The DNA Network

Housework and the Nobel Prize [Tomorrow's Table] Posted: 18 May 2008 06:02 PM CDT "I love being a researcher; it is a great pleasure to discover new things about life, to be able to run a large lab and to support talented young people in their careers." So writes the Nobel-winning developmental biologist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard in a recent Current Biology article. In addition to talking about her own life as a scientist and the unusual problems she encountered as a women, she also addresses an issue that all women scientists face: housework! Even though the children's toys are strewn about, dishes from several days are piled up in the sink and there is no food in the refrigerator, we would rather do just about anything else than clean the house. Reading, cooking, gardening, helping the children with homework, writing our next grant or reading our student's dissertation- all seem like a more satisfying ways to spend our time. To create time, many of us have hired help in the house (It is a highlight of my week to walk into a clean house). Yet not all women scientists can afford domestic help early in their careers. Here is where Nüsslein-Volhard applies her Nobel prize quality brilliance and perseverance. Nüsslein-Volhard has created a foundation with her colleague Maria Leptin, which supports talented young women with children with grants for household help. Thank you Professor Nüsslein-Volhard! Remember, although working mothers get less sleep, watch less TV, spend less time with their children (although the difference is far less than is generally believed -- only about five hours a week) and generally have less free time than mothers who don't work outside the home, working and having families is good for your health and you get to do less housework! Thanks to Jennifer Rohn for alerting bloggers to the article by Nüsslein-Volhard.

Molecular DNA Video [Bitesize Bio] Posted: 18 May 2008 04:49 PM CDT

Molecular and Cell Biology Carnival #2 is up! [the skeptical alchemist] Posted: 18 May 2008 03:52 PM CDT The Molecular and Cell Biology Carnival #2 has landed over at cotch.net! There is quite an assortment of science posts for the hardcore science blogging lovers. If you are interested in hosting the next Carnival, or you simply want to submit a post, write to me (address in the sidebar) or leave a comment on this post. The next edition will be taking place on the second Sunday of June (June 8).The submission deadline is on June 7. You also have the option of sending posts through blogcarnival.com using this form. Thank you to the host, and to all of those who have submitted articles for this second edition. View blog reactions

Call Your Doctor Online: The Future of Medicine? [ScienceRoll] Posted: 18 May 2008 03:44 PM CDT The medical blogosphere is full of articles dedicated to the pros and cons of online consultation and e-health. I’ve also written tons of posts about online docs. If you’re a patient, would you like to find a doctor online when you have a medical question? If you’re a doctor, would you like to run an online medical practice? Now I tried to collect the best sites and services that are based on e-visit or maintain virtual offices/practices. Let me know if you know more. Who else could be a better example than Jay Parkinson, the first really online physician? He is the chief medical officer at Myca and is working on a new project called Hello Health: Hello Health is a friendly, branded consumer experience with your accessible neighborhood doctor. We see you in person. We talk with you via the internet. We're close to home and we're an email, SMS, or IM away. We take the pain out of going to the doctor. We're partners with you. Ask Medical Doctor is the second service I would like to share with you. You can ask a medical question and qualified physicians will answer it for free. Medindia: It has currently over 1000 doctors listed on its panel. Doctors will provide you with an online solution to your problem. They do not sell prescription drugs but can give you advice and recommendation on their effectiveness. It’s not for free… American Well: Talk to a doctor anytime, without leaving home or scheduling an appointment. Choose from a variety of specialties and connect with the doctor who is right for you. Medem: “The iHealth service is the first and only suite of fully integrated web-based physician-patient communication services that are proven to effectively engage patients in better managing their health. This comprehensive service can be used by all stakeholders in healthcare — patients, their doctors, hospitals and health systems, health plans, employers, allied professionals and caregivers.” Relay Health: ” RelayHealth is an intelligent network with solutions that improve clinical communication, accelerate care delivery, and drive cash collection by connecting patients, providers, pharmacies, payors and financial institutions. At RelayHealth, we possess unique channel strength across all key segments of healthcare with established leadership in real-time transactions processing, a strong portfolio of transactional businesses, and the stability, trustworthiness, and resources of proven organizations.” Real Doctors, Real Patients, Virtual Office (Medgadget): The Spanish Society for Family and Community Medicine (FYC) and the Coalition for Citizens with Chronic Illnesses has setup a service for Spanish teenagers to virtually visit a real doctor in Second Life, the 3D online virtual world. The goal is to provide a space where embarrassing issues can be raised in privacy, without the blushing of a face to face consultation. Center for Connected Health: Dermatology e-visits These services and projects will play a more than important role in the future of medicine. It’s not a big deal to predict more and more patients will choose the web to communicate with their physicians. What do you think? Is it a correct perspective regarding the patient-doctor relationship?

Genome reference consortium launched [Next Generation Sequencing] Posted: 18 May 2008 02:29 PM CDT The Genome Reference Consortium (GRC) has recently been formed. The goal of this group is as stated on their website “to correct the small number of regions in the reference that are currently misrepresented, to close as many remaining gaps as possible and to produce alternative assemblies of structurally variant loci when necessary“. GenomeWeb [...]

Update from Africa [T Ryan Gregory's column] Posted: 18 May 2008 07:43 AM CDT Readers of the old Genomicron will probably recall my post entitled "How much good can one blog post do?", in which I talked about my father and step mother's plan to move to Livingstone, Zambia.

Another wish for life science APIs and web services [business|bytes|genes|molecules] Posted: 18 May 2008 03:28 AM CDT So today I thought I’d give Proteus2 a try. Proteus2 is a protein structure prediction server. There are many around, of varying quality. This one has good pedigree, which is part of what attracted me. What I am left with is a frustration that is not new. When structure prediction servers became common, I could understand the need to have queues and all the static pages with automatic refresh. But that was then. In this day and age, things should be different, but they aren’t. The screenshot below was taken close to 2 hours after my job was submitted (it’s 4 hours as I write this, but still waiting). In a day when we expect our search queries to be instantaneous, why can’t we expect a structure prediction server to start a job quickly. It’s not like they are all getting hammered by traffic. The reason itself is hardly surprising. The funding models, the way the services are set up, etc haven’t really changed all that much in the past 5-6 years, but our expectations for web design and what we want from a web service have. Those of you applying for funding and setting up web servers probably know this better than I do. What’s keeping academics from setting up servers on the cloud other than funding models? Another pet peeve, not exactly related to this one, software that needs to be download (source) from a particular site. In a day with good code repositories available, I wish most projects would be hosted there, with version control and the potential of others getting involved. It’s late. Enough ranting. Image via Wikipedia Related articles Gamers, get your folding on [via Zemanta] Technorati Tags: Proteus2, Protein Structure Prediction, Web Services ShareThis

It’s Not Just the Test, It’s the Service [DNA Direct Talk] Posted: 17 May 2008 10:37 PM CDT This is a guest blog post from our VP of Clinical Affairs, Trisha Brown: The healthcare system is evolving as individuals begin to step outside of their local, or traditional, healthcare resources to find what they're looking for. This is well-illustrated by the medical genetic testing industry, where there is a growing trend in direct-to-consumer (DTC) [...]

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