Human Behavior

Research to identify biological hotspots in the oceans will help reduce human impacts – University of California, Santa Cruz

Roxanne Beltran, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz, has received a grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Program to detect hotspots of biological activity in the ocean using data from her labs ongoing research on northern elephant seals.

The project will provide valuable training for undergraduates and graduate students in Beltrans lab, and the grant also includes funding for an assessment of ethical considerations in conducting field research with wild animals.

Our group has always emphasized the importance of mentoring and ethical practices, but we now have financial resources to put behind them, which is really exciting, Beltran said.

The $750,000 grant includes over $100,000 budgeted for a paid field researcher program for undergraduate students. Each year, nine students will be brought into the elephant seal field research program through the Work-Study Research Initiative (WSRI), a program Beltran helped spearhead (with the science divisions Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee) to streamline the process for undergraduate students to be active members of a research lab and conduct relevant research while being supported financially.

We want to train students from low-income and marginalized backgrounds, and we dont want them to have to get paid jobs in retail or food service, so the funding for this paid field assistant program will help diversify our team, she said.

The focus of the project is to obtain detailed information about the locations of areas in the ocean where intense biological activity leads to concentrations of marine organisms, including large marine vertebrates such as whales and seals drawn to aggregations of prey. Identifying these biological hotspots will enable the U.S. Navy to reduce negative interactions with wildlife during naval exercises.

UCSC researchers have been studying elephant seals for decades using sophisticated tagging technology to track their migrations and study their behavior at sea. The biologging instruments carried by the seals can also gather valuable information about the ocean environment, including sound recordings that can reveal the presence of elusive species such as beaked whales, which are known to be sensitive to Navy sonar.

If we know where sensitive species are doing important things like feeding, then we can avoid activities that might affect the environment there, said Dan Palance, a graduate student involved in the project who is leading a review of current knowledge about marine hotspots.

Elephant seals are an ideal platform for gathering information about biological hotspots, ranging far across the North Pacific Ocean and diving repeatedly into the depths in search of prey. They also return reliably to the breeding colony at Ao Nuevo Reserve, where researchers can recover the instruments.

These instruments have allowed us to make huge advances in what we know, not only about the animals themselves, but about the marine environment, said Allison Payne, a graduate student in Beltrans lab. Elephant seals are an amazing mobile sensor platform for identifying biologically important areas, including places with large aggregations of prey.

In their work with the elephant seals at Ao Nuevo, UCSC researchers have always sought to minimize the impact on the animals of the instruments and the procedures involved in attaching and recovering them. But a comprehensive review of the ethics of biologging studies and guidelines for conducting and reporting such research has been lacking.

A lot of thought goes into the size and shape of the biologgers to ensure the seals are not impacted by data collectionprimarily because we care about these amazing animals, but also because our studies depend on recording their natural behavior, Beltran said. Allisons dissertation will include developing a set of guidelines for how to plan ethical projects and how we should be reporting our practices.

Another area of emphasis for Beltran has been ensuring safe environments for diverse young scientists participating in field research. Surveys have revealed a disturbing amount of harassment and bias in field settings, particularly for women and members of marginalized communities. Beltran worked with colleagues at UCSC, including Professor Erika Zavaleta and graduate student Melissa Cronin, to develop a program called Building a Better Fieldwork Future (BBFF) to offer sexual harassment trainings for scientific teams that do fieldwork.

The BBFF program will be administered as part of the field safety training for all members of the Beltran lab. In addition, Payne, who is now the program coordinator for BBFF, will lead an effort to expand the program to address a broader range of challenges in field settings. The goal is to ensure that field settings are safer, more equitable, and more welcoming for the next generation of field scientists.

Beltran said the proposal for this grant was a group effort by her lab, bringing together different approaches to address key questions about the locations and dynamics of biological hotspots in the ocean. In addition to high-resolution biologging techniques, the project will include analyzing stable isotopes in elephant seal whiskers for information on the diets of individual seals, which will help identify feeding hotspots. The researchers will also test drone technologies using forward-looking infrared (FLIR) cameras through the CITRIS Initiative for Drone Education and Research as a potential tool for counting animals and detecting hotspots.

The grant pulls all of those efforts together, leveraging our existing data collection efforts to train a new generation of scientists in ethical, inclusive research, Beltran said.

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Research to identify biological hotspots in the oceans will help reduce human impacts - University of California, Santa Cruz

Human Behavior

Smart Eye Receives Six Additional Driver Monitoring System Design Wins with Korean Car Manufacturer – AccessWire

GTEBORG, SE / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2022 / Smart Eye (STO:SEYE)(OTC PINK:SMTEF)(FRA:SE9) Smart Eye has been selected by an existing customer to deliver its world-leading Driver Monitoring System (DMS) software to six additional car models. The estimated revenue of the order is SEK 100 million based on estimated product life cycle projections.

Gothenburg, Sweden - October 19, 2022 - Smart Eye, the leading developer of DMS software to the automotive industry, will deliver its AI-based technology to six new car models. The customer, a global Korean car manufacturer, has previously chosen Smart Eye's software for implementation in 17 of its earlier car models and is now extending the technology to several of its next-generation models on a new platform.

The new car models including Smart Eye's technology are expected to go into production in 2024. The estimated revenue for the order is SEK 100 million, based on product life cycle volume projections. The potential of further design wins on this new platform is estimated at SEK 100 million.

"To have an existing customer extend our Driver Monitoring software to a next-generation car model on a new platform points to the robustness and quality of our technology", said Martin Krantz, CEO and Founder of Smart Eye. "We can be sure that the customer is content when we get selected for the next automotive platform of the same car model. These cars will be produced well into the 2030s. We are in Korea to stay".

Smart Eye has now received a total of 100 design wins from 14 OEMs. The combined estimated lifetime value from current design wins is now larger than SEK 2,485 million. Estimated value over the product lifecycle from possible additional design wins with the car manufacturers on existing platforms is now SEK 4,515 million.

For more information:

Martin Krantz, CEO Smart Eye ABPhone: +46 70-329 26 98Email: [emailprotected]

Anders Lyrheden, CFO Smart Eye ABPhone: +46 70-320 96 95Email: [emailprotected]

About Smart Eye

Smart Eye is the global leader in Human Insight AI, technology that understands, supports, and predicts human behavior in complex environments. We are bridging the gap between humans and machines for a safe and sustainable future. Our multimodal software and hardware solutions provide unprecedented human insight in automotive and behavioral research-supported also by Affectiva and iMotions, companies we acquired in 2021.

In automotive, we are leading the way towards safer and human-centric mobility through Driver Monitoring Systems and Interior Sensing solutions. Our technology is embedded in next-generation vehicles and available as a standalone aftermarket solution for existing vehicles, fleet, and small-volume OEMs.

Our industry-leading eye tracking systems and iMotions biosensor software enable advanced research and training in academic and commercial sectors. Affectiva's Emotion AI provides the world's largest brands and market researchers with a deeper understanding of how consumers engage with their content, products, and services.

Smart Eye was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Sweden with offices in the US, UK, Germany, Denmark, Egypt, Singapore, China and Japan. A publicly traded company since 2016, our customers include NASA, Nissan, Boeing, Honeywell, Volvo, GM, BMW, Geely, Harvard University, over 1,300 research organizations around the world, 70% of the world's largest advertisers and 28% of the Fortune Global 500 companies.

Visit http://www.smarteye.ai for more information. Visit our investor web for more financial information: http://www.corp.smarteye.se/en/

Smart Eye is listed on Nasdaq First North Growth Market. Erik Penser is Certified Adviser.

This information is information that Smart Eye is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact persons set out above, at 2022-10-19 11:30 CEST.

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Smart Eye Receives Six Additional Driver Monitoring System Design Wins with Korean Car Manufacturer

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Smart Eye Receives Six Additional Driver Monitoring System Design Wins with Korean Car Manufacturer - AccessWire

Human Behavior

What the Workplaces of the Future Will Look Like – TIME

Before the pandemic struck, Lucy Jefferson spent nearly 50 ($57) a day commuting from London, where she had moved in 2019, to Birmingham, England where she worked as a product manager at a large U.K. bank. Although it was Jeffersons choice to relocate 125 miles away, she believed that the 5 a.m. starts and two-and-a-half journey werent necessary for her to do her job well. She says the workplace culture encouraged employees to always look busy in the office. Classic corporate culture.

When a U.K.-wide COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 forced her employers staff to work remotely, Jefferson was able to save time and money working from home. But, frustrated by her employers reluctance to guarantee the flexible work model would continue, Jefferson handed in her notice in November 2020. Fast forward nearly two years, she works full time running her own e-commerce brand, Bare Kind, and all of her six employees work remotely. I havent looked back, its been amazing, she says, citing benefits to her mental healthand her bank balance.

Jefferson says her former colleagues tell her its now much more common to work from home and as a result, the Birmingham office has lost its former buzz, with some floors no longer in use. This shift in office culture is in no way uniqueoffices in major U.S. cities are less than half as busy as they used to be, according to data from security provider Kastle Systems. The pandemic forced many companies to shift online, and some employees realized they preferred it. In the U.S., Australia, France, Germany, Japan, and the U.K, 18% of workers arent going into the office at all, according to a survey published in July by Future Forum, while patterns of hybrid working have become the norm for nearly half of the workforce.

Meanwhile, business leaders have been twisting themselves in knots over the return of in-person work, which some argue promotes more productivity and collaboration. At times this has created tensions.

Read More: Dropbox Tossed Out the Workplace Rulebook. Heres How Thats Working

The clash in priorities between employers and workers has come amid record resignations across the workforce around the world. In the U.S., around 4 million workers have been quitting their jobs every month since April 2021, with many citing workplace inflexibility as a key factor. But being in the office could make a difference to their careers. In response to a survey published last month by workplace platform Envoy, 96% of U.S. executives said they were more likely to notice the contribution of employees in the office.

The conundrum for businesses has been getting workers to come back. Some industry leaders are viewing the pandemic disruption and shifting labor market as an opportunity to reconfigure workspaces in a way that prioritizes flexibility, wellbeing, and sustainabilityand actually entices employees to travel in. The office may never dominate the world of white-collar work in the way it did pre-pandemic, but innovative designers and bosses are hoping it will add greater value to both their businesses and employees lives.

While the new ways of working during the pandemic came as a shock to many businesses, global music streaming platform, Spotify, was well ahead of the curve. Just a month before the U.K. first went into lockdown in March 2020, Spotify unveiled its new London headquarters that would house hundreds of freshly hired employees and one of the companys largest R&D hubs. Gone were the sea of desks typical of traditional office spaces. Instead, large booths, plush lounge spaces, production studios, and dedicated listening rooms gave the space, a social club feel, says Sonya Simmonds, Spotifys global head of workspace design. Although employees initially couldnt benefit from the new spacesituated inside the Grade II listed Art Deco Adelphi Building in the heart of Londonduring the early months of the pandemic, the building was primed to cater to the blend of remote and in-person work on their return.

Spotifys London headquarters

Hufton+Crow

We all felt disappointed not to use the new office and share the new spaces [during lockdown], particularly the stage and listening rooms with artists, says Simmonds. As workers returned to the offices, it was set up to better suit their needs. Spaces dedicated to wellness provided a welcome getaway for workers dealing with the stresses of the pandemic, Simmonds says. When we were allowed to return we really appreciated the wellbeing rooms.

The idea behind the space was very much based on where we wanted to go in the future, Simmonds says. In February 2021, Spotify announced a work from anywhere policy, a transition that she says was accelerated, not triggered, by the pandemic. Yet, the company found that staff were still choosing to travel to the London officethe huge variety of spaces within the building offered even greater flexibility than employees own homes. In a post-pandemic era, workplaces must be commute-worthy for remote workers, says Shane Kelly, principal director at London-based architecture firm TP Bennett, which designed Spotifys London office. Its about creating buildings that offer really collaborative experiences, focused on community and amenity, that you dont get when youre engaging remotely, he says. Following the success of the London HQ, Spotify rolled out the design concept across its global locations.

Read More: How to Ask Your Employer if You Can Work Remotely Permanently

Swiss furniture brand Vitra took the concept of work flexibility one step further, when in spring 2021 it filled its headquarters in Birsfelden, Switzerland with customizable fittings that allow for multiple office configurations. The companys new range, dubbed Club Office, includes modular sofa systems, flexible partitions, and foldable desks that fit together like a puzzle, allowing teams to tailor the work set-up to a variety of needs, moods, and even locations. By letting employees use their own office as a laboratory for new design concepts, Club Office fostered flexibility within Vitras workforce, says the companys chief executive, Nora Fehlbaum. Environments shape our thoughts and feelings, says Fehlbaum. This environment signals to stay on your toes, be ready to move.

Fehlbaum hopes that Vitras products will make all workers feel connected to their office environments, even as their companies downsize or shift to co-working spaces. The Club is the physical environment where a common mission and sense of belonging comes to life, she says.

Months of isolation during lockdowns around the world made workers appreciate the feeling of belonging to a team and connecting with colleagueseven when working remotely or from their homes. According to recent findings from the WFH research project, a monthly survey run jointly by the University of Chicago, Instituto Tecnolgico Autnomo de Mxico, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, the average professional spends more than 40% of their working day interacting with others. With this in mind, Edouard Bettencourt and Malik Lemseffer, founders of French-Moroccan architecture firm Studio BELEM, have focused on designing a space where workers could connect and interact with others within the comfort of their own homes. Their aula modula apartment block designa Tetris-like system of cube-shaped units with sliding wall panelsincorporates the collaborative elements of an office environment in a residential setting. While the block hasnt been built yet, the firm says it is in talks with various developers.

The aula modula apartment block design by Studio BELEM

Courtesy of Studio BELEM

With each block arranged around a sunny inner courtyard, the idea is that inhabitants would be encouraged to develop a sense of neighborly community, even while they work from home. If you work remotely and just stay in your own flat or office all day, youre going to go crazy not seeing anyone, says Lemseffer. Creative shared spaces in the building, including shared terraces, co-working rooms, and roof tops, allow residents to network, brainstorm, and celebrate professional milestonesall the things that can be a little bit harder to do remotely, he says. At the same time, the architects were keen to contain the intimate living spaces and office units in different rings of the building, to allow residents to switch off from their work as they cross the physical boundary.

The blurring of the home and work environment precipitated by the pandemic forced many businesses to accommodate the unique personal circumstances of each employee. One such accommodation was caregiving responsibilities, as workers had to juggle educating their children while schools were shut or caring for elderly or sick relatives. Research published in June by the Society for Human Research Management found that, even as the pandemic subsides, workers place increasing value on jobs that offer the flexibility to care for family members.

Read More: The Dream of an Internet Country That Would Let You Work From Anywhere

Entrepreneur Keltse Bilbao recognized this need before the pandemic when, after relocating to Los Angeles with her husband, she struggled to find a space where she could work on her own projects while being close to her daughter. In 2018, she founded Big and Tiny, a daycare service that provides on-site co-working spaces for parentsone of the first to do so in the U.S. As a parent, what I wanted was the option to choose, Bilbao says. I could spend all day working, or I could have a break and be close to my child. Big and Tiny has three studios in the U.S.two in Santa Monica and one in Battery Park, New York City. They combine soundproof study rooms and phone booths, but also common spaces for working parents to socialize and relax.

While the business took a financial hit due to the pandemicforcing it to shutter a center in Silver Lake, Los Angelesthe shift to remote working meant that more parents needed the service when lockdown restrictions were lifted. The increased demand for family-friendly work spaces led to partnerships with co-working office provider Second Home and mall and office complex Brookfield Place in New York City, with Big and Tiny providing on-site childcare. These companies were having issues getting their customers back, says Bilbao, adding that employers partnering with Big and Tiny to offer these workspaces to employees have been able to differentiate themselves from rivals whose offices didnt cater to the demands of modern life.

Months of mask mandates, social distancing and enhanced hygiene practices shifted many peoples understanding of what makes a healthy environment. As poorly ventilated office buildings became potential public health hazards, citizens found respite in outdoor spaces. Simultaneously, the pandemic appears to have heightened public awareness of the climate crisis, according to a survey by Boston Consulting Group, as the effect of human behavior on the natural world, and the risks to humankind, have become more apparent. This shift inspired a new wave of office design that prioritized the wellbeing of both employees and the external environment.

Read More: In Some Workplaces, Its Now OK Not to Be OK

Turkish architecture practice Salon Alper Derinboaz made the learnings from the pandemic central to the design of Ecotone, an innovation center at Yldz Technical University in Istanbul. When construction is completed in late 2023, the transitional space between teaching facilities and a professional academy will be pandemic resistant, says the architecture firms founder, Alper Derinboaz, referring to the buildings partially open air design. Istanbuls mild Mediterranean climate has allowed Derinboaz to permeate a series of open co-working spaces with outdoor walkways, creating the kind of passive natural ventilation system that the World Health Organization says reduces the transmission risk of airborne viruses. Ecotones geothermal heating and cooling system is low emission, while the self-supporting structurefeaturing columns resembling stalagmites and stalactites in cavesremoves the need to lay intrusive foundations in the land. Fluid, glass-paneled walls and interior foliage allows for greater connection between workers inside the building and nature.

Ecotone, designed by Salon Alper Derinboaz

Courtesy of Salon Alper Derinboaz

Developing innovative approaches to reducing the office buildings carbon footprint was a priority for Derinboaz, who notes that the construction industry produces nearly 40% of global carbon emissions. As architects we really need to find a new way of doing things, he says. Thats why we wanted the universitys innovation center to be innovative in its design.

When it came to choosing architects for an addition to its Geneva campus, the United Nations (U.N.) says it chose London-based firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) and Swiss studio Burckhardt+Partner. The architects took an innovative approach designing the 250,000 square foot office space. Completed in November 2021, the building was constructed on the historic Palais des Nations complex of buildings overlooking Lake Geneva, the U.N.s second largest site after its New York headquarters. Water from the lake is used and recycled to heat and cool the building, eliminating the need for air conditioning units that are expensive to run and harmful to the environment.

According to Kent Jackson, SOMs lead designer on the project, which the firm said was for a non-profit humanitarian organization in Geneva, the impressive surroundings gave the architects a unique opportunity to enhance the buildings design. We wanted to give every employee [working in the office] a 360 degree view around the natural setting, he saysfloor-to-ceiling windows stand in place of walls. Who couldnt be inspired in their work looking at the hillsides, parkland, water, and mountains?

The United Nations Geneva campus, designed by London-based firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) and Swiss studio Burckhardt+Partner

Courtesy of SOM and Burckhardt+Partner

For many of the companies pursuing new approaches to workspaces, that is the ultimate goal: creating a space to inspire and motivate employees to produce their most innovative work. In an age of increasing flexibility and less emphasis on geographical location, the office space must benefit its inhabitants as much as it does the business. Its about going through the whole journey of the build and design process together, says Spotifys Simmonds. Coming out the other end, our staff feel they really have ownership over their office.

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What the Workplaces of the Future Will Look Like - TIME

Human Behavior

Spouse Urged to Dump Husband After ‘Sexting’ During Family Meal – Newsweek

A man whose wife found out that he'd been "sexting"sending sexually explicit text messagesto others on the Scrabble word game app during a family meal has received a storm of backlash on Mumsnet, the U.K.-based online forum.

In a post shared on Mumsnet's Am I Being Unreasonable (AIBU) subforum under the username stevieknits, the wife, who shares three young children with her husband, said: "Various incidences over the last 3 ish years of finding out he's [her husband's] paid for [camera] girls and OnlyFans [the subscription-based service known for offering access to adult content]...have chipped away at my trust and respect for him. The weirdest was finding out he'd been sexting on a Scrabble app."

A January 2017 study of 338 married/cohabiting individuals, published in the peer-reviewed journal Computers in Human Behavior, found that "more engagement in infidelity-related behaviors on social media was significantly related to lower relationship satisfaction, higher relationship ambivalence, and greater attachment avoidance and [attachment] anxiety in both women and men."

A separate February 2012 study in World Psychiatry stated that attachment anxiety and avoidance reflect both a person's sense of attachment security and the ways in which they deal with threats and distress.

Those who score high for either attachment anxiety or avoidance (or both) "suffer from insecurity," the study stated.

Darren D. Moore, a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) based in Georgia in the U.S., told Newsweek: "I have worked with clients where this type of issue [the one in the latest Mumsnet post] has occurred...there could be a variety of reasons and this topic is often complex, potentially stemming from childhood or other things experienced in adulthood."

The wife in the latest post said her husband had been sexting on Scrabble while at a restaurant with his children and parents, noting "he had actually been sending messages during the meal sat next to his family."

The user said: "I'm realising that I don't like, trust or feel much at all for him...I don't think I have it in me to properly forgive him to the stage where I can feel things for him again...I'm struggling to contain anger and resentment at how much he has f***ed up..."

Moore said: "I do not think it is unreasonable to not trust the husband [in the latest Mumsnet post], but some of this will be based on how each individual reacts and responds to the problem.

"Trust is not only important, but critical in a marriage. Once broken, it can be hard to earn back. This may be possible if the husband is honest about any transgressions, and he makes an attempt to correct his behavior," Moore said.

Chris Parsons, a transformation coach and author of the book It Starts With You: The Secret to a Passionate Marriage & Peaceful Home (Even if Your Spouse Doesn't Want to Change) told Newsweek: "This wife is deeply hurt and currently unable to move forward. She's totally justified in those feelings, if that's where she wants to stay... And if she has no love left in her heart, and no desire to make things better, then she knows what she needs to do."

However, Parsons also noted that "typically these scenarios are not quite as one-sided as they appear. Not that this in any way makes it okay, because it doesn't, but there is always another side to the story..."

He explained: "There are almost certainly deep underlying problems in the relationship, as well as in them individually, that led to things getting to this point, and that's where the real work needs to happen."

The original poster said: "My opinion of him is rock bottom and hasn't improved one tiny bit since the day I saw his phone after the restaurant Scrabble sexting. Can it improve? Should I try harder?..."

Leanne Leonard, an LMFT from Mindpath Health (a behavioral health services provider in Dallas, Texas), told Newsweek: "All marriages are salvageable if two people want to put in the work and really love each other."

But in order for the original poster to stay in this marriage: "She needs to remember that forgiving and forgetting are two very different things."

The husband needs to seek counseling to help understand his need for this type of attention and what purpose it serves for him. "Without him truly understanding it himself, he cannot fully recommit to his wife and be trustworthy," she said.

Parsons agreed that the marriage can be salvaged, but not by "trying harder." Instead, the wife needs to "establish some healthy boundaries, to know her worth and what she will allow." This might entail setting boundaries specific to his phone, such as knowing his password and the ability to look at his phone at any time for any reason, he said.

Leonard said: "The only way to move forward in this marriage is transparency from both and a solid understanding of what rebuilding trust looks like for the woman combined with daily efforts toward achieving it by the husband."

Several Mumsnet users shared messages of support for the original poster, with several urging the wife to leave the husband.

User Wibbly1008 said: "He would be out. I couldn't have that I'm sorry, it's emotional cheating and it's disrespectful. It's the step before actually cheating and he is sending pics?!..It's better to have a short while of changes rather than a life of mistrust and regret.

User concernedalot said: "It's a massive betrayal whether it was physical cheating or not, men who do this in front of their partners/families/children get a bit of a thrill from it. It's not something I could personally work through. Virtual hug sent."

User Axahooxa said: "You should carefully make your plans to split. He would absolutely cheat on you - he has no respect for you and lacks integrity. Trust your judgement!"

WhatsitWiggle: "It sounds like you don't trust or respect him and he's making no effort to regain either. Make plans to separate. It will be tough for a while but believe me that feeling of disgust grows and spills out and your children will notice as time goes on."

Newsweek wasn't able to verify the details of this case.

Has an infidelity broken your trust in your partner? Let us know via life@newsweek.com. We can ask experts for advice, and your story could be featured on Newsweek.

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Spouse Urged to Dump Husband After 'Sexting' During Family Meal - Newsweek

Embryology

Comparative Embryology – Developmental Biology – NCBI Bookshelf

The first known study of comparative developmental anatomy was undertaken by Aristotle in the fourth century b.c.e. He noted the different ways that animals are born: from eggs (oviparity, as in birds, frogs, and most invertebrates), by live birth (viviparity, as in eutherian mammals), or by producing an egg that hatches inside the body (ovoviviparity, as in certain reptiles and sharks). Aristotle also identified the two major cell division patterns by which embryos are formed: the holoblastic pattern of cleavage (in which the entire egg is divided into smaller cells, as it is in frogs and mammals) and the meroblastic pattern of cleavage (as in chicks, wherein only part of the egg is destined to become the embryo, while the other portionthe yolkserves as nutrition). And should anyone want to know who first figured out the functions of the placenta and the umbilical cord, it was Aristotle.

After Aristotle, there was remarkably little progress in embryology for the next two thousand years. It was only in 1651 that William Harvey concluded that all animalseven mammalsoriginate from eggs. Ex ovo omnia (All from the egg) was the motto on the frontispiece of his On the Generation of Living Creatures, and this precluded the spontaneous generation of animals from mud or excrement. This statement was not made lightly, for Harvey knew that it went against the views of Aristotle, whom Harvey still venerated. (Aristotle had thought that menstrual fluid formed the material of the embryo, while the semen acted to give it form and animation.) Harvey also was the first to see the blastoderm of the chick embryothat small region of the egg that contains the yolk-free cytoplasm that gives rise to the embryoand he was the first to notice that islands of blood cells form before the heart does. Harvey also suggested that the amnionic fluid might function as a shock absorber for the embryo.

As might be expected, embryology remained little but speculation until the invention of the microscope allowed detailed observations. In 1672, Marcello Malpighi published the first microscopic account of chick development. Here, for the first time, the neural groove (precursor of the neural tube), the muscle-forming somites, and the first circulation of the arteries and veinsto and from the yolkwere identified ().

Depictions of chick developmental anatomy. (A) Dorsal view (looking down at what will become the back) of a 2-day chick embryo, as depicted by Marcello Malpighi in 1672. (B) Ventral view (looking up at the prospective (more...)

With Malpighi begins one of the great debates in embryologythe controversy over whether the organs of the embryo are formed de novo (from scratch) at each generation, or whether the organs are already present, but in miniature form, within the egg (or sperm). The first view is called epigenesis, and it was supported by Aristotle and Harvey. The second view is called preformation, and it was reinvigorated with support from Malpighi. Malpighi showed that the unincubated* chick egg already had a great deal of structure. This observation provided him with reasons to question epigenesis. According to the preformationist view, all the organs of the adult were prefigured in miniature within the sperm or (more usually) the egg. Organisms were not seen to be developed, but rather unrolled.

The preformationist hypothesis had the backing of eighteenth-century science, religion, and philosophy (Gould 1977; Roe 1981, Pinto-Correia 1997). First, because all organs were prefigured, embryonic development merely required the growth of existing structures, not the formation of new ones. No extra mysterious force was needed for embryonic development. Second, just as the adult organism was prefigured in the germ cells, another generation already existed in a prefigured state within the germ cells of the first prefigured generation. This corollary, called embitment (encapsulation), ensured that the species would always remain constant. Although certain microscopists claimed to see fully formed human miniatures within the sperm or egg, the major proponents of this hypothesisAlbrecht von Haller and Charles Bonnetknew that organ systems develop at different rates and that embryonic structures need not be in the same place as those in the newborn.

The preformationists had no cell theory to provide a lower limit to the size of their preformed organisms (the cell theory arose in the mid-1800s), nor did they view humankind's tenure on Earth as potentially infinite. Rather, said Bonnet (1764), Nature works as small as it wishes, and the human species existed in that finite time between Creation and Resurrection. This view was in accord with the best science of its time, conforming to the French mathematician-philosopher Ren Descartes's principle of the infinite divisibility of a mechanical nature initiated, but not interfered with, by God. It also conformed to Enlightenment views of the Deity. The scientist-priest Nicolas Malebranche saw in preformationism the fusion of the rule-giving God of Christianity with Cartesian science (Churchill 1991; Pinto-Correia 1997).

The embryological case for epigenesis was revived at the same time by Kaspar Friedrich Wolff, a German embryologist working in St. Petersburg. By carefully observing the development of chick embryos, Wolff demonstrated that the embryonic parts develop from tissues that have no counterpart in the adult organism. The heart and blood vessels (which, according to preformationism, had to be present from the beginning to ensure embryonic growth) could be seen to develop anew in each embryo. Similarly, the intestinal tube was seen to arise by the folding of an originally flat tissue. This latter observation was explicitly detailed by Wolff, who proclaimed (1767), When the formation of the intestine in this manner has been duly weighed, almost no doubt can remain, I believe, of the truth of epigenesis. However, to explain how an organism is created anew each generation, Wolff had to postulate an unknown force, the vis essentialis (essential force), which, acting like gravity or magnetism, would organize embryonic development.

A reconciliation of sorts was attempted by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (17241804) and his colleague, biologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (17521840). Attempting to construct a scientific theory of racial descent, Blumenbach postulated a mechanical, goal-directed force called the Bildungstrieb (development force). Such a force, he said, was not theoretical, but could be shown to exist by experimentation. A hydra, when cut, regenerates its amputated parts by rearranging existing elements (see Chapter 18). Some purposive organizing force could be observed in operation, and this force was a property of the organism itself. This Bildungstrieb was thought to be inherited through the germ cells. Thus, development could proceed through a predetermined force inherent in the matter of the embryo (Cassirer 1950; Lenoir 1980). Moreover, this force was believed to be susceptible to change, as demonstrated by the left-handed variant of snail coiling (where left-coiled snails can produce right-coiled progeny). In this hypothesis, wherein epigenetic development is directed by preformed instructions, we are not far from the view held by modern biologists that most of the instructions for forming the organism are already present in the egg.

The end of preformationism did not come until the 1820s, when a combination of new staining techniques, improved microscopes, and institutional reforms in German universities created a revolution in descriptive embryology. The new techniques enabled microscopists to document the epigenesis of anatomical structures, and the institutional reforms provided audiences for these reports and students to carry on the work of their teachers. Among the most talented of this new group of microscopically inclined investigators were three friends (born within a year of each other) who came from the Baltic region and who studied in northern Germany. The work of Christian Pander, Karl Ernst von Baer, and Heinrich Rathke transformed embryology into a specialized branch of science (and allowed the term embryology to be used to describe their work).

Pander studied the chick embryo for less than two years (before becoming a paleontologist), but in those 15 months, he discovered the three germ layers, the specific regions of the embryo that give rise to the specific organ systems (see ).

The ectoderm generates the outer layer of the embryo. It produces the surface layer (epidermis) of the skin and forms the nerves.

The endoderm becomes the innermost layer of the embryo and produces the digestive tube and its associated organs (including the lungs).

The mesoderm becomes sandwiched between the ectoderm and endoderm. It generates the blood, heart, kidney, gonads, bones, and connective tissues.

These three layers are found in the embryos of all triploblastic (three-layer) organisms. Some phyla, such as the porifera (sponges), cnidarians (sea anemones, hydra, jellyfish), and ctenophores (comb jellies) lack a true mesoderm and are considered diploblastic animals.

Pander (1817) also made observations that weighted the balance in favor of epigenesis. The germ layers, he noted, did not form their organs independently. Rather, each germ layer is not yet independent enough to indicate what it truly is; it still needs the help of its sister travelers, and therefore, although already designated for different ends, all three influence each other collectively until each has reached an appropriate level. Pander had discovered the tissue interactions that we now call induction. No tissue is able to construct organs by itself; it must interact with other tissues. (We will discuss the principles of induction more thoroughly in Chapter 6.) Thus, Pander felt that preformation could not be true, since the organs come into being through interactions between simpler structures.

Interestingly, the glory of Pander's book is its engravings; the artist, Eduard dAlton, drew details for which the vocabulary had not yet been invented. Today we can look at these drawings and see the four regions of the embryonic chick brain, even though these regions had not yet been separately defined or given names (; see Churchill 1991). The ability to make precise observations has been among the greatest skills of embryologists, and even today modern developmental biologists looking at gene expression patterns are rediscovering regions of the embryo that were observed by embryologists a century ago.

Rathke looked at the development of frogs, salamanders, fish, birds, and mammals, and emphasized the similarities in the development of all these vertebrate groups. During his 40 years of embryological research, he described for the first time the vertebrate pharyngeal arches (), which become the gill apparatus of fish but become the mammalian jaws and ears, (among other things, as we will see in ), the formation of the vertebrate skull, and the origin of the reproductive, excretory, and respiratory systems. He also studied the development of invertebrates, especially the crayfish. He is memorialized today in the name Rathke's pouch, the embryonic rudiment of the glandular portion of the pituitary. That he could see such a structure using the techniques available at that time is testimony to his remarkable powers of observation and his steady hand.

Pharyngeal arches (also called branchial arches and gill arches) in the embryo of the salamander Ambystoma mexicanum. The surface ectoderm has been removed to permit the easy visualization of these arches (highlighted) as they form. (Photograph courtesy (more...)

Jaw structure in the fish, reptile, and mammal. (A) Homologies of the jaws and gill arches as seen in the skull of the Paleozoic shark Cobeledus aculentes. (B) Lateral view of an alligator skull. The articular portion of the lower jaw articulates with (more...)

Karl Ernst von Baer extended Pander's studies of the chick embryo. He discovered the notochord, the rod of dorsalmost mesoderm that separates the embryo into right and left halves and which instructs the ectoderm above it to become the nervous system (). He also discovered the mammalian egg, that long-sought cell that everyone believed existed but no one had yet seen.

The notochord in the chick embryo. (A) Dorsal view of the 24-hour chick embryo. (B) A cross-section through the trunk shows the notochord and developing neural tube. By comparing Figures 1.2 and 1.4, you should see the remarkable changes between days (more...)

In 1828, von Baer reported, I have two small embryos preserved in alcohol, that I forgot to label. At present I am unable to determine the genus to which they belong. They may be lizards, small birds, or even mammals. allows us to appreciate his quandary. All vertebrate embryos (fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals) begin with a basically similar structure. From his detailed study of chick development and his comparison of chick embryos with the embryos of other vertebrates, von Baer derived four generalizations (now often referred to as von Baer's laws), stated here with some vertebrate examples:

The similarities and differences between different vertebrate embryos as they proceed through development. They each begin with a basically similar structure, although they acquire this structure at different ages and sizes. As they develop, they become (more...)

The general features of a large group of animals appear earlier in development than do the specialized features of a smaller group. All developing vertebrates appear very similar shortly after gastrulation. It is only later in development that the special features of class, order, and finally species emerge. All vertebrate embryos have gill arches, notochords, spinal cords, and primitive kidneys.

Less general characters are developed from the more general, until finally the most specialized appear. All vertebrates initially have the same type of skin. Only later does the skin develop fish scales, reptilian scales, bird feathers, or the hair, claws, and nails of mammals. Similarly, the early development of the limb is essentially the same in all vertebrates. Only later do the differences between legs, wings, and arms become apparent.

The embryo of a given species, instead of passing through the adult stages of lower animals, departs more and more from them. The visceral clefts of embryonic birds and mammals do not resemble the gill slits of adult fish in detail. Rather, they resemble the visceral clefts of embryonic fish and other embryonic vertebrates. Whereas fish preserve and elaborate these clefts into true gill slits, mammals convert them into structures such as the eustachian tubes (between the ear and mouth).

Therefore, the early embryo of a higher animal is never like a lower animal, but only like its early embryo. Human embryos never pass through a stage equivalent to an adult fish or bird. Rather, human embryos initially share characteristics in common with fish and avian embryos. Later, the mammalian and other embryos diverge, none of them passing through the stages of the others.

Von Baer also recognized that there is a common pattern to all vertebrate development: the three germ layers give rise to different organs, and this derivation of the organs is constant whether the organism is a fish, a frog, or a chick.

1.1 The reception of von Baer's principles. The acceptance of von Baer's principles and their interpretation over the past hundred years has varied enormously. Recent evidence suggests that one important researcher in the 1800s even fabricated data when his own theory went against these postulates. http://www.devbio.com/chap01/link0101.shtml

By the late 1800s, the cell had been conclusively demonstrated to be the basis for anatomy and physiology. Embryologists, too, began to base their field on the cell. One of the most important programs of descriptive embryology became the tracing of cell lineages: following individual cells to see what they become. In many organisms, this fine a resolution is not possible, but one can label groups of cells to see what that area of the embryo will become. By bringing such studies together, one can construct a fate map. These diagrams map the larval or adult structure onto the region of the embryo from which it arose. Fate maps are the bases for experimental embryology, since they provide researchers with information on which portions of the embryo normally become which larval or adult structures. Fate maps of some embryos at the early gastrula stage are shown in . Fate maps have been generated in several ways.

Fate maps of different vertebrate classes at the early gastrula stage. All views are dorsal surface views (looking down on the embryo at what will be its back). Despite the different appearances of these adult animals, their fate maps (more...)

In certain invertebrates, the embryos are transparent, have relatively few cells, and the daughter cells remain close to one another. In such cases, it is actually possible to look through the microscope and trace the descendants of a particular cell into the organs they generate. This type of study was performed about a century ago by Edwin G. Conklin. In one of these studies, he took eggs of the tunicate Styela partita, a sea squirt that resides in the waters off the coast of Massachusetts, and he patiently followed the fates of each cell in the embryo until they differentiated into particular structures (; Conklin 1905). He was helped in this endeavor by the peculiarity of the Styela egg, wherein the different cells contain different pigments. For example, the muscle-forming cells always had a yellow color. Conklin's fate map was confirmed by cell removal experiments. Removal of the B4.1 cell (which should produce all the tail musculature), for example, resulted in the absence of tail muscles (Reverberi and Minganti 1946).

Fate map of the tunicate embryo. (A) The 1-cell embryo (left), shown shortly before the first cell division, with the fate of the cytoplasmic regions indicated. The 8-cell embryo on the right shows these regions after three cell divisions. (B) A linear (more...)

1.2 Conklin's art and science. The plates from Conklin's remarkable 1905 paper are online. Looking at them, one can see the precision of his observations and how he constructed his fate map of the tunicate embryo. http://www.devbio.com/chap01/link0102.shtml

The compound microscope. The compound microscope has been the critical tool of developmental anatomists. Mastery of microscopic techniques allows one to enter an entire world of form and pattern. [Click on Microscope]

Most embryos are not so accommodating as to have cells of different colors. Nor do all embryos have as few cells as tunicates. In the early years of the twentieth century, Vogt (1929) traced the fates of different areas of amphibian eggs by applying vital dyes to the region of interest. Vital dyes will stain cells but not kill them. He mixed the dye with agar and spread the agar on a microscope slide to dry. The ends of the dyed agar would be very thin. He cut chips from these ends and placed them onto a frog embryo. After the dye stained the cells, the agar chip was removed, and cell movements within the embryo could be followed ().

Vital dye staining of amphibian embryos. (A) Vogt's method for marking specific cells of the embryonic surface with vital dyes. (BD) Dorsal surface views of stain on successively later embryos. (E) Newt embryo dissected in a medial sagittal section (more...)

A variant of the dye marking technique is to make one area of the embryo radioactive. To do this, a donor embryo is usually grown in a solution containing radioactive thymidine. This base will be incorporated into the DNA of the dividing embryo. A second embryo (the host embryo) is grown under normal conditions. The region of interest is cut out from the host embryo and replaced by a radioactive graft from the donor embryo. After some time, the host embryo is sectioned for microscopy. The cells that are radioactive will be the descendants of the cells of the graft, and can be distinguished by autoradiography. Fixed microscope slides containing the sectioned tissues are dipped into photographic emulsion. The high-energy electrons from the radioactive thymidine will reduce the silver ions in the emulsion (just as light would). The result is a cluster of dark silver grains directly above the radioactive region. In this manner, the fates of different regions of the chick embryo have been determined (Rosenquist 1966).

One of the problems with vital dyes and radioactive labels is that they become diluted at each cell division. One way around this problem was the creation of fluorescent dyes that were extremely powerful and could be injected into individual cells. Fluorescein-conjugated dextran, for example, could be injected into a single cell of an early embryo. The descendants of that cell could then be seen by examining the embryo under ultraviolet light (). More recently, diI, a powerfully fluorescent molecule that becomes incorporated into lipid membranes, has also been used to follow the fates of cells and their progeny.

Fate mapping using a fluorescent dye. (A) Specific cells of a zebrafish embryo were injected with a fluorescent dye that will not diffuse from the cells. The dye was then activated by laser in a small region (about five cells) of the late cleavage stage (more...)

The problems with radioactive and vital dye marking include their dilution over many cell divisions and the laborious preparation of the slides. One permanent way of marking cells is to create mosaic embryos having different genetic constitutions. One of the best examples of this technique is the construction of chimeric embryos, consisting, for example, of a graft of quail cells inside a chick embryo. Chick and quail develop in a very similar manner (especially during early embryonic development), and a graft of quail cells will become integrated into a chick embryo and participate in the construction of the various organs. The substitution of quail cells for chick cells can be performed on an embryo while it is still inside the egg, and the chick that hatches will have quail cells in particular sites, depending upon where the graft was placed. The quail cells differ from the chick's in two important ways. First, the quail heterochromatin in the nucleus is concentrated around the nucleoli, making the quail nucleus easily distinguishable from chick nuclei. Second, there are cell-specific antigens that are quail-specific and can be used to find individual quail cells, even if they are in a large population of chick cells. In this way, fine-structure maps of the chick brain and skeletal system can be made (; Le Douarin 1969; Le Douarin and Teillet 1973).

Genetic markers as cell lineage tracers. (A) Grafting experiment wherein the cells from a particular region of a 1-day quail embryo have been placed into a similar region of a 1-day chick embryo. (B) After several days, the quail cells can be seen by (more...)

Histotechniques. Most cells must be stained in order to see them; different dyes stain different types of molecules. Instructions on staining cells to observe particular structures (such as the nucleus) are given here. [Click on Histotechniques]

One of the most important contributions of fate maps has been their demonstration of extensive cell migration during development. Mary Rawles (1940) showed that the pigment cells (melanocytes) of the chick originate in the neural crest, a transient band of cells that joins the neural tube to the epidermis. When she transplanted small regions of neural crest-containing tissue from a pigmented strain of chickens into a similar position in an embryo from an unpigmented strain of chickens, the migrating pigment cells entered the epidermis and later entered the feathers (). Ris (1941) used similar techniques to show that while almost all of the external pigment of the chick embryo came from the migrating neural crest cells, the pigment of the retina formed in the retina itself and was not dependent on the migrating neural crest cells. By using radioactive marking techniques, Weston (1963) demonstrated that the migrating neural crest cells gave rise to the melanocytes, and also to the peripheral neurons and the epinephrine-secreting adrenal medulla (, ). This pattern was confirmed in chick-quail hybrids, in which the quail neural crest cells produced their own pigment and pattern in the chick feathers. More recently, fluorescent dye labeling has followed the movements of individual neural crest cells as they form their pigment, adrenal, and neuronal lineages (see Chapter 13).

Neural crest cell migration. (A) Chick resulting from the transplantation of a trunk neural crest region from an embryo of a pigmented strain of chickens into the same region of an embryo of an unpigmented strain. The neural crest cells that gave rise (more...)

In addition to the travels of pigment cells, other wide-scale migrations include those of the primordial germ cells (which migrate from the yolky cells to the gonads and form the sperm and eggs) and the blood cell precursors (which undergo several migrations to colonize the liver and bone marrow).

As was pointed out by Matre-Jan in 1722, the egg examined by Malpighi may technically be called unincubated, but as it was left sitting in the Bolognese sun in August, it was not unheated.

Preformation was a conservative theory, emphasizing the lack of change between generations. Its principal failure was its inability to account for the variations known by the limited genetic evidence of the time. It was known, for instance, that matings between white and black parents produced children of intermediate skin color, an impossibility if inheritance and development were solely through either the sperm or the egg. In more controlled experiments, the German botanist Joseph Klreuter (1766) had produced hybrid tobacco plants having the characteristics of both species. Moreover, by mating the hybrid to either the male or female parent, Klreuter was able to revert the hybrid back to one or the other parental type after several generations. Thus, inheritance seemed to arise from a mixture of parental components.

From the same root as germination: the Latin germen, meaning sprout or bud. The names of the three germ layers are from the Greek: ectoderm from ektos (outside) plus derma (skin); mesoderm from mesos (middle), and endoderm from endon (within).

von Baer could hardly believe that he had at last found it when so many othersHarvey, de Graaf, von Haller, Prevost, Dumas, and even Purkinjehad failed. I recoiled as if struck by lightening I had to try to relax a while before I could work up enough courage to look again, as I was afraid I had been deluded by a phantom. Is it not strange that a sight which is expected, and indeed hoped for, should be frightening when it eventually materializes?

von Baer formulated these generalizations prior to Darwin's theory of evolution. Lower animals would be those appearing earlier in life's history.

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Comparative Embryology - Developmental Biology - NCBI Bookshelf

Embryology

A guided route – The Hindu

Uncertain about your career options? Low on self-confidence? This career counselling column may help

Uncertain about your career options? Low on self-confidence? This career counselling column may help

Dear Asha,

How creative are you? What do you enjoy? Art, drawing, colouring, out-of-the-box thinking? Art and Design courses (and careers eventually) include all sorts of exposure from UI to UX design, product design, video games design, multimedia art and animation, web design, exhibitions design, interior designing, fashion, jewellery and so on. First, identify if this is something that you would like to study more about and pursue as a subject. You will eventually know what your calling is and where your core interest lies.

Dear Sreedevi,

Indias Research and Analysis Wing gathers intelligence on other nations, especially those close to India, to protect it from any attacks, threats, and terrorist dangers by creating suitable policies, establishing international ties, and neutralising any threat to our democracy or safety. The UPSC exam is one route to join RAW (Group A officers from IAS, IPS, IFS and IRS). There are also other strategies for hiring. A candidate has to pass a psychological test and an interview. The eligibility criteria are graduation from a reputable institution and fluency in one foreign language. She/he must be an Indian with no criminal record. The age requirement is less than 56 years and the candidate must have more than 20 years of professional experience.

Dear Shasha,

Why did you enrol in this course? Work on the pros and cons of your choice and then arrive at your answer. Some good career options after this course are to work as a Research Associate, an Ethical hacker, a Penetration Tester, a Cyber Legal Service, a Security Code Auditor, and a Cryptographic Expert. It is also a well-rewarding industry for the right candidate.

Dear Vanshika,

You can apply for an M.Sc. in Clinical Embryology after your B.Sc. course. The eligibility criteria are B.Sc with at least one subject of Biological Science/ Biotechnology or MBBS from a recognised institution. Selection is done by an admission board strictly on merit. MET M.Sc. (Clinical Embryology) is conducted by Manipal Academy of Higher Education.

Disclaimer: This column is merely a guiding voice and provides advice and suggestions on education and careers.

The writer is a practising counsellor and a trainer. Send your questions to eduplus.thehindu@gmail.com with the subject line Off the edge.

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A guided route - The Hindu

Embryology

How infertility drove me into reproductive medicine | The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News Guardian Woman – Guardian Nigeria

Tunika Cleopatra Adonor is a clinical embryologist with 17 years experience in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), commonly known as In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF). Though catering services was her first love, shes today Clinical and Managing Director of TuniCleo Fertility Centre Asokoro Abuja.

In this interview with RALPH OMOLOLU AGBANA, she spoke on how her experience with infertility led her into reproductive medicine.

I spent almost all of my life, including growing up, in Benin City for primary and secondary education. Then, I went to Ambrose Alli University and later University of Benin College of Medical Sciences. I also hold a bachelors degree in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) from University of Schleswig- Holstein, Germany; University College, London for Pregenetic Diagnosis for those looking for gender selection; and also, University College of Leeds, where I had a Clinical Masters of Science in Embryology; Fellows of In Vitro Fertilisation and Reproductive Medicine, Fellows in Managerial Consultancy, Nigeria; Certified Managerial Consultant (CMC); Associate in Medical Laboratory Sciences (AIMLS); Masters in Medical Laboratory Sciences (MMLS).

Were eight in the family; four boys, four girls; I am number five and the second daughter. Growing up from primary school level at age seven, I discovered that I loved cooking and baking. I actually do it alongside this job that I do; I have a registered catering organisation. I discharge duties, you know you have to just trust people, so, coping with the two wont be a problem.

When I was growing up in 1983, I used to watch Mackie Kitchen on Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). I was keen on it; I followed it up. Then, my elder brother will have to say you have to learn, you have to go into sciences, not enough to just know how to cook, you must go to school, thats why they pay your school fees. And I would say, no, I think I can mix it up. At the same time, I realised my mother was always reading All Woman, a text book that tells you how pregnancy comes up, what to expect in pregnancy, symptoms, and then if you cannot have a simultaneous vaginal delivery, you can also end up in a cesarean section.

Imagine me as a very young girl as at that time, I was reading and I had so much interest in reproductive medicine, integrated science; I was very good in chemistry and physics. In secondary school, we were like 38 in class; I would always come like second, first and sometimes third if I played too much. From secondary school, I proceeded to learning how to make hair and I alsolearned sewing before my results could come out. I did that for three months before I got admission in University of Benin and Ambrose Alli University.

I had two admissions and I didnt know which one to go to. At a point, my parents and my brothers were confused; I just had to pray to God about it. I actually went to Ambrose Alli University, I started with Microbiology; I did that for a year, but I was not satisfied. I just had to go back to University of Benin School of Medical Sciences where I specialised in Dermatology, Immunology and Blood Group Serology; I did that for five years.

After graduating, not actually working with my degree, I went ahead to start cooking and catering for people in Benin City; I live all my life almost in Benin City.

How Infertility Challenge Drove Her Into Reproductive MedicineNow, what drives me most in reproductive medicine or people suffering from infertility is that about 22 years ago; I suffered from infertility. I could see what women suffer when they cant bear children. I was born October 15, 1975, soon I will be 47. If you minus 22 from 47, youll see how young I was to have experienced infertility.

It was so traumatic. You have so much shame; you dont want to go out. I was driven out of my husbands home, because I couldnt bear children for a year. Thats where I specialise now for the past 17 years. I am a reproductive expert, a certified clinical embryologist. I am founder, managing director, TuniCleo Medical Fertility Centres, Asaba, Abuja and Benin.

Infertility And CausesWhen you talk about infertility, it is both male infertility and female infertility. I want people to understand that education actually will not cure infertility. No matter how knowledgeable you are, whenever your family or peers or environmental factors pressure you, you begin to act accordingly; that the problem is coming from the woman.

When I channelled into infertility, like I said, I went to University College in London, University of Leeds, London, we got to know so much that we have male factor, which is 40 per cent, women factor which is 40 per cent also. Then, 20 per cent unknown (thats like ignorance, from men and from women/incompatibility or we call it idiopathic). I discovered while growing up that I suffered from what we call Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). It is a very significant factor when it comes to infertility.

Why? Under it, you have anovulation, you have scanty menses, prolonged menses for like six months, three months, and they come in clogs. The types of reproductive ovaries we have is different from the normal women that have up to four to eight ovaries in the follicles, thats on the left and on the right. For Polycystic patients, you have up to like 10 to 12, which do not make you to ovulate, because the follicles there are so small that you cannot be able to actually release an egg every month as a sign of ovulation. I discovered that in school, at University of Benin, with one of my doctor friends, who is a consultant right now on oncology.I had it. Some of my sisters also were suffering from it.

Immediately I realised that, I had to advise them quickly to get married. It is a genetic factor; its not environmental factor. The way you were born to be. The way our parents lived those days and what they eat, is also different. They knew how to use herbs to control this. But you know, as they too were also growing, they have to travel and start changing from taking leaves to cure headache, to taking paracetamol that has to go through a lot of processes and they are releasing a lot of toxins into your system. They will forget about the way they knew they used to miss their periods or theyre periods wasnt flowing at all. And we were not told, because they dont know.

When I was in school, being among your friends, you see them menstruating every month and I wasnt doing it; I knew there was a problem. I went home, I told my mum, she didnt understand. So, immediately I got married, I had to follow up with my younger ones, because I had the experience and my younger sisters were also experiencing scanty menses.So, I said, you know what, before you get to 25, marry.

Now, they have their children. But it took me a while, up to 38 years of age, before I could have my own child and Ihad to use In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) in having my kids. People with polycystic ovary, once they crossed the age of 25 to 26, they are going to suffer it.

Wrong Views About IVF By The SocietyLet me correct the society. Assisted Reproductive Technology is just to help people to conceive. Under it, you have what we call IUI (Intrauterine insemination). Then In Vitro Fertilisation, which is commonly known as test tube baby in the society. After that, theres what we call ICSI (Intracytoplasmic sperm injection). After that, you have IMSI (Intracytoplasmic Morphologically Selected Sperm Injection), then theres what we call TESA (Testicular Sperm Aspiration), PESA (Percutaneous Epididymal Sperm Aspiration).

Now, let me analyse it; when a man and woman being together for a year, you tried unprotected sex for a year and you are not pregnant, the best thing to do is for you to go for investigation as a couple. When you get to your infertility center, it will be discovered if the fault is from the woman or the man. In the society we live in Nigeria, when a man and a woman live together between the first and fifth year without the woman being pregnant, everybodys eyes will be on the woman, that she is the factor. Whereas the man, because of his ego, he will not be able to tell his family or friends that he is the factor. And we put the blame on the woman.

When you go for investigation, you are told that, okay madam, your ovary, your hormonal profile is okay. In some cases when they tell the man and the woman that their hormones are okay, it is because of ignorance and the money. Money is a factor, because IVF is very expensive. But before we go into IVF, youknow I started with IUI. If the womans tubes are good and she ovulates and the mans count is very good (his count is from 20 million above, thats what World Health Organisation requires), once that count is good and the womans tubes are opened and she ovulates every month, but shes not getting pregnant, weve done all the hormonal profile, everything is okay and that of the man is okay and pregnancy is not taking place, first and foremost we, do polycular tracking to see if shes going to produce an egg; the process starts from the second day of her cycle when she menstruates, then we continue to scan to see a dominant follicle. If we are able to see it, then we try to plan for the IUI.

The IUI on its own take the mans sperm, wash it to remove the normal seminal fluid out and were left with the sperm cells. We introduce it into the woman before ovulation takes place within 48 hours. If we try this for three months and shes not pregnant, then we go to the higher form, which is IVF. When a woman is on a normal cycle, releases egg every month sometimes two eggs, during IVF, we give you fertility injectable so we can get a lot of follicles and have a lot of eggs; we do this from the second day of the circle of a woman to the day 12.

On this issue, we begin to scan the woman to see that the eggs grow by every two millimetres everyday and as you know, we have a dominant follicle for between 18 to 20 days. We do a trigger; that is resources ovulation. What In Vitro means is that we are taking child outside the body. In Vivo is what happens naturally with a man and a woman when they have intercourse, but in IVF, In Vitro means outside. We do the trigger for full maturation of the eggs and once this is done, 36 hours to 38 hours, we take the woman to the theatre and retrieve the eggs.

We bring them out to actually see may be shes not having good eggs or why is she not getting pregnant. The mans sperms are good but fertilisation is not taking place? When you do this outside the body, you will see that you develop a lot of embryos, thats a lot of babies, and after about three to five days, you transfer the baby back into the woman; there is no operation. People say its painful, it is not painful; I did it. The risk is multiple babies.

In this part of the world, we generate a lot of embryos. As a specialist, thats what I do. When you fertilise with a mans sperm, you just need one sperm, but for women, we cant produce millions of sperms or oocytes (we call it eggs).But for the men, a little drop is thousands, millions, but just one is enough to fertilise a whole lot of numbers of eggs from the woman. Lets say 10 eggs from the woman, they all get fertilised. The 10 eggs may not get to maturation. You may end up with four or five; thats why you have the chance of multiple babies.

When There Are Multiple Babies We transfer more babies in Nigeria, but outside here, its being regulated. In the United Kingdom, theres something we call S.E.T (Single Embryo Transfer). The best embryo is what youre going to transfer and then you freeze the remaining embryos. When I talk about freezing, it is not like you are going to put it in the freezer. Theres something we use to freeze these embryos for like 10 to 15 years or more. Anytime youre ready to come back again, when you feel like having more babies, we go back to where we freeze the embryos and then we return it back into the woman. Nothing will happen to it as long as youre paying. You continue to pay every year; it is done everywhere in the world. We are capable; we do the same.

In The Event Of Power FailureIt does not involve electricity. In Africa, because of (power) issues, theres what we call vitrification procedures. Theres what we call liquid nitrogen tank; that one doesnt need any electricity. It comes in a cooler form minus 195 degree, you cant even hold it; it will burn your hand if youre not careful. It wont even destroy the psycho skeletal structure of the embryo. It kills germ cells like men with HIV, women with HIV and hepatitis; this can destroy it. Its not transferable to the embryo.

Effectiveness Of The IVF ProceduresEveryday, we have new technologies coming up to help improve on In Vitro Fertility in the society. Lets say a man that surfers from low sperm count, theres hope for you. On male infertility, we have what is called Normospermia, Teratospermia, Azoospermia, Cryptozoospermia and Oligozoopermia (thats normal, scanty, low sperm count or cant move fast). With an IVF, even if you have a low sperm count like I said before, we have World Health Organisation that says from 20 million, in In Vitro Fertilisation, you have 10 to 15 million by the time we remove the seminal fluid and used the medium that actually separates the debris from the seminal fluid, separate from the sperm cells, the sperm cells become very active and we can use it for a normal conventional In Vitro Fertilisation.

But if you have Oligozoopermia,you know that theres a problem. You go back to what I told you earlier, under Assistant Reproductive Technology, which is Intracytoplasmic injection. What we do with this one now is enforce the manual machine method, where we have to take a single sperm to invade an egg, thats the oocyte. We have to force fertilisation into a woman that can produce a lot of eggs.

But when the mans count is so low, it cant move fast, you have head defect, you have tail defect. You see that woman has been covering that man for 10 to 20 years, she cant speak out, the family will say, oh, shes using something to cover our brothers eyes, not knowing that shes covering the shame of that man.

Causes Of Low Sperm CountA mans lifestyle; taking a lot of alcohol, illicit drug use, exposure to toxic environment, youre expose to radiation, smokin,having present or past infections, being overweight or significantly underweight. Some women when taking care of there child, may be they are sick, they use hot water on the testis thinking shes actually healing the child whereas not knowing that shes fueling it. Some men are so used to their laptops and then wearing only boxers; these are factors.

How To Detect Infertility They wont even know. As a man, you will know that youre having premature ejaculation and as a woman also, you will know that it is not every month that youre seeing your period.This also goes for a woman that goes about having a lot of abortions.

Importance Of Early AwarenessA lot of awareness is important. We use to go to schools; university, even secondary schools, it is good for them to know from the very beginning. And age is a factor in women. You hear people say that from 18 to 40 years, if you dont get pregnant that something has gone wrong. Yes, those days because of what you eat, lifestyle and all that. Things have changed, you have ovarian decline.

When we were growing up, we used to see women with a lot of hair, grow beards. They will say this woman is a witch. No, she has more of mens androgen (testosterone) and she cant ovulate; thats a factor. It affects ovulation, as you grow older. Some of them are just lucky that they get pregnant. Thats why I said earlier that Polycystic Syndrome Awareness is important.

A lot of girls out there have a lot of follicles, which then dont even know. Immediately I see that, I used to tell them youre going to suffer infertility later in life, but if you get pregnant along the way, please dont abort it. You will hear that a woman that gets fibroid cannot get pregnant, no. It depends on where the fibroid is located.Women with fibroid can get pregnant and women with fibroid cannot get pregnant. Why? The location of where the fibroid is matters. There are women with fibroid that get pregnant, but there are women with fibroid that you actually need to remove it before you proceed. A woman that continue to do abortions, not taking into cognizance that when she gets to settle down she may not know that she has to correct the rectum.

When youre pregnant the first time, second time, third time, you will need to take what we call RhoGAM injection, but as a young girl, you dont know. You dont even have an idea of what your blood group is. Lecturing is important; you need to let them know from the beginning that the rhesus factor will threaten your life, threaten your fertility in the future.

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How infertility drove me into reproductive medicine | The Guardian Nigeria News - Nigeria and World News Guardian Woman - Guardian Nigeria

Immunology

Evommunes Human Tissue-based Approach Enables Discovery and Development of Safer, Innovative Chronic Inflammation Therapies – BioSpace

Evommune team/courtesy of Evommune

Evommunes novel human tissue-based assay system is proving to be a key differentiator as the company develops therapies to control chronic inflammation in autoimmune diseases.

Working with human tissue puts us closer to the target and yields a model that is much more predictive of outcomes in the human immune system, said Luis Pea, CEO of Evommune, in an interview with BioSpace.

Skin has all of the cell types that are needed to induce specific inflammatory pathways, said Eugene Bauer, M.D., CMO of Evommune. The companys human tissue model is an ex vivo system that uses living skin from human donors, allowing the model to reflect all the immune responses that occur across various tissues in the body that drive inflammation.

Consequently, in this context, it is more robust, predictive and relevant than animal modeling. This most closely mimics a real-time look at immune pathways and how to find the best way to target and modify inflammation. The miniaturized technology enables hundreds of assays to be conducted to study both systemic and topical therapies.

Evolving Immunology

In seeking to evolve immune therapy, Evommune is looking at the following opportunities in treating patients: early intervention in their disease state, improving efficacy, increasing response rates in patients and enhancing safety.

Autoimmune diseases are, in fact, systemic inflammatory conditions that are often associated with serious co-morbidities including infections, cardiovascular events, renal disease and mental health issues, making early intervention and preventing disease progression extremely important, Pea said. The entire body is in an accelerated immune-response mode. So, we are trying to modulate the immune system to dial down some of these responses.

Existing therapeutics have improved our ability to treat inflammatory conditions, but in most diseases, they still only elicit a response in about half the patients treated and achieve a great response rate in only one-third of those, he continued. Creating medicines that have better efficacy and that induce remission is the goal for us.

Improving the safety profile for drugs that treat autoimmune diseases could make a meaningful impact in this space. We want to develop therapies that improve patients quality of life without putting them at risk for other factors, Pea said.

Evommunes senior leadership and scientific teams are primed to do just that. Throughout their careers, they have helped bring more than 25 medicines to patients in need. As Pea noted, the combination of scientific insights, drug development expertise and building companies makes this team a unique group.

Accomplished Team of Experts

A testament to this is that Pea and Bauer were co-founders of Dermira, which Eli Lilly acquired for $1.1 billion to get the rights to lebrikizumab. The two had originally helped acquire this asset from Genentech, despite the drug having failed in prior Phase III trials for a different indication.

We saw that lebrikizumab had promise in atopic dermatitis. We believed lebrikizumab had been under-dosed in previous atopic dermatitis trials, mostly because of a focus on asthma, Pea explained. We adjusted the dose in a Phase II atopic dermatitis program and delivered strong data. Lilly bought us because of that drug and since then, lebrikizumab has had great data from their Phase III studies. We believe lebrikizumab will become a significant therapy for atopic dermatitis and the team at Evommune had the vision to make that happen, he said.

Before Dermira, Bauer was president and CMO of Peplin, Inc. (acquired by LEO Pharma) and shepherded Picato through a global submission, which included the FDA and resulted in an approval for actinic keratosis.

Additionally, the Evommune development team has been responsible for multiple new drug applications or biologics license applications, several investigational new drug applications and numerous other interactions with regulators, including four global clinical development programs.

That combination of intimate knowledge of both immunology and drug development is what separates Evommune from other companies in terms of our ability to move these novel therapies forward, Pea said.

Evommune is committed to this promise with the ongoing expansion of the team, including new management positions across R&D, CMC, legal, strategy and finance who also bring a wealth of diverse drug discovery and development expertise.

A Multifaceted Pipeline

Evommune currently has four programs in the pipeline.

"The goal for all of our programs is to be best in class, Pea said. EVO101 for atopic dermatitis is an IRAK4 inhibitor, which is a very novel target. A randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled Phase IIa clinical trial for patients with mild-to-moderate atopic dermatitis was initiated in Q3 2022.

We define mild-to-moderate atopic dermatitis as affecting between 4 and 12% of an individuals body surface area. For perspective, the palm of your hand is 1%, Bauer elaborated. Study participants will apply a 0.1% cream to the lesions twice daily for eight weeks. Results will be scored using the eczema area severity index (EASI), which measures redness, scaling and thickness of lesions, as well as the extent and severity of the disease.

In EVO101s development work, Evommunes human tissue model enabled researchers to recapitulate disease pathology and inflammatory mediators of atopic dermatitis. Adding low-, mid- and high-potency topical steroids (current standard-of-care therapeutics) to the human tissue model provided a control set of efficacy data a baseline by which we could then compare the performance of EVO101, Bauer explained.

EVO101, at the dosage being used for patients in the clinical trial, lowered inflammation levels to those comparable with doses of ultra-high potency steroids, but with high selectivity.

We believe this could become an alternative to standard-of-care therapies for atopic dermatitis, Bauer said, that may be used to treat both adult and pediatric patients.

In addition, we now have a development stage program that could potentially be a ground-breaking oral therapy for mast cell-mediated diseases, he said.

EVO756 is a completely novel compound that will target the treatment of mast cell-mediated diseases and inflammatory itch, Pea said. EVO756 targets MRGPRX2, a receptor that exists on mast cells and peripheral neurons and regulates mast cell degranulation. EVO756 is targeted for the treatment of mast cell-mediated disorders with highly prevalent populations such as chronic spontaneous urticaria, interstitial cystitis and hereditary alpha-tryptasemia.

In addition, preclinical data have shown that itch can be completely eliminated in mice: knocking out that receptor made it impossible to induce itch. For patients with inflammatory diseases, itch can be severe and have a significant, negative impact on a patients quality of life. We think EVO756 could be a great oral therapy, that can act quickly to relieve itch, Pea continued.

Another program, EVO390, is in development for the treatment of mild-to-moderate psoriasis in the hope of slowing or halting disease progression. This therapeutic agent targets RORt and has the potential to be best-in-class and the agent of choice for these patients. It may also serve as an adjunct therapy in more severe cases. We believe it could be a broadly used therapy for psoriasis, Pea added.

Our fourth program, currently in discovery, targets protein kinase C (PKC) theta, Pea continued. The company has identified several potent molecules that may have broad anti-inflammatory activity, highly targeted to T-effector cell inhibition and T-regulatory cell activation. This may have utility across a number of inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, IBD, atopic dermatitis and psoriasis. In addition, because it is highly targeted, it has the potential to be safer than the JAK inhibitors and other systemic anti-inflammatory agents.

As a company, we understand the importance of working on multiple targets and managing a portfolio of compounds. This approach provides the opportunity to work on different agents, impact many diseases and make a difference in patients lives, Pea said. The companys discovery engine is working to identify new targets so the team can extend its therapeutic impact.

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Immunology

$2.5 million CDC contract to fund one of the largest SARS-CoV-2 surveillance programs in the U.S. – News-Medical.Net

A team led by Scripps Research scientists has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) in support of one of the largest SARS-CoV-2 surveillance programs in the United States.

The two-year, $2.5 million contract will fund the large-scale, near real-time sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 isolates from hospitals and local public health agencies in San Diego and nearby northwestern Mexico, and the development of software for tracking the evolution and geographical spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants.

The contract, an extension of one originally awarded in 2020, will be carried out by the San Diego Epidemiology and Research for COVID Health (SEARCH) Alliance, which was co-founded by Scripps Research, the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego), and Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego.

CDC's support for SEARCH's genomic surveillance program has already led to significant COVID-19 public health advances as well as new science on SARS-CoV-2, and we expect much more progress in both areas as a result of this new award."

Kristian Andersen, PhD, Principal Investigator, Professor, Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research

Since the start of the pandemic, SEARCH has been conducting genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 using clinical samples collected at San Diego hospitals and from sources across the border in Baja California. SEARCH has also developed key protocols and analysis tools to track the emergence and spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants in wastewater. Moreover, SEARCH investigators are actively involved in understanding the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, and in several high-profile publications have found evidence for an initial spread from animals sold at the Huanan Market in Wuhan, China.

SEARCH's efforts involve multiple collaborations, including with the CDC, San Diego County's Health & Human Services Agency, the California Department of Public Health, Sharp Health, Scripps Health, the viral surveillance company Helix, and the Salud Digna healthcare network in Mexico. Since the start of the pandemic, these efforts have yielded publications and analyses of more than 70,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences.

Under the new contract, SEARCH will accelerate its virus-sequencing workflow to produce more timely and actionable information on local virus spread and evolution-;including the emergence of new variants and subvariants of concern.

"The current process of sampling, sequencing and analyzing a batch of virus samples from local hospital cases and wastewater treatment plants can take several weeks," says Mark Zeller, PhD, project scientist in the Andersen lab. "We're aiming to get that down to a matter of days, which would enable us to monitor the transmission chains in local outbreaks in near real-time."

Working with the County of San Diego, the state of California and Mexican public health labs, the researchers will also continue to analyze the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 across the busy California-Baja border. Additionally, they'll expand their genomic surveillance efforts to additional Mexican border states and popular tourist destinations, including Puerto Vallarta. The team will continue to post their analyses on SEARCH's online dashboards.

The project includes the further development of open-source software tools to support the tracking of local SARS-CoV-2 evolution and transmission.

"The tools we've developed in recent years are already being used widely by the public health community for SARS-CoV-2 sequencing and analysis," says Joshua Levy, PhD, postdoctoral research associate in the Andersen lab. "Under this new contract, we will be developing the technology to permanently transform how genomic surveillance will be used to strengthen our public health response."

These open-source software tools are available at https://andersen-lab.com/secrets/code/. The SEARCH Alliance's SARS-CoV-2 surveillance dashboards are at https://searchcovid.info/Dashboards/.

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$2.5 million CDC contract to fund one of the largest SARS-CoV-2 surveillance programs in the U.S. - News-Medical.Net

Immunology

Cancer Research Institute and Israel Cancer Research Fund Announce Co-Funding of a Translational Immunotherapy Research Grant – Newswise

Newswise NEW YORK, October 11, 2022 The Cancer Research Institute (CRI) and Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) have partnered to award and co-fund, respectively, a Clinic and Laboratory Integration Program (CLIP) grant to support the promising immunotherapy research of Yifat Merbl, PhD, of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. The CLIP grant, providing $200,000 in research funding over two years, was established by CRI to support investigators who are studying critical topics at the intersection of laboratory and clinical research. This collaboration builds on another partnership that supported immunotherapy research conducted in Israel The Immunotherapy Promise betweenCRI, the leading funder of immunotherapy research internationally, and ICRF, North Americas largest nonprofit dedicated to supporting cancer research in Israel and the largest non-governmental funder of Israeli cancer research.

Professor Merbls project, Controlling Proteasomal Degradation for Enhancing Anti-Tumor Immunity, hopes to characterize the proteasome degradation landscape in melanoma, aiming to gain insight into the mechanisms of immune evasion and lack of patient response to immunotherapy. This approach should ultimately lead to a novel system to target proteasome degradation in order to improve cancer treatment. While immunotherapy first emerged as a form of FDA-approved cancer treatment in the late 1980s, it is only within the past decade that this class of therapy has begun to deliver significant survival benefit to more cancer patients, bringing it to the forefront of public attention. New immunotherapeutic approaches have been shown in clinical trials to effectively treat patients with bladder, head and neck, kidney, and lung cancers as well as leukemia, lymphoma, and melanoma, with clinical trials under way for more than 25 other types of cancer.

The Cancer Research Institute and Israel Cancer Research Fund have teamed up again to bring philanthropic support of immunology research to scientists in Israel who are working to harness the immune systems power to fight all types of cancer, and this latest joint initiative furthers our shared goal of finding effective answers to cancer to save more lives and cure as many patients as possible, said Jill ODonnell-Tormey, Ph.D., CEO and director of scientific affairs at the Cancer Research Institute.

Commenting on the partnership, David Abramson, president of ICRF said, We know how crucial immunotherapy is in the area of cancer research and our unique partnership with the Cancer Research Institute has the potential to yield breakthrough discoveries in the field. It is our hope that many more Israeli scientists will benefit from our collaboration with CRI.

About the Cancer Research InstituteThe Cancer Research Institute (CRI), established in 1953, is the worlds leading nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to transforming cancer patient care by advancing scientific efforts to develop new and effective immune system-based strategies to prevent, diagnose, treat, and eventually cure all cancers. Guided by a world-renowned Scientific Advisory Council that includes four Nobel laureates and 27 members of the National Academy of Sciences, CRI has invested $500 million in support of research conducted by immunologists and tumor immunologists at the worlds leading medical centers and universities and has contributed to many of the key scientific advances that demonstrate the potential for immunotherapy to change the face of cancer treatment. To learn more, go to https://www.cancerresearch.org/.

About Israel Cancer Research FundICRF, a 501(c)(3) organization, is the largest charitable organization outside of Israel solely devoted to supporting cancer research in Israel. Grants issued by ICRF have gone to hundreds of researchers at two dozen leading research institutions, universities, and hospitals across Israel. The efforts of Israeli cancer researchers have resulted in significant cancer breakthroughs which were vital in the development of breakthrough cancer drugs, including Doxil, Gleevec, and Velcade. To learn more, go to https://www.icrfonline.org/.

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Cancer Research Institute and Israel Cancer Research Fund Announce Co-Funding of a Translational Immunotherapy Research Grant - Newswise