Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

Marla Broadfoot

Conference Sheds Light on Rare Disease with Links to Autism

Monday, June 21, 2010, 12:19 pm By Marla Broadfoot

Any time you learn something new, your brain undergoes a sort of remodeling to store the fresh bits of information. This process takes advantage of what most brain scientists refer to as “neural plasticity,” the ability of our brains’ synapses – the connections from one neuron to another – to strengthen or weaken in order to house new memories.

For most of us, our neurons remain malleable throughout our lives, giving us the opportunity for lifelong learning (though it does get harder with age). But for those afflicted with the rare genetic disease Angelman syndrome, the synapses are almost completely incapable of being remodeled. By the time children with Angelman syndrome are toddlers, their synapses have largely lost their plasticity, hardening like concrete into rigid structures that can no longer easily relay new information.

The result is quite tragic – children whose bodies grow and age normally but whose brains are locked forever in the state of a two year old. But there is also reason to hope, as tremendous progress has been made in the understanding of Angelman syndrome, say many of the researchers, clinicians, and parents in attendance at a recent conference on the disorder. The 2010 Angelman Treatment and Research Institute Scientific Symposium, held at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill on June 15 and 16, showcased the current research on the genetic disease, with efforts tapping into the latest technological tools from mouse models, brain imaging, stem cells, proteomics and gene therapy.

“Over the span of the conferences I have attended, I really feel like I can see the gap getting smaller between the cellular molecular finding and its clinical applications,” said Heather Adams, a neuropsychologist from Massachusetts who specializes in kids with cognitive impairment. She also has a daughter with Angelman syndrome.

Angelman syndrome is a rare intellectual disorder that affects about one out of every 15,000 people. It is often placed on the autism spectrum because of the shared language difficulties and inappropriate social behavior. The language impairment in people with Angelman syndrome is much more severe than in those with autism – in fact, most of them never speak a single word. And whereas individuals with autism might shun social interaction, those with Angelman are quite social.

“One of the very endearing things about these individuals is they have a very happy demeanor,” said one of the conference’s organizers, Ben Philpot, an Associate Professor in Cell and Molecular Physiology at the University of North Carolina. “They are often said to have inappropriate laughter, but I think that they just find more things in life funny than we do.”

Their child-like view of the world – and the detrimental ramifications of a brain that is unable to change — all stem from a defect in a single gene called UBE3A. If the gene is mutated or deleted, the result is Angelman syndrome. But if it is duplicated, it may result in one of the more classic forms of autism. And altering its function can also lead to tumors of the cervix, though in the cancer field the gene goes by the name E6AP. So studying this one gene and its effects on the plasticity of our brains could have far-reaching implications.

“The work related to synaptic plasticity in genetic syndromes is forming thrilling insights as far as how we reason and learn things,” said conference attendee William Snider, director of the UNC Neuroscience Center.

At the two-day conference, scientists from across the country presented their latest findings on the role of this infamous gene in disease. One of the invited speakers, Harvard’s Michael Greenberg, explained the findings he had recently published in the journal Cell on targets of UBE3A. The molecule’s main job is to mark other proteins to be broken down or destroyed, so if UBE3A is absent then certain proteins accumulate to inappropriately high levels, causing subtle but lasting damage to our brain cells.

“If we know what the targets are we may be able to produce therapies that can break them down when UBE3A is no longer able to do its job,” said Philpot.
Philpot’s own work has indicated that pharmacotherapeutics or behavioral modifications may be able to restore the brain’s plasticity. He is currently using funding from the NC Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute (NC TraCS) to search for new molecules to treat Angelman syndrome, an area that is understandably of intense interest for many in the field.

“As a scientist I say the progress that has been made so far is remarkable, but as a parent, I say it is not fast enough,” said Alina Szmant, a marine biologist from Wilmington who has a 31-year-old daughter, Selena, with Angelman Syndrome.

Mark Nespeca, a clinician at Children’s Hospital in San Diego who also attended the conference, says that the pace of research depends a lot on your perspective. Because he does not conduct research himself, conferences like this one help him keep up with the many advances that have occurred since he was in medical school.

“With the advances in technology today, people are talking about sequencing your entire genome for just a thousand dollars,” said Nespeca. “There may come a day when kids will be coming to us at two months of age newly diagnosed, and we can say is there something we can do to make a difference so you can walk, can talk, not have seizures. But for a parent dealing with this illness day in and day out, it must be hard to wait and hope for that day to come.”

Bora Zivkovic

Scott Huler – ‘On The Grid’ at Quail Ridge Books

Thursday, May 27, 2010, 4:16 pm By Bora Zivkovic

As I alerted you before, last night Scott Huler (blog, Twitter, SIT interview) did a reading from his latest book On The Grid (amazon.com) at the Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh.

The store was packed. The store sold out all the books before Scott was even done talking. The C-Span Book TV crew was there filming so the event will be on TV some day soon. Scott was also, earlier yesterday, on WUNC’s The State Of Things (the podcast will soon be online here) and the day before that he was on KERA’s Think with Krys Boyd (download MP3 podcast by clicking here).

Scott’s energy and enthusiasm are infectuos. He held the audience captive and often laughing. The questions at the end were smart and his answers perfectly on target. But most importantly, we all learned a lot last night. I think of myself as a reasonably curious and informed person, and I have visited at least a couple of infrastructure plants, but almost every anecdote and every little tidbit of information were new to me. Scott’s point – that we don’t know almost anything about infrastructure – was thus proven to me.

Read more…

Ross Maloney

RTP Week Ahead, May 17-21

Monday, May 17, 2010, 10:04 am By Ross Maloney

Monday, May 17

BizMix: A Professional Approach to After-hours Business Connections

5:00 – 7:00pm

The Matthew House, 317 West Chatham Street, Cary, NC 27511

Looking for a business after-hours that’s worth your time? Benefit from a structured setting, connect with leaders and meet our reporting staff.

$15 Triangle Business Journal subscribers; $25 others. Read more here.

Tuesday, May 18

Widening the Pipeline: Excellence in STEM Education (Luncheon)

12:00 – 1:30pm

CED’s Entrepreneurship Center, 100 Capitola Drive, Durham, 27713

How Do We Build the Pipeline of Next Generation STEM Employees? Join the Contemporary Science Center for lunch as we explore and discuss with award-winning Science, Technology, Engineering & Math educators from Charlotte and Raleigh.

Registration $20. Register here.

TARDC May Lunceon

12:00 – 1:15 pm

RTP Headquarters, 12 Davis Drive

Speaker: Dr. Maria Escolar, Director of the Program for the Study of Neurodevelopmental Function in Rare Disorders at UNC Chapel Hill. Lunch will be provided.

Free for TARDC members; $35 others; $25 CED members. RSVP to rousseau@rtp.org

Wednesday, May 19

President’s National Export Initiative Luncheon

11:30am – 1:00pm

Hotel Indigo, 151 Tatum Drive, Durham, NC 27703

TOPIC: President’s National Export Initiative; Speaker: Ro Khanna , Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration, Office of Domestic Operations.

Free. More info here.

CED’s BioTech Forum

5:30 – 8:00 pm

North Carolina Biotechnology Center, RTP, NC

During this presentation and interactive panel discussion we will answer several key questions to provide insight into what will likely drive the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries’ partnering efforts moving forward.

Find out more here.

Speed Networking in the Triangle

5:45 – 8:45pm

Wyndham at RTP, 4620 South Miami Boulevard, Durham, NC

Based on the format of speed dating, attendees will have five minutes to network with each new person you meet. Once the five minutes is up, you will move to the next person and continue networking.

Only 50 attendees allowed! Purchase a ticket here.

Thursday, May 20

If It Isn’t Broke, It Will Be! Reinvent your Business Model

11:30 – 1pm

CED Headquarters, 100 Capitola Drive suite 106 Durham , NC 27713

Participants will focus on evaluating, creating and re-inventing current business models.  This seminar teaches state-of-the art methods that produce transformative ideas and solutions.

$20, including lunch. Sign up here.

Quality In BioPharma Conference (through Fri, May 21)

8:00am (5/20) – 5:00pm (5/21)

NC State University, Centennial Campus, 2410 Campus Shore Drive #218, Raleigh, NC 27695

The focus of the two-day event will be Environmental Monitoring in Biomanufacturing, and will have noteworthy talks, discussions, and networking events for professionals involved in the Quality, Manufacturing, Environmental Microbiology, and Process Engineering areas of the industry.

Register here.

Friday, May 21

BTWW: Cyclists’ Breakfast at RTP HQ

7:00am – 9:00am

Cyclists can mingle and enjoy free breakfast
courtesy of the Research Triangle Foundation.

Saturday, May 22

ProductCamp RTP: Share In The Innovation!

8:00am – 6:00pm

Cambria Suites @RDU Airport, 300 Airgate Drive, Morrisville, NC‎

In the spirit of BarCamp, ProductCamp is a collaborative, user organized unconference, focused on Product Management and Marketing.

Register online here.

Ongoing (All Week)**

Bike to Work Week

All around the Triangle!

Sponsored by GoTriangle.

Find out more here.

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To view a complete calendar of RTP community events, please visit the Science in the Triangle calendar.

Bora Zivkovic

Public vs. Publicized: Future of the Web at WWW2010

Monday, May 10, 2010, 10:13 am By Bora Zivkovic

It is somewhat hard to grok how much a Big Deal the WWW2010 conference is when it’s happening in one’s own backyard. After all, all I had to do was drop the kids at school a little earlier each morning and drive down to Raleigh, through the familiar downtown streets, park in a familiar parking lot, and enter a familiar convention center, just to immediately bump into familiar people – the ‘home team’ of people I have been seeing at blogger meetups, tweetups and other events for years, like Paul Jones, Ruby Sinreich, Fred Stutzman, Ryan Boyles, Wayne Sutton, Kim Ashley, Henry Copeland and others.

But it is a Big Deal. It is the ‘official’ conference of the World Wide Web. Yup, Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who invented the Web, was there. I saw him, though I did not talk to him. I mean, what excuse could I come up with to approach him? Ask him to autograph my web browser?

Read more…

Bora Zivkovic

‘Bonobo Handshake’ coming soon to a bookstore near you

Monday, May 10, 2010, 8:14 am By Bora Zivkovic

Vanessa Woods (website, old blog, new blog, Twitter) will be reading from her new book “Bonobo Handshake” (comes out May 27th – you can pre-order on amazon.com) at the Regulator in Durham on May 27th at 7pm, at Quail Ridge Books on June 9th at 7:30pm, and at Chapel Hill Borders on June 12th at 2pm.

I have interviewed Vanessa last year so you can learn more about her there.

I received a review copy recently and am halfway through. Once I finish I will post my book review here.

From Publishers Weekly:

Devoted to learning more about bonobos, a smaller, more peaceable species of primate than chimpanzees, and lesser known, Australian journalist Woods and her fiancé, scientist Brian Hare, conducted research in the bonobos’ only known habitat—civil war–torn Congo. Woods’s plainspoken, unadorned account traces the couple’s work at Lola Ya Bonobo Sanctuary, located outside “Kinshasa in the 75-acre forested grounds of what was once Congo dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s weekend retreat. The sanctuary, founded in 1994 and run by French activist Claudine André, served as an orphanage for baby bonobos, left for dead after their parents had been hunted for bush meat; the sanctuary healed and nurtured them (assigning each a human caretaker called a mama), with the aim of reintroducing the animals to the wild. Hare had only previously conducted research on the more warlike, male-dominated chimpanzee, and needed Woods because she spoke French and won the animals’ trust; through their daily work, the couple witnessed with astonishment how the matriarchal bonobo society cooperated nicely using frequent sex, and could even inspire human behavior. When Woods describes her daily interaction with the bonobos, her account takes on a warm charm. Woods’s personable, accessible work about bonobos elucidates the marvelous intelligence and tolerance of this gentle cousin to humans.”

Bora Zivkovic

‘On The Grid’ is coming in two days

Sunday, May 9, 2010, 6:00 pm By Bora Zivkovic

Scott Huler (blog, Twitter), the author of ‘Defining the Wind’, has a new book coming out this Tuesday. ‘On The Grid’ (amazon.com) is the story of infrastructure. For this book, Scott started with his own house (unlike me, Scott did the work) and traced where all those pipes, drains, cables and wires were coming from and going to, how does it all work, does it work well, where does it all come from historically, and how its current state of (dis)repair portends to the future.

You can read a review in Raleigh News & Observer, as well as an article by Scott in the same paper and another one at the Science In The Triangle blog.

Scott Huler has a book reading and signing event on Wednesday, May 12th at the Regulator in Durham, then another one on May 26th at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh. I’ll try to make it to one or both of these – and you should, too.

From the blurb:

“Wires, pipes, roads, and water support the lives we lead, but the average person doesn’t know where they go or even how they work. Our systems of infrastructure are not only shrouded in mystery, many are woefully out of date. In On the Grid, Scott Huler takes the time to understand the systems that sustain our way of life, starting from his own quarter of an acre in North Carolina and traveling as far as Ancient Rome.

Each chapter follows one element of infrastructure to its source — or to its outlet. Huler visits power plants, watches new asphalt pavement being laid, and traces a drop of water backward from his faucet to the Gulf of Mexico and then a drop of his wastewater out to the Atlantic. Huler reaches out to guides along the way, bot the workers who operate these systems and the people who plan them.

Mesmerizing and often hilarious, On the Grid brings infrastructure to life and details the ins and outs of our civilization wigh fascinating, back-to-basics information about the systems we all depend on.”

Cara Rousseau

RTP Week Ahead

Monday, May 3, 2010, 8:20 am By Cara Rousseau

Monday, May 3

Why Scientists are Rhetoricians, Too: They don’t have any choice

11:00 AM – 12:45 PM

Thomas Hall, Room 3503 (Stevens Room) NCSU

Lecture by Dr. Carolyn Miller, SAS Institute and distinguished Professor of Rhetoric and Technical Communication at North Carolina State University

Free

Global Health Lecture “Risk and Cost Analysis in Pest Management: Application to Genetically Modified Mosquitoes”

4:00 – 5:00 PM

LSRC A109 (Nicholas School of the Environment) Duke University

Speaker: John Mumford Professor John Mumford of Imperial College London, and the director of the Centre for Environmental Policy

Free. More information.

Tuesday, May 4

Meet the New Media: Celebration of Women Event

10:00 — 11:30 AM

The Pavillions at the Angus Barn, Raleigh

Wanted: Women in the News Meet national journalists who cover business and women’s issues.  Space is limited – Register today!

UNC/NCSU Research and Design Symposium

3:00-8:00 PM

NC Biotechnology Center, RTP

The UNC/NCSU Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering Research and Design Symposium is the annual showcase event for senior design and graduate students. The event attracts an industrial and academic audience and features oral and poster presentations and a networking social.

More information and registration.

Wednesday, May 5

JobNob Raleigh Happy Hour

4:30-7:30 PM

Solas Raleigh, 419 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh

Come “Jobnob” with cool new start ups and talented job seekers at this informal networking happy hour where you can find startup jobs.

Free but registration required.

Thursday, May 6

Mike Duke Seminar: Species Delimitation in Spiders

2:00 – 3:30 PM

Clark Labs, NCSU

Lecture by: Dr. Jason Bond, East Carolina University

More information.

Friday, May 7

40 Under 40 Leadership Awards

11:30 AM – 2:00 PM

North Ridge Country Club, Raleigh

More information.

To view a complete calendar of RTP community events, please visit the Science in the Triangle calendar.

Cara Rousseau

RTP Week Ahead

Sunday, April 25, 2010, 1:00 am By Cara Rousseau

Tuesday, April 27

XQuery Meetup for WWW2010 Future Web

7-11 PM

Solas, Raleigh

More information

Duke University Immunology Seminar Series

4-5PM

Duke University, Edwin L Jones Building Room 143

Wednesday, April 28

The Future of the Web Conference (April 28-30)

More information

Chapel Hill Bloggers Meetup

6:30-9:30 PM

Milltown Bar and Restaurant, 307 E Main St, Carrboro NC

More Information

Thursday, April 29

Carolina Innovations Seminar: What are the attributes of a good scientific founder?

5:30-6:30 PM

014 Sitterson Hall, UNC Chapel Hill

More information

Friday, April 30

Emerging Tar Heel Leaders: Final Friday

Durham - Katherine Skinner, NC State Director for the Nature Conservancy

Raleigh - Amy Fulk, Chief of Staff to NC Senate Pro Tempore Marc Basnight

For a detailed listing of regional events and programs, please visit the Science in the Triangle calendar.

Cara Rousseau

RTP Week Ahead

Monday, April 19, 2010, 8:41 am By Cara Rousseau

Tuesday, April 20

Making your Green Business Stand Out

6:00-9:00 PM

Durham Tech Small Business Center

No RSVP required, free.

American Scientist Pizza Lunch

12:00-1:30 PM

Sigma Xi, RTP

RSVP required: cclabby@amsci.org

Triangle Area Research Directors Council (TARDC)

12:00-1:30 PM

RTP Headquarters, 12 Davis Drive, RTP

RSVP required: rousseau@rtp.org and $35 fee

Thursday, April 22

Triangle Global Health Consortium: Leveraging the essential role and resource of US global health policy

7:30-9:00 AM

NC Biotechnology Center Congressional Conference Room, RTP

RSVP required: nicole.fouche@triangleglobalhealth.org

National Humanities Center Lecture: Do you have a will?

5:00-6:30 PM

National Humanities Center, 7 TW Alexander Drive, RTP

RSVP Required

Intrahealth International’s “Global Voices”

6:00-8:00 PM

FedEx Global Education Center, 301 Pittsboro Street, Chapel Hill

RSVP to vherrington@intrahealth.org

Friday, April 23

Creative Capital Information Session

5:30-7:30 PM

Durham Arts Council, 120 Morris Street, Durham

No RSVP required, free.

Please visit the Science in the Triangle calendar of events to view a full listing of this week’s events in the RTP and Research Triangle region.

DeLene Beeland

Wanted: Global innovation (part 2)

Saturday, April 17, 2010, 12:13 pm By DeLene Beeland

… Continued from Part I of this two-part series:

While it would be impossible to separate the global from the state-level issues discussed at the forum, some of the local business people offered examples for specific challenges to innovation that they faced.

Alexander Macris is the president of Themis Group which is based in Durham, N.C. and is a strong example of the power of a science park like RTP to attract additional tech-based businesses to the region. Macris said that the Triangle region is one of the largest concentrations of gaming companies in the U.S. Most of the innovation potential in gaming is at the gaming engine and software level, he said, and the average median income of someone in the gaming industry is about $75,000. He expects to see about 300 to 400 new gaming-related jobs in the area over the next three to five years, he said, because the industry is growing in the double digits. But at the same time, the cost of game development is going up – whereas a decade ago it may have cost $1 million to develop a game, it costs $20 to $30 million to do so today, Macris said. Foreign countries give more tax credits to their gaming companies, he said, which makes them more competitive in the global field and is hurting U.S.-based gaming companies. “Targeted tax credits are a huge attractant to small and start-up businesses in the gaming industry,” Macris said. “And cool downtowns, the creative class really likes a vibrant downtown too.”

While deeper tax credits may help some start-ups get a toe-hold in emerging markets, retaining the best talent is necessary to sustain them over time. And while uber cool downtowns like the American Tobacco District in Durham are one component of enticements to retain the best brains, it’s a smaller part of the issue. Read more…