Satya Nanda Vel Arjunan, Pawan K. Dhar, Masaru Tomita

Quantitative modeling has become an essential procedure toward understanding the cell at the systems level. Insights into the inner workings of biological networks can be obtained from mathematical analysis of biochemical models that might not be possible from direct experimentation alone. As one of advanced simulation platforms, the E-Cell System is of central relevance to the systems biology community. The E-Cell System, a multi-algorithm, multi-timescale object-oriented simulation platform, can be used to construct virtual biological systems. It permits the construction of model structure, such as gene regulatory and/or biochemical networks equivalent to a cell system or a part of... continue reading

“Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. …Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth…”

Genesis 11:7,9

Adam P. Roberts, Peter Mullany

As our understanding of mobile genetic elements continues to grow we are gaining a deeper appreciation of their importance in shaping the bacterial genome and in the properties they confer to their bacterial hosts. These include, but are by no means limited to, resistance to antibiotics, and heavy metals, toxin production and increased virulence, production of antibiotics and the ability to utilize a diverse range of metabolic substrates. We are also gaining an understanding of diversity of these elements and their interactions with each other; a property which continually complicates any attempt to classify them. We are learning more about the molecular mechanisms by which they... continue reading

Lymphopenia (< 1Giga/L) detected before initiation of chemotherapy is a predictive factor for death in metastatic solid tumors. Combinatorial T cell repertoire (TCR) diversity was investigated and tested either alone or in combination with lymphopenia as a prognostic factor at diagnosis for overall survival (OS) in metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients. The combinatorial TCR diversity was measured by semi quantitative multi-N-plex PCR on blood samples before the initiation of the first line chemotherapy in a development (n = 66) and validation (n = 67) MBC patient cohorts. A prognostic score, combining lymphocyte count and TCR diversity was evaluated. Univariate and multivariate... continue reading

Pierre Busson

Although listed as a rare cancer in a majority of countries, Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) has a high incidence and appears as a serious public health problem in several highly populated areas of Southeast Asia and to a lesser extent in North Africa. Worldwide, its incidence rates at 85,000 new cases per year (Globocan 2008). Thus, in terms of incidence, among human virus-associated cancers, NPC ranks third behind liver and cervix carcinoma (750,000 and 530,000, respectively). In 2008, the mortality rate of NPC was still about 51,000 per year worldwide (Globocan).

NPC is a multifactorial disease related to dietary, viral and genetic factors. Despite fascinating biological... continue reading

Objectives: Since 9/11, Incident Command System (ICS) and Emergency Operations Center (EOC) are relatively new concepts to public health, which typically operates using less hierarchical and more collaborative approaches to organizing staff. This paper describes the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak in San Diego County to explore the use of ICS and EOC in public health emergency response.
Methods: This study was conducted using critical case study methodology consisting of document review and 18 key-informant interviews with individuals who played key roles in planning and response. Thematic analysis was used to analyze data.
... continue reading

Suryaprakash Sambhara, Takashi Fujita

The discovery of Toll‑like receptors (TLRs) in the late 1990s ushered in a new age of discovery for innate immunity. The importance of TLRs for immunology and biomedical research was recognized with the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 2011. The prize was shared by three scientists: Ralph Steinman (for the discovery of dendritic cells, which express TLRs and whose activation by them provides a link between innate and adaptive immunity), Jules Hoffman (who made the pioneering observation of Toll in fruit fly anti‑fungal immunity) and Bruce Beutler (who uncovered the role of TLR4 in the response to LPS). Work on TLRs inspired many researchers, and led to a search for other... continue reading

Drug transporters are integral membrane proteins expressed by a variety of organs, including the liver, kidney, small intestine and testis, and they are generally known to mediate drug or xenobiotic transport into and out of cells. Previous studies have also reported the presence of several drug transporters at blood-tissue barriers where they are thought to protect organs from harmful agents. In this editorial, we briefly discuss and re-evaluate recent findings that show P-glycoprotein, an efflux pump, to function at the blood-testis barrier. We also put forth a mechanistic model, hoping this information will form a strong basis for future studies.