical Journal, Public Library of Science, Shuttleworth Foundation, Stellenbosch University, The Association of Commonwealth Universities, UNECA , Wellcome Trust, WHO, World Bank.
Posted by Hilary Glover at 11:06 Comments (0)
Bipolar disorder: mind and body
This guest blog is written by Dr Georgina Hosang, who is an ESRC/MRC Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Fellow from the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. Her research focuses on understanding the role of life stress in bipolar disorder and major depression and their interaction with genetic factors.
In the spirit of Mental Health Awareness Week from 21 to 27 May 2012 and new developments discussed at the international society of bipolar disorders earlier this year, bipolar disorder is the topic of discussion. This is a serious psychiatric illness characterised by extreme fluctuations in mood, ranging from depression to elation or irritability (hypomania or mania), sometimes accompanied by psychotic features (e.g. hallucinations and delusions).
Bipolar episodes are highly recurrent which can be extremely disabling and cause much distress to the individual and their families. For example, it is associated with impaired work performance and relationship dysfunction as well as premature mortality. Broadly defined bipolar disorder affects 2.4% of the population worldwide, including a number of successful public figures, such as Stephen Fry and Frank Bruno, who have spoken openly about their illness and experiences. They are good examples of individuals with bipolar disorder who successfully manage their illness and make a significant contribution to society.
Adding to such burden is the increasing recognition of the high rates of medical conditions among people with bipolar disorder (and other psychiatric illnesses). Suffering from mental and physical illnesses simultaneously can be stressful and traumatic, impacting on recovery and management of both conditions. This phenomenon creates many complications for practitioners, particularly for detection and diagnosis of physical illnesses. Providing effective treatment for both groups of disorders can be especially challenging for health care professionals. Against this background the high impact of the comorbidity between physical and mental illnesses has been acknowledged by the UK Government through their ‘No health without mental health’ strategy'.
The factors which contribute to the comorbidity between bipolar disorder and physical illnesses are largely unknown. Side effects of long-term psychotropic medication use, genetic influences and unhealthy lifestyle choices (e.g. poor diet and lack of exercise) have been highlighted as likely culprits. Our limited understanding of the mechanisms and risk factors which lead to the co-occurrence of physical and mental illnesses heralds a new era of research. Researchers are investing much effort in this plight and upcoming results promise to progress the field and will hopefully lead to the development of more effective intervention and treatment strategies improving the lives of many bipolar disorder patients.
Posted by Ursula D'Souza at 17:13 Comments (0)
An Emirates hat-trick for BMC Biology authors
This week saw the annual BMC Research Awards presentations, in the Emirates Stadium and with a sports science theme, to acknowledge the forthcoming London Olympics. BMC Biology is very happy to be able to congratulate the authors of three BMC Biology papers that won awards reflecting the diversity of interesting topics on which we publish:-
Alexei Korennykh and colleagues won the General Biology award for their research on how ADP binding can tune the kinase in the activation of Ire, the remarkable bifunctional kinase-RNase whose activity directs the alternative splicing of a key transcription factor in the rescue program in response to the toxic accumulation of unfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum.
The Molecular and Cellular Science award was taken by Judith Goodship and colleagues with an article examining the molecular details behind Ellis-van Creveld syndrome, a genetic disorder with distinctive growth defects caused by migration in the Evc protein. The authors identified a novel binding partner for Evc – Evc2 – and identify that both bind together within the basal body of the cilia, activating the hedgehog signaling pathway.
Felipe Vilas-Boas, Rita Fior, Kate Storey and colleagues were the recipients of the prize for Neuroscience, Neurology and Psychiatry for their article detailing a new reporter for detecting the activity of the Notch signaling pathway, which is involved in specification of neural cell fates. This reporter is based on a downstream promoter from a Notch target gene, Hes5-1, coupled with instability elements and a new fluorescent protein (VNP), and provides a reliable readout of Notch activity. The advantage is that the authors can now achieve single cell resolution and real time imaging, enabling more dynamic analysis of Notch activity.
Congratulations again to all our winners.
Posted by Kester Jarvis at 17:31 Comments (0)
Autism is a highly prevalent developmental condition, affecting millions of people worldwide. Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, highlighted the necessity to focus our attention on autism in his message marking the 5th annual World Autism Awareness Day on April 2 2012, stating that autism is a ‘worldwide challenge that requires global action’. The International Meeting for Autism Research, currently taking place in Toronto, Canada, further reinforces this need for action by aiming to ‘stimulate research progress in understanding the nature, causes, and treatments’ for autism spectrum disorders.
In keeping with this topical field of research, ‘Reward processing in autism’, a new thematic series published by Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, is a collection of research articles and reviews that consider autism from the novel perspective of deficits in reward processing. This series, guest edited by Dr Gabriel S. Dichter and Professor Ralph Adolphs, aims to encourage other researchers to consider this research framework as a means of understanding the variability in treatment response to autism. It is hoped that this series will help to guide new approaches to diagnosis and intervention in autism.
A number of the premier autism researchers have contributed to the articles in this series, considering topics ranging from neural responses to primary rewards to social preferences in terms of charitable donations and social ‘wanting’ dysfunction in autism. The first four articles in the series are now available to read here, with a further six to follow. To find out when the remaining articles in the series are published, and to keep up-to-date with all of the latest research published in the journal, register for article alerts.
Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, overseen by Editor-in-Chief Joseph Piven, is a fully open-access journal which publishes cutting-edge research across a number of disciplines ranging from neurobiology and genetics to cognitive neuroscience and psychology. For more information about the journal, please visit the journal ‘about’ page.
Posted by Alice Ridgway at 16:19 Comments (0)
Did Schroedinger's cat have a genome?: Genome Biology at Biology of Genomes 2012
Imagine an RNA molecule keeping company with an RNA editing enzyme, both inside a sealed box. If no observer is able to witness an editing event, will it ever really occur?
Lior Pachter (UC Berkeley) did not go quite so far as this Gedankenexperiment in teasing the audience at Cold Spring Harbor's Biology of Genomes 2012 conference, but did make the provokative claim that it may never be possible to call with certainty individual RNA editing events.
Uncertainty principles abounded in Debbie Nickerson's (University of Washington) invited presentation on exome sequencing - exomics has proved reasonably successful with Mendelian disorders, but will its application to complex traits - that she and others are now undertaking - pay off? Fellow speaker Mark McCarthy has calculated that 20k-30k exomes will be needed to achieve sufficient power for Type II Diabetes genetic association studies.
Nickerson's talk was an engaging meander through a career that has paralleled the evolution of genome biology research; part-history of science, part-autobiography (Barbara McClintock on how to handle science's alpha males: "Forget 'em!"), part-cutting edge genomics...and a puzzling slide featuring a gnome (cryptic depiction of a genome harboring a deleterious deletion?).
Nickerson emphasized the value of ensuring her exome sequencing data are readily available to other researchers, as she has done with the Exome Variant Server. This data sharing spirit was also apparent in a number of talks making use of 1000 Genomes, ENCODE or modENCODE datasets - clear evidence that large data collections are increasingly informing the discourse of genome biology, whatever one thinks about the cost effectiveness of "big science" data generation consortia.
While ENCODE and the like have sequenced DNA purified from vast numbers of cells, other presenters showed the potential of single cell sequencing as a new angle for characterizing processes such as meitoic recombination and tumor evolution. Elaine Mardis (WUSTL) and Paul Spellman (LBL) countered that high quality data and well thought out analytical approaches can also provide important insights into tumor evolution, and without the sample mass limitations of current single cell sequencing methods.
The meeting's talks spanned a pleasingly broad spectrum of topics - from shaggy dog stories (genetics of fur color) to assertions that reports of the Y chromosome's certain death have likely been exaggerated. The power of science as a tool to unravel the human story was impressively laid out by Jonathan Pritchard (University of Chicago), Jeff Kidd (University of Michigan) and Simon Myers (University of Oxford). Myers' sparkling exploration of the synergy between admixture traces and recorded history indulged and delighted the audience with some juicy Sherlock Holmes-cum-CSI "a-ha!" moments, by way of Genghis Khan and Alexander The Great - two alpha males that human geneticists would certainly be ill advised to forget.
Posted by Naomi Attar at 12:25 Comments (0)
BMC Structural Biology gets some SAXS appeal
Despite their name, biological macromolecules are
actually pretty small, and it can be tough determining their structure. Many
techniques have been developed over the last century to bypass the limits of
conventional light microscopy, to peer deeper into the shapes and functions of key molecules
like proteins and nucleic acids.
Determining with accuracy the exact shapes of these molecules is crucial if we are to gain an understanding of just how interactions in this giant molecular jigsaw maintain the essential biological processes of life.
One promising approach is Small-Angle Scattering (SAS).
This technique of low-resolution analysis utilises high-powered X-ray or
neutron beams fired at samples from a synchrotron source (similar to the Large
Hadron Collider) or nuclear reactor to reconstruct the shape of molecules from the shadow left
behind after the beam passes through.
Unlike long-established high-resolution techniques like crystallography, SAS is able to probe the shapes of macromolecules in solution, rather than requiring fixation within a solid crystal. This means that molecules can be studied in more biologically realistic conditions, and without having to wait for samples to crystallize.
However, until now SAS has yet to establish a publication framework emphasising quality assurance to help guide researchers—something that was crucial to the scientific development of these other fields.
In a Commentary article published today in BMC Structural Biology, Professor Jill Trewhella and colleagues outline the guidelines recently drawn up by The International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) for the reporting of data derived from SAS studies, and discuss why such a framework is necessary for the development and establishment of this emerging technique. This compliments nicely a recent exposition of these guidelines from the same group, and an accompanying piece by Edward Baker and Zbigniew Dauter on the future of the field.
This is the first of a number of articles to be published in BMC Structural Biology focusing on developments in the analysis of biological macromolecules using SAS techniques, co-ordinated by Section Editor Paul Ramsland and deputy Section Editor Cy Jeffries. A forthcoming Review from the lab of Andrej Sali highlights recent advances in the development of computational methods using SAXS profiles (from an X-ray source), and how these can be integrated into theoretical models for enhanced accuracy in structure prediction.
BMC Structural Biology would like to issue an open invitation to all researchers working in the field of structure determination using SAS techniques to get in touch and get involved– we would be delighted to consider your contribution to this exciting field.
Posted by Simon Harold at 10:27 Comments (0)
BioMed Central announces winners of 6th Annual Research Awards
Open access publisher BioMed Central revealed the
winners of their 6th
Annual Research Awards
last night at Emirates Stadium, London, UK. Celebrating the very best research
that has been made available by open access publishing, more than 100 guests
attended the prestigious ceremony including leading researchers, shortlisted
authors and science journalists from around the world.
The winners were selected by internationally renowned judges from over 230 BioMed Central journals which published more than 18,000 peer-reviewed open access articles over the last 12 months.
BioMed Central Research Award
The overall winner of the prestigious BioMed Central Research Award, selected from a shortlist consisting of the winners of the 10 subject categories, was Áine McKnight Professor of Viral Pathology at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary, University of London (Microbiology, Immunology, Infection and Inflammation Prize) for her work ‘A whole genome screen for HIV restriction factors’ Retrovirology 2011, 8:94
Áine was educated in Dublin, Ireland. She studied for her PhD with Professors Robin Weiss and Paul Clapham on antibody mediated neutralization and tropism of HIV (at ICR and UCL, London). As an early Research Wellcome Trust Career Fellow, and later as a Medical Research Council (UK) Senior Fellow, she developed her own research interest into the pathology of HIV and factors that restrict infection of the host target cell by HIV.
Open Data Award, sponsored by LabArchives,
Peter AG Sandercock, University of Edinburgh
‘The International Stroke Trial database’ Trials 2011, 12:101 (21 April 2011)
Sharing and publishing clinical trial data is
important to improve the reliability and efficiency of health research. With
more than 19,000 patients this study was one of the largest randomized trials
ever conducted in acute stroke. The results of the International Stroke Trial
were first published in the Lancet in 1997 but publication of this database means
that anonymous, individual patient data from the International Stroke Trial
(IST) is now available.
Case Report of the Year
Jaewoo Pak, Miplant Stems Clinic, Korea
Journal of Medical Case Reports 2011, 5:296 (7 July 2011)
Jaewoo Pak is a Korean-American who works in Seoul, Korea. He works on regenerative medicine using fat-derived stem cells for cartilage and bone regeneration. Recently, he also has started research on hair re-growth.
Editor of the Year
Marcel Hommel, enthusiastic EiC of Malaria Journal. Over the past year Marcel has been involved in not only his own journal and the supplementary projects, including an ongoing series with the WHO (publishing WHO global malaria recommendations this month), but also has been a staunch supporter of Open Access in Africa.
Open Access Advocate of the Year
Helena Asamoah-Hassan, Kwame Nkrumah University of
Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. Helena has been instrumental in creating
the Open Access mandate at KNUST, ensuring that they became our first Southern
Foundation Member and has been tireless in her support of our Open
Access Africa Event
including acting as host for the conference in 2011.
Matthew Cockerill, Managing
Director of BioMed Central, said: "Choosing winners for each of the
categories was no easy feat so I would like to extend my gratitude to our
judging panels and my congratulations to the deserving winners for their
outstanding achievements. We would also like to
thank our new partners LabArchives for their support of the Open Data award."
Posted by Hilary Glover at 10:05 Comments (0)
Breaking walls and mending organs
In a recent Comment in BMC Biology, Gregory Petsko appeals to some particularly surprising patterns of comorbidity in support of the argument for breaking the traditional boundaries between disciplines in translational research. This ever-topical issue featured at a recent panel session combining two parallel Keystone conferences on Regenerative Tissue Engineering and Transplantation and Mechanisms of Whole Organ Regeneration (co-organized by Rocky S. Tuan and Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado conference), with discussion on how to overcome the main obstacles to translation of basic research into the clinic.
What enables successful translation to the clinic? Michele de Luca was highlighted as a scientist who has made this happen, with success in transplanting human cornea grown from patient’s limbal stem cells in the laboratory. Kenneth R. Chien called for a generation of “scienteers” – researchers with multi-disciplinary training in both basic research and tissue engineering. Practical needs include the establishment of appropriate manufacturing standards (GMP); use of FDA approved materials; methods to deliver technologies, for example, how to implant cells; and develop better animal models applicable to cells or drugs for therapeutic use in humans (with a move away from a focus on mice).
As a final conclusion to the panel discussions, it was agreed that funding bodies (especially the NIH) could do more to promote such interdisciplinary interactions but also that scientists need to write grants in such a way to make this happen. Leading on from this, the panel promoted publication of work in open access general journals to reach “beyond your immediate community”. With this in mind, we welcome such submissions!
J Ann Le Good, Deputy Editor, BMC Biology
Posted by Alice Plane at 17:07 Comments (0)
The future of evolutionary epidemiology
The impending age of big data has been inescapable in recent discourse, both scientific and otherwise. The prevailing metaphors cast big data as a tsunami or an avalanche, suggesting natural disaster poised to dash hapless researchers against the rocks. They are, of course, no such thing, and offer many opportunities provided that one is prepared. Some of these opportunities were on show at the Royal Society discussion meeting on “Next-generation molecular and evolutionary epidemiology of infectious disease”.
One focus, inevitably, was next-generation sequencing, with Paul Kellam speaking about its importance in tracking the spread of the three waves of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic at a population level; but also for following the rapid spread of polymorphisms though the virus population within a single patient. Bill Hanage discussed the use of whole-genome data to investigate phylogenetic relationships within highly recombinogenic bacteria like Streptococcus pneumoniae, for which traditional genetic methods simply can’t cut it.
Some notes of restraint were sounded too. Dan Haydon told a cautionary tale about the current inability of deep sequencing to separate foot-and-mouth virus variation within an individual from technical noise, and suggested that in evolutionary studies of this virus, variation between individuals is the highest resolution at which we can currently make reliable inferences (the resulting graphs using "1 cow" as a basic unit of time amused, although we don’t imagine it shall become an SI unit any time soon). Contrary to the “sequence everything” school of thought, Sharon Peacock of the Health Protection Agency made the case for sparing use of whole-genome sequencing in clinical microbiology, where phenotypic tests still offer good effectiveness for their cost and in the majority of cases sequencing is an unnecessary expense.
Epidemiologists are perhaps uniquely interested in co-mapping phylogenetic and spatial data, given the power of explicitly tracking the recent history of disease spread, and there were a number of talks on the potential for spatial phylodynamics in modelling the spread of diseases including rabies and influenza. Perhaps the most striking example of the efficacy of this approach was given by Sharon Peacock, who showed how whole genome sequencing of MRSA allowed spatial mapping of its spread at the resolution of wards within a single hospital.
However, collecting spatial data is no straightforward task, and the future of surveillance was a popular subject. Simon Hay discussed a project to update global risk maps for disease, which are “often diabolical”, through careful curation via survey of the existing data and literature – but this is very costly in time and resources, and the future of this kind of curation might be driven by automated data-mining of resources such as PubMed and GenBank. Larry Brilliant spoke about Google.org’s Flu Trends, which tracks outbreaks through users’ flu-related search terms with surprising success – often reporting peaks in flu activity a week or two ahead of the CDC’s GP-reported data – and went on to give an overview and endorsement of the current trend for web-based crowd-sourcing of reports through sites like HealthMap and ProMED.
Readers will, of course, be wondering about the privacy issues related to these new kinds of data-collection methods, and this was on attendees’ minds too. Nowhere is the discord between the need for patient privacy and the public health benefits of data release more apparent than epidemiology, where the geographic location of a patient – a key piece of information – goes a considerable way to revealing their identity. One unsavoury possibility is the future prospect of using a combination of genetic and epidemiological data to personally identify a key patient; say, “patient zero” for a particular pandemic, or an infection-multiplying “superspreader” for HIV – although it is important to emphasise that neither of these is likely at present. The discussion of these issues was only one aspect of a lively panel discussion to close the meeting, which also took in issues of data quality and accessibility, and how encouraging data citability might be one way to solve them. (Those interested in data citation might like to read the recent blog post and associated BMC Research Notes article on the current gold standard).
For those whose interest in evolutionary epidemiology has been piqued, suggested further reading in BMC Biology comes from Trevor Bedford and colleagues’ recent research modelling the evolutionary reasons for strikingly low standing diversity in the H3N2 flu virus; and Nobel laureate Peter Doherty and colleague Paul Thomas's comment on why knowing which mutations to look for in natural H5N1 flu reservoirs is more important than the perceived dangers which lead to the redaction – now reversed – of the description of particularly virulent laboratory strains.
Posted by Kester Jarvis at 14:19 Comments (0)
World Information Society
Day aims to help raise awareness of the many possibilities that the
internet, and other information and communication technologies (ICT), can offer
to societies and economies as well as a way to help bridge the digital divide.
What was once known as the World Telecommunication Day, which celebrated and acknowledged the development in the advances of communication technology, the 17th May continues to mark the anniversary of the founding of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention in 1865. In November 2005 the World Summit on the Information Society called upon the UN General Assembly to declare the 17th May as World Information Society Day.
As a follow up from the recent launch of ITU’s new global campaign ‘Tech Needs Girls’ this year’s theme is ‘Women and Girls in ICT’ which hopes to highlight the gender inequality that remains deeply entrenched in underprivileged populations and communities. With women and girls being denied access to basic health care, education and to equal opportunities at work, the 2012 theme aims to enforce gender equality as a basic human right and provides the chance for the vulnerable half of the population to march forward as equals.
ITU, UNESCO, UNCTAD and UNDP are actively taking part in the day by co-organising the WSIS Forum 2012 event (14-18 May) which will represent the world's largest annual gathering of the 'ICT for Development' community. There are 18 WSIS Project Prizes that will be awarded to organisations and individuals who have achieved exceptional results in extending ICT access to disadvantaged populations and communities. In addition to the awards there is a special focus on women and technology which will feature experts from around the world and prominent public figures including Academy-Award winning actress Geena Davis.
Posted by Hilary Glover at 11:39 Comments (0)
Could biophysics help Novak Djokovic?
Last year, ATP World Tennis Number 1 Novak Djokovic cut out
all wheat products from his diet. According to his nutritionist—who “discovered”
an intolerance to gluten—It was this drastic change in eating habits that led
directly to his current dominance of the game.
Unfortunately, this approach is currently the only effective treatment available for sufferers of the condition, and can feel far from a grand-slam solution to the problem. The widespread use of cereals in the global food industry, especially in the routine use of “hidden” wheat-derived ingredients in processed food, can often make adherence to such restrictive regimes a dispiriting experience.
What if there was an alternative?
In a Correspondence article published today in BMC Biophysics, Stephen Harding and colleagues propose an exciting new way of looking at this issue, through the use of techniques developed in the field of molecular biophysics—and issue a challenge to researchers working in the field to test their idea.
Protein prevention
Gluten intolerance is an autoimmune condition affecting individuals with genetic susceptibility, and occurs as a result of inflammation of the gut in response to exposure to cereal proteins known as gliadins. Although some previous research has looked into the possibility of genetically modifying these proteins in order to prevent this response, this new approach instead focuses on asking whether it would be possible to add a naturally occurring ingredient into the mix that might block this exposure in the first instance.
The candidate ingredients for this are dietary fibre
polysaccharides—complex, indigestible carbohydrates that are nevertheless
essential for digestion. When consumed, these fibre molecules compete directly
with the cereal proteins for exposure to the bowel tissue, forming larger
complexes that might be much less able to illicit the harmful inflammatory
response.
Biophysical techniques
One major issue with making this approach a success is identifying suitable polysaccharides that would interact strongly enough with these cereal proteins to prevent inflammation. This is where biophysics can help.
The authors reason that such candidate molecules can be found using a technique known as analytical ultracentrifugation. Senior author Stephen Harding from the University of Nottingham UK explains: “The analytical ultracentrifuge is a high speed centrifuge with an optical system which allows the detection of macromolecules as they sediment under high g-force. It has an inherent separation ability and is highly resolving. It is a free solution technique not requiring immobilisation of macromolecules onto a surface, giving it a major advantage over (other) techniques”
He continued “We use primarily the sedimentation velocity method and use the principle of co-sedimentation: gliadins, particularly digested gliadins have a very small sedimentation coefficient, whereas fibre polysaccharides are generally higher. From appropriate comparison of mixtures with controls, we can see if the gliadin is picked up by the polysaccharide”
Although the technique itself is not a new one—the Swedish chemist Theodor Svedberg won the Nobel prize for its invention in 1926—modern developments now mean that these interactions can be analysed in exquisite detail.
What next?
Although only a fledgling idea at present, Harding is excited about how future research might tackle this challenge “A complete range of fibre needs to be investigated in a systematic way to see if there are any fibre polysaccharides providing interactions that are strong and robust enough. If this is the case then the particular gliadins and peptide sequences binding to the different polysaccharides would then need to be determined.”
After identification of these molecules, clinical trials could then be considered in patients with the condition. However, despite the potential this might offer for sufferers, the researchers are urging caution at this early stage “We must stress we do not want to give false hope to people who have gluten intolerance problems. This is very much a first stage process and it is possible that no fibre can be found affording an interaction suitable enough… If we can do so this it might provide a useful first step in identifying which fibre merits further investigation”
For researchers in the field, it seems the ball is now in their court.
This Correspondence piece will appear as a guest article as part of the “Advances in Food Allergy 2012” series, further details of which can be found here.
Posted by Simon Harold at 10:32 Comments (0)
BMC series journals win at the 6th Annual BioMed Central Research Awards
Since 2006, BioMed Central has been running its annual Research Awards, celebrating the excellence in scientific research that is published in our portfolio of over 200 open access journals. 2012 marks an exciting change to the Research Awards, as it is the first year that the awards have been divided into 15 separate categories, giving a larger number of high quality articles the chance to win in their specific subject discipline. The judging panels consist of experts in the respective fields, including but not limited to members of our Editorial boards. These awards also recognise outstanding individual or institutional efforts made to support open access to research.
The winners have recently been announced and we are delighted to say that authors in the subject-specific BMC-series journals have made a strong showing!
For the General Medicine award we are thrilled that Jian Zou and colleagues have won with their article in BMC Cancer on the effect of coffee consumption on cancer incidence. Their research showed that overall an increase in consumption of 1 cup of coffee per day was associated with a 3% reduced risk of 11 different measured types of cancers. The article was published in March this year and has been accessed over 4000 times already, indicating its key importance to the field and its recognition amongst the community and the wider audience.
Coffee consumption and risk of cancers: a meta-analysis of cohort studies
BMC Cancer 2011, 11:96 (15 March 2011)
Xiaofeng Yu, Zhijun Bao, Jian Zou and Jie Dong
BMC Ecology, with authors Volker Witte, Christoph von Beeren and colleagues, also achieved gold by winning the Plant, Animal Sciences and Veterinary Research award with their article on the chemical mimicry employed by the parasitic silverfish when trying to integrate into and exploit ant communities. The silverfish acquire cuticular hydrocarbon signatures directly from the ants cuticles, making them invisible as parasites and accepted (most of the time) as members of the colony. BMC Ecology is a rapidly growing journal, currently being tracked for an Impact Factor, and we look forward to receiving many more high quality articles such as this.
Acquisition of chemical recognition cues facilitates integration into ant societies
BMC Ecology 2011, 11:30 (1 December 2011)
Christoph von Beeren, Stefan Schulz, Rosli Hashim and Volker Witte
Last but by no means least, Eric B Loucks and his colleagues were the winners in the Public Health category with their fascinating article published in BMC Public Health on the inverse relationship between education and high blood pressure, highlighting that this relationship was more marked in females. 
Associations of education with 30 year life course blood pressure trajectories: Framingham Offspring Study
BMC Public Health 2011, 11:139 (28 February 2011)
Eric B Loucks, Michal Abrahamowicz, Yongling Xiao and John W Lynch
Big congratulations to all of our winners! The awards will be presented tonight at a prestigious ceremony at the Emirates Stadium in London, and we look forward to congratulating the winners in person on both their achievements, and also their support of BioMed Central and open access publishing.
Posted by Genevieve Horne at 10:21 Comments (0)