(Press-News.org) A new study by an international team of scientists led by researchers from the Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and CosmosIDTM Inc., College Park, have found two distinct strains of cholera bacteria may have contributed to the 2010 Haitian cholera outbreak. The team published its results June 18, 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The researchers say that the findings of their study, which involved the largest number of isolates sequenced and studied from a single outbreak of cholera, show the critical need for an up-to-date, public genomic database of the strains of Vibrio cholerae bacteria that cause outbreaks of the disease around the world. Such a database could play an important role in efforts to prevent or respond to cholera outbreaks, say scientists in a team co-led by Claire Fraser, Ph.D., an international leader in genomics and director of the Institute for Genome Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and Rita R. Colwell, Ph.D., an internationally recognized expert in cholera and Distinguished University Professor at the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of Maryland, College Park.
"The complete sequencing and phylogenomic analysis of multiple isolates from a single infectious disease outbreak has shown that there is significant genomic diversity among the cholera bacteria," says Dr. Fraser. "The results of the study speak to a critical need for an up-to-date, curated and publicly available reference genomic database reflecting the species global phylogenetic diversity.
Dr. Colwell emphasizes that "in light of the diversity we have found, such a database would benefit investigations of future cholera epidemics and provide a more accurate risk assessment for public health response."
The team included academic, government, and industry scientists. The project was funded through the University of Maryland School of Medicine Institute for Genome Sciences' Genome Sequencing Center for Infectious Disease contract from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, and a Department of Homeland Security contract with CosmosID, Inc.
Spearheading the work along with Dr. Fraser and Dr. Colwell were Mark Eppinger, Ph.D., a research associate at the Institute for Genome Sciences, Nur Hasan, Thomas Cebula, Ph.D., at CosmosIDTM Inc., and Jacques Ravel, Ph.D., associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and associate director for genomics at the Institute for Genome Sciences, and Seon Young Choi, Ph.D., and Huai Li, Ph.D., at CosmosIDTM Inc., and the University of Maryland, College Park. Large scale sequencing technology was used to study the genomic diversity of the Haitian isolates of cholera and the unique microevolutionary aspects of the Haitian cholera outbreak that began in 2010.
Cholera is a disease endemic in developing countries and the causative agent, V. cholerae, is naturally occurring in estuaries and river systems worldwide. The 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti generated international interest because of its intensity and sudden appearance throughout the country. In this study, the genomic diversity of Haitian isolates was examined on a genome wide scale to determine both the complexity of the species and the relationship of isolates from Haiti to isolates from concurrent and past epidemics of cholera elsewhere in the world.
"This project is an example of the kind of interdisciplinary, collaborative academic relationship that our outstanding scientists have with those at our sister campus in College Park," says E. Albert Reece, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., vice president for medical affairs at the University of Maryland and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "We hope that more similarly groundbreaking scientific discoveries will arise from collaborations between the two schools in many areas of science and medicine."
Jayanth Banavar, Ph.D., dean of the College of Computer, Math and Natural Sciences (CMNS), University of Maryland, College Park, emphasizes "the splendid collaborative effort between the scientific teams of the two campuses of the University of Maryland and CosmosID, Inc. to achieve this important public health contribution."
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BETHESDA, MD — June 15, 2012 — A transparent member of the minnow family is providing researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City with insight into human melanoma – a form of skin cancer – that may lead to new or repurposed drug treatments, for skin and other cancers.
The experiments will be reported at the "Model Organisms to Human Biology: Cancer Genetics" Meeting, June 17-20, 2012, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., which is sponsored by the Genetics Society of America. The meeting will bring together investigators who study cancer-relevant ...
BOSTON, MA—According to the United States Census Bureau, approximately one in seven American adults live alone. Social isolation and lack of social support have been linked to poor health outcomes. Now a new study at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) shows that living alone may be a risk factor for death, especially death due to cardiovascular problems, such as heart attack and stroke.
The study is the first to prospectively compare the cardiovascular risk of living alone in an international outpatient population. It will be published online in Archives of Internal ...
BOSTON -- The state of acute confusion and disorientation known as delirium can stem from a serious illness, surgery or infection, and often develops while patients are in the hospital. Now a new study confirms that for patients with Alzheimer's disease, hospitalization and delirium pose a particular risk and can lead to adverse outcomes, including hastened cognitive decline, institutionalization and death.
Led by researchers at Harvard Medical School affiliates Hebrew SeniorLife and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), the study appears in the June 19 on-line ...
Adults who had a common bariatric surgery to lose weight had a significantly higher risk of alcohol use disorders (AUD) two years after surgery, according to a study by a National Institutes of Health research consortium.
Researchers investigated alcohol consumption and alcohol use disorders symptoms in 1,945 participants from the NIH-funded Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery (LABS), a prospective study of patients undergoing weight-loss surgery at one of 10 hospitals across the United States. Within 30 days before surgery, and again one and two years after ...
North Grafton, MA, June 14, 2012 -- Researchers have unveiled a novel strategy for neutralizing unwanted molecules and clearing them from the body.
The strategy employs chains of binding agents, like "beads on a string", which target two sites on one or more pathogenic molecules to neutralize their activity and promote their clearance by the body's immune system. The low-cost, easy-to-replicate tool has demonstrated applications against several different toxins, from those found in contaminated food to those used in bioterrorism, and may also prove effective in targeting ...
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A new study proposes a communication routing strategy for the brain that mimics the American highway system, with the bulk of the traffic leaving the local and feeder neural pathways to spend as much time as possible on the longer, higher-capacity passages through an influential network of hubs, the so-called rich club.
The study, published this week online in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involves researchers from Indiana University and the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands and advances ...
The ancient reserves of methane gas seeping from the melting Arctic ice cap told Jeff Chanton and fellow researchers what they already knew: As the permafrost thaws, there is a release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that causes climate warming.
The trick was figuring out how much, said Chanton, the John W. Winchester Professor of Oceanography at Florida State University.
The four-member team — whose findings were published in the respected journal Nature Geoscience (http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo1480.html) — documented a large number ...
Sequencing the human genome was just the first step. The next challenge is of the kind that makes history: to decode the genome, and understand how the information needed to construct a human being can be packaged into a single molecule. And there are a lot more than loose ends in the way of a solution. A group of bioinformatics experts at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) in Madrid have published findings which point to still unexplored coding potential within the genome.
The substance responsible is chimeric RNA, formed not from one gene but from fragments ...
This press release is available in German.
Finding new particles usually requires high energies – that is why huge accelerators have been built, which can accelerate particles to almost the speed of light. But there are other creative ways of finding new particles: At the Vienna University of Technology, scientists presented a method to prove the existence of hypothetical "axions". These axions could accumulate around a black hole and extract energy from it. This process could emit gravity waves, which could then be measured.
Axions are hypothetical particles ...
Researchers at the University of Helsinki and the Folkhälsan Research Center, Finland, have identified the genetic cause of early-onset progressive cerebellar degeneration the Finnish Hound dog breed. The study, led by Professor Hannes Lohi, revealed a new disease mechanism in cerebellar degeneration. A mutation was identified in the SEL1L gene, which has no previous link to inherited cerebellar ataxias.
This gene find is the first in canine early-onset cerebellar degeneration, and has enabled the development of a genetic test to help eradicate the disease from the breed. ...
