The Poor Poet Carl Spitzweg (1838)

Were back! The seventh annual McGill Reads holiday reading list has been carefully compiled and lovingly laid out, highlighting the thought-provoking selection of great reads as suggested by McGill students, staff, faculty and administrators.

Once again, eclectic is our watchword as our list features everything from literary classics to fresh new releases; sci-fi to self-help; best-sellers to biographies; and poetry to graphic novels. And, as always, just as fascinating as the diverse list itself are the backstories behind each selected title that give us a little glimpse into each of our contributors.

Thanks to everyone who participated and may all your books be page-tuners!

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We will kick things off by giving a big McGill Reads welcome to Manal Abou-Ghaida, one of the Universitys newest employees. Im new to McGill (started December 9th!), and I just stumbled on the McGill Reads book list call for entries, writes Abou-Ghaida, Records Administrator, Enrolment Services. I love to read! Im from Edmonton, Alberta, and Im known for starting book clubs in my place of work.

Abou-Ghaida suggests Agatha Christies And Then There Were None because I love a good classic mystery, something thats a page turner, and importantly over the holiday season something that excites me and stirs my imagination.

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From a first-timer, we go to a grizzled McGill Reads vet. One of our lists most enthusiastic supporters, Victor Chisholm has been contributing since the inaugural McGill Reads in 2013.

I am grateful to the Cundill History Prize for providing such interesting options in their annual shortlists and longlists, says the Student Affairs Administrator, Faculty of Science. From the 2019 shortlist, I would be delighted to read Victoria Johnsons American Eden: David Hosack, Botony, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic, because anything that makes us think about plants, without whom our lives would be impossible, must be worth reading!

Ideas on CBC Radio just aired an interview with a past laureate, Maya Jasanoff, who won the 2018 Cundill Prize for her book The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World. She gave a fascinating account of how to read Conrads writings about colonialism both critically and appreciatively, says the avid cyclist and ice cream connoisseur. Ive never read Conrad, and the prose excerpts that were aired on the radio were astonishing, so I may give Heart of Darkness a try.

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Sean Goldfarb, a graduate student in Cell Biology, has his eyes on a number of books including:

Les racines du ciel, by Romain Gary, whose books La vie deavant soiIread(one of two books Ireadthat ever made me cry), andLes cerfs-volantswhichIm finishing up. Its funny, it took me till Iread a non-English book to be able to say Ive found my favourite author!

Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham, which is my mothers favourite book by her favourite author. Just need to find it among all the books at home

The Painted Veil, by W. Somerset Maugham, because Im drawn to it, having found it while looking for Of Human Bondage.

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Domenic Aversano, Customer Service Coordinator, Printing Services is succinct and to the point when it comes to his pair of suggestions for people looking for books to tackle during the break. Aversano recommends The View from Flyover Country, by Sarah Kendzior and How to be Less Stupid about Race, by Crystal M. Fleming. Two books that are essential to understand and challenge who we are and why, he writes.

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Anita Kar admits to having already read most of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, but I want to finish it over the holidays and try to assimilate it into my brain permanently, says the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital Communications Officer. The simple reason is because I think the messages in this book will help me be more peaceful in my everyday life, in everyday situations.

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Over the holidays, Ill bereading Annie ProulxsBarkskins, an epic tale that follows the lives of three main characters over the course of 300 years: the first two being French colonists (and their respective progeny) as they eke out a life in North America, and the third being the forests and wild spaces of the new world, perceived at first as vast and endless but gradually recognized as finite and fragile, writes Andra Syvnen, Assistant Dean, Admissions & Recruitment.

The book is beautifully written an amazingly detailed and captivating recounting of hardship, success, adventure, cultural genocide and environmental destruction that is heartbreaking in its vividness. Its impossible to put down.

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Jim Nicell is another longtime contributor to McGill Reads and is renowned for his voracious literary appetite. My wife knows very well that I sneak books into the house when she isnt looking, jokes the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering.

My to read this year is a little eclectic. I plan to get a head start on the holidays next week by starting the new biography of Thomas Edison called Edison by Edmund Morris, says Nicell.

After that, I plan to dive into Maoism: A Global History, which was on my bookshelf well before its author, Julia Lovell, was nominated and then awarded the 2019 Cundill Prize. I often tell my wife that I take great pride in picking winning books each year, but she seems to think that this may simply be due to the fact that I buy too many books. Shes probably right, but dont tell her, says Nicell. And then, to lighten the reading a bit, I am hoping to reread Douglas Adams complete Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series again and, in the process, try to get my kids addicted to it. Hope springs eternal.

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Gwen Wren, U3 Environment, says she will be finishing Margaret Atwoods Testaments. Im a big Atwood fan and I think the issues she engages with through fiction are very prevalent in the world today, writes Wren.

As well, Ill be re-reading Marina Keegans The Opposite of Loneliness, a book of short essays that reminds me to slow down and relish in the moment. Something I often forget in the fast pace life of being a McGill student.

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Cynthia Leehas a pair of books lined up for the break. First, she will tackle We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, by Jonathan Safran Foer. Recently I watched the documentary, Eating Animals based on Safran Foers book and it was very powerful, I encourage everyone to watch it, says everyones favourite Associate Director, Media Relations. This subject of this book is again global warming and its direct relation to humans consumption of animals for food.

Next, she will revisit When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi. Im rereading this book because its one of my favorites, she says. Its the memoir of Paul Kalanithi, an American neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer at the age of 36. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live.

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Kim Davies, an Administrator at the Rossy Cancer Network, is nothing if not precise. She says she will read the following three books, in order (with page count);

Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Dont Know 400 pages

Ryu Murakami, Piercing 192 pages

Ian Williams, Reproduction 464 pages

1,056 pages in 10 days. ~106 pages/day, notes Davies.

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This year I will be less ambitions in my holiday reading, writes regular contributor Kendra Gray. The feature of my holiday reading will beBlowout by Rachel Maddow. Russia, oil, and politics, as told by Rachel Maddow. I can think of no better combination.

Gray also plans on finishingAmin Maaloufs Origins: A Memoir, the story of Maaloufs family and his travels to Cuba to learn about the great-uncle who left Lebanon and made a life in Cuba in the early 1900s. In addition to being a fascinating history of the time, it is addresses issues of belonging, home and success, says Gray.

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Antonia Maioni, Dean of the Faculty of Arts has set three reading goals for the holidays.

The Cundill History Prize (administered by the Faculty of Arts) attracts extraordinary books from around the globe, but only a sliver make it as the three finalists, says Maioni. I plan to go back to two fascinating shortlisted books: A Fistful of Shells by Toby Green and Unruly Waters by Sunil Amrith.

Next, Maioni wants to catch up with Louise Pennys Armand Gamache series. She is so prolific I can barely keep up!

Finally, says Maioni, as a Tudor history buff, I will be re-reading Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies in anticipation of Hilary Mantels new book, the Mirror and the Light, due out in March 2020.

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William Hip Kuen, MSc in Mathematics and Statistics,plans on reading A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard. I have heard that this book is extremely fruitful for university students, and I decided to read it to help myself become a better person in the future, he says.

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Here is my list if my history holds true I will read two of these, and something else, writes McGill Reads regular Kimberley Stephenson, Trade Buyer, Le James McGill University Bookstore. Stephensons list includes:

Spying on the South by Tony Horwitz, because I loved his previous book Confederates in the Attic, and he brilliantly mixes the past with the present.

One Day by Gene Weingarten. Weingarten is the author of Fiddler on the Subway, and the Pulitzer Prize winning feature article Fatal Distraction I am looking forward to a longer piece by him.

Blue Moon by Lee Child, because Reacher.

High Five Joe Ide this is Joe Ides fourth book. If Sherlock Holmes lived in South Los Angeles and was a scrawny kid, then you would have IQ, the detective in this series.

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Melissa-Anne Cobbler, Wellness Advisor, Faculty of Science has two books lined up for the break; Magnetic Equator, by Kaie Kellough; and Here Comes the Sun, by Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn

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If we had a Best Backstory Award, it might very well go to Juliana Rigante, who will be graduating in May 2020 with a Bachelors degree in Pharmacology.

Being a student in science and working part-time can be quite overwhelming at times, so to stay sane, I sing opera at my high school with the same teacher whos been training me since I was 12 years old, she writes. Thats why this year, A Night at the Opera: An Irreverent Guide to The Plots, The Singers, The Composers, The Recordings, by Sir Denis Forman is on my list. I cant wait to educate myself on the songs Ive already sung and perhaps get some inspiration for what I can sing in the New Year!

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What fun! writes Carola Weil, Dean of the School of Continuing Studies. This actually reminds me of a project I initiated at my previous university where the dean of Libraries and I hosted a type of book club for the entire university community based on a list of 80 most influential books in the U.S. Members of the university community could volunteer to read, present and lead a discussion on their book of choice. Very illuminating and a lot of fun.

With those kind of literary chops, it comes as no surprise that Weils nightstand has the following stack of books waiting for her:

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A self-proclaimed huge Sci-Fi and historical fantasy fan, Bojan Vastagsays hisreading list is pretty long. However, recently I stumbled across Hugh Howeys Wool (first book of a Silo trilogy) and it blew my mind. It gives a good portrait of how our society is intertwined and how beliefs based on an edited truth impact our lives, says the Solutions Architect, IT Services This means that my holidayreads will be Shift (part 2) and Dust (part 3).

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Ive been enjoying the McGill Reads series for the past few years and I think its time I participated, writes Sarah Delisle, Emergency Planning Officer, Campus Public Safety.

Delisle will readGeorge Takeis They Called Us Enemy, a graphic novel about the actors childhood experiences in Japanese internment camps in the US during World War II. She says the book caught my eye as I was walking through Indigo recently and reminded me of Mark Sakamotos bookForgiveness: A Gift From My Grandparents, which Ireadas part of CanadaReads 2018. Sakamoto tells about his paternal grandparents experiences in WWII internment camps in Canada so I was drawn to They Called Us Enemy as a way to learn about what was going on south of the border. Plus, graphic novels are a format I love for autobiographies!

Delisle also plans to read Daniel Aldrichs Black Wave: How Networks and Governance Shaped Japans 3/11 Disasters.

Black Wave is part of my ever-expanding library of disaster-related books (professional hazard!), she writes. Working in emergency management, Im always interested in how communities respond to, deal with, and recover from large-scale disaster events, so Im intrigued to read about the response to the magnitude 9.0 earthquake (and resulting 60-foot tsunami) that impacted Japan in 2011.

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While Im a pretty avid reader all the time, I do find the holidays an especially satisfying time for getting into some great books, says Chris Buddle, out-going Dean of Students and in-coming Associate Provost, Teaching and Academic Programs.

On the fiction front, our favourite spider-hunting entomologist has lined up three selections.

Of course, Buddle also likes non-fiction and is planning to tackle a trio of tomes.

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Dorothy Redhead, Assistant to the Dean, Faculty of Arts, says she wants to finishreading Ducks and Newbury Port, by Lucy Ellmann and is looking forward to reading Save me the Plums, Ruth Reichls memoir of her time as editor of the magazine Gourmet. It was my favourite magazine and, sadly, is no more having published its last issue in November 2009, says Redhead.

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Sweet-talker Erin McDonagh writes that the annual McGill Reads is the highlight of the McGill holiday season!

Thank you, Erin. Its one of our favourite projects too!

The Teaching and Learning Planner from Teaching and Learning Services has two books lined up for the holidays.

First, theres The Secret History of Jane Eyre by John Pfordresher. The author reconsiders Charlotte Bronts life and experiences, and links them to the development of her novelJane Eyre, says McDonagh. Pfordresher challenges the idea that this small, short-sighted woman from the Yorkshire Moors had a uninteresting, sheltered life by showing how experiences with her brother Branwells addiction, her travels to Brussels and London, and her own thoughts and dreams provided her with ample grist for the mill of her literary imagination.

Next, McDonagh has chosen an all-time classic with a fantastical twist; Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, with illustrations by Salvador Dali. This book needs no introduction, and rereading it is a yearly holiday treat for me, she says. Last year, however, I discovered this fantastic illustrated version of the tale with works by Salvador Dali. It seems like a completely natural pairing, and adding weird, surrealist art to a weird, surrealist book has certainly yielded a fantastic product.

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Albert Le, a DMD candidate in the Faculty of Dentistry, thinks everyone should read aul Kalanithis When Breath Becomes Air. It is a poignant memoir from a man whose story that can inspire so many of us on the value of life, says Le. I cant do this book justice in describing it myself.

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Having just finished Claremont by local Montreal author, Wiebke von Carolsfeld, Dino Dutz, is singing its praises.

As a film director, I was already a fan of her award-winning films, so naturally I was intrigued toread her first novel, writes the Administrative Coordinator to the Associate Deans at the Schulich School of Music. Its a beautifully and sensitively written story that begins with a horrifying family trauma whose survivors must navigate through an uncertain, unexpected, often awkward aftermath. The characters imperfections are also their strengths, and their relationships to each other are a testament to the strange and unexpected ways that love can guide you through the unthinkable to a new version of family.

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Daniel McCabe wins the 13th Hour Award for the last submission of the year. Truthfully, if we didnt owe him money, he might not have made the cut.

I made a happy discovery recently when I stumbled upon a deeply discounted copy of Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. in a downtown comic book shop, writes the much-admired editor of McGill News. A collaboration between Warren Ellis, one of the comic book worlds most influential writers (the second Iron Man film borrows heavily from one of his works) and the wonderfully versatile Canadian artist Stuart Immonen, Nextwave pokes gentle fun at the absurdity of superheroes, while simultaneously delighting in some of the over-the-top pleasures that super hero comics offer.

McCabe says his Christmas present to himself will be another graphic novel: the years-in-the-making Clyde Fans collection. The book, about a failing family business and the long, troubled relationship between two brothers, is by Seth, another Canadian, who is known for his retro cartoony style. The tone is nuanced and full of melancholy, and Seth, whose artwork has been featured in more than one museum, is one of his mediums most skilled cartoonists exemplified in the careful way he constructs a narrative, panel by panel by panel.

A fan of Emily Nussbaum, McCabe is looking forward to reading her new book I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution. She is a Pulitzer Prize-winning TV critic for The New Yorkerand her collection of essays explores the legacy of Norman Lear, looks at some of the questions raised by the #MeToo movement, and makes the case for whyBuffy the Vampire Slayeris one of the greatest shows in TV history.

One of her favourite shows and one of mine too is Bojack Horseman.Its among the funniest shows around, but its also pointed, wrenching and moving at times, says McCabe. The mastermind behind the show, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, has a new short story collection out, Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory. Given how much I loveBojack,I was thinking of picking up a copy.

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David Syncox says Bren Browns Dare to Lead has been on my desk for the entire fall semester and the hes determined to read it this holiday season. I am excited to read it as it speaks to being courageous and vulnerable as a leader, says the perpetually upbeat Director, Alumni Communities. As a staunch believer in lifelong learning and skills development, Im excited to learn a few strategies to add to my ever growing tool box.

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When Caitlin MacDougall last checked in with us earlier this year for the McGill Reads summer edition, she had already read or listened to 39 of the 75 books she was planning to tackle this year. Take that Jim Nicell!

We are happy to report that the Liaison Officer for the Farm Management and Technology Program has finished her 69th book and is on track to finish by December 31 (woot woot!), she says. Once again, it wouldnt be possible without the McGill Librarys Overdrive app and selection of audiobooks.

Over the holidays, MacDougall plans to read;

Continued here:
McGill Reads: 2019 holiday edition - McGill - McGill Reporter

The stock of ABCAM PLC ORDINARY SHARES UNITED KINGDO (OTCMKTS:ABCZF) registered a decrease of 3.12% in short interest. ABCZFs total short interest was 9,300 shares in December as published by FINRA. Its down 3.12% from 9,600 shares, reported previously. With 4,000 shares average volume, it will take short sellers 2 days to cover their ABCZFs short positions.

The stock increased 0.21% or $0.04 during the last trading session, reaching $18.18. About 296 shares traded. Abcam plc (OTCMKTS:ABCZF) has 0.00% since December 14, 2018 and is . It has by 0.00% the S&P500.

Abcam plc, together with its subsidiaries, produces and distributes research-grade antibodies and associated protein research tools worldwide. The company has market cap of $3.75 billion. The firm primarily offers primary and secondary antibodies, biochemicals, isotype controls, flow cytometry multi-color selectors, kits, loading controls, lysates, peptides, proteins, slides, tags and cell markers, and tools and reagents. It has a 45.56 P/E ratio. The Companys products are used in the areas of cancer, cardiovascular, cell biology, developmental biology, epigenetics and nuclear signaling, immunology, metabolism, microbiology, neuroscience, signal transduction, and stem cells, as well as in drug discovery services and products.

Another recent and important Abcam plc (OTCMKTS:ABCZF) news was published by Investorplace.com which published an article titled: The 3 Best Ways to Buy International Stocks Investorplace.com on July 25, 2016.

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Will ABCAM PLC ORDINARY SHARES UNITED KINGDO (OTCMKTS:ABCZF) Run Out of Steam Soon? Short Interest Is Down - FinanceRecorder

Getting to know cells well helps understand how organisms function. This is one of the aspects that drive scientists, researchers, and physicians to create bioprinting technology to generate living structures that can mimic the actual environment of human tissues. Bioprinters today usually involve a syringe-like mechanism to deposit cell material within a gel or scaffold structure, which helps keep the desired 3D shape while printing and is then washed away or dissolved. A Swedish company called Fluicell is out to change the reigning trend and has just released a new system for cell 3D printing. Based on innovative open-volume microfluidics technology, their brand new bioprinting system, Biopixlar, is capable of generating detailed, multi-cellular biological tissues without the need for a gel matrix.

The Biopixlar bioprinter

Biopixlar is designed for handling scarce and valuable cell sources such as stem cells, primary cells, and patient biopsies. The company has actually begun working at their own labs building full tissue and cancer models, which usually takes them just 24 hours to print thanks to their technology. The system is an all-in-one discovery platform that allows the printing of multiple types of different cells at once with high precision and resolution. One of the fun features is the gamepad interface, used to manually control the position of the print head and deposit the cells. Also, an integrated multi-color fluorescence imaging configuration enables real-time monitoring of the printing process and post-print analysis.

Gavin Jeffries

Fluicell, a spin-off company out of Chalmers University of Technology, in Sweden, has been around since 2012, developing biotech hardware devicesincluding the BioPen and Dynaflow Resolve systemsbut their research has taken them to explore changes in the bioprinting market, namely producing human-like tissue replicas. 3DPrint.com spoke to Gavin Jeffries, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Fluicell, to understand the process behind Biopixlar.

How did Fluicell become a pioneer in open-volume microfluidics?

Microfluidics is essentially the control of liquids on a smaller scale and is very useful when scientists need to handle the smallest amounts of liquid or have very rare samples and need fast responses. Over the last 20 years, microfluidics has been advancing quite a lot but has largely focused on chip-based devices, which means the whole field is centered around putting cells or liquids inside another device. When we first started the company we noticed that having something inside a device was restrictive, because within biology you normally want to have your cells in a petri dish or on your microscope, not inside a chip. But at the same time, we wanted to harness the power of microfluidics to use small sample amounts and have those very fast response times, so essentially we came up with a way of very precisely controlling both positive and negative pressures to allow control of liquids outside of our microfluidic chip. Meaning we can still have the function of microfluidics but in an open volume (basically in any kind of biological platform.) Since 2011, this technology has been picked up by different fields for research.

How will the gamepad simplify the user experience?

Biopixlar is a complete discovery platform, with everything embedded in it. Actually, just like a game system, the gamepad interface provides user control over the responsivity of the machine. This control format is ideal for people who are coming into the workforce and who have grown up with advanced interfaces, without the need to use a mouse or a keyboard. We also hoped to focus on the comfort of working with the device, for example, researchers will be able to get a direct response in real-time because it is fully embedded with microscopy, so they will see everything they are doing, every cell they put in, just everything.

Biopixlar is designed to be a complete platform where discovery science is its home and marketplace. Research and development, whether it is looking at disease models or interrogating biological systems, the user has control over building these early-stage models as accurately as possible. These can be found in academia and the pharma industry, so it will be our first bridge between the two market segments.

Closeup of the Biopixlar printhead

What makes Biopixlar so unique?

After one layer of cells is put down, Biopixlar allows them to grow and then pattern them using a molecular cell binder to put the next level of cells, and so on, building up layer by layer and using the extracellular matrix binding agent in between, which would naturally be reproduced by the cells. We chose to use components of the extracellular matrix that are naturally formed with the cells so that the device can pattern them on top of the cells which are printed, allowing for more cells to attach. In this way, researchers will not need to house the cells in any binder to build in three dimensions.

Why is cell viability really high with the Biopixlar system?

That is largely because of the microfluidics within the device. We use a consumable cartridge to load the cells, but inside there is a series of complex circuitry that allows the handling of liquids in a no-sharing regime so the fluids dont rub against each other and the cells are much happier being in this kind of no shared environment. When we patterned the cells at the lab, we noticed that there is no negative impact of printed cells versus putting them in a dish. Moreover, we feel comfortable and very happy that we minimally interfere with the cells when we build them into the structure that we want to create.

Printed skin cancer model

Do you consider Biopixlar will be successful among researchers?

We stand alone within the market of bioprinting because we do not need to use any binding matrix, our goal is to put cells as close as possible to each other so that they begin communicating straight away. Most of the full tissue and cancer models we built at the lab were done within 24 hours, and this is largely due to the fact that we dont have anything in the way of the cells communicating with each other. Additionally, thanks to the gamepad, we can see exactly what we are doing in real-time. The technology sparks interest in the field because people can actually see the bridge between advanced technology and biology and we are now starting to get to a point where we can show results and people are starting to get excited about them.

Is understanding cell behavior at the core of what you do?

The only thing which we are really focusing on is the cells. With Biopixlar, scientists dont have to pattern ink or deposition areas, they will not have to deal with that and instead, focus on the cells. Biopixlar has a unique advantage to see if anything is going wrong because if something were to happen to the cells or the biology during the process, it will be seen directly. Thanks to the high-resolution microscopy, we can interrogate the cells as they are printed or while they are growing. This all-in-one discovery platform approach is necessary to carry out bioprinting while providing advantages over how the biological tissues are actually built.

Printed liver cancer model

How would you describe Biopixlar to a potential buyer?

It is a high-resolution machine that fits in a comfortable lab setting with an easy-to-use experience, built with microscopy for looking at individual cells. Researchers need an accurate micro position to move around all the microcomponents while having a very stable infrastructure because it is moving on the micron size scale, instead of the millimeter size, we wouldnt want it to vibrate and lose calibration in the middle of a print. Overall, it is an accessible, original and optimal resolution device for lab spaces.

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Interview with Gavin Jeffries from Fluicell: Cell Biology is at the Core of our Work - 3DPrint.com

XconomySan Diego

Nearly nine years ago Jeanne Loring and her colleagues at Scripps Research debuted a test that leveraged advances in genomics and data science to determine, without testing in animals, whether human stem cells were pluripotent, or able to become any type of cell in the body.

Being able to prove that has become increasingly important as scientists look to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)mature, specialized cells that have been reprogrammed as immature cells, regaining the capability of becoming any type of cellas material for new regenerative medicines.

Now Loring and Andres Bratt-Leal, who joined her lab in 2012 as a post-doctoral researcher, have founded a biotech that combines stem cell biology and genomics know-how to advance a potential cell therapy for Parkinsons disease.

The startup announced Thursday it raised a seed round of $6.5 million to support its work. Aspens lead drug candidate, which is in preclinical testing, is intended to replace neurons in the brains of people with the disease, which causes those cells to become damaged or die.

When people with Parkinsons disease lose neurons, they also lose a chemical messenger the cells produce, called dopamine. Without dopamine, communication between nerve cells falters, which leads to the debilitating motor problems that characterize the disease. Existing Parkinsons drugs aim to alter dopamine levels. Aspen, however, wants to fix the upstream problem that leads to those lowered levels by reconstructing patients damaged neural networks.

The cell therapy would involve harvesting patients own living cells through a skin biopsy, reprogramming them to immature cells, or iPSCs, then further engineering them to become predisposed to mature into neurons. Once enough of those cells have been grown in the lab, those neuron precursor cells would be delivered directly to the brain.

Using a patients own cells avoids the dangerous immune system reactions that can occur when donor cells are used in such therapies, and obviates the need for immunosuppression drugs. Two cell therapies that use genetic engineering have been approved by the FDA, both of which take and tweak patients T cells into treatments for cancer. Stem cell transplants have been used to treat some cancers.

Aspen worked to ensure the company could ably manufacture a so-called autologous replacement cell therapy, or one from a patients one cells, by improving the process of differentiating iPSCs into dopamine neurons, Loring says. And the group developed another predictive genomic-based test, similar to the effort Loring spearheaded nearly a decade ago to determine whether cells were pluripotent, that can detect which iPSCs are destined to become neurons.

(Bratt-Leal) put his biological engineering expertise into coming up with a way that was reproducible, that we would get the same cells no matter who we got the original cells from, she says.

The company plans to test the therapy in patients that they determine, through genomic testing, have the most common form of Parkinsons, which is referred to as sporadic and arises without a clear genetic predisposition. It also has a second treatment in the works that it intends to develop for patients with familial forms of the disease, and uses a gene editing toolyet to be selectedto alter their stem cells during the reprogramming process.

Howard Federoff, who was most recently vice chancellor for health affairs and CEO of the UC Irvine Health system, is Aspens CEO. Federoff says he has come to believe that Parkinsons patients need more than just to stabilize their disease They need to turn the clock back.

Many companies are working on drugs to treat Parkinsons, but most are meant to manage symptoms rather than reverse the disease. Levodopa, which supplants missing dopamine, is used widely, but it can cause side effects, including involuntary movement called dyskinesia; and, as the disease progresses, the drug eventually stops working between doses.

Aspen claims it is the only company working toward an autologous neuron replacement. The company, however, will need to raise a Series A round to move its drug candidates through Phase 2 proof-of-concept trials, Loring says.

The company raised its seed round from a group of investors including Domain Associates, Alexandria Venture Investments, Arch Venture Partners, Axon Ventures, OrbiMed, and Section 32. Initially, it was financed through grants from Summit for Stem Cell, a San Diego-based nonprofit.

Sarah de Crescenzo is an Xconomy editor based in San Diego. You can reach her at sdecrescenzo@xconomy.com.

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Aspen Neuro Bags $6.5M to Test Parkinson's Disease Stem Cell Therapy - Xconomy

WASHINGTON One scientists sweet tribute to her father may one day give beekeepers cluesabout their colonies health, as well as help warn others when crop diseases orpollen allergies are about to strike.

Those are all possible applications thatbiochemistry researcher Roco Cornero of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.,sees for her work on examining proteins in honey. Cornero describedher unpublished work December 9 at the annual joint meeting of the AmericanSociety for Cell Biology and the European Molecular Biology Organization.

Amateur beekeepers often dontunderstand what is stressing bees in their hives, whether lack of water,starvation or infection with pathogens, says Cornero, whose father kept beesbefore his death earlier this year. What we see in the honey can tell us astory about the health of that colony, she says.

Bees are like miniature scientists thatfly and sample a wide variety of environmental conditions, says cell biologist LanceLiotta, Corneros mentor at George Mason. As bees digest pollen, soil and water,bits of proteins from other organisms, including fungi, bacteria and virusesalso end up in the insects stomachs. Honey, in turn, is basically bee vomit,Liotta says, and contains a record of virtually everything the bee came incontact with, as well as proteins from the bees themselves.

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The information archive in honey isunbelievable, Liotta says. But until now, scientists have had a hard timestudying proteins in honey. Its so gooey and sticky and hard to work with,he says. Sugars in honey gum up lab equipment usually used to isolate proteins.

So Cornero developed a method to pullpeptides bits of proteins out of honey using nanoparticles a feat noother researchers have previously managed, Liotta says. Once extracted from thehoney, the peptides are analyzed by mass spectrometry to determine the order ofamino acids that make up each fragment of protein. Those peptides are thencompared with a database of proteins to determine which organisms produced thehoney proteins.

A group of high school students workingat George Mason for the summer collected 13 honey samples from Virginia,Maryland. Two additional samples came from Corneros hometown of Mar del Platain Argentina. The Argentine honey was from the last batches her fathercollected from his bees.

Proteins from bees, microbes and a widevariety of plants were among the components of the honey. Peptides in honeyfrom one sample came from several bacteria, including some that normally livein bees guts and a few disease-causing varieties. Proteins from viruses andparasites that infect bees, including deformed wing virus and Varroa mites,which have been implicatedin colony collapse disorder, were also found in the sample (SN: 1/17/18). Those results could meanbees from that location may have trouble surviving the winter when the insectsimmune systems are less able to fight infections.

Cornero also determined by looking atpollen and plant proteins in the honey that bees had pollinated a variety ofplants, including sunflowers, lilacs, olive trees, red clover, potatoes andtomatoes. By analyzing pollen peptides, scientists may one day be able to learnwhether claims that certain honey is made from wildflowers, clover or orangeblossoms are really true.

Whats more, counting pollen peptides inlocal hives could, for example, give allergy sufferers a better idea of whenhay fever is likely to flare in their area, Cornero says. The researchers alsofound plant virus proteins in the honey, an indication of the types of diseasesthat may be stalking local crops.

Next, Cornero hopes to develop a rapid proteintest that would allow beekeepers to plunge a dipstick into honey and rapidly gaugetheir hives health. Having my dad as a beekeeper, I know how beekeepers work,and it would be a great way to honor his work, she says.

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A biochemists extraction of data from honey honors her beekeeper father - Science News

Director of Research/Cell Biology, tells us that genome editing is just a way of speeding up mother nature. Genome editing, the advantage is it is not GMO. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said he is not going to push for regulations on genome editing where it does not involve any plant pest and the reason for that is the nucleotide substitution, mother nature does the very same thing. We call them snips, a single nucleotide polymorphism and its the snips that plant breeders take advantage of for yield gains and that is the basis of plant breeding. We are just able to harness that ability that mother nature has developed and use it in a way that we can do it a whole lot faster. The outcome is the same as what mother nature would do.

In a 60 minutes report, a scientist suggested that genome editing may ultimately enable us to cure every disease known to man.

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Speeding up nature - AG INFORMATION NETWORK OF THE WEST - AGInfo Ag Information Network Of The West

Do you love burgersbut not the animal cruelty and environmental degradation that go into making them? I come bearing good news: Someday, you might be able to get your meat fix, without all that bad stuff. Scientists can now grow animal flesh, without raisingor in most cases killingan animal. This food, called lab-grown meat, cell-based meat, cultured meat, cultivated meat, clean meat, or as comedian Stephen Colbert jokingly called it in 2009, shmeat, has set off a flurry of media attention in recent years. Dozens of lab-grown meat companies have materialized, most aiming to solve the problems associated with large-scale beef, pork, poultry, and seafood production.

Finless Foods, a 12-person food-tech startup founded in 2017 and based in Emeryville, California, claims to be the first company to focus on lab-grown fish, although a handful of other startups have since joined them. In October, 28-year-old Finless Foods co-founder Mike Selden gave me a tour of their facility, and I dished about it on the latest episode of the Mother Jones food politics podcast Bite:

Selden and his co-founder Brian Wyrwas, both products of an agricultural biochemistry program at UMass Amherst, started the company, he says, to make something good.

We started off with zebrafish and goldfish, which already had a lot of cell biology research behind them, Selden explains. From there, we did our first prototypes, which were carp. The company grew tilapia, bass, rainbow trout, salmon, Mahi Mahi, lobster, and Fugu (poisonous pufferfish) meat before settling on Bluefin tuna, whose stocks have dropped sharply in the last few decades.

The idea behind lab-grown fish, Selden says, is multi-pronged. The technology, they hope, will prevent the killing of animals for food, cut down on overfishing, and eliminate mercury and microplastic contamination in seafood. We see this as creating a clean food supply on land: no mercury, no plastic, no animals involved, and it can still meet peoples needs.

Finless Foods carp croquettes, in September 2017

Finless Foods

Selden doesnt like the term lab-grown.Industry insiders argue it makes their products sound artificial and unappetizing.He instead prefers to call it cell-based. He argues that the process of growing fish in a lab is actually very similar to how fish grow and develop in the wild.

It begins with a sampleabout the size of a grain of riceof real meat from a real fish. (The tuna doesnt have to die during this process, but often does. In the companys two-and-a-half-year history, theyve killed fewer than 20 tuna.) Those cells are put in a liquid feed, like a nutritious soup, which gives them the energy to grow and divide, just like they would in a real, growing fish.

Despite the obvious advantages of lab-grown fish, there arent any products on the market. For Finless Foods, the cost of making one serving of their fish is still too high for consumers. I wont say exactly what number it is, Selden tells me, but youre not going to buy it. This is true across the industry: lab-grown beef, at one point costing as much as $280,000 to produce a hamburger, is also still prohibitively expensive, though its price is expected to drop to a mere $10 in two years.

Hitting the right price is one of the industrys biggest hurdles, if not the biggest one, according to Liz Specht, associate director of science and technology at the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit which lobbies for plant-based and cell-based alternatives to meat, dairy, and eggs. The industry, she says, has the science down. What does need to happenand I dont want to downplay or trivialize how challenging this will beis getting it to the scale and the price point that will ultimately be necessary.

On top of that, Finless Foods is still working out the kinks on the flavor. The first iteration of its fish, carp served as a croquette and prepared by a local chef, which it unveiled in 2017, didnt taste like much, Selden concedes. At the time, journalist Amy Fleming described it in a story for The Guardian as delicious and disappointing. When I called Fleming in November to get more detail about the taste, she said she recalls it being crispy on the outside and smooth and delicate on the inside. It had a subtle flavor of the sea, as the chef described it to Fleming, like water in an oyster shell. They were really lovely, she says, But did taste of fish? It was hard to say. You couldnt see any fish in there and you can discern any fleshy fish sort of texture.

Now, after two more years of taste-tests Selden claims the flavor of his Bluefin is really good. I think it tastes fantastic, he says. And I think that it really speaks for itself. (Ill have to take Seldens word for it; at the time of my visit, they didnt have any fish available for tasting.)

Finless Foods lab-grown carp, in a frying pan.

Finless Foods

The companys success could depend on finding the right flavor. When I ask Selden why people would choose his product over other alternatives, like sustainably caught or farm-raised fish, he says, They wont. He elaborated: Were specifically shooting for people who really dont care about sustainability. To appeal to seafood connoisseurs, he says, his company plans to first sell to upscale restaurants rather than grocery stores. Fine dining, he believes, is an easier way to get public perception on your sideespecially when were specifically searching for foodies rather than for a sustainably-minded consumer.

Funders seem to agreethey have already invested millions of dollars into Finless Foods. Early supporters include an aquaculture investment firm based out of Norway called Hatch, an Italian food science company, Hi-Food, a Japanese tuna company, Dainichi Corporation, and Draper Associates, a venture capital firm founded by Silicon Valley investor Tim Draper. Animal welfare organizations including PETA and Mercy for Animals have voiced support for lab-grown meat as a whole. And according to a 2018 survey conducted by Faunalytics, a non-profit animal advocacy research organization, 66 percent of consumers were willing to try clean meat.

There is one group of people that likely isnt so enthusiastic about lab-grown seafood: fishermen. I think that we need essentially a Green New Deal but for agriculture, says Selden. He believes a jobs guarantee might alleviate some of the growing pains associated with transitioning to a partial lab-grown meat food system. I think that the people who are doing that fishing, are doing that farming, we need to provide something for them so that they can still survive, even if we transition out of their industry as a method of food production.

It is yet to be seen whether Finless Foods sashimi will win over die-hard seafood fanatics. Then again, they might not have a choice: As climate change worsens, and the ocean becomes too hot, too acidic, too polluted, and over-fished, its possible that one day some types of seafood may come only in a lab-grown variety. As Specht told me, I think cultivated meat may truly be our only option for preserving the diversity of aquatic species we eat.

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We Destroyed the Oceans. Now Scientists Are Growing Seafood in Labs. - Mother Jones