Mediterranean threats

Many marine species beyond the glare of fishing quotas are in decline and no more so than in the Mediterranean.     

Promises,promises

As the federal election nears, Charlotte Gray looks at the role health care will play during the brief campaign. Reading through the campaign literature, she found that all parties are making similar statements. However, there are striking differences in the way they intend to preserve the health care system.     

Eastern genomics promises

ABSTRACT: A report on the Bio-IT World Asia meeting, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, 6-8 June 2012.     

Antibody microarrays: promises and problems

Antibody microarrays have enormous potential for becoming a tool that will allow, at the protein level, the type of global characterization of molecular mixtures that DNA microarrays already make possible at the RNA and DNA level. However, the much higher complexity of proteins both in terms of their sheer number and their structural and biochemical diversity necessitates an even more sophisticated analysis process. Its eventual realization will be demanding to achieve and requires further developments on many technical aspects, not in the least because the understanding of proteins is still comparatively less comprehensive than that of nucleic acids prior to the emergence of array technologies.     

Cognitive enhancement: promises and perils

The potential use of drugs to enhance cognition, emotion, and executive function has engendered controversy despite the fact that few such agents exist today. Here, I provide a context for discussions based on medical, regulatory, and ethical concerns that have been raised by the possibility that enhancers will emerge from current efforts to discover drugs for neuropsychiatric disorders.     

Clinical cancer proteomics: promises and pitfalls

Proteome analysis promises to be valuable for the identification of tissue and serum biomarkers associated with human malignancies. In addition, proteome technologies offer the opportunity to analyze protein expression profiles and to analyze the activity of signaling pathways. Many published proteomic studies of human tumor tissue are associated with weaknesses in tumor representativity, sample contamination by nontumor cells and serum proteins. Studies often include a moderate number of tumors which may not be representative of clinical materials. It is therefore very important that biomarkers identified by proteomics are validated in representative tumor materials by other techniques, such as immunohistochemistry. Proteome technologies can be used to identify disease markers in human serum. Tumor derived proteins are present at nanomolar to picomolar concentrations in cancer patient sera, 10(6)-10(9)-fold lower than albumin, and will give rise to correspondingly smaller spots/peaks in protein separations. This leads to the need to prefractionate serum samples before analysis. Despite various pitfalls, proteomic analysis is a promising approach to the identification of biomarkers, and for generation of protein expression profiles that can be analyzed by artificial learning methods for improved diagnosis of human malignancy. Recent advances in the field of proteomic analysis of human tumors are summarized in the present review.     

Genomically humanized mice: technologies and promises

Mouse models have become an invaluable tool for understanding human health and disease owing to our ability to manipulate the mouse genome exquisitely. Recent progress in genomic analysis has led to an increase in the number and type of disease-causing mutations detected and has also highlighted the importance of non-coding regions. As a result, there is increasing interest in creating 'genomically' humanized mouse models, in which entire human genomic loci are transferred into the mouse genome. The technical challenges towards achieving this aim are large but are starting to be tackled with success.