Medical institutions across the United States will begin recruiting volunteers next month for a study that its investigators and outside observers describe as groundbreaking. They say it is the first large-scale trial to test the feasibility of using DNA shed by tumors to find early-stage cancer. During the three-year government-funded project, researchers will analyze DNA from stool samples to detect patterns characteristic of colorectal cancer (CRC). The study will have two other notable fe

In 1998 and in 2000, researchers at Johns Hopkins University reported that colorectal cancer cell lines and primary tumors from the bladder, head, neck, and lung harbor mutations, deletions, and insertions in the 16.6-kilobase mitochondrial genome. Add prostate and breast cancers to that list, according to posters at the AACR meeting presented by groups from Emory University and Johns Hopkins. At one poster, John A. Petros, an associate professor of urology at Emory, described a study that he sa

Scientists submitted more than 5,100 abstracts to the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in New Orleans, March 24-28. Many abstracts focused on hot topics such as angiogenesis and apoptosis. Studies of breast and prostate cancer abounded, as did jazzy work using DNA microarrays. A large bloc of intriguing abstracts, however, explored the less traveled byways of cancer research. Selected almost at random, a handful of such abstracts, and the posters and a talk e

A single all-embracing effort to characterize the human proteome is an unlikely prospect (D. Steinberg, "Is a Human Proteome Project Next?" The Scientist, 15[7]:1, April 2, 2001). Nevertheless, smaller-scale--though still massive--proteomics projects keep springing up. On April 4, Myriad Genetics Inc. (MGI), Hitachi Ltd., and Oracle Corp. announced a $185 million, three-year collaboration to identify all protein-protein interactions and biochemical pathways in the human body. Myriad Proteomics I

A study of 2,480 AIDS patients has found that they have 2.4 times the risk of contracting non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) if they carry a certain polymorphism. Charles S. Rabkin, HIV-cancer coordinator at the National Cancer Institute, presented this preliminary finding at last month's meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in New Orleans. The polymorphism, a cytosine-for-guanine substitution in the interleukin-6 gene's promoter region, results in decreased plasma levels of IL-6. R

Three dozen scientists, officials, and executives from academia, government, and business are speaking this week at a conference in McLean, Va., titled "Human Proteome Project: Genes Were Easy." This event, which is expected to draw at least 400 other participants, is the first sizable public meeting devoted to the possibility and advisability of a proteome project, according to organizer Chris Spivey, a conference director at Cambridge Healthtech Institute in Newton Upper Falls, Mass. The Vir

Graphic: Leza BerardoneApplied Biosystems will soon begin testing new mass spectrometry machines designed to identify proteins in as many as 1,000 samples per hour. For the machines to work as planned, however, each sample must be prefractionated down to just a handful of proteins, according to Stephen A. Martin, director of the company's proteomics research center in Framingham, Mass. This example suggests how the slower protocols leading to mass spec are as important to the progress of proteom

Ronald Harty While some viruses burst out of a host cell after shredding it open, others depart in a more genteel fashion. They assemble at the plasma membrane and, form lollipop-shaped protuberances. Then each virus pinches off a piece of membrane that will clothe it as it seeks a new cell to infect. Unlike lysis, this process, known as budding, doesn't kill the host cell. Instead, many viruses that bud--the list includes HIV, Rous sarcoma virus (RSV), rabies virus, and Ebola virus--wreak havoc

A life scientist's decision to forsake lab work in academia for another career often comes after much soul-searching and with many misgivings. "The hardest thing is to escape science when you're enjoying it," says Guy R. Burkitt, a former Rockefeller University postdoc who is now a software engineer at a biotech company. "And when you get results that mean something, you really do enjoy it." Besides, he adds, "you invest so much time and effort in one thing that you really want to continue." &#

Credit: William Jacobs, Albert Einstein College of MedicineTuberculosis bacterium The battles that scientists wage against bacteria and viruses resemble chess matches between grandmasters and supercomputers. Highly intelligent people are pitted against entities that aren't conscious but that nevertheless hold two big advantages. Populated by hosts of individually sensitive microchips or microorganisms, these entities can react with lightning speed. And tutored intensively by computer programmers

Credit: Eric LaywellAn astrocyte monolayer that can be coaxed into becoming multipotent neural stemlike cells Editors Note: This is the second of two articles on issues raised by recent stem cell discoveries. The first article appeared in the November 13 issue "All politics is local" was a famous maxim of Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, the late speaker of the House of Representatives, and the same can be said of medically useful stem cells. Progenitor cells may prove to be more or less pluripotent in th

Last year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) routinely assigned patent applications for bioinformatics inventions to examiners in diverse departments. Then the office made a projection, based on input from companies, that it would receive more than 300 such applications in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. To ensure consistent treatment for the predicted flood of filings, PTO created Art Unit 1631 (AU1631) last December. This unit now consists of 10 examiners holding degrees, sometim