or in German “wes Brot ich ess, des Lied ich sing’ – the recent PLoS blog is about Continue reading He who pays the piper calls the tune
All posts by admin
bibliographic.openoffice.org.call
Is there a working alternative to Endnote(R) or Reference Manager(R) for Open Office (noR)? The Bibliographic Project Homepage says that Continue reading bibliographic.openoffice.org.call
Prerelease: A universal study database engine
Last night I completed the prerelase of a new database engine that may be used both for online and offline collection of interview data and laboratory values. Continue reading Prerelease: A universal study database engine
Best allergy paper 2007
The end of the year 2007 is approaching very fast. I can already vote for the best allergy paper in 2007 – it is a paper from Vienna by Victoria Leb about the molecular and functional analysis of the Ambrosia antigen T cell receptor. They have been able to isolate and transfer alpha (TRAV17-TRAJ45) and beta chain (TRBV18,TRBD1 and TRBJ2-7) TCR chains into Jurkat cells and even other human blood lymphocytes with convicing evidence that the infected cells were Ambrosia Art V1 reactive.
This opens brand new perspectives for developing a truely allergic TCR transgenic mouse that can be easily challenged and desensitized. It may even allow immediate testing of a variety of substance (and constructs) to ultimately cure allergy. My favorite is to feed DCs with antigen coupled to a T cell suicide program on succesfull antigen presentation.
The world most-cited scientist
He leaves the lab at 5pm sharp – as a news feature about Shizuo Akira now tells us. This is remarkable as many of us believe that we need to work 80 hours a week. Much happens just by chance – as may be seen even with most-cited paper (of another vitamin researcher…)
How to get closer to the target
Attending last week another Illumina sequencer course, I still have the question how to enrich the target sequence. A colleague calling me this morning (thanks TB!) had a pointer to a new nature methods editorial covering three different methods- a 100-mer capture probe for each exon sized segment with the need of extremely deep resequencing and two other methods using direct hybridization of segments onto commercially oligo arrays. Aren´t there any other protocols?
Genetics of 25-hydroxy D3
A new paper in the EJCN examines genetic and non-genetic factors influencing vitamin D serum levels. The authors find 24% of the variability explained by season & intake Continue reading Genetics of 25-hydroxy D3
We need INDEPENDENT replication
We always need replication in scientific studies. I therefore can´t understand why there is now such a fuzz in Nature as they
… took the unusual step of soliciting an independent verification of the paper during the process of peer review. This is the first time that Nature has obtained second-party replication ahead of publication.
this could have saved thousands of dollars if it would have been also applied to other studies before, yea, yea.
In honor of Professor Kurt Spohn (1919-1998)
Dedicated to honor Professor Dr. Kurt Spohn, former director of the Department of Surgery, Städtische Klinikum Karlsruhe from 1960-1984 (where I worked from 1978-1985). Continue reading In honor of Professor Kurt Spohn (1919-1998)
I did it
This is a message for those people who arrived here by a Google search as their Ipaq is not working any more. Maybe my story will be helpful for you?
On another morning my Ipaq hw6515 did not respond at all – the screen simply remained black. Continue reading I did it
Barbara you are my nemesis
The former nature genetics editor has been recently here in Munich giving a talk on Open Access. Chatting after her talk, she told us that on another occasion a guy was yelling at her “you are my nemesis” because she once declined to publish his paper. We laughed but there is some serious background – journals editors often decide on careers of young people.
From my recent experience Continue reading Barbara you are my nemesis
A poor man`s organizer
No, I am not converting to ZEN habits – my Ipaq is down for unknown reasons. No phone list, no todos, no calendar! To keep on working, I decided Continue reading A poor man`s organizer
25 millions in trouble
Scotsman.com news reports – 25 million in trouble by 2 CDs lost, nay, nay.
Monorail
X chromosomal inactivation is difficult enough to understand – there are now some more data on autosomal monoallelic expression (editorial & paper). Up to 10% of 4,000 genes in clonal cell lines were found to be monoallelic expressed (and up to 20% in some B cell clones). Only odorant and T cell receptors are selectively expressed while all other genes are thought to be randomly silenced.
I wonder how any transmission disequilibrium test makes sense if a variant is only transmitted to a silent chromosome? Possibly there are also epigenetic feedback loops where proteins can remodel chromatin and induce epigenetic marks ultimately silencing a chromosomal region. In any case, a fundamental paper, yea, yea!
My second paper
isn´t my second paper as this NEJM letter was sent out without me. Authorship rules are less well defined than generally assumed. Why counting impact points from publication lists if these do not reflect your previous work?