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Glue grants to tackle sticky issue
464
News & Comment
TRENDS in Cell Biology Vol.11 No.12 December 2001
In Brief
Glue grants to tackle sticky issue A consortium of nearly 30 researchers of widely differing disciplines is due to receive $38 million over the course of five years to study cell migration. The consortium’s investigators and collaborators, who are based mainly in the USA, include biologists, chemists, biophysicists, optical physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, geneticists and engineers. Rick Horwitz, lead investigator for the consortium commented: ‘Complex issues such as cell migration are not going to be solved quickly by single investigators working alone. We wanted to put together scientists who are particularly known for their collaborative and interactive approach to science’. ‘Science is getting more complicated’, said J. Thomas Parsons, co-principal investigator. ‘With all the technologies that are out there and the diverse experimental paradigms one has to apply with complex projects, it’s impossible to center all those technologies in a single lab, or even in a single university.’ The consortium will focus on the structure of the large multimolecular complexes that drive cell migration and on developing mathematical models of migration. ‘Our plan is to get those reagents or information or technology and put them out in the community as soon as possible’, said Horwitz. Consortium researchers will share and discuss data as they are collected, using a publicly accessible website: http://www.cellmigration.org/. The $38 million award, known as a ‘glue’ grant, is only the second of its kind awarded by the US National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), part of the NIH. The NIGMS began the initiative last year to support multi-investigator, interdisciplinary collaborations on complex biomedical problems and will announce two more grants this year. For further information, see www.nigms.nih.gov/funding/gluegrants.html A.M.
Asian hub foundation The Singapore authorities have unveiled new plans to make Singapore a world-class center of biomedical research. Over the past decade, Singapore has doubled its budget for research, and a total of $1.6 billion is designated for boosting biomedical http://tcb.trends.com
research and development, The Star reports. The government says the biomedical sector should become the fourth pillar supporting the country’s manufacturing economy. The new initiatives, suggested by an International Advisory Council, include setting up a biomedical database network, designated the Biomedical Grid, and the establishment of the Singapore Tissue Network, which plans to explore the combination of accurately recorded Singapore patient data and the diverse ethnological composition of Singapore and neighboring countries. A new biomedical research park, Biopolis, will be the future bustling center of many new and planned research institutes and corporate research labs. By promoting the whole biomedical sector, from basal biological research to pharmaceutical companies and clinical trials, Singapore hopes to generate a critical mass that will convince scientists from all over the world that Singapore is good place to do science. J.d.B.
GM crops go walkies
Two recent reports revive concerns about the implications of large-scale use of genetically modified (GM) crops. The Mexican government announced that GM DNA could be detected in seeds collected from endogenous corn varieties at 15 different locations, the New York Times reports. So far, it’s unclear what the source of the DNA is, but experts think it likely that transgenic ‘Bt’ corn has interbred with local plants. Bt corn carries a bacterial toxin gene that protects the plant from the European corn borer pest. Considering that Bt corn, or indeed any GM crop, cannot be grown in Mexico, the findings suggest that geography and plant variety impose smaller barriers for transmission of transgenes than previously anticipated.
Bt corn was also a focus of attention in six papers published on-line in PNAS on 14 September (Zangerl et al., Sears et al., Hellmich et al., Pleasants et al., Stanley-Horn et al., Oberhauser et al.). Previous work had indicated that, under laboratory conditions, Bt toxin not only killed European corn borers but also harmless black swallowtail caterpillars. Here, the authors report that Bt corn pollen can contaminate neighboring plants with doses high enough to kill the swallowtail caterpillars. However, the studies also show that Bt toxin rarely exceeds lethal doses in the fields and poses only a minor threat to the ecosystem. Moreover, the harmful Bt corn variant Bt176 is only a prototype – new Bt corn variants are not harmful, and Syngenta, the producer of Bt corn, has already taken Bt176 off the market. J.d.B.
Transgenic monkey – now available in green Researchers at University of Wisconsin Medical School have used gene transfer into preimplantation Rhesus monkey embryos to create transgenic placental tissue. The work showed the ability to generate transgenic monkeys in which the gene of interest, in this case GFP, is expressed, up to and after birth [Wolfgang et al. (2001) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 98, 10728–10732]. The current work differs from that published last year describing ANDi – the first transgenic primate – in that the transgene was actually expressed. ANDi contained the GFP transgene in all tissues examined but did not produce detectable levels of the protein. The current transgenic animals only express GFP in placenta and other extraembryonic tissue. The model system will facilitate study of the role of the placenta during primate pregnancy. D.S.
The Nature of Humankind in London A giant 120 m x 3 m hoarding outside the Wellcome Trust building in London is the site of a new work by New York artist Jason Middlebrook. Middlebrook’s artwork, The Nature of Humankind, was commissioned by the Trust to highlight its role in the decoding of the human genome. It is the UK’s longest public artwork and is said by the artist to reflect the similarities
0962-8924/01/$ – see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
News & Comment
TRENDS in Cell Biology Vol.11 No.12 December 2001
In Brief
Glue grants to tackle sticky issue A consortium of nearly 30 researchers of widely differing disciplines is due to receive $38 million over the course of five years to study cell migration. The consortium’s investigators and collaborators, who are based mainly in the USA, include biologists, chemists, biophysicists, optical physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, geneticists and engineers. Rick Horwitz, lead investigator for the consortium commented: ‘Complex issues such as cell migration are not going to be solved quickly by single investigators working alone. We wanted to put together scientists who are particularly known for their collaborative and interactive approach to science’. ‘Science is getting more complicated’, said J. Thomas Parsons, co-principal investigator. ‘With all the technologies that are out there and the diverse experimental paradigms one has to apply with complex projects, it’s impossible to center all those technologies in a single lab, or even in a single university.’ The consortium will focus on the structure of the large multimolecular complexes that drive cell migration and on developing mathematical models of migration. ‘Our plan is to get those reagents or information or technology and put them out in the community as soon as possible’, said Horwitz. Consortium researchers will share and discuss data as they are collected, using a publicly accessible website: http://www.cellmigration.org/. The $38 million award, known as a ‘glue’ grant, is only the second of its kind awarded by the US National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), part of the NIH. The NIGMS began the initiative last year to support multi-investigator, interdisciplinary collaborations on complex biomedical problems and will announce two more grants this year. For further information, see www.nigms.nih.gov/funding/gluegrants.html A.M.
Asian hub foundation The Singapore authorities have unveiled new plans to make Singapore a world-class center of biomedical research. Over the past decade, Singapore has doubled its budget for research, and a total of $1.6 billion is designated for boosting biomedical http://tcb.trends.com
research and development, The Star reports. The government says the biomedical sector should become the fourth pillar supporting the country’s manufacturing economy. The new initiatives, suggested by an International Advisory Council, include setting up a biomedical database network, designated the Biomedical Grid, and the establishment of the Singapore Tissue Network, which plans to explore the combination of accurately recorded Singapore patient data and the diverse ethnological composition of Singapore and neighboring countries. A new biomedical research park, Biopolis, will be the future bustling center of many new and planned research institutes and corporate research labs. By promoting the whole biomedical sector, from basal biological research to pharmaceutical companies and clinical trials, Singapore hopes to generate a critical mass that will convince scientists from all over the world that Singapore is good place to do science. J.d.B.
GM crops go walkies
Two recent reports revive concerns about the implications of large-scale use of genetically modified (GM) crops. The Mexican government announced that GM DNA could be detected in seeds collected from endogenous corn varieties at 15 different locations, the New York Times reports. So far, it’s unclear what the source of the DNA is, but experts think it likely that transgenic ‘Bt’ corn has interbred with local plants. Bt corn carries a bacterial toxin gene that protects the plant from the European corn borer pest. Considering that Bt corn, or indeed any GM crop, cannot be grown in Mexico, the findings suggest that geography and plant variety impose smaller barriers for transmission of transgenes than previously anticipated.
Bt corn was also a focus of attention in six papers published on-line in PNAS on 14 September (Zangerl et al., Sears et al., Hellmich et al., Pleasants et al., Stanley-Horn et al., Oberhauser et al.). Previous work had indicated that, under laboratory conditions, Bt toxin not only killed European corn borers but also harmless black swallowtail caterpillars. Here, the authors report that Bt corn pollen can contaminate neighboring plants with doses high enough to kill the swallowtail caterpillars. However, the studies also show that Bt toxin rarely exceeds lethal doses in the fields and poses only a minor threat to the ecosystem. Moreover, the harmful Bt corn variant Bt176 is only a prototype – new Bt corn variants are not harmful, and Syngenta, the producer of Bt corn, has already taken Bt176 off the market. J.d.B.
Transgenic monkey – now available in green Researchers at University of Wisconsin Medical School have used gene transfer into preimplantation Rhesus monkey embryos to create transgenic placental tissue. The work showed the ability to generate transgenic monkeys in which the gene of interest, in this case GFP, is expressed, up to and after birth [Wolfgang et al. (2001) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 98, 10728–10732]. The current work differs from that published last year describing ANDi – the first transgenic primate – in that the transgene was actually expressed. ANDi contained the GFP transgene in all tissues examined but did not produce detectable levels of the protein. The current transgenic animals only express GFP in placenta and other extraembryonic tissue. The model system will facilitate study of the role of the placenta during primate pregnancy. D.S.
The Nature of Humankind in London A giant 120 m x 3 m hoarding outside the Wellcome Trust building in London is the site of a new work by New York artist Jason Middlebrook. Middlebrook’s artwork, The Nature of Humankind, was commissioned by the Trust to highlight its role in the decoding of the human genome. It is the UK’s longest public artwork and is said by the artist to reflect the similarities
0962-8924/01/$ – see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.