"A genetic mutation might explain why only one fifth of people infected with West Nile virus go on to develop symptoms - and why only one fifth of these people develop a severe, often fatal, brain inflammation, say French researchers. "

New Scientist - Genetic susceptibility to West Nile virus

"As chairwoman of the inaugural IEEE Computer Society Bioinformatics Conference, held at Stanford University last week, Markstein is trying to recruit the leading minds of computer science into what she calls "the industrial revolution of biology," an anticipated period of discovery resulting from the analysis of genomic information. "

Biology Seeks a Few Good Geeks

The Journal of Biology, an "open-source" biology journal offering free and immediate access to primary research articles, has been launched. This has been memed previously, but I thought I would bring attention to it again, due to the fact that there are some articles there now.

Journal of Biology

"On the anniversary of President George Bush's decision to strictly limit government support of embryonic stem cell research, US scientists are celebrating a burst of private cash and a surprise loosening of the federal regulatory hurdles."

Yay..this makes me happy. Stem cell research is a good thing.

New Scientist - Outlook for US stem cell research brightens

"Their technique takes a snapshot of genes that are switched on in a single cell. "

Wow..this is very cool, and a very useful tool.

Cell snapshot spots cancer

"The humble potato may help scientists to protect women from a common sexually transmitted virus that causes almost all cases of cervical cancer.
US researchers hope to engineer a potato that carries a vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV). "

BBC NEWS | Health | Potato to prevent cervical cancer

"To construct the virus, the researchers say they followed a recipe they downloaded from the internet and used gene sequences from a mail-order supplier. "

If anyone comes across this "recipe" on the internet for making viruses, I would be highly interested in seeing it. This story is all over the place and it makes me nervous, because someone is going to get the motivation to start making virus in their garage, and that can lead to bad things. I work with viruses, but they are replicative-defective, so they don't get very far. This is different and very interesting indeed.

BBC News | SCI/TECH | First synthetic virus created

"Can a band of biologists who share data freely out-innovate the corporate researchers who hoard it? "

Werd!

Open-Source Bio

"As the European Parliament votes to introduce strict labelling on foods containing genetically modified ingredients, the BBC's science correspondent, Ania Lichtarowicz, looks at how likely contamination between GM and non-GM crops is. "

BBC News | SCI/TECH | How likely is GM crop contamination?

Funding from CDC and DARPA. Working with the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.

Realtime Outbreak and Disease Surveillance Laboratory