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Impressive photography

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landscape gove

We at @VTResearch are continually impressed by the panoramic “slider” photos on the Virginia governor’s website.

This hit home when browsing through the site news and coming across a fantastic shot from the Let’s Fly Wisely event, where Virginia Tech oversaw some important unmanned aircraft research flights. Virginia Tech President Timothy D. Sands was in the midst of what amounts to a gigantic media flash mob at the normally sedate Lonesome Pine airport. Scroll through and you can see it.

This is the best image yet to capture the scene. We can’t really do it justice here with our screen grab.

Most of us who have to freshen Web pages know that art can be a big challenge. But the state site makes it look easy.

How @GovernorVA are you nailing these shots?

Ranking research roots – how do you choose?

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Sensory-on-patterned-grid

Science starts with a question. The research is not flashy, even with all of those glinting test tubes and fancy microscopes. It’s slow and specific. Answering that question takes years – sometimes even decades – and that’s just to gather information about one gene or one specific part of a mechanism that might be the solution. There’s no guarantee that the question will ever be answered.

The question is usually big: What causes cancer? Why does this gene mutate? When do neurons age? The path to a solution is usually narrow; it has to be, so how does any one ever choose what to focus on?

When rising fourth-year Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine student James Dittmar had to decide on a research project, he was overwhelmed with having to pick just one thing.

“How do you focus?” Dittmar asked. “How do you prioritize research?”

Dittmar explored a number of options with his mentor, Gregorio Valdez, an assistant professor at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, but none seemed quite right. It was in that exploration that Valdez was inspired to guide Dittmar into finding his ultimate project – helping others decide how to focus their own research. Thus, EvoCor was born.

EvoCor is a free search engine for genes. Type in a gene and EvoCor searches through thousands of mapped genes, different genomes, and larger datasets maintained by the National Institutes of Health. It pulls together a list of genes that evolved similarly. The genes are ranked by likelihood that they’re related functionally to the initial gene submitted.

Take a gene that is already well studied for a certain disease, like MUSK’s role in motor impairment in aging individuals. A scientist can type MUSK into EvoCor and EvoCor will return a list of possibly related genes that might work with MUSK to impair motor function as people grow older.

It’s not a slam-dunk, but it’s a far cry better than picking a random gene that may or may not be related at all. It’s a starting point.

Read the full story here.

The Name Game

By in Agriculture and LIfe Sciences, Feature, Featured, Fralin Life Science Institute, Research, Science No Comments Tags: , , ,

Boris Vinatzer

What’s in a name? According to Shakespeare, not much. The bard’s well known lines from Romeo and Juliet answer the preceding question thusly: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

And if Boris Vinatzer had lived in Shakespeare’s time he would have been able to answer that age-old question with a genome sequence.

But more than sweet-smelling roses, Vinatzer is concerned with pathogens that pose a public health risk. Deadly pathogens like anthrax.

And it’s the example he used in a recently published paper in the journal PLoS One to address limitations with the classic, 200-year-old Linnean system of categorizing organisms.

In his paper Vinatzer proposed using a genome-based naming system.

Why?

Because the godfather of genus himself did not foresee the advent of DNA sequencing, a process that reveals genetic similarities and differences at the molecular level the Linnaean system can’t.

The Linnaean system is based on phenotype, or physical appearance, the ease at which names can shift according to discoveries of other like-minded organisms, even after biological life forms have been deputized by scientific organizations, is indeed all too slippery, and that can be frustrating for scientists and a potential public health debacle for government authorities.

The Ames strain of anthrax is one strain of 1,200 that exist in the world. It was dubbed the Ames strain for no other reason than researchers mistakenly thought the sample originally given to the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases came from Ames, Iowa. Arbitrary? Yes. Effective in communicating vital information about the organism? No.

This particular strain alone is evidence that genome sequencing has relevance beyond a narrow research audience. It gained infamy as the strain that made its way to locations across the United States in the wake of 9/11.  Authorities took several months to identify the Ames strain as such. Had there been a bank of genetic samples to run the strain through, the process would have taken days, not months.

What’s in a name? According to Vinatzer and Shakespeare, sometimes not much, unless you peel back the layers to the very molecular bones of an organism.

Researchers to study sugar levels in local kids

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Parents: if the 1970s cult film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory wasn’t inspiration enough for controlling children’s sugar intake, a recent study touted by the American Heart Association is.

The study, which originally appeared in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, linked added sugars—such as sugar sweetened beverages, grain-based desserts, fruit drinks, candy, ready-to-eat cereals and more—to a higher likelihood of death by heart disease.

Virginia Tech researcher Brenda Davy has long looked at the effects of high-sugar diets, especially the consumption of sugar sweetened beverages.  For a new study, she will test adolescents’ ability to report how much sugar they consume by comparing dietary questionnaire responses with a novel biomarker of dietary sugar intake, delta 13C in the blood.

“It’s often hard to accurately measure the amount and types of sugar that study participants consume, especially children, because we rely on their  memory and their ability to accurately estimate quantities,” Davy said. “In nutrition research, we are aware that this is a major challenge when studying the health effects of dietary intake in children. Biomarkers can provide more accurate and objective assessments of dietary habits, so we hope to receive additional funding from NIH to support this project. Another exciting aspect of this project is that it involves collaboration with a faculty member in Hawaii, Dr. Hope Jahren, who is an expert in geochemistry and geophysics”.

Davy and graduate student Shaun Riebl, a registered dietitian and Ph.D. candidate in the department of human nutrition, foods, and exercise, are looking for 75-100 local participants between the ages of 12 and 18 to participate in a 2-3 week long study.  During this time, respondents will visit Virginia Tech’s campus 4 or 5 times; two visits will involve providing a routine fingerstick blood sample.

The goal is to have 100 respondents by the end of July, according to Riebl.

“Our work does not seek to make sugar another one of the ‘bad guys’ like many nutrients have become. A problem can come about when too much sugar is eaten,” Riebl said. “Our hopes are to provide another piece to the complicated nutrition puzzle helping concerned parents identify potential unhealthy habits in their child’s diet choices so changes can be made before a visit to a doctor is necessary. We want children and their parents to feel good and be healthy today and in years to come.”

New River Valley parents can register their children online, and contact Riebl with additional questions.

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