Science Market Update

Michael E. Zwick is a geneticist at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, and his recently published study in October's Genomics journal on Identifying Autism Susceptibility Genes explores a new PCR technology for rapid, targeted, and highly accurate sequencing and identification of novel genetic variants affecting X chromosome genes.  Autism is four times more common in men, who possess only one copy of the X chromosome, and Zwick's research explores this possible correlation.

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Emory University continues to expand its capacity for medical research and care as it begins construction on a new building dedicated primarily to pediatric care. The new facility is envisioned as a partnership between Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory as well as other Atlanta-area institutions such as the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Morehouse College School of Medicine.

Speaking about the new facility, S. Wright Caughman, M.D. and CEO of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center, argued "This partnership will lead to continued medical advances that will benefit pediatric and adult patients in Georgia and throughout the world and will help Emory and Children's reach the top ranks of pediatric research institutions."

With "life sciences" and "physical sciences" occupying distinct areas of thought within science as a whole, it is sometimes easy to forget the ways in which they inform each other. Not so at North Carolina State University, where researchers from the Department of Physics have solved a key puzzle for Parkinson's Disease research.

The project, undertaken with funding assistance from the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Energy, sought to explain how copper interacts with a key protein to cause misfolding in Parkinson's patients, thought to be a crucial element in the development of the disease. While researchers have long established the link between copper and misfolding, Frisco Rose, Ph.D. candidate at NCSU and lead author of the corresponding paper, explained, "We didn't have a model for what was happening on the molecular level...we wanted to find the specific binding process that leads to misfolding."

Despite controversy surrounding stem cell research, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, partnering with SANYO corporation, are pressing forward with a new machine representing a breakthrough in the treatment of patients using stem cells.

Science research at the University of Alabama, Birmingham has led to a new, simple, and cost-effective test for the cytomegalovirus infection that may cause acute hearing loss in infants.