Proteomics Data Collection – 4th ProDaC Workshop 15 August 2008, Amsterdam,The Netherlands

ProDaC (Proteomics Data Collection), a “Coordination Action” within the 6^th EU framework programme, was created to support the collection, distribution and public availability of data from proteomics experiments. Within the consortium standards are created and maintained enabling an extensive data collection within the proteomics community. Important elements of ProDaC are workshops held twice a year to allow communication between the ProDaC partners and to report the ongoing progress. The most recent assembly was the 4^th ProDaC workshop on August 15^th, 2008, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. It took place directly before the 7^th HUPO Annual World Congress (Human Proteome Organisation). Work package coordinators and partners presented the progress achieved since the last meeting. Additionally, an EU official presented funding opportunities for proteomics in the next EU framework programme and five external speakers presented talks about their work in relation to ProDaC.     

Announcing the call for the Special Issue on the 20th International Congress of the International Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB)—virtual meeting,October 2021

This Commentary describes a call for submissions for the upcoming Special Issue focused on the science presented at the 20^th IUPAB Congress to be held in conjunction with the 45^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Biophysical Society and the 49^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 20^th International IUPAB Congress will take place as a virtual meeting this year from October 4 to 8, 2021. This triennial IUPAB Congress will be held in loose conjunction with the 45^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Biophysical Society and the 49^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. To act as a complement to this virtual meeting, the Biophysical Reviews journal will base a Special Issue on the scientific topics of the meeting contributors selected from the range of invited speakers and poster presenters. This Special Issue will also work to highlight the host country’s (Brazil) National Biophysical Society. Finally, this Special Issue will also serve to publish the meeting abstracts in supplemental form.Review articles from IUPAB Congress speakers and poster presenters to the IUPAB Congress and associated conferences (the 45^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Biophysical Society and the 49^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) are solicited. Similar to the SI based on the 19^th IUPAB Congress held in Edinburgh summarizing Commentaries from session chairs are also requested (Hall and dos Remedios 2017). The Special Issue for the 20^th IUPAB International Congress will be prepared and edited by the current authors (Rosangela Itri, Mauricio Baptista, Richard Garratt, and Antonio Jose Costa-Filho).     

News from the Biological Stain Commission,No. 17

In the 17^th issue of News from the Biological Stain Commission (BSC) under the heading of Regulatory affairs, the Biological Stain Commission’s International Affairs Committee presents information from the 20^th meeting of ISO/TC 212 Clinical laboratory testing and in vitro diagnostic test systems held on October 15 ? 17, 2014 in Toronto, Canada, and from the 29^th meeting of CEN/TC 140 In vitro diagnostic medical devices held on February 3, 2015 in Berlin, Germany.     

News from the Biological Stain Commission,No. 16

Abstract

In the 16^th issue of News from the Biological Stain Commission (BSC) under the heading of Regulatory affairs, the Biological Stain Commission’s International Affairs Committee presents information from the 28^th meeting of CEN/TC 140 In vitro diagnostic medical devices held on October 23, 2013 in Berlin, Germany. Information is also presented from the 19^th meeting of ISO/TC 212 Clinical laboratory testing and in vitro diagnostic test systems held on October 19 ? 21, 2013 in Singapore.     

Meeting reports

Meeting report: 48^th meeting of the ASCB Meeting highlight: Genome Informatics (GIW-2008); 19^th International Conference on Genome Informatics Darwin 200 years     

Driving Precision Medicine through Proteomics and Metabolomics - 12th Central and Eastern European Proteomic Conference (CEEPC), Bucharest,Romania

As Romanians prepared to celebrate 100 years of the '‘Great Unification of 1918?' which united all provinces into one Romania, the 12^th Central and Eastern European Proteomic Conference (CEEPC) jointly with the 39^th Anniversary of the Institute of Cellular Biology and Pathology '‘N. Simionescu’' (ICBP-NS), held their inaugural meeting at the Romanian Academy in Bucharest – a national forum of highest scientific recognition. With an exciting theme entitled, ‘Advances in Proteomics and Progress in Precision Medicine’, delegates gathered to debate Precision medicine’s revolution in diagnosis and treatment, which now accounts for predictive, preventative, and targeted treatment strategies with informed decisions according to individual’s unique clinical, molecular and genetic profile. Proteomics has a pivotal role to play in furthering precision health and medicine for the benefit of mankind. To this end, CEEPC continues to drive advances in proteomics, metabolomics, and diseases as well as raising awareness of pressing global humanitarian and health-care issues including mental health diseases, aging, chronic diseases, global epidemics and environmental issues. Today, CEEPC is a well-recognized major annual conference with a focused vision and a highly valued ideology as it continues to propagate scientific, medical and proteomic collaborations whilst expanding as more Eastern European countries prepare to join.     

The 30th Anniversary Crete Fly Meeting: From individual molecules to 12 genomes,and beyond

The 16^th biennial meeting of the EMBO-sponsored International Workshop on the Molecular and Developmental Biology of Drosophila was held in Kolymbari, Crete from June 23 to June 28, 2008. As in previous years, the weather was hot, the Mediterranean Sea was clear and blue and the presentations were exciting and illuminating.     

The 5th International Symposium on Autophagy: Molecular Mechanism,Cellular and Physiological Functions and Diseases,September 24–28, 2009; Otsu Prince Hotel,Otsu, Japan

This meeting report contains the schedule, abstracts and poster titles for the the 5^th International Symposium on Autophagy: Molecular Mechanism, Cellular and Physiological Functions and Diseases to be held September 24–28, 2009 at the Otsu Prince Hotel in Otsu, Japan.     

Applications in brain proteomics: 8(th) HUPO Brain Proteome Project Workshop 7 October 2007, Seoul, Korea

What are the current approaches in brain proteomics? Can we combine different, but complementary study designs to obtain better results concerning brain diseases? What are the neuro‐hotspots, especially in Korea? These were some of the questions the participants of the 8^th HUPO Brain Proteome Project Workshop tried to answer prior to the 6^th HUPO World Congress in Seoul, Korea. Around 100 scientists came together during the afternoon of 7 October, 2007, to discuss and to catch up on the latest results and strategies concerning Huntington's disease, glioblastoma and standardization.     

Phenotype Ontology Research Coordination Network meeting report: creating a community network for comparing and leveraging phenotype-genotype knowledge across species

Representing phenotype in a way that can be linked to thousands of molecular genetic and environmental databases is an unresolved research challenge. A recent meeting of the Phenotype Research Coordination Network (RCN) aimed to coordinate and leverage current efforts. The three day summit meeting was hosted by NESCent (The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center) in Durham, North Carolina on the 23^rd – 25^th of February, 2012.     

Announcing the call for the Special Issue on “The Australian Society for Biophysics (ASB) – 2021 Meeting”

This Commentary describes a call for submissions for the upcoming Special Issue focused on the research topics presented at the Australian Society of Biophysics (ASB) in 2020 and 2021. Submissions from past and present ASB members who could not attend these meetings are also welcome as contributions to this special issue.

In 2020, the ASB held its 44^th Annual Conference virtually, enabling joint sessions with the University of California Davis Early Career Researchers, Biophysical Society of Japan, and the New Zealand Section of ASB to take place despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. To complement these ASB joint meetings, Biophysical Reviews in partnership with the Australian Society for Biophysics (ASB) will present the second of a series of Special Issues highlighting the activities of a National Biophysical Society. This National Biophysical Society Special Issue series will highlight the activities and showcase the areas of research carried out by its members.Review articles are solicited from speakers and poster presenters of the 44^th and participants at the 45^th ASB annual conferences. Commentaries from session chairs and meeting organisers are also requested. Submissions from those who have had long-standing association with ASB or with knowledge of its history are also most welcome. This Special Issue will be prepared and edited by the above authors.     

Managing the Data Explosion A Report on the HUPO‐PSI Workshop August 2008, Amsterdam,The Netherlands

The plenary session of the Proteomics Standards Initiative (PSI) of the Human Proteome Organisation at the 7^th annual HUPO world congress updated the delegates on the current status of the ongoing work of this group. The release of the new MS interchange format, mzML, was formally announced and delegates were also updated on the advances in the area of molecular interactions, protein separations, proteomics informatics and also on PEFF, a common sequence database format currently under review in the PSI documentation process. Community input on this initiative was requested. Finally, the impact these new data standards are having on the data submission process, which increasingly is an integral part of the publication process, was reviewed and discussed.     

Announcing the call for the Issue Focus on the 2nd Costa Rican Biophysics Symposium—virtual meeting,March 2021

This Commentary is a call for submissions for the upcoming Issue Focus that will highlight some of the scientific topics discussed during the 2^nd Costa Rica Biophysics Symposium.

The Second Costa Rican Biophysics Symposium¹ was organized on March 11^th and March 12^th of 2021. The first edition of this symposium was organized in 2019 at the National Academy of Sciences in Costa Rica (Solís et al. 2020). Due to the success of this event, the organizers decided to pursue a second edition of this scientific meeting. However, the global emergency of COVID-19 forced to keep social distancing as part of the sanitary measures and therefore, the second edition was held virtually. Nevertheless, the event was a great success as measured by the number of registrations near to 130, the quality of the presentations of the 15 speakers from 5 different countries (Costa Rica, Switzerland, USA, France, and Germany), and the level of participation during the Q & A sessions of each talk. As the highlight of the symposium, we had the pleasure to host Dr. Francisco Bezanilla as the keynote speaker and who highlighted some of his recent work on non-canonical mechanisms of voltage sensor domain coupling to pore domains in voltage-gated potassium channels (Carvalho-de-Souza and Bezanilla 2019).In commemoration of the 2^nd Costa Rica Biophysics Symposium, Biophysical Reviews will publish an Issue Focus in 2022 highlighting some of the scientific topics discussed during the event. Review articles from speakers and attendees who were part of the event are solicited. The format for the review articles is similar to those submitted for the special issue of the 20^th International Congress of the International Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB) (Itri et al. 2021). The Special Issue for the 20^th IUPAB International Congress will be prepared and edited by the current authors (Christopher Solís, Gustavo Chaves, and José Ángel Rodriguez-Corrales).     

Haematological and innate immune responses in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Puntius sarana</Emphasis>: normal range and seasonal variation

A study was conducted to measure the normal ranges, seasonal and annual variations in haematological and immune parameters of juvenile healthy Puntius sarana (weighing 75–100 g) during three major seasons over two consecutive years. Significantly (P<0.05) lower serum myeloperoxidase and ceruloplasmin activities, superoxide production, plasma glucose level, packed cell volume and haemoglobin concentration were detected in winter as compared to the summer season. However, serum lysozyme activity, antiprotease activity, total erythrocyte count (TEC) and TLC profiles were consistent during all seasons. The reference intervals (25^th–75^th) of each parameter were estimated and a range was established. The annual changes in immune parameters with minimum and maximum values were measured and a significant variation was noticed in myeloperoxidase, antiprotease, total protein levels and TEC over two consecutive years. The lower levels in haematological and innate immune status of fish during winter possibly indicate a higher disease risk period for the species.     

HUPO World Congress Publication Committee Meeting August 2008, Amsterdam,The Netherlands

The plenary session of the Publications Committee of the Human Proteome Organisation at the 7^th annual HUPO world congress examined the relationship between journals, proteomics standardization initiatives, such as the work of the HUPO‐PSI, and the public domain data repositories. Delegates from industry, academia and the publishing houses discussed how best to bring these bodies closer to together and facilitate the publication process for the bench scientist.     

The effect of biochanin A on the chlorophylls and carotenoids content in the alga <Emphasis Type="Italic">Chlorella vulgaris</Emphasis> Beijerinck

The present study was undertaken to determine the influence of biochanin A, isoflavone characterised by estrogenic activity, upon the content of chlorophylls and carotenoids in the cells of green alga Chlorella vulgaris Beijerinck (Chlorophyceae). On the 6^th day of cultivation under the influence of 10⁻⁶ M biochanin A exerted the greatest biological activity and the most stimulating effect on the analysed parameters: growth of the alga expressed by the cells number and the content of photosynthetic pigments in them. The total content of carotenoids was stimulated on the 6^th day of experiment in the range of 197 % but during the 9^th day only in 179 % in comparision with the control group (100 %). At the same time content of carotenes increased to the level of 123 – 119 % and xanthophylls to 208 – 178 %. Among the carotenes, β-carotene was characterised with the 3.7 times higher content in regard to the content of α-carotene on the 6^th day of cultivation and during the 9^th day — the 5.7 times domination. The content of xanthophylls that contain two atoms of oxygene in molecule (oxygen — poor xanthophylls) was intensively stimulated in the range of 224 %. Moreover, the oxygen — rich xanthophylls content reached the value 179 % when compared to the control. The greatest stimulation of the content of chlorophylls and its isomers was observed during the 3^rd day of cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris when it rose up to 166 % and to 156 % on the 6^th day. The content of chlorophyll b and its isomers was stimulated in 181 % on the 6^th day of culture and 155 % during the 9^th day of algal culture. The evidence on the stimulating effect of biochanin A as the main representative of isoflavones on the growth and content photosynthetic pigments in eucaryotic alga C. vulgaris was demonstrated in these studies.     

Aquaristische Reiseeindrücke aus 8 Aquarienhäusern in Japan, Taiwan und China

In combination with the 7^th International Aquarium Congress (7^th IAC), which was held in 2008 in Shanghai, the authors visited in Japan the aquariums in Tokio, Fukushima, Enoshima, Osaka and Okinawa as well as the National Museum of Marine Biology & Aquarium in Pintung/Taiwan and in China the Beijing Aquarium and the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium, the host of the IAC. The different themes and the specialities of these aquariums are described and compared with the European situation. All the visited aquariums are not older than 20 years. Therefore their aquarium technology as well as their husbandry and presentation of animals are rather modern. Some of the differences in the exhibition are maybe based on the different cultural background or they are a result of the high visitor numbers, because almost all the aquariums are visited by more than one million visitors per year.     

Generational and Time Period Differences in American Adolescents’ Religious Orientation, 1966–2014

In four large, nationally representative surveys (N = 11.2 million), American adolescents and emerging adults in the 2010s (Millennials) were significantly less religious than previous generations (Boomers, Generation X) at the same age. The data are from the Monitoring the Future studies of 12^th graders (1976–2013), 8^th and 10^th graders (1991–2013), and the American Freshman survey of entering college students (1966–2014). Although the majority of adolescents and emerging adults are still religiously involved, twice as many 12^th graders and college students, and 20%–40% more 8^th and 10^th graders, never attend religious services. Twice as many 12^th graders and entering college students in the 2010s (vs. the 1960s–70s) give their religious affiliation as “none,” as do 40%–50% more 8^th and 10^th graders. Recent birth cohorts report less approval of religious organizations, are less likely to say that religion is important in their lives, report being less spiritual, and spend less time praying or meditating. Thus, declines in religious orientation reach beyond affiliation to religious participation and religiosity, suggesting a movement toward secularism among a growing minority. The declines are larger among girls, Whites, lower-SES individuals, and in the Northeastern U.S., very small among Blacks, and non-existent among political conservatives. Religious affiliation is lower in years with more income inequality, higher median family income, higher materialism, more positive self-views, and lower social support. Overall, these results suggest that the lower religious orientation of Millennials is due to time period or generation, and not to age.     

Control of shoot necrosis and plant death during micro-propagation of banana and plantains (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Musa</Emphasis> spp.)

Shoot necrosis and plant death occurred during large-scale propagation of Musa cultivars, viz. Grande Naine (AAA), Dwarf Cavendish (AAA), Nendran (AAB) and Quintal Nendran (AAB). The timing and frequency of necrosis was influenced by the cultivar. Grande Naine and Dwarf Cavendish showed necrosis after the 7^th subculture at frequencies of 27 and 29%, whilst at the rooting stage (after seven transfers of shoot multiplication) the frequencies were 18 and 19% respectively. In Nendran and Quintal Nendran, necrosis occurred after the 5^th subculture at frequencies of 38 and 40%, and at the rooting stage (after five transfers of shoot multiplication) the frequencies of necrosis were 26 and 27% respectively. Several methods were tested for alleviating shoot necrosis, including shortening the culture period, altering the media salt strength, use of various plant growth regulators, different levels of sucrose, fructose, silver nitrate, and increasing the concentration of calcium chloride. Only the addition of calcium chloride proved effective in reducing shoot necrosis. Transfer of shoots showing early signs of necrosis to Murashige and Skoog medium with an addition of 50–100 mg l^-1 calcium chloride facilitated recovery of more than 90% of the shoots. The same addition to shoot multiplication medium for 2–4 transfers after the 6^th and 4^th subcultures respectively, for bananas and plantains alleviated shoot necrosis up to the 12^th subculture in all cultivars. This also prevented necrosis during subsequent rooting. The prevention of loss of cultures by shoot necrosis by the addition of calcium chloride at the shoot multiplication stage, and thereby the reduction of production cost, will be beneficial to the banana micro-propagation industry.     

News from the Biological Stain Commission No. 12

Abstract

In this 12^th issue of News from the Biological Stain Commission (BSC) under the heading of Regulatory affairs, the Biological Stain Commission’s International Affairs Committee presents information from the meetings of ISO/TC 212/WG 1 Quality and competence in the medical laboratory and ISO/TC 212/WG 3 In vitro diagnostic products both held on 2 – 3 June 2010, plus information on the second plenary meeting of ISO/TC 212 Clinical laboratory testing and in vitro diagnostic test systems held on 4 June 2010. All meetings took place in Seoul, Republic of Korea. Finally, information is provided concerning the 25^th meeting of CEN/TC 140 In vitro diagnostic medical devices held on 23 June 2010 in Berlin, Germany.