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Genetics

BioIQ Partners with Fulgent Genetics to Bring COVID-19 Variant Detection to COVID-19 Testing Programs – Yahoo Finance

The groundbreaking viral genome sequencing and reflex testing solution identifies various COVID-19 variant strains, enabling employers, health plans, and public health agencies to optimize surveillance, treatment and vaccination protocol to mitigate spread of the virus more effectively.

BioIQ, an analytics-driven population health engagement and testing platform company for top employers and health plans, announces a partnership with Fulgent Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ: FLGT), a technology company providing comprehensive testing solutions, to offer viral genome sequencing capable of identifying various variants of the COVID-19 virus.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210216005842/en/

Fulgent Genetics full viral genome sequencing is a new and rapidly evolving tool that better characterizes COVID-19 infections and the consequences of new variants in the population. The partnership makes it possible for BioIQ employer, government, and health plan customers to leverage Fulgent Genetics testing solution to inform testing regimens, clinical treatment protocols and vaccination strategies pursuant to the identified COVID-19 variant. Local public health agencies can similarly leverage the testing solution in ongoing population infection surveillance programs with BioIQ.

"With new COVID-19 variants emerging around the globe, there is growing concern that higher infectivity in some strains may result in faster spread of the virus," noted Justin Bellante, BioIQ Founder, President, and COO. "This tool will be an important addition in the diagnostic armamentarium against COVID-19 by enabling BioIQ and its customers to more rapidly identify and quarantine individuals in cases where more infectious variants are present."

"Fulgent Genetics full viral genome sequencing offering for COVID-19 leverages our capabilities in Next Generation Sequencing and represents the next evolution in COVID-19 diagnostics, complementing our extensive RT-PCR based tests for the virus," said Dr. Harry Gao, Chief Scientific Officer of Fulgent Genetics. "Some variants spread faster than others, warranting a more rigorous testing protocol in populations where that strain is identified. COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness is also dependent on the virus variant. Identification of specific COVID-19 variants will enable BioIQ and its customers to implement the most effective plan of action for responding to and mitigating the spread of COVID-19."

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"The addition of Fulgent Genetics variant testing solution to BioIQs COVID-19 testing framework brings unparalleled triage intelligence to testing efforts," said Sean Slovenski, BioIQ CEO. "We remain committed to integrating the latest, cutting-edge advancements in COVID-19 diagnostics into our testing ecosystem to support the most effective and responsible response to the pandemic through best-practice population health protocol."

Addition of the Fulgent variant test to the BioIQ digital diagnostic testing ecosystem is the latest announcement in an ever-growing lineup of resources designed to help employers, health plans, and public health agencies respond to the COVID-19 epidemic. Since the onset of the pandemic, BioIQ has continuously brought cutting-edge COVID-19 testing solutions to market. From saliva-based tests; to combined COVID-19 and flu panel tests; to mobile, on-site testing; and now variant detection; the company continues to lead the market in COVID-19 diagnostics and program management solutions.

BioIQs COVID-19 and infectious disease platform encompasses on-site, retail, and home self-collection workflows across a variety of test types within a consumer friendly, digital experience. The BioIQ framework helps employers, health plans, and local public health agencies gain access to a national network of testing options; implement convenient, analytics-driven programs to efficiently facilitate testing; and monitor and manage the patient testing journey from end-to-end.

To learn more about BioIQs COVID-19 testing programs and solutions, as well as other services to protect workforces and communities, visit http://www.bioiq.com.

About BioIQ

BioIQ is modernizing the diagnostic testing industry through a national network of labs and customized solutions that support payors, employers, and consumers. By aggregating testing solutions, optimizing lab capacity, and integrating testing with customers needs and strategies, BioIQ ensures resilience and reliability so that employers and payors can protect workforces and members. With its first-of-its-kind health connectivity platform, BioIQ is uniquely positioned at the convergence of population health and the consumerization and retailization of healthcare to drive the shift to value-based care for payers and employers. Since 2005, BioIQ has launched thousands of successful health testing programs serving millions of participants. For more information, visit http://www.bioiq.com.

About Fulgent Genetics

Fulgent Genetics proprietary technology platform has created a broad, flexible test menu and the ability to continually expand and improve its proprietary genetic reference library while maintaining accessible pricing, high accuracy and competitive turnaround times. Combining next generation sequencing ("NGS") with its technology platform, the company performs full-gene sequencing with deletion/duplication analysis in an array of panels that can be tailored to meet specific customer needs. Since March 2020, the company has commercially launched several tests for the detection of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the novel coronavirus ("COVID-19"), including NGS and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction ("RT-PCR") based tests. A cornerstone of the companys business is its ability to provide expansive options and flexibility for all clients unique testing needs through a comprehensive technology offering including cloud computing, pipeline services, record management, web portal services, clinical workflow, sequencing as a service and automated lab services.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210216005842/en/

Contacts

BioIQ Contact: Judson PhillipsVP Marketing805-504-8586 x 7jphillips@bioiq.com

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BioIQ Partners with Fulgent Genetics to Bring COVID-19 Variant Detection to COVID-19 Testing Programs - Yahoo Finance

Genetics

Massive National Health Study Looks to Tailor Your Diet to Your Genetic Makeup – Singularity Hub

Like taxes and death, nutrition is something we cant escape. Eating should be easy. Yet its also massively confusing, prone to misinformation, and utterly personal.

Take competitive eaters who regularly chow down on thousands of calories without gaining weight. Compare them to people who pack on pounds just looking at a French fry. Or compare people who can tolerate any food to those who are sensitive or allergic to entire food groups. Or people who thrive on a high-fat diet like keto, to unfortunate souls whowith the same dietneed to stay close to the bathroom.

You get the idea: no one diet fits all. Yet nutrition science has long relied on averages to make dietary recommendations. From the 80s fat is bad paradigm to todays sugar is horrible trend, its always been easy to vilify one food component, without digging into how each of us interact with the foodstuff we eat.

Now, thanks to a massive new project led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), nutrition science is about to get the precision treatment. With a price tag of $156 million, the five-year-long study will examine how 10,000 Americans process food. The program, Nutrition for Precision Health, isnt pulling punches. Each person will be given a highly controlled diet to reduce variability. Theyll then be thoroughly monitored for everything from blood sugar levels to their genes, proteins, and gut microbiome composition. Using the massive dataset, the program can then develop AI-based algorithms to predict individual responses to foods and diets.

If successful, we may soon have a scientifically-proven way of optimizing our diet and health based on our genes and gut microbes. While the culinary astronauts among us may cringe at the idea, for those with metabolic disorders or food intolerances, the algorithms are a powerful tool to aid nutritionists in prescribing diets to those who seek help.

Nutrition science has had a bit of a fuzzy reputation. But its not through any fault of its own. The field faces two major unenviable challenges: one, the results are the average of entire study populations, and two, humans hate sticking to a strict diet for long enough to get consistent results. Ever tried a 14-day diet? Now imagine doing it for five years.

As Paul Coates, vice president of the American Society of Nutrition puts it, were all free-range eaters, which mucks up the resulting data.

Thats not to say classic nutrition science hasnt had major wins. Take the Framingham Heart Study, which launched in 1948 with over 5,000 people to better understand heart and blood vessel health. The study was a first population-level triumph in linking diet to cardiovascular diseases, which remains one of the top killers today.

But to NIHs director Dr. Francis Collins, its high time to bring nutrition science into the 21st century. In May 2020, the agency released a 10-year plan to dig into the nitty-gritty of nutrition, tackling the what, when, why, and how to eat to optimize health and reduce chronic health plagues such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.

Its looking to be a wild ride. For example, the ambitious effort doesnt just focus on the gut. Thanks to new research showing intimate connection between the gut and the braindubbed the gut-brain connectionthe plan also embraces neuroscience as a component. Given the link between longevity and diet, itll also study the role of nutrition across our lifespans, or even how to use food as medicine.

And underlying all these fundamental questions? Personalization: how each of us responds to the food we eat.

The new program will be housed under the NIHs flagship health project, All of Us. The research program aims to recruit one million people under its banner to build a Google Earth-style database of biology, health, lifestyle, and disease. The key is individuality: forget average treatments, personalization is the future.

To Dr. Griffin Rodgers, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDKK), now is the perfect time to explore precision nutrition. In a presentation last September, he laid out why. Were beginning to understand how the microbiome influences health. We can rapidly perform multi-omics studiesthat is, look at a persons whole system of genes, proteins, and metabolism. AI and machine learning make it easier to analyze these massive datasets. Finally, digital health tech, offered through smartphones or smartwatches, makes everyday health tracking simple and affordable.

The project is planned in three stages. Roughly 10,000 volunteers from All of Us will wear various monitorssimilar to Fitbitsto track their usual diets, physical activity, and blood sugar levels, creating a baseline. In the second stage, a subset of participants will regularly visit a clinic. There, theyll be given a controlled, specific meal, and be monitored for a series of biomarkers such as how their blood sugar levels change.

Another subset of volunteers will be given three different types of diets, one following another with a washout perioda breakin between. The prepared study foods will be eaten at home, so the participants can go about their daily lives.

Finally, up to 1,000 volunteers will stay at a clinic for three two-week-long holidays. Here, their three meals will be strictly controlled, and outside food not allowed. While seemingly harsh, going from free range to controlled is the gold standard for nutrition science, because it weeds out other variables.

While on the diet, all three groups will undergo a series of clinical tests, ranging from genetics and microbiome composition to blood sugar levels, metabolism, and urine. Psychology and behavior measures will also be assessed. Further on the docket are socioeconomic factors, such as zip code.

With these comprehensive measures, we are removing a lot of that noise that we had for years, created by the factors that we were not measuring before, said Dr. Jos Ordovs, a nutrition scientist at Tufts University.

As the study gathers data, on the back end, software engineers will begin building an infrastructure for storing, organizing, and searching the datasets. This library of data is then passed on to AI scientists to create models and algorithms that predict a persons individual response to a diet. Finally, another five-year period will validate those models in clinical trials.

Its not the first time a study has linked precision nutrition with AI. In 2015, an Israeli study of 800 people monitored their blood sugar levels and microbiome to parse out how individuals respond to different types of sugar intake. Using machine learning, the study built a software program to predict diets best suited for someone who is diabetic or hoping to lose weight.

But Nutrition for Precision Health is larger and far more sweeping than anything previously attempted. For now, the program is still at the planning stage, with a full launch expected in early 2023.

To Rodgers, the study isnt just about generating a wealth of data to fuel discovery science for years to come. The resulting tools, methods, and paradigm shift will have the potential to truly transform the field of nutrition science, he said.

Image Credit: bestbrk/Shutterstock.com

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Massive National Health Study Looks to Tailor Your Diet to Your Genetic Makeup - Singularity Hub

Genetics

Genetic variant inherited from Neanderthals associated with protection against severe COVID-19 – News-Medical.Net

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, impacts people in different ways after infection. Some experience only mild or no symptoms at all while others become sick enough to require hospitalization and may develop respiratory failure and die.

Now, researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) in Japan and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany have found that a group of genes that reduces the risk of a person becoming seriously ill with COVID-19 by around 20% is inherited from Neanderthals.

Of course, other factors such as advanced age or underlying conditions such as diabetes have a significant impact on how ill an infected individual may become. But genetic factors also play an important role and some of these have been contributed to present-day people by Neanderthals."

Professor Svante Pbo, Human Evolutionary Genomics Unit, OIST

Last year, Professor Svante Pbo and his colleague Professor Hugo Zeberg reported in Nature that the greatest genetic risk factor so far identified, doubling the risk to develop severe COVID-19 when infected by the virus, had been inherited from Neanderthals.

Their latest research builds on a new study, published in December last year from the Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care (GenOMICC) consortium in the UK, which collected genome sequences of 2,244 people who developed severe COVID-19. This UK study pinpointed additional genetic regions on four chromosomes that impact how individuals respond to the virus.

Now, in a study published today in PNAS, Professor Pbo and Professor Zeberg show that one of the newly identified regions carries a variant that is almost identical to those found in three Neanderthals - a ~50,000-year-old Neanderthal from Croatia, and two Neanderthals, one around 70,000 years old and the other around 120,000 years old, from Southern Siberia.

Surprisingly, this second genetic factor influences COVID-19 outcomes in the opposite direction to the first genetic factor, providing protection rather than increasing the risk to develop severe COVID-19. The variant is located on chromosome 12 and reduces the risk that an individual will require intensive care after infection by about 22%.

"It's quite amazing that despite Neanderthals becoming extinct around 40,000 years ago, their immune system still influences us in both positive and negative ways today," said Professor Pbo.

To try to understand how this variant affects COVID-19 outcomes, the research team took a closer look at the genes located in this region. They found that three genes in this region, called OAS, code for enzymes that are produced upon viral infection and in turn activate other enzymes that degrade viral genomes in infected cells.

"It seems that the enzymes encoded by the Neanderthal variant are more efficient, reducing the chance of severe consequences to SARS-CoV-2 infections," Professor Pbo explained.

The researchers also studied how the newly discovered Neanderthal-like genetic variants changed in frequency after ending up in modern humans some 60,000 years ago.

To do this, they used genomic information retrieved by different research groups from thousands of human skeletons of varying ages.

They found that the variant increased in frequency after the last Ice Age and then increased in frequency again during the past millennium. As a result, today it occurs in about half of people living outside Africa and in around 30% of people in Japan. In contrast, the researchers previously found that the major risk variant inherited from Neanderthals is almost absent in Japan.

"The rise in the frequency of this protective Neanderthal variant suggests that it may have been beneficial also in the past, maybe during other disease outbreaks caused by RNA viruses," said Professor Pbo.

Source:

Journal reference:

Zeberg, H & Pbo, S (2021) A genomic region associated with protection against severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neandertals. PNAS. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2026309118.

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Genetic variant inherited from Neanderthals associated with protection against severe COVID-19 - News-Medical.Net

Genetics

Genetic ancestry linked to diabetes, heart failure and obesity among Native Hawaiians | Keck School of Medicine of USC – USC News

First-ever large-scale genetic study examining Hawaiian Polynesians and health risk is led by the Keck School of Medicine of USC

(Photo/iStock)

By Wayne Lewis

With advances in analyzing human DNA, some well-studied populations have benefited from insights about how their health is affected by their genetics. Others, however, have been left behind. Among them are people of Polynesian descent from Hawaii.

Although population studies of Native Hawaiians have shown a substantial increase in risk for obesity, type2 diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers compared to their neighbors of European and Asian descent, there has been little to no insight into how genetics contribute on top of environmental factors to influence these disparities.

In an attempt to begin rectifying that gap, a USC-led research team has conducted the first study to systematically investigate the genomes of Native Hawaiians and test the components for health risks associated with genetic ancestry. The findings, which appeared in the journal PLoS Genetics, show that, for example, Polynesian ancestry in Native Hawaiians is linked to increased risk of diabetes, heart failure and higher body-mass index, a measure of body fat.

(Charleston Chiang. USC Photo/Ricardo Carrasco III)

Native Hawaiians really have been understudied from a genetic perspective, said corresponding author Charleston Chiang, PhD, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and of quantitative and computational biology at USC Dornsife College. Health disparities are a major research emphasis at USC in general, and my team focuses on looking at the genetic component of health risk within geographically diverse populations.

Characterizing Hawaiian Polynesian genetics to understand health risk

Chiang and his colleagues correlated health data (from questionnaire, laboratory measurements, and hospital Medicare claims) and the genetics of 3,940 people who identify as Native Hawaiian from the Multiethnic Cohort Study, a joint project of USC and the University of Hawaii. The research team found that for each 10% increase in estimated Polynesian ancestry, there is on average an 11% increase in risk of heart failure, an 8.6% increase in risk of type2 diabetes and a 0.35 unit increase in body-mass index.

Further studies may be able to identify genetic variants and underlying biological factors specific to Polynesian populations, knowledge that could help reduce these health risks. Chiang also hopes to test a hypothesis outlining a combination of nature and nurture.

For example, its possible that Native Hawaiians had adapted to a traditional diet, and the introduction of the Western diet has led to all kinds of health problems, he said. Thats actually an interaction between their genetics and their environment.

There was a unique challenge for the studys authors to overcome: Researchers focusing on the genetics of people with roots in Europe, Africa and Asia are able to call upon publicly available genomic references for those populations. No such resource exists for Polynesian ancestry. Native Hawaiians are characterized by a mixture of Polynesian, Asian, European and African ancestry. Using the existing references from other populations to run two analyses, the scientists searched for known origins as reflected both across each participants entire genome and location by location along their chromosomes. The research team essentially constructed a genomic model for Polynesian ancestry among Native Hawaiians by identifying a subsample of roughly 150 participants with the least amount of external heritance.

Genomics cant define ethnicity, and biology is not destiny

As should be expected with research charting new territory in biomedical science, the studys authors urge that their findings be interpreted with care and clarity on a few fronts.

Chiang pointed out that race and ethnicity are socially constructed concepts, and distinct from the issues explored in this study that is how certain genes shared among a population contribute to specific health metrics and outcomes. Ethnicity instead is, and should be, defined by genealogical records or how a person self-identifies.

Geneticists should not try to quantize a persons ancestry and use that to define whether that person belongs to a particular ethnic group, he said. While we needed to quantify the proportion of Polynesian ancestry in order to perform our research, we do not want to give the impression that this is a way for people to define their membership in the community based on some arbitrary threshold.

Additionally, Chiang emphasized that the model for Polynesian heritance among Native Hawaiians does not necessarily apply perfectly to populations in other islands such as Samoa.

Perhaps most important, the links between genetics and health revealed in this study should not be construed to mean that being part of any particular population automatically relegates a person to poor health in and of itself.

Genetics is a window into understanding the biology behind these diseases, Chiang said. Genetics does not determine everything, and it doesnt necessarily even amount to the majority of the disparity in risk. I want people to know there are modifiable components to your lifestyle, such as a healthy diet and regular hula dancing, that will absolutely help.

About the studies

The studys co-first authors are Hanxiao Sun, a former masters student in Chiangs research group, and Meng Lin, a former postdoctoral researcher in the group. Other authors are Tsz Fung Chan, Bryan Dinh and Christopher Haiman of USC; Emily Russell and Ryan Minster of the University of Pittsburgh; Take Naseri of the Government of Samoas Ministry of Health; Muagututia Sefuiva Reupena of Lutia i Puava ae Mapu i Fagalele, a nongovernmental organization based in Samoa; Annette Lum-Jones, Lynne Wilkens and Loc Le Marchand of the University of Hawaii; the Samoan Obesity, Lifestyle, and Genetic Adaptations Study Group; and Iona Cheng of the University of California, San Francisco.

The study was supported by the National Cancer Institute (U01CA164973, P01CA168530) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (U01HG007397).

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Genetic ancestry linked to diabetes, heart failure and obesity among Native Hawaiians | Keck School of Medicine of USC - USC News

Embryology

The 14-day limit should be extended to 28 days – BioNews

15 February 2021

MSc Bioethics and Society student, King's College London

The '14-day rule', initially proposed in 1979 in the USA, was first recommended in the UK by the Warnock Committee in 1984. It limits research on intact human embryos to 'prior to 14 days' gestation or the beginning of primitive streak formation' and is part of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Acts of 1990 and 2008(HFE Acts).

This legislation has been successfully implemented in the UK, but also in several other countries (eg, Australia's Research Involving Human Embryos Act 2002). It is followed in jurisdictions without relevant laws or even guidelines. While researchers accepted the rule, and have been content to keep to it, many contend that it was simply an arbitrary time limit that was chosen as a compromise to authorise any research at a time when pro-life views were strong. While originally it was a barrier that could not be breached for practical reasons, recent research on human and non-human primate embryos suggest that we now have methods to culture intact human embryos beyond 14 days.

I recently argued, in the Journal of Medical Ethics, that the current limit for embryo research should be extended to 28 days to permit research that will further explore our origins as well as potentially provide new therapeutic possibilities to reduce developmental abnormalities and miscarriage.

This conversation is something the Progress Educational Trust (PET), the charity which publishes BioNews, has been advocating for many years. Recent work they have accomplished includes a proposal to the 'My Science Inquiry' launched by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. Sandy Starr, deputy director of PET gave oral evidence to the committee advocating for this conversation to be had by government, as it is already an ongoing debate within the scientific community. PET also held their annual conference in 2016, which focused on the 14-day limit on human embryo research, and that featured Baroness Mary Warnock, who was chair of the committee that originally proposed the limit in 1984.

There are a number of reasons why research on embryos between 14 and 28 days, often referred to as the 'black box' period of development, is now ready to be initiated. Several of these are emphasised in my paper.

Firstly, the 'black box' period is when the basic body plan and the formation of critical cell types, tissues, and some organs is initiated. These include germ cells, which are not only essential for the next generation, but are also the early progenitors of the nervous system, blood cells and the heart, and the placenta. It is known that even a subtle defect can have a devastating effect on subsequent development. While we know something about how these develop in model organisms such as the mouse, there are clear differences with human embryos, making it difficult to infer results between species. We also can't yet rely on new stem cell-based models of early human embryos without first carrying out detailed comparisons with the real thing.

It could be argued that 28 days is not long enough. Whilst this is certainly a thought-provoking point, we are already able to obtain embryonic tissues from 28 days and beyond and older fetal tissue to use in scientific research eg, from an aborted fetus. It is also important to consider the need for a 'limit'. If there is not one at all, there is no compromise, discontent, and it could complicate the regulatory system.

In conversations surrounding the 14-day limit there are differing ethical opinions. I argue that in order for those trying for a baby to have legitimate reproductive autonomy, they should have the appropriate assistance and opportunity to produce, at the very least, a healthy child. I also focus on the need to differentiate between 'research' embryos and 'reproductive implanted embryos' ie, the research embryos in question are those whose location will remain in a petri dish.

It is absolutely crucial to outline the importance of a robust regulatory body. In the UK, we are lucky to have the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which means there is government oversight making sure fertility clinics and research centres comply with the law, this extends to human embryo research. For example, in 2016, Dr Kathy Niakan was not just the first person in the UK to be granted a license from the HFEA to use genome editing techniques on human embryos, but the first anywhere to have this type of research sanctioned by a regulatory body. (See BioNews 835).

With any significant legislative change that will directly impact the population, significant public debate must be instigated. Public opinion must be widely surveyed and considered, because any decisions like this should not just be one made by a select few individuals. This can be seen with another significant change in the HFE Act, the addition of mitochondrial donation regulations in 2015, which is an example where public engagement was very important. It gave the Government license to make the changes in the HFE Acts, knowing that there was broad support for the use of the methods to avoid mitochondrial disease.

As I conclude in the paper, just because something has once worked does not mean it should stay the same or not strive to be improved. The 14-day limit has become limiting and the conversation around extension must continue.

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The 14-day limit should be extended to 28 days - BioNews

Embryology

New Agriculture Scholarship Offered in Honor of the Late Harold Tutvedt – Flathead Beacon

News & FeaturesSeniors at Flathead and Glacier high schools can apply for funding to attend Montana State University College of Agriculture

By Myers Reece // Feb 16, 2021

Seniors at Glacier and Flathead high schools can now apply for a new agricultural college education scholarship named after the late Harold Tutvedt, a well-known West Valley farmer who passed away in 2018.

The $2,000 scholarship will be awarded to a senior who intends to pursue a degree at Montana State Universitys College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, offering students yet another opportunity in a school district already reputed for its robust agricultural curriculum through the H.E. Robinson Agricultural Education Center.

The application deadline for the Harold Tutvedt Memorial Scholarship is March 10. Seniors at either Kalispell high school can apply by contacting their respective college and career center.

Its huge, Brian Bay, a teacher at the Agricultural Education Center in Kalispell, said. A scholarship of this size directly for a student going to Montana State University is significant. It will make a huge difference for whoever gets it.

The MSU College of Ag is known nationally, he added, and theres the history of the Tutvedts and the role they have played in our community and agriculture. Its really neat.

The ag center welcomes between 300 and 350 students each year, including 21 seniors this year who will be the target audience of the new scholarship, although a number of them have already committed to plans and schools other than MSU, Bay said.

The center opened its doors in 1978, but Flathead High School has had an agricultural program since 1917, while Future Farmers of America has been established in town since 1930 and high school students have farmed the land on which the ag center sits since the 1940s, including generations of Tutvedts who attended Kalispell public schools.

Harold would have farmed this ground when he was a student, Bay said.

Harold Tutvedt, the second child of Norwegian immigrants, was born in a leased farmhouse with no power or running water off Clark Drive in West Valley in 1929 and spent his entire life in agriculture, moving from farming with horses to driving the big green auto steer combines that he loved so much, according to his 2018 obituary. He attended Flathead High School and Montana State University.

Mike Kelly, director of the Flathead High career center, said the Tutvedt family came up with the idea of an agricultural education scholarship following Harolds death. Kelly, who helps kids devise their post-high school steps, notes that agricultural education has grown significantly over the years into areas including embryology, soil science, innovative concepts in animal husbandry and raising plants, and more.

The field has broadened quite a bit to include many things other than the stereotype of what many think of farming, planting crops, raising cattle, dairy farming, riding a tractor, he said. Theres certainly all those components, but there are a lot of other things that go along with it.

The scholarship comes as the ag centers hundreds of high school students are newly enjoying updated facilities, funded by the passage of a school bond package in 2016. Bay called the renovations terrific.

Were so pleased with this place, he said.

People interested in contributing to the scholarship fund can make donations to the Harold Tutvedt Memorial Scholarship C/O Blue Mountain Community Foundation, P.O. Box 603, Walla Walla, WA 99362.

For questions about the application process, contact Mike Kelly at (406) 751-3661 or kellymi@sd5.k12.mt.us.

If you enjoy stories like this one, please consider joining the Flathead Beacon Editors Club. For as little as $5 per month, Editors Club members support independent local journalism and earn a pipeline to Beacon journalists. Members also gain access to http://www.beaconeditorsclub.com, where they will find exclusive content like deep dives into our biggest stories and a behind-the-scenes look at our newsroom.Join Now

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New Agriculture Scholarship Offered in Honor of the Late Harold Tutvedt - Flathead Beacon

Embryology

‘I split with my ex then chaos set in’: Why we need to talk about the flux years – Metro.co.uk

Nell Frizzells new book explores the chaotic years between adolescence and midlife (Picture: Bekky Lonsdale/Getty)

At 28, my life went into a totally catastrophic period of personal and professional chaos, of change and transformation, says Nell Frizzell, now 36.

I threw away the security of a relationship, confronted the finite nature of my fertility, acted at times with careless depravity and took on, eventually, a whole new identity.

The future shed pictured with her ex, with whom shed split after six years, was replaced with the myriad possibilities of single life but it also emphasised the metaphorical ticking clock.

If she did want a baby, then when, how, why and with whom?

Adolescence and menopause encapsulate monumental periods in life but theres no term to describe what happens in between. Its why writer Nell set herself the bold task of creating a linguistic shorthand for these nameless but equally fundamental years. She settled on the flux.

I like that it captures the psychological chaos, physical bodily elimination and emotional fluctuation that happens between adolescence and midlife, says Nell, who explores the flux in her new book, The Panic Years: Dates, Doubts And The Mother Of All Decisions.

She highlights that the choices we make from our twenties to our early forties are often heavily influenced by one question: whether we should have a baby. This impacts on all aspects of our life, including dating, which job to do and where to live.

Nells own flux was triggered by the end of that six-year relationship. Already an unduly catastrophic thinker, the sense of panic was amplified by the fact her mum went through the menopause at 40.

Every month Id get my period and think, Thats another potential future gone, and I didnt know how many of those eggs I had left, but Im glad it pushed me to make a decision, says Nell, who now lives in Oxford with partner Nick and their three-year-old son.

Motherhood didnt herald an epiphany for Nell but it did prompt her to ponder the extent to which we endlessly ruminate about becoming a parent.

Sometimes the further away you get from something, the easier it is to see the towering thing above you, and the further I got away from 28, the easier it was to see the looming presence motherhood has always had in my life, she says.

Not only what it meant and the compromises Id need to make but the way the men in my life had been conditioned to think about fertility, the way we talk about female desire and maternal love. All those things deeply altered my life in a way I wasnt prepared for.

Throughout the book Nell gamely shares brutally honest anecdotes from her own flux, including the hopeful but doomed flings, the anguish of birthdays, weddings and baby showers, as well as her own messy journey to becoming a mum. But she also examines the wider societal issues.

I still find contraception a deeply troubling and sexist phenomenon, she says. The average cost of childcare in this country is unsustainable and the rate of successful interventions in terms of egg freezing and IVF are much lower than I thought.

On those two points, the numbers speak for themselves: it costs 6,800 per year for a part-time nursery place, says The Money Advice Service, and around four in five cases are unsuccessful, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

All these things can look like separate quandaries but they all feed into the same giant flux so of course we have a hard time trying to navigate them simultaneously, says Nell. And Im a white, educated woman operating from a huge sense of privilege. What must it be like to be a person of colour or low income, a single parent, or from the LGBTQ community?

While Nells flux ultimately led to a baby, the book isnt about that one narrative.

I hope child-free people, by choice or otherwise, can find things in it that really speak to them because whats surprised me is that the people Id least expect, who are leading very different lives to me, told me they can identify with the things Im describing, she says.

Nells only just started having frank discussions with her friends about this topic.

Im the queen of oversharing, someone who never shies away from the more revolting sides of having a human body, but I shied away, and still do, from saying to people, Do you want to have a baby? Its such a loaded question, she says.

Only certain people have the right to ask that question and in certain circumstances but I do think its a conversation people should feel more able to have. It feels like we all skirt around something thats quite fundamental to the way we live our life.

To hold our feelings up to the scrutiny of the world can be scary but its healthy to say what you want.

Nell Frizzells The Panic Years is out now

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'I split with my ex then chaos set in': Why we need to talk about the flux years - Metro.co.uk

Cell Biology

Avance Biosciences Expanding Houston Campus in Support of Cell and Gene Therapy Drug Development – BioSpace

HOUSTON, Feb. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Avance Biosciences Inc., a leading CRO providing GLP/GMP-compliant assay development, assay validation, and sample testing services supporting biological drug development and manufacturing, announced today that its Houston facility, which successfully passed an inspection by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Oct 2018, is undergoing major expansion to handle rapidly growing demand for their services.

The new facility, expected to be completed by Q3 2021, is located adjacent to the current facility and will expand the Houston campus by an additional 5,500 square feet. The new facility will be devoted to cell-based assay services and enable Avance to better address the specific needs of their GMP clients. Additionally, Avance is expanding their mammalian cell culture related assay capabilities including: mycoplasma testing, adventitious agents testing, sterility, potency, and others.

As a provider of genomics and biological testing services, Avance Biosciences offers a broad range of molecular biology and microbiology assays in compliance with current Good Manufacturing Practices (21 CFR Parts 210 & 211) and Good Laboratory Practices (21 CFR Part 58) to support its clients' regulatory submissions.

Avance's CEO, Dr. Xuening Huang commented, "We take a partnership approach with our clients and that means an extended relationship; from discovery to development to clinical testing and on to manufacturing. Our most recent expansions will ensure that we can keep pace with our customer's increased needs when ramping up development and manufacturing activities. Our primary goals are to deliver world-class service and complete customer satisfaction."

Avance's Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Cal Froberg commented, "It's clear there is tremendous growth in the development of cell and gene therapies and we're proactively managing resources to handle increased market demand for related support services. The industry is expanding rapidly and Avance is positioned well to address the specific needs of these customers."

This most recent expansion comes on the heels of another 7,500 square foot expansion completed in 2020 which has significantly increased Avance's NGS and ddPCR capabilities. This facility has been pivotal in addressing gene therapy development support needs such as: edited gene testing, gene integration assays, and DNA/RNA biodistribution studies.

Recently, Avance Biosciences was recognized as a top 10 Genomics Solutions Company for 2020. Current and future expansion plans will serve to solidify this position among the premier providers in this space.

About Avance Biosciences

Avance offers cGMP/GLP compliant genomics biological testing services in support of drug development and manufacturing. Its leading scientists have designed, validated, and tested thousands of assays under cGMP/GLP regulations for the FDA, EPA, and European and Japanese regulatory agencies. Avance's team has extensive knowledge and experience working with scientists, QA/QC professionals and project managers from over 100 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and organizations throughout the world.

Contact

Xuening Huangxuening.huang@avancebio.com877-909-52109770 West Little York RoadHouston, TX 77040 USA

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Avance Biosciences Expanding Houston Campus in Support of Cell and Gene Therapy Drug Development - BioSpace

Cell Biology

What rules govern structure of membraneless organelles? – UB Now: News and views for UB faculty and staff – University at Buffalo Reporter

In cells, numerous important biochemical functions take place within spherical chambers made from proteins and RNA.

These compartments are akin to specialized rooms inside a house, but their architecture is radically different: They dont have walls. Instead, they take the form of liquid droplets that dont have a membrane, forming spontaneously, similar to oil droplets in water. Sometimes, the droplets are found alone. Other times, one droplet can be found nested inside of another. And these varying assemblies can regulate the functions the droplets perform.

A study published on Feb. 8 in Nature Communications explores how these compartments, also known as membraneless organelles (MLOs) or biomolecular condensates, form and organize themselves. The research lays out physical rules controlling the arrangement of various types of synthetic MLOs created using just three kinds of building materials: RNA and two different proteins, a prion-like polypeptide (PLP) and an arginine-rich polypeptide (RRP).

The project brought together a team from UB and Iowa State University.

Different condensates can coexist inside the cells, says first author Taranpreet Kaur, a PhD student in physics in the UB College of Arts and Sciences. They can be detached, attached to another condensate, or completely embedded within one another. So how is the cell controlling this? We found two different mechanisms that allowed us to control the architecture of synthetic membraneless organelles formed inside a test tube. First, the amount of RNA in the mixture helps to regulate the morphology of the organelles. The other factor is the amino acid sequence of the proteins involved.

These two factors impact how sticky the surfaces of the condensates are, changing how they interact with other droplets, says Priya Banerjee, UB assistant professor of physics, and one of two senior authors of the paper. In all, we have shown using a simple system of three components that we can create different kinds of organelles and control their arrangement in a predictive manner. We suspect that such mechanisms may be employed by cells to arrange different MLOs for optimizing their functional output.

Davit Potoyan, assistant professor of chemistry at Iowa State, is the studys other senior author.

The experiments were done on model systems made from RNA and proteins floating in a buffer solution. But the next step in the research already underway is to conduct similar studies inside a living cell.

Going back to our motivations in researching MLOs, the big questions that started the field were questions in cell biology: How do cells organize their internal space? Banerjee says. The principles we uncover here contribute to the knowledge base that will improve understanding in this area.

Research on MLOs could lead to advancements in fields such as synthetic cell research or new materials for drug delivery.

We are in the process of learning the biomolecular grammar that may be a universal language used by cells for taming their inner cellular complexity. We hope one day to utilize this knowledge to engineer artificial protocells with custom-designed functionalities inspired by nature, Potoyan says.

In addition to Banerjee, Potoyan and Kaur, co-authors of the study included Iowa State chemistry postdoctoral researcher Muralikrishna Raju; UB physics PhD student Ibraheem Alshareedah; and UB physics postdoctoral researcher Richoo Davis.

The study was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). The team also received assistance from two NSF-funded resources: the UB North Campus Confocal Imaging Facility and the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment.

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What rules govern structure of membraneless organelles? - UB Now: News and views for UB faculty and staff - University at Buffalo Reporter

Cell Biology

Beating the resistance: WVU scientists target antibiotic-resistant infections with $1.4M DOD grant – My Buckhannon

MORGANTOWN Antibiotic resistance is not exclusively a health issue.

Its a national security threat, as the Department of Defense has tapped a team ofWest Virginia Universityscientists to help exterminate the enemy infectious biological agents.

With the aid of $1.4 million-grant from the DODs Defense Threat Reduction Agency, researchers, led byMariette Barbierof theWVU School of Medicine, will aim to develop small molecule and antibody therapeutics to treat infections prone to antibiotic resistance.

Nearly three million people in the United States get an antibiotic-resistant infection each year. Of those, more than 35,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This happens when bacteria and fungi thrive because theyre too powerful for the drugs designed to kill them. By 2050,experts have predicted that more people might diefrom these antibiotic-resistant infections than by cancer that is unless research like Barbiers is successful.

Barbier said her project is twofold: 1) It prepares the DOD for bioterrorism risks. 2) It presents potential solutions to the ever-growing public health challenge of antibiotic resistance.

One of the missions of the DOD is preparedness against biological threats, said Barbier, assistant professor in theDepartment of Microbiology, Immunology and Cell Biology. Some bacteria are potential bioterror agents, but there are also bacteria within those same families that are responsible for causing hospital-acquired infections. By focusing on these species of bacteria, were casting a broad net to address potential biological threats as well as infections that afflict everyday patients.

Barbiers team will employ a search and destroy approach by combining antibodies with antimicrobials. Antibodies are blood proteins that seek out and bind to specific antigens on pathogens. Combining them with antimicrobial molecules can create a therapeutic potent enough that, Barbier believes, can effectively treat those stubborn infections.

Joining her areSlawomir Lukomski, associate professor, andAlexander Horspool, postdoctoral fellow and the scientist in charge of antibody discoveries within theWVU Vaccine Development Center. In addition, the team will collaborate with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Maryland on this project.

One specific species targeted by the team includesBurkholderia, a rod-shaped bacterium considered a potential biological warfare agent that could target livestock and humans. The team will also target the bacteriumPseudomonas aeruginosa, which causes a form of pneumonia known to affect cystic fibrosis patients. Many types of bacteria, such as these, do not have preventative measures such as vaccines.

The types of infections caused by these organisms are really broad, Barbier said. Youve got respiratory infections, skin infections, bladder infections, and youve got all sorts of infections resulting from surgical procedures.

One reason antibiotics have a hard time conquering bacteria is due to their evolving versatility. Bacteria can adapt to new and changing environments. If onePseudomonas aeruginosacell, for example, survives a flurry of antibiotics, it can multiply into even more cells that are impervious to traditional treatment.

With this project, were hoping to develop new ways to fight these infections or even prevent them to start with, Barbier said. What weve realized is how powerful our own immune systems and antibodies can be. So what we propose here is to harness that aspect of our immune system and use it for treatment.

An added element to the project will be the utilization of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques that will be developed at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. Lukomski, who has identified novel antigens againstBurkholderia, will screen molecules with potential antimicrobial properties in his lab before taking the data to feed into a computer system.

Using artificial intelligence and machine learning will allow us to make reiterative calculations in order to predict whether compounds could have potential therapeutic effects, he said.

Rather than spending days and possibly months in a lab screening compounds which are expensive to make and difficult to obtain scientists can screen billions of molecules in a few hours using a super computer, Barbier added.

Were not just addressing current problems, she said. Were also looking at the future in terms of making predictions as to what treatment could be efficacious to help us fight the next bacterial pandemic.

The project stems from June 2019, when Barbier joined members of the WVU VDC at the BIO International Convention the worlds largest global biotech partnering event. At this conference, Barbier and the VDC met with representatives from DTRA. In November 2019, representatives from DTRA visited WVU to meet with members of the WVU Health Sciences Center and Corporate Relations Team, where the idea for this project came to life.

As a result of the visit, Barbier was able to connect with collaborators from the University of Maryland and MIT. The three universities will work together to accomplish the goals of this grant.

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Beating the resistance: WVU scientists target antibiotic-resistant infections with $1.4M DOD grant - My Buckhannon