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Signal Genetics to Buy ChipDx, Gaining Cancer Test Pipeline, Bioinformatics Resources

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Plant and Microbial Biology 160 – Lecture 1 – Video

Signal Genetics, a closely held cancer testing company, agreed to buy ChipDX LLC to add diagnostic products in development for lung, breast and colon cancers.

The acquisition also adds closely held ChipDX’s technology to enable for remote interpretation of tests, New York-based Signal said today. Financial details weren’t disclosed.

Signal makes a prognostic test for multiple myeloma called MyPRS Plus, and will use its sales team to bring ChipDX’s products to market, the company said. ChipDX’s BreastGeneDX, ColonGeneDX and LungGeneDX products are designed to determine patients’ cancer risk levels.

“The acquisition of the intellectual property and patents of ChipDX dramatically expands and enhances our oncology pipeline,” Signal Chief Executive Officer Joe Hernandez said in a statement. “The addition of ChipDX’s bioinformatics capabilities drastically reduces our time to market with novel molecular tests designed to facilitate better patient outcomes at a lower cost profile.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Meg Tirrell in New York at mtirrell@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net

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Signal Genetics Agrees to Purchase ChipDX to Gain Cancer Diagnostics

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Signal Genetics, a privately held predictive genetic testing company focused on oncology, today announced an agreement with New York based ChipDX LLC (“ChipDX”), under which Signal will acquire all of the assets of ChipDX, including patents for prognostic tests in lung, breast, and colon cancers. As part of the transaction, Signal will acquire BreastGeneDX®, ColonGeneDX®, and LungGeneDX®, all diagnostic and prognostic tests in development by ChipDX. Signal believes that these genetic tests represent novel products or improvements over other products currently on the market in these cancer types. Signal will also acquire ChipDX’s web-based interface, which will be used to enhance Signal’s physician web portal and allow for remote interpretation of test algorithms. Ryan VanLaar, Ph.D., CEO and Founder of ChipDX, will join Signal as the Head of BioInformatics. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

ChipDX has been recognized by leading molecular diagnostics companies and academic centers for its work in various types of cancer, including most recently for its work on the BreastGeneDX® prognostic test. The acquired tests will leverage the technology platform currently in use by Signal Genetics and its subsidiaries and will provide economies of scale to the Company’s currently commercialized Multiple Myeloma prognostic test, MyPRS Plus™. Additionally, Signal Genetics will leverage its recently established sales team as well as its commercial partners to launch the acquired products.

“The acquisition of the intellectual property and patents of ChipDX dramatically expands and enhances our oncology pipeline,” said Joe Hernandez, President and CEO of Signal. “The addition of ChipDX’s bioinformatics capabilities drastically reduces our time to market with novel molecular tests designed to facilitate better patient outcomes at a lower cost profile. We are also thrilled to have Ryan VanLaar join our team and we welcome him to Signal. This transaction is consistent with our strategy to develop and acquire innovative tools that both complement and enhance our product portfolio.”

Ryan van Laar, CEO and Founder of ChipDX LLC, said, “Joining forces with Signal Genetics provides us with a vehicle to ultimately commercialize our strong portfolio of predictive molecular diagnostic tests. I look forward to leveraging the experience gained in the development of ChipDX to help Signal Genetics achieve its goals, and ultimately improve patient outcomes.”

About ChipDX LLC

ChipDX LLC is a privately held molecular diagnostics and personalized medicine company based in New York City. It was founded and is currently lead by Ryan VanLaar, Ph.D.

About Signal Genetics

Signal Genetics, the parent company of Myeloma Health LLC, CC Health, Respira Health, and ChipDX, is a privately held predictive genetic testing company focused on helping cancer patients. The goal of Signal Genetics is to provide cancer patients and their physicians with novel and innovative insights into their disease, including predicting outcomes, accurately staging disease, providing odds of relapse, and identifying the optimal treatment regimen based on their specific genetic expression profile. Additional information is available at www.signalgenetics.com

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Signal Genetics Announces Acquisition of ChipDX LLC and Expansion of Molecular Diagnostics Assets in Oncology

SAN MARINO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Viral Genetics, Inc. (Pink Sheets: VRAL) today posted to its website a President’s Letter to Shareholders that reviews the past year and looks ahead to what 2012 holds for the Company. Highlights of the President’s letter, including key updates on the Company’s important cancer study and biofuel testing programs, are below. In particular, in 2011 our Metabolic Disruption technology (MDT) additives successfully produced significant algal oil yield increases in independent testing at larger-scale production environments; and, though later than announced, three of the Company’s most promising pharmaceutical products – its therapies for treatment-resistant cancer with MDT compounds, its treatment of HIV/AIDS with APi1177, and its treatment of Lyme disease with VGV-L – are anticipated to commence or follow up on prior FDA reviews at various times in 2012, including one clinical trial.

“2011 was a year of tremendous growth for our companies, full of accomplishments and advancements across the board, which brought along with them an exciting set of new challenges. As we have since our founding, we continue to limit our full time personnel to conserve capital with management focusing on funding our growth, while our advisory board focuses on continually and successfully advancing our science. Possibly the single most important event in 2011 was the evolution of our new subsidiary, VG Energy, Inc., which added diverse new potential areas of business for us through our majority position in VG Energy, Inc. We believe this has added tremendous current and future potential value as our shareholders now, in a sense, own two companies with equally significant potential. Understandably, launching a new company brings with it new management and fund-raising challenges and goals to be met – challenges we spent much of the latter part of 2011 addressing, putting us closer to attaining those goals,” said Haig Keledjian, President of Viral Genetics and VG Energy.

“Concurrently with the launch of our VG Energy business and its rapid growth, after years of effort by our dedicated researchers and advisory team, our drug development programs really took off and bore fruit as we found ourselves in the exciting and enviable position of having three drug candidates nearing FDA review and clinical trial status. On top of that, our oncology trial at Scott and White went from being a relatively small, single-site, more traditional 'physician’s study' to potentially a dual-site, larger study consisting of upwards of several dozen patients with a second (or 'co-') primary investigator that may be a Phase 1 or Phase 2 study. These are all accomplishments we have strived towards for years and they mark a potential new foundation for the coming years’ successes. Long-time shareholders will know that we spent many years almost exclusively focused on HIV/AIDS and to a large extent we developed our resources – including personnel – with an eye to focusing on preclinical or lab research. Last year, however, we found ourselves quickly advancing in several new areas including cancer and Lyme disease, and moving quickly towards clinical testing, meaning we required new resources and personnel. As a result of this, as is common with drug programs, we experienced some delays. New initiatives and modifications took time to work themselves out, and we had to recruit new clinical advisors. Looking ahead to 2012, however, we have an expanded team of advisors to assist management: notably, in terms of new clinical advisors for our planned clinical trials and at the board level on the VG Energy side as we recently announced. We think these efforts position the Company and VG Energy well to face what could be the most important and positive year in our history,” said Haig Keledjian.

Biofuel Testing – VG Energy

In 2011 we began the process of conducting independent testing of our MDT additives in industrial-scale algae production environments. We originally expected to conclude portions of this testing, including “dose response testing” and scale-up studies, within 2-3 months. Following successful preliminary results in the summer of 2011 which were previously announced, we decided to transition to new testing facilities because we were not satisfied with the degree of protection afforded our intellectual property rights during the ongoing product development and validation process in the initial testing. Protection of our intellectual property rights in this and other areas is critical to the Company’s long-term success. Although we believe that existing testing is sufficient to support some commercial implementation, testing and product development is ongoing and expected to continue at both contracted testing facilities and by potential commercial partners as we develop and refine MDT applications in this and other areas.

“As many of our shareholders know, there are a lot of very exciting developments going on in the biofuel industry. At the same time, the industry is still evolving and processes and products that will emerge as successes are being vetted in terms of process improvements, algae strains, genetic modifications vs. process improvement, for example. In the end, this will be determined by economics borne out through testing. Establishing those economics through testing in actual production environments is exactly what we are focused on,” continued Mr. Keledjian.

“Compared to one year ago, we now have independent and ongoing testing validating our early belief in this technology in many areas and our decision to launch VG Energy and fund this research. This testing continues as we reach out to research collaborators and potential partners, while Dr. Newell Rogers’ team continues their own work advancing this technology. Our goal now is to locate those producers that would benefit from introducing our additives to their process, which is precisely the focus of much of the ongoing testing we are conducting with third parties. So we are working through the various scenarios with as many producers or potential producers as we can, while protecting our intellectual property rights in the process,” continued Mr. Keledjian. “We have encountered situations where a potential partner’s method for enhancing algae yields using their own technology turned out to be incompatible on a molecular level with ours. For instance, in one case genetic modifications to a potential partner’s yeast strain intended to enhance yields blocked uptake of our additives. Therefore, one of the key elements of our business development model is to determine the industry players whose approaches work best with ours, thereby determining companies with whom we want to partner and reach commercial scalability, and ultimately cash flow. While this testing will continue throughout the year and we cannot guarantee an outcome, early indications of interest leave us confident that we may secure a commercial partner before the year is out.”

Scott and White Cancer Study

It is now being determined whether to commence with this study as an expanded Phase 1 or Phase 2 physician’s- initiated study with a second test site at a second hospital in addition to Texas A&M University Health Sciences Center-affiliated Scott and White Hospital. We originally expected to begin enrolling patients in the summer of 2011 for a physician’s IND (Investigational New Drug) study to be carried out exclusively at Scott and White. We also indicated that we expected this study to focus on certain types of cancer, including, amongst others, a form of brain cancer called glioblastoma. Following new interest from a potential co-primary investigator at a possible new test site – including potential expansion of the study to a more robust clinical trial under a more advanced protocol design involving more patients and other types of cancer – enrollment was delayed to accommodate finalization of the new developments including institutional reviews that are now underway. The study, which is funded in part by a grant of $1.5 million to Scott and White, will require approximately 6 to 8 weeks of treatment and 12 months of follow up and is expected to begin as soon as reviews are concluded at the new institution and, subsequently, the FDA. We currently believe this study will begin by the second quarter of 2012, possibly sooner. This study will test compounds that are part of our Metabolic Disruption (MDT) platform in combination with existing cancer treatments on patients with drug resistant forms of various types of cancers, most likely starting with ovarian cancer.

Additional details on both of these topics are available in the 2012 Letter to Shareholders at this link: www.viralgenetics.com/investors/2012-Letter-to-Shareholders.pdf.

Other Highlights

HIV/AIDS Program – APi1177

As a result of our pre-IND communication with the FDA in 2011, we initiated a search for and recently completed the securing of a manufacturer to produce GLP (Good Laboratory Practices) quality APi1177 for use in pharmacology, toxicology, and virology studies, and certain assay development work required to submit a full IND. We have identified contractors to carry out the preclinical testing and assays required and we intend to commence with the preclinical studies and assays once we are satisfied with the GLP product which we are now working at concluding. This progression will also accelerate several of our other programs as the molecule being used is substantially similar.

New Intellectual Property – DCA patents

In December 2011, a patent falling within our licensed MDT portfolio was awarded that is the first issued patent covering the use of dichloroacetic acid (“DCA”) in the treatment of cancer. We believe that this patent is “foundational” to the use and study of DCA for cancer treatment, an area many other companies and research entities, both in the US and internationally, have been increasingly studying. We intend to seek potential clinical trial or licensing opportunities for this patent this year. There are currently six FDA approved clinical trials in motion that have incorporated DCA into their drug regimen.

Other High Value Oils – VG Energy

In addition to the biofuel testing update above, we are pursuing other potential partnering opportunities with both commercial and research entities for a variety of uses of MDT additives in high value oils used in food, animal feed, cosmetics and nutraceuticals. The business and product development process for this area of VG Energy’s focus is similar to the biofuel process in that we are conducting testing with existing and potential producers to determine the fit of our compounds to their production methods. We believe it is possible for us to secure one or more commercial partners by the end of this year.

Lyme Disease

We have recently entered into an agreement with a physician associated with one of the leading medical centers in the country to act as the “clinical lead” for this drug program. This doctor will complete the clinical portions of the pre-IND including an outline of the clinical trial protocol, as well as possibly serve as primary investigator for the planned clinical trial of our Lyme disease compound. Other than the clinical portions (those dealing with use of the drug on humans, mostly in a clinical trial) the pre-IND for this study is ready to submit and we expect to do so imminently. Once we have finalized arrangements with the physician and his institution, we expect to be able to add more detail on these developments.

Multiple Sclerosis, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus and Sepsis

We continue to perform preclinical testing of these drug candidate compounds, and hope to be in a position to submit pre-INDs for each of them this year. We are also working at securing research partners, including clinical leads for these programs.

Fund Raising

Our goal is to raise $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 to achieve our 2012 goals which includes the budget of VG Energy. It is expected that this will be in the form of sales of equity or debt securities of the Company and/or VG Energy. We are also exploring raising funds by possibly commercial partnering and licensing with various third parties, and we will also continue to sponsor or support applications for grant funding of research towards the development of our products.

Annual Report

We recently filed our quarterly report for the period ending September 30, 2011 and we are now working to complete the 2011 annual report by late March or early April. The Company has recommitted to making its periodic reports available on a timely basis and intends to issue a monthly Letter to Shareholders going forward.

About Viral Genetics, Inc.

San Marino, California-based Viral Genetics discovers drug therapies from two platform technologies based on over 60 patents: Metabolic Disruption (MDT) and Targeted Peptides (TPT). Founded in 1994, the biotech company is researching treatments for HIV/AIDS, Lyme Disease, Strep, Staph and drug resistant cancer. A majority-owned subsidiary, VG Energy (www.vgenergy.net), is dedicated to exploring biofuel and agricultural applications for the MDT platform. For more information, visit www.viralgenetics.com.

About VG Energy

VG Energy Inc. is an alternative energy and agricultural biotech company that is a majority-owned subsidiary of Viral Genetics Inc. Using its Metabolic Disruption Technology (MDT), Viral Genetics' cancer research led to discoveries with major consequences in a wide variety of other industries, including production of biofuel and vegetable oils. VG Energy holds the exclusive worldwide license to the MDT patent rights for use in the increase of production of various plant-derived oils from algae and seeds. Application of MDT technology to the biofuel industry could potentially allow it to overcome its major obstacle in the area of production efficiency: namely, an increase in production yields leading to feasible economic returns on investment, allowing renewable biodiesel to be competitive with fossil fuels. For more information, please visit www.vgenergy.net.

SAFE HARBOR FOR FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:

This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties associated with financial projections, budgets, milestone timelines, clinical trials, regulatory approvals, and other risks described by Viral Genetics, Inc. from time to time in its periodic reports, including statements about its VG Energy, Inc. subsidiary. None of Viral Genetics' drug compounds are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration or by any comparable regulatory agencies elsewhere in the world, nor are any non-pharmaceutical products of VG Energy, Inc. commercialized. While Viral Genetics believes that the forward-looking statements and underlying assumptions reasonable, any of the assumptions could be inaccurate, including, but not limited to, the ability of Viral Genetics to establish the efficacy of any of its drug therapies in the treatment of any disease or health condition, the development of studies and strategies leading to commercialization of those drug compounds in the United States, the obtaining of funding required to carry out the development plan, the completion of studies and tests including clinical trials on time or at all, the successful outcome of such studies or tests, or the successful commercialization of VG Energy, Inc.’s non-pharmaceutical products. Therefore, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements included in this release will prove to be accurate. In light of the significant uncertainties inherent in the forward-looking statements included herein, the forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by Viral Genetics or any other person that the objectives and plans of Viral Genetics will be achieved.

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Viral Genetics Inc. Issues 2011 Year in Review and 2012 Outlook

(RTTNews.com) – Myriad Genetics Inc. (MYGN) Tuesday reported a 17 percent rise in second-quarter earnings on double-digit revenue growth at Molecular diagnostic testing segment and contribution of Companion diagnostic acquired last May. Both earnings and revenue for the quarter topped analysts estimates.

Looking ahead, the company also raised its outlook for full year 2012. Buoyed by the results, Myriad Genetics shares gained more than 5 percent in extended trade on the Nasdaq.

Net income for the second quarter rose to $28.3 million or $0.33 per share from $24.2 million or $0.26 per share in the prior year. On average, 19 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.31 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Revenues for the quarter grew 22 percent to $123 million from $100.4 million a year ago. Analysts expected revenues of $115.29 million.

Molecular diagnostic testing revenue grew 17 percent and accounted for most of the revenues, as all segments and products saw growth. Within the segment, Oncology revenue rose 15 percent, and Women's Health revenue by 22 percent. Revenue from Companion diagnostic service was $5.2 million.

Myriad Genetics now expects 2012 earnings in a range of $1.24 to $1.28 per share and revenues of $465 million to $475 million. Analysts currently expect earnings of $1.24 per share and revenues of $461.45 million for the year.

The company had earlier forecast 2012 earnings in the range of $1.20 to $1.25 per share with revenues of $465 million to $475 million.

Salt Lake City, Utah-based Myriad Genetics is a molecular diagnostic company that focuses on the development of novel predictive medicine, personalized medicine, and prognostic medicine tests primarily in the U.S.

MYGN closed Tuesday on the Nasdaq at $23.66, up $0.40 or 1.72%, on a volume of about 1.8 million shares. In after hours, the stock further gained $1.24 or 5.24%.

For comments and feedback: contact editorial@rttnews.com

http://www.rttnews.com

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Myriad Genetics Profit Up, Lifts FY12 Outlook; Stock Up

Saladax Biomedical said today that President and CEO Edward Erickson has resigned due to personal and family reasons, and that he will be replaced by Kevin Harter on an interim basis. Erickson will remain a member of the company's board of directors. Harter is a co-founder and senior VP of the Life Sciences Greenhouse, and he has served as executive chairman at Saladax.

Helicos Biosciences has elected Bruce Ginsberg to its board of directors to review certain financing matters. Ginsberg is president and CEO of MooBella, a food service provider, and a member of the board of directors of Mac-Gray.

Life Technologies VP of Research and Development Manohar Furtado has been appointed to serve as an advisor on the National Biodefense Science Board, a federal advisory committee for the Department of Health and Human Services. The board provides advice on bioterrorism and other public health emergencies. Furtado was appointed to serve a four-year term on the board. Kevin Jarrell, CEO of Modular Genetics, also will continue to serve on the board.

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Ambry Genetics, Looking to Entice Pharma, Rolls out CHO Cell Expression Array

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Myriad Genetics Reports Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2012 Results

Arthur Chovnick, a professor at the University of Connecticut, was a pioneer in the field of genetics whose influence was felt across the field of molecular genetics and biology.

“Arthur did something that has effectively jump-started enormous strides in the genetics of higher organisms,” said Hal Krider, a former professor of genetics at UConn. “He was probably the most recognized, under-honored geneticist, but people with Nobel prizes would call and ask him for advice.”

Chovnick, 84, of Chaplin, died Sept. 5.

One anecdote from his life reflected Chovnick's stature in the world of genetics. When his daughter Lisa was taking a biology course, she learned about Watson and Crick, who discovered the structure of DNA, but when the home phone rang one day and a caller identified himself as Francis Crick, Lisa hung up on him. “Quit joking,” she told the Nobel Prize winner the next time he called.

Later that night, Arthur Chovnick picked up the phone himself. “Hello, Francis,” he said.

“People of that stature were available to Arthur all the time,” said Krider. “Everybody knew him. He was very, very well known and inordinately highly regarded.”

Chovnick conducted experiments on drosophila melanogaster, a relative of the humble fruit fly that, rather than being a laboratory pest, is a valuable scientific specimen used for years in genetics research. First used to study heredity, the fly is now used in the study of disease as scientists search for the genes responsible for Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or Huntington's.

Drosophila genes are nearly identical to human genes. They also reproduce very quickly, meaning mutations may be studied in weeks rather than months or years. They have only four chromosomes. Even better, no groups picket against drosophila experimentation as they do against higher-order species.

“It is easy to grow and manipulate, and they have genes like us,” said Christine Rushlow, a Chovnick-trained geneticist who is a professor at New York University. “We use them as a model system to see how genes work. We share so many genes.”

Chovnick, known for pioneering work in gene organization and in demonstrating the way traits cross over within a gene, could look at events that were rare and re-create them.

Chovnick, born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Aug. 2, 1927, grew up in Queens, where he graduated from Jackson High School in 1944. He was the oldest of four children born to Fannie and Herman Chovnick, who had both emigrated from Russia. He attended Indiana University for a year before joining the U.S. Navy, where he served on a hospital ship. After he was discharged, he returned to Indiana and obtained his undergraduate degree in 1949 and his master's in 1951. He got a doctorate in genetics from Ohio State University two years later, and obtained a grant from the National Institutes of Health that continued until 1995, one of the longest continuous NIH grants.

He spent two years at the University of Connecticut doing research and teaching before going to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, first as assistant director, then as director. In 1962, he returned to UConn as a professor, where he remained until he retired in 1994. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a founding member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.

Chovnick was revered as a mentor as well as a teacher, his colleagues said.

“He left you alone, except he would always teach or help you,” Rushlow said. “He was a great analytical thinker, which he could do in his head because he was so experienced.”

He helped his students design experiments that would create a certain type of drosophila — with pink eyes for example, or missing a wing — to help them create their own mutations. “You see the consequences to the fly, and what it is doing to the fly,” Rushlow said.

Chovnick also did early work on cloning, providing a fly with unusual chromosomes for other scientists to study. He studied how to regulate the activity of genes.

“When things go wrong because genes are out of control, you get disease,” Rowlson said. “He was at the forefront, a leader in the genetics field, and famous for the work he had done.” He also understood how genes recombine and how a new DNA sequence is created with potentially new effects.

Today, as scientists intensify their search for the genetic cause of disease, Chovnick's work is significant.

“He was a seminal character in the transition from classical genetics to modern genetic cloning and gene manipulation,” said Krider, his former colleague.

“He was a very careful and highly creative thinker with a keenly analytical mind,” said Arthur Hilliker, a professor at York University in Toronto, who studied under and later collaborated with Chovnick.

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Genetics Pioneer Was UConn Professor, Mentor

Contact: Craig Brierley
c.brierley@wellcome.ac.uk
44-207-611-7329
Wellcome Trust

Genetics has provided surprising insights into why vaccines used in both the UK and US to combat serious childhood infections can eventually fail. The study, published today in Nature Genetics, which investigates how bacteria change their disguise to evade the vaccines, has implications for how future vaccines can be made more effective.

Pneumococcus (Streptococcus pneumoniae) causes potentially life-threatening diseases including pneumonia and meningitis. Pneumococcal infections are thought to kill around a million young children worldwide each year, though the success of vaccination programmes has led to a dramatic fall in the number of cases in countries such as the UK and US. These vaccines recognise the bacteria by its polysaccharide, the material found on the outside of the bacterial cell. There are over ninety different kinds ? or 'serotypes' ? of the bacteria, each with a different polysaccharide coating.

In 2000, the US introduced a pneumococcal vaccine which targeted seven of the ninety serotypes. This '7-valent' vaccine was extremely effective and had a dramatic effect on reducing disease amongst the age groups targeted. Remarkably, the vaccine has also prevented transmission from young children to adults, resulting in tens of thousands fewer cases of pneumococcal disease each year. The same vaccine was introduced in the UK in 2006 and was similarly successful.

In spite of the success of the vaccine programmes, some pneumococcal strains managed to continue to cause disease by camouflaging themselves from the vaccine. In research funded by the Wellcome Trust, scientists at the University of Oxford and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta studied what happened after the introduction of this vaccine in the US. They used the latest genomic techniques combined with epidemiology to understand how different serotypes of the pneumococcus bacteria evolve to replace those targeted by the initial vaccine.

The researchers found bacteria that had evaded the vaccine by swapping the region of the genome responsible for making the polysaccharide coating with the same region from a different serotype, not targeted by the vaccine. This effectively disguised the bacteria, making it invisible to the vaccine. This exchange of genome regions occurred during a process known as recombination, whereby one of the bacteria replaces a piece of its own DNA with a piece from another bacterial type.

Dr Rory Bowden, from the University of Oxford, explains: “Imagine that each strain of the pneumococcus bacteria is a class of schoolchildren, all wearing the school uniform. If a boy steals from his corner shop, a policeman ? in this case the vaccine ? can easily identify which school he belongs to by looking at his uniform. But if the boy swaps his sweater with a friend from another school, the policemen will no longer be able to recognise him and he can escape. This is how the pneumococcus bacteria evade detection by the vaccine.”

Dr Bowden and colleagues identified a number of recombined serotypes that had managed to evade the vaccine. One in particular grew in frequency and spread across the US from east to west over several years. They also showed that during recombination, the bacteria also traded a number of other parts of the genome at the same time, a phenomenon never before observed in natural populations of pneumococcus. This is of particular concern as recombination involving multiple fragments of DNA allows rapid simultaneous exchange of key regions of the genome within the bug, potentially allowing it to quickly develop antibiotic resistance.

The original 7-valent vaccine in the US has now been replaced by a 13-valent vaccine, which targets thirteen different serotypes, including the particular type which had escaped the original vaccine. In the UK, the 7-valent vaccine resulted in a substantial drop in disease overall. This overall effect was a mixture of a large drop in frequency of the serotypes targeted by the vaccine with some growth in serotypes not targeted by the vaccine. The 13-valent vaccine was introduced in the UK in 2010.

Derrick Crook, Professor of Microbiology at the University of Oxford and Infection Control Doctor at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, adds: “Childhood vaccines are very effective at reducing disease and death at a stage in our lives when we are susceptible to serious infections. Understanding what makes a vaccine successful and what can cause it to fail is important. We should now be able to understand better what happens when a pneumococcal vaccine is introduced into a new population. Our work suggests that current strategies for developing new vaccines are largely effective but may not have long term effects that are as successful as hoped.”

Dr Bernard Beall, a scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention commented: “The current vaccine strategy of targeting predominant pneumococcal serotypes is extremely effective, however our observations indicate that the organism will continue to adapt to this strategy with some measurable success.”

The Wellcome Trust, which part-funded this research, views combating infectious disease and maximising the health benefits of genetic research as two of its strategic priorities. Dr Michael Dunn, Head of Molecular and Physiological Sciences at the Wellcome Trust commented: “New technologies allow us to rapidly sequence disease-causing organisms and see how they evolve. Coupled with collaborations with epidemiologists, we can then track how they spread and monitor the potential impact this will have on vaccine efficiency. This will provide useful lessons for vaccine implementation strategies.”

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Genetics study reveals how bacteria behind serious childhood disease evolve to evade vaccines

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Genetics study reveals how pneumococcus bacteria evolve to evade vaccines

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Molecular test more accurate in predicting lung cancer survival

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National Cancer Institute

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The Extraordinary Life Of A Genetics Pioneer At UConn

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Gene test may aid early-stage lung cancer patients

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IRCM researchers fuel an important debate in the field of molecular biology

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New lung cancer test predicts survival

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GeneThera Acquires Majority Stake in Applied Genetics

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GeneThera, Inc. Acquires Applied Genetics, S.A.

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Rowley to receive Japan Prize for her role in the development of targeted cancer therapy