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Category Archives: Molecular Genetics

More Fun Than Fun: Strife in the Harmonious World of Honey Bees, Part 2 – The Wire Science

Posted: July 3, 2022 at 1:53 am

A portion of the cape honey bee (Apis mellifera capensis) nest showing eggs laid not by the queen but by parasitic workers. These eggs can develop into future queens. Photo: Benjamin Oldroyd

Last month, we saw in part one of Strife in the Harmonious World of Honey Bees that although honey bees are renowned for their harmonious cooperation and efficient colonial life, there is nevertheless an underlying scope for conflict. Such conflict takes the form of disagreement over who should produce the males of the colony the queen or the workers. We saw that this conflict is all but suppressed by workers policing each other to prevent drone production and also by apparent self-restraint on the part of most workers.

We also saw that not all workers show adequate self-restraint and have some trick up their sleeves to evade policing by other workers. We saw that by a willingness to question the long-held assumption that workers produce much less than 1% of the drones, and by conducting a careful new study, Madeleine Beekman, Benjamin Oldroyd and their colleagues found that workers may produce as much as 4-6% of the drones.

The discovery of such cheating by worker bees was the culmination of a suspicion that had been building up for a quarter of a century.

In science, undertaking research with the explicit goal of calling into question, even deliberately hoping to overturn the work of previous researchers, is not an act of unkindness or meanness. The essence of science is that everything should be constantly questioned and examined for its continued validity. Science is a work in progress and needs to update itself continually. For this reason, we honour and venerate scientists but not their theories.

Anarchy in the hive

On October 27, 1994, a group of scientists from the School of Genetics and Human Variation, La Trobe University in Australia, published a sensational paper entitled Anarchy in the beehive. The group included Benjamin Oldroyd, whom we met in part 1 of this article, two other scientists, and the late Ross H. Crozier, well-known for his pioneering work on the evolutionary genetics of social behaviour. I vividly remember the excitement of reading this paper when it was first published. The manner in which they had discovered anarchic honey bees was as interesting as the phenomenon itself.

To detect whether workers cheat, i.e. whether they lay eggs even in the presence of a healthy queen, we need to determine whether a given egg was laid by the queen or the worker. While this can be done with fancy tools using molecular markers, where does one begin? Worker reproduction is expected to be quite rare, and only a very small percentage of the drone-producing eggs are expected to be laid by the workers.

Oldroyd and his colleagues devised a remarkably clever trick to solve this problem. At least for me, cleverness is significantly enhanced if the trick is simple and costs nothing when it is based on thinking out of the box rather than acquiring some new expensive technology. Such, indeed, was their trick.

Beekeepers keep honey bees in wooden boxes. The bees they keep (Apis mellifera in Europe, America, Africa and Australia; Apis cerana in Asia) normally nest in cavities in trees or rocks, and they build several parallel wax combs with cells on both sides. Beekeepers mimic this situation by providing several wooden frames in their boxes. Although the combs are at only one level in the natural colonies, beekeepers place one or more additional boxes on top of the basal box and let the workers move freely between the upper and lower boxes.

The queen, however, is confined to the lower box by the simple trick of placing a queen-excluder between the lower and upper boxes: its holes are large enough to let the workers through but not the much larger queen. The frames in the upper box are used to extract honey. Because the queen cannot visit the upper box, she lays all her eggs, male-destined and female-destined, in the frames in the lower box. And because workers normally do not lay eggs, there would be no eggs above the queen-excluder.

Thus, the honey extracted is not mixed up with the eggs. This is, of course, very convenient because the honey is pure vegetarian!

It occurred to Oldroyd and colleagues that this separation of eggs and honey can come in handy to discriminate between queen-laid eggs and worker-laid eggs. They argued that if any eggs are found above the queen-excluder, they are likely laid by workers. Brilliant!

But how many hives will you inspect to look for the improbable occurrence of worker-laid eggs above the queen-excluder? The answer is crowdsourcing! Like all good honeybee researchers, Oldroyd and his colleagues frequently interact with beekeepers. The association between honeybee researchers and beekeepers is reciprocal; both parties learn from each other. Beekeepers often have much experience-based wisdom, which is helpful to the researchers, and researchers occasionally make a few discoveries that may be useful to beekeepers.

So, Oldroyd and colleagues put out an advertisement seeking to know if any beekeepers have noticed eggs above the queen-excluders in their colonies.

Sure enough, they got a positive response. A beekeeper from Ipswich, Queensland, reported that his otherwise normal colony had more than 100 drone cells (drone cells are larger than those used for rearing workers or storing food) with brood in them, above the queen-excluder. This strongly indicated that workers may have laid the eggs that produced this brood.

Now, the researchers could focus on this single colony which was very promising for the possible discovery of anarchy in the hive. Using DNA-based markers, they genotyped the brood from above the queen-excluder, worker-destined brood from below the queen-excluder, and some adult workers.

The brood that shouldnt have been there

There were three possible hypotheses for the presence of a drone brood above the queen-excluder.

1. There may have been two queens in the colony, one trapped in the lower box and one in the upper box.

2. The workers may have carried the male-destined eggs laid by the queen in the lower box and placed them in the upper box.

3. Workers themselves may have laid the eggs that gave rise to the brood in the upper box.

Their results were clear. The colony had only one queen. Workers and not the queen sired all 49 pupae sampled from above the queen-excluder. Thus, hypotheses 1 and 2 were ruled out, and hypothesis 3 could be accepted. So they concluded that they had detected egg-laying by workers and dubbed this phenomenon anarchy in the hive. The justification for this catchy label is that, normally, worker ovaries are suppressed by the queen pheromone, and workers refrain from laying eggs and spend their time working for the welfare of the colony. But egg-laying by workers disrupts colony harmony and potentially creates anarchy.

Workers are known to develop their ovaries in the absence of the queen, but that is another matter easily understandable from the mechanistic (absence of queen pheromone) and evolutionary (no benefit of harmony) points of view.

Oldroyd and his colleagues had an even more exciting result. Honey bee queens mate with several males and simultaneously use sperm from different males so that the workers in a colony belong to many different patrilines. But they found that workers of a single patriline sired 48 of the 49 pupae located above the queen-excluder, a worker of another patriline sired one pupa, and all the remaining patrilines were unrepresented.

One patrilines monopoly of anarchic behaviour suggested that anarchic behaviour has a genetic basis and that some males had genes that would make their daughters anarchic. It is easy to see that natural selection would favour such selfish genes as long as they do not become too common.

Egg-laying by the anarchic workers is a different phenomenon, distinct from the small proportion of workers laid eggs that are quickly eaten by the police workers, which we saw in part 1 of this article. The eggs of anarchic workers are obviously not policed. Thus, anarchy is a complex phenotype requiring anarchic workers to evade the suppressing effect of the queen pheromone and develop their ovaries and lay eggs, which can go undetected by the police workers.

Breeding for anarchy

The next obvious step in unravelling the genetic basis of anarchy (or any trait) would be to see if the incidence of anarchy in colonies can be increased by selective breeding. To this end, Oldroyd and Katherine E. Osborne artificially inseminated some queens with sperm from drones sired by anarchic workers. As a control, they inseminated other queens with different proportions of sperm from drones sired by wild-type (normal) workers and sperm from drones sired by anarchic workers.

They found that when the queens were inseminated by sperm from drones of anarchic workers, the colonies headed by such queens showed a higher incidence of workers having developed ovaries and increased survival of worker-laid eggs. These results reinforce the possibility of a genetic basis for anarchic behaviour, involving increased tolerance to the queen pheromones inhibitory effects and increased ability to evade worker policing.

The colonies headed by queens inseminated with different mixtures of normal and anarchic sperm revealed a level of complexity that might have been missed were it not for these control colonies. The levels of anarchic behaviour seen in these colonies make it clear that the phenomenon of anarchy is the result of a complex interaction between the genotype of the queen, the genotypes of the different patrilines of workers, both anarchic and wild-type, and the external environment.

One never knows what a control experiment will reveal. It is a mistake to worry too much about whether a control experiment is really needed in view of our confidence that the main experiment is so clear-cut. Sometimes, it may be unclear what a control experiment will reveal and how it will help. That we do not know what the controlled experiment will reveal is itself an adequate justification for performing it.

In this case, it is not surprising, though in hindsight, that the expression of anarchy is so complicated. After all, the anarchic workers receive 50% of their genes from the queen and only 50% from their anarchic-gene-bearing fathers. Both sets of genes will influence their ability to resist the inhibitory effects of the queen pheromone and develop their ovaries.

Moreover, the survival of their eggs will depend on the policing efficiency of other workers in the colony belonging to different patrilines, based on their different abilities to sniff out their eggs.

Search for the anarchy gene

Now the search is on for the anarchy gene, which can confer these properties. An anarchy gene is the opposite of a social gene: the latter is expected to have the opposite effect, making the workers respond to the queen pheromone and refrain from developing their ovaries. If it is a gene that helps switch between developing and not developing worker ovaries, then we would have two birds in one shot we will have a gene that will prevent anarchy in one configuration and cause anarchy in another configuration.

In an unpublished preprint deposited in the increasingly popular database called bioRxiv, Oldroyd and his many colleagues have now reported a gene (technically a non-coding RNA) that seems a very promising candidate. It causes cell death in normal worker ovaries and prevents their development.

It is a striking irony that the study of strife in honey bee colonies, however rare, is finally helping us understand how strife is prevented under most conditions and how social organisation and cooperation evolve. It is often true in biology that we have to break the system or find a naturally occurring dysfunctional situation to understand the functional one by studying the abnormal, we understand the normal. This underscores the need to pay attention to exceptions and results that seem to contradict the prevailing paradigm.

A more serious threat to colony harmony

Dramatic as the story of anarchy in the hive is, the threat posed by anarchic workers to honey bee colonies is rather modest. Anarchic workers lay only male-destined eggs and therefore cannot produce future queens. Producing future queens remains the queens prerogative, so there is no danger that queens will lose all their fitness.

The fact that worker anatomy has been sufficiently modified to prevent them from mating is a powerful safeguard against cheating. Thus, the queen continues propagating her genes by maintaining a reasonable degree of harmony in the colony because workers cannot produce diploid female-destined eggs without mating. We might therefore say that anarchic workers do not pose an existential threat to the queen.

But nature forever springs surprises at us. The southernmost part of South Africa has a truly remarkable subspecies of honey bees, appropriately called Apis mellifera capensis. In the cape honey bee, as this is often called, workers can indeed pose an existential threat to their queens and to queens of other capensis colonies as well as to queens of the sister subspecies Apis mellifera scutellata in the neighbourhood.

This is because capensis workers can lay diploid eggs, which develop into females, either into workers or queens, depending on how the larvae are fed.1 Thus, capensis workers can produce new queens, usurping what is usually the exclusive prerogative of the queens in all other subspecies of honey bees.

The remarkable phenomenon of cape honey bee workers frequently developing their ovaries and laying male and female destined eggs was discovered by one George William Onions (1867-1941), a carpenter in South Africa with no specialised training but with beekeeping as a hobby. As is often the case, his discovery was met with much scepticism during his lifetime. But today, it is a well-established fact and the subject of great interest.

How do capensis workers manage to lay diploid eggs? Surely, they have not reversed their anatomical loss of the ability to mate. What they do is no less remarkable. I found it more extraordinary still that what they do was demonstrated by a relatively unknown Indian scientist, named Savitri Verma.

All diploid organisms with two sets of chromosomes must reduce the diploid number by half to produce haploid gametes to restore the diploid number when sperm meets eggs to make the next generation. The reduction of the chromosome number happens during the process of cell division, known as meiosis.

Meiosis consists of two consecutive cell divisions, the first reductional and the second mitotic, i.e. equational, resulting in four haploid cells. In contrast, mitosis is the process by which somatic cells divide without reducing the number of chromosomes.

The question of interest is whether reduction of chromosome number never happens in capensis bees or whether it happens, and then two haploid cells fuse at the end of meiosis to restore diploidy. The latter idea is not as outrageous as it sounds because, after all, it is the destiny of the haploid products of meiosis to fuse with other haploid cells to restore diploidy, except that they usually fuse with haploid gametes from another individual of the opposite sex.

In this case, the fusion would be, if that is how it happens, among the haploid cells of the same individual and thus a form of parthenogenesis. This form of parthenogenesis, in which the diploid female bee produces diploid female offspring without mating, is called thelytoky. It is distinct from arrhenotoky, the other (more usual) kind of parthenogenesis in which a diploid female bee produces haploid male offspring without mating. In arrhenotoky, the haploid products of meiosis directly develop into haploid adult males.

Savitri Verma worked with Friedrich Ruttner, the well-known honey bee biologist at the University of Frankfurt in Germany. They examined what is often called the dance of the chromosomes under the microscope to distinguish between the two hypotheses: no reduction in chromosome number or reduction followed by restoration of diploidy by cell fusion. She demonstrated clear evidence of reduction followed by fusion to restore diploidy.

Here, I want to pay tribute to Savitri Verma for her pioneering work of great significance, especially because she is all but unknown to the scientific community, even in India. As irony would have it, the paper that made her immortal is sometimes cited in high profile journals not correctly as Verma, S. and F. Ruttner (1983) but incorrectly as Verma, L.R. and F. Ruttner (1983).

Verma L.R. is her better-known husband and also a honey bee biologist!

Scientists are pretty lax about ensuring the accuracy of their citations, so they frequently copy the required citations second-hand from any paper that has already made the citation, often without accessing or reading the original paper being cited. This can lead to the perpetuation of inadvertent citation errors, especially if the wrong citation appears in a prominent paper likely to be used as the source for copying citations.

Reference lists in scientific papers are like silent genes that are free to mutate, unchecked by natural selection in the form of proofreading. It would make an interesting student project to determine the frequency of citation errors in scientific papers.

Savitri Verma obtained her PhD from the University of Frankfurt, Germany, and returned to India to pursue a distinguished teaching and research career in India in the fields of cytogenetics, molecular biology and human genetics. She retired in 2009 as senior professor and head at the University of Shimla in Himachal Pradesh.

The phenomenon of capensis workers laying female-destined eggs discovered by George William Onions a century ago and whose cytological mechanism was elucidated by Savitri Verma and Friedrich Ruttner some 40 years ago is now at the forefront of research in honey bee genetics and evolution, with considerable ramifications for beekeeping too.

The cape honey bee (Apis mellifera capensis) is turning out to be even more remarkable than was originally believed. Large numbers of capensis workers develop their ovaries and lay diploid eggs. These eggs are not policed, apparently because they are chemically indistinguishable from queen-laid eggs.

Interestingly, capensis workers do not police their sisters thelytokous eggs even though they police worker-laid eggs introduced experimentally from the subspecies scutellata. Thus, in addition to being queen-like, capensis workers also lay eggs that are also queen-like.

Although capensis queens can mate and produce daughters sexually, utilising sperm from males, virgin queens can lay both arrhenotokous haploid male-producing eggs and thelytokous diploid female-producing eggs suggesting that they can control which kind of meiosis their eggs go through even after they are laid.

Recently, a gene that controls the switch between thelytoky and arrhenotoky has been identified. The social disharmony-causing thelytoky in cape bees may help us understand the molecular basis of meiosis. Such are the ways of biology!

Not only do capensis workers lay eggs that can be reared as queens, they seem to have a competitive edge over their queens. In one study, 23 out of 39 queens produced were sired by workers. If queens are experimentally removed, capensis workers prefer to rear new queens from worker-laid thelytokous eggs ignoring queen-laid eggs that the experimenter may provide.

But queens have a different trick up their sleeve. They can pass on 100% of the genes to future queens by producing new queens, thelytokously avoid male genes altogether. Each one for herself such a far cry from the harmonious cooperation and altruism that we expect from honey bees.

The cape bees ability to create strife is not restricted to competition between workers and her queen within the colony. Much greater fitness payoffs await workers who enter and parasitise colonies of other honey bee subspecies. Capensis queens produce more pheromones to keep their workers in check.

So, a capensis worker entering the colony of another subspecies encounters less queen pheromone than she is used to. She, therefore, develops her ovaries even faster and lays potentially queen-destined eggs rapidly. Worse, she may kill the queen and put the host workers to work to rear her daughter queens.

Beekeeping practices further exacerbate the capensis workers parasitic tendencies. Capensis bees can enter a commercial beehive and start a little nursery of their own daughters in the upper box to which the host queen has no access. Sometime later, the mother parasite and her daughters can go down and attack the host queen. They will have little interest in the welfare of the host colony. Once they utilise the resources of the host colony, they can quit and enter another healthy colony.

A little tweaking of the meiotic cell division has allowed the cape honey bee to utilise all the features meant to ensure harmonious social life into a nefarious antisocial lifestyle. Not surprisingly, this has dire consequences for the beekeeping industry. How can one practice beekeeping if your colonies parasitise and destroy each other in the game of one-upmanship? Beekeepers rely on harmony and cooperation in the hive to make their living.

Dysfunction in the hive?

Two well-known honey bee researchers, Robin Moritz from the University of Halle in Germany and Robin Crewe from the University of Pretoria in South Africa, have now taken a holistic view of the various features of honey bees that make them seem less than perfect harmonious societies. In a recent book ruthlessly entitled The Dark Side of the Hive (2018), Mortiz and Crew tear apart the long-held perfectionist view of honey bee societies and conclude:

The honey bee colony is thus far from being a harmonious, cooperative whole. It is full of individual mistakes, obvious maladaptations, and evolutionary dead ends. Conflict, cheating, worker inefficiency, and curious reproduction strategies all occur.

The Dark Side of the Hive is one of the most shocking science books I have read. Brimming with out-of-the-box thinking and a large dose of heresy, Moritz and Crewe tear into the prevailing complacent and admiring view of honey bees and look at the dark side of every aspect of honey-bee biology.

To take just one example, they list all the problems associated with the difficult diet of the honey bees. Their vegan diet, with its exclusive dependence on nectar and pollen, presents myriad problems. The bees have to transport large quantities of liquid. Since a bee can transport only about 25 mg of nectar at a time, they need some 400,000 foraging trips to gather the nectar to make one kilogram of honey.

To give us a feel for what that means, we are told that this is equivalent to a return flight to the Moon and back! So, how do the bees solve this problem?

The queen produces hundreds of thousands of workers to share the burden. But this means a massive investment in the non-reproductive worker force to produce just a few queens and drones, not to mention the difficulties of housing and managing the large population of workers.

Nectar is a dilute sugar solution and will quickly go bad and ferment, so they expend a considerable effort to evaporate the water and concentrate it into a thick syrup. But that poses its own problems as viscous honey can stick to the bees bodies, block their trachea and kill them by asphyxiation. So they spend much time and energy constantly grooming themselves.

The story with pollen is not much different. Pollen is fine dust that the bees must harvest and bring home in large quantities while constantly cleaning themselves to prevent their trachea being blocked. Digesting pollen presents its own problems. The thick indigestible coating of the pollen must be excreted in large amounts and going out of the hive to do so presents another challenge, especially in the winter.

The pollen diet presents an even more significant challenge to the larvae, who dont defecate until they become pupae. Besides, to preserve pollen and maintain its nutritional quality, the bees process it and make bee bread.

The ancestors of honey bees mass provision their larvae, i.e. they add all the food required for the development of the larvae into the cells before laying an egg in it. Honey bees, however, have evolved progressive provisioning: they frequently feed the larvae, altering the diet and adding secretions as appropriate. This is a huge undertaking.

In this vein, Moritz and Crewe find fault with every aspect of honey bee biology. I found their approach to bee biology absolutely fascinating, although it appeared perverse at first, I must confess. I knew most of the facts they present but had not thought about them in this light.

Robin Moritz told me in an email that he and Crewe were inspired to write The Dark Side of the Hive because of their conviction that Nobody is perfect (and bees definitely not) but then there is no need to be perfect in order to become evolutionarily successful.

Moritz and Crewe dont just indict the honey bees. With powerful arguments, they indict the research strategies and methodologies of scientists involved in honey bee research.

The picture of harmony and success is compelling, sometimes perhaps so compelling that it might easily preclude asking critical questions about such obvious efficiency, they write. And The perfection that is perceived to exist in their social organisation is a function of a particular experimental focus on the colony as a whole rather than exploring the idiosyncrasies of its individual members, they argue.

Finally, they tell us that they instead, explore the situations in which individual interests are pursued often at the expense of the colony, and show that the solutions that have evolved are often less than optimal.

One of their main criticisms concerns a central debate in evolutionary biology. Does natural selection act to make the best colonies fit enough to compete with other colonies, or does it make the best individuals fit enough to compete with other individuals, even within the same colony? The answer must be both. But the interesting unknown is how the trade-off between the two levels of selection plays out in different situations. This should be the topic of much future research.

The Dark Side of the Hive has had a profound effect on me. It has shown me how I was blind to the possible alternate interpretations of well-known facts. It has made me worried about my interpretation of other fields of knowledge. I recommend that not only students of honey bees and other social insects but also all biologists should read The Dark Side of the Hive by Moritz and Crewe alongside other wonderful books such as Biology of the Honey Bee by Mark L. Winston, The Wisdom of the Hive and Honeybee Democracy by Thomas D. Seeley and The Spirit of the Hive and Art of the Bee by Robert E. Page, which focus primarily on the bright side of the hive.

The true essence of what we have learnt about honey bees in this two-part article is that honey bees have an uncanny ability to manage conflict, display a semblance of normalcy and become evolutionarily successful despite great scope for conflict and inherent dysfunctional tendencies making them even more impressive and more worthy of the epithet a prime favorite of the gods, as William Morton Wheeler lyrically described them almost a century ago. And surely there is something for us humans to learn from the bees here.

Raghavendra Gadagkar is a Department of Science and Technology (DST) Year of Science Chair Professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

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More Fun Than Fun: Strife in the Harmonious World of Honey Bees, Part 2 - The Wire Science

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CytoDyn Announces the Addition of Leading Experts in Oncology, Infectious Diseases, and Neuroinflammation to its Scientific Board of Advisors -…

Posted: July 3, 2022 at 1:53 am

VANCOUVER, Washington, May 13, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CytoDyn Inc. ( CYDY) ("CytoDyn" or the "Company"), a biotechnology company developing leronlimab, a CCR5 antagonist with the potential for multiple therapeutic indications, today announced the addition of Dr. Paul Edison, Dr. Kabir Mody, and Dr. Otto Yang to the Companys Scientific Board of Advisors. In addition, Dr. Jay Lalezari has agreed to serve as an outside Scientific Advisor to the Company.

Dr. Paul Edison is a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Neuroscience in the Department of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London and an honorary Professor at Cardiff University. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Brain Connectivity. After his clinical training (MD), Dr. Edison received his MPhil and Ph.D. from Imperial College London, and then completed his higher training in London Deanery and obtained his CCT from the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board. He then became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Ireland, and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, UK. He has published in such highly regarded journals as Brain, Annals of Neurology, and Neurology, and has received grants from the Medical Research Council, NIHR/HEFCE, Alzheimers Society, Alzheimers Research UK, Alzheimers Drug Discovery Foundation US, and other funders. He collaborates closely with Novo Nordisk, GE Healthcare, Novartis, Piramal Life Sciences, and Astra Zeneca. He has also received several best paper awards internationally and published in leading scientific journals. His work now focuses on neuroinflammation and the interplay between inflammation and immunity in neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory disease, and relating these with genetic information. He is also evaluating the methods of modulating inflammation and amyloid in Alzheimers disease, and the influence of cardiometabolic factors on the development of neurodegenerative diseases by means of clinical and pre-clinical studies.

Dr. Kabir Mody is the Medical Director at IMV, Inc. and a board-certified medical oncologist. He brings a wealth of experience and knowledge in oncology and immuno-oncology accumulated while working at Mayo Clinic as an academic oncologist focused on GI oncology, particularly cancers of the liver and the pancreas. Dr. Mody received his MD from St. George's University School of Medicine, and completed his residency at St. Lukes-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, and a fellowship at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire. He has co-authored numerous papers and book chapters, including many on the biology and novel treatment strategies of liver and pancreas malignancies, and has been actively involved in leading both clinical and lab-based research on cancers of the liver and pancreas.

Dr. Otto Yang is a Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases, Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics at UCLA and has a background in clinical infectious diseases. His laboratory specializes in T cell immunology in HIV infection, relevant to developing immune therapies and vaccines for HIV and potentially other diseases, including cancer and other viral infections. He received his MD degree from Brown University, with subsequent residency training at NYU-Bellevue Hospital and subspecialty/postdoctoral training at Harvard-Massachusetts General Hospital. He then pursued a fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he developed a research program studying the role of CD8+ T lymphocytes (CTL, which are killer T cells that can destroy cells infected with viruses or which are malignant) in HIV-1 pathogenesis. A more recent research interest has been the role of CTL in the development of rejection in organ transplant patients. Dr. Yang has begun working with the new composite tissue transplantation program at UCLA, which will perform hand and face transplants, studying the role of this arm of immunity in causing tissue rejection. Dr. Yang is a frequent lecturer, has received numerous research grants and funding for his work and published over 180 peer-reviewed articles, and holds numerous patents in HIV and Immunology.

Dr. Jacob (Jay) Lalezari has agreed to serve as an outside Scientific Advisor to CytoDyn without compensation. Dr. Lalezari has been the CEO and Medical Director of Quest Clinical Research since 1997. He received his MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his MA from the University of Virginia. He also received a BA from the University of Rochester. He received his board certification from the American Board of Internal Medicine. He briefly served as interim Chief Medical Officer of CytoDyn during 2020, as well as Chief Medical Officer of Virion Therapeutics. Dr. Lalezari has served as Principal Investigator for Phase I, II, and III clinical studies of new therapies for such viral diseases as HIV/AIDS, CMV, HPV, HSV, Hepatitis B and C, Influenza, RSV, and COVID-19, including clinical trials conducted by the Company. He has published extensively and is a well-regarded international speaker and patient advocate.

About CytoDyn

CytoDyn is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the development and commercialization of leronlimab, an investigational humanized IgG4 monoclonal antibody (mAb) that is designed to bind to C-C chemokine receptor type 5 (CCR5), a protein on the surface of certain immune system cells that is believed to play a role in numerous disease processes. CytoDyn is studying leronlimab in multiple therapeutic areas, including infectious disease, cancer, and autoimmune conditions.

Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release contains certain forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Words and expressions reflecting optimism, satisfaction or disappointment with current prospects, as well as words such as "believes," "hopes," "intends," "estimates," "expects," "projects," "plans," "anticipates" and variations thereof, or the use of future tense, identify forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. The Company's forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance, and actual results could vary materially from those contained in or expressed by such statements due to risks and uncertainties including: (i) the regulatory determinations of leronlimabs safety and effectiveness to treat the diseases and conditions for which we are studying the product by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and various drug regulatory agencies in other countries; (ii) the Companys ability to raise additional capital to fund its operations; (iii) the Companys ability to meet its debt obligations; (iv) the Companys ability to recruit a permanent CEO and retain other key employees; (v) the Companys ability to enter into partnership or licensing arrangements with third-parties; (vi) the Companys ability to identify patients to enroll in its clinical trials in a timely fashion; (vii) the timely and sufficient development, through internal resources or third-party consultants, of analyses of the data generated from the Companys clinical trials required by the FDA or other regulatory agencies in connection with applications for approval of the Companys drug product; (viii) the Companys ability to achieve approval of a marketable product; (ix) the design, implementation and conduct of the Companys clinical trials; (x) the results of the Companys clinical trials, including the possibility of unfavorable clinical trial results; (xi) the market for, and marketability of, any product that is approved; (xii) the existence or development of vaccines, drugs, or other treatments that are viewed by medical professionals or patients as superior to the Companys products; (xiii) regulatory initiatives, compliance with governmental regulations and the regulatory approval process; (xiv) legal proceedings, investigations or inquiries affecting the Company or its products; (xv) general economic and business conditions; (xvi) changes in foreign, political, and social conditions; (xvii) stockholder actions or proposals with regard to the Company, its management, or its board of directors; and (xviii) various other matters, many of which are beyond the Companys control. The Company urges investors to consider specifically the various risk factors identified in its most recent Form 10-K, as well as risk factors and cautionary statements included in subsequent Form 10-Qs and Form 8-Ks, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, the Company does not undertake any responsibility to update any forward-looking statements to take into account events or circumstances that occur after the date of this press release.

CONTACTSInvestors: Cristina De LeonOffice: 360.980.8524[emailprotected]

Media:Joe Germani / Miller WinstonLongacre Square Partners[emailprotected] / [emailprotected]

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MEGA11: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis Version 11

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:01 am

Fig. 3.

MEGAs Tree Explorer ( A ) is a feature-rich, versatile viewer of phylogenies

MEGAs Tree Explorer (A) is a feature-rich, versatile viewer of phylogenies that provides many interactive exploration and customization facilities. In MEGA11, the new side toolbar of Tree Explorer makes formatting, rearrangement, and tree exploration tools more accessible and intuitive. Instead of a thin toolbar with nameless buttons, we have opted for a wide toolbar with text labels identifying each tool. The toolbar can be moved to either side of the window, and it can be toggled in and out of view. To organize related tools by groups and accommodate limited vertical space, collapsible panels are used. With the new toolbar, formatting tools previously displayed in external dialogs are readily accessible, and formats are applied instantly instead of after the user closes the external dialog. In addition to the updated toolbar, there are now options for auto-collapsing of nodes containing clusters of taxa belonging to the same group, user-specified cluster size, or by the branch length difference. For very large trees with many similar sequences, this feature can greatly facilitate the visualization of evolutionary events at a glance. An option has been added to export pairwise patristic distances between taxa to a text file for phylogenies and timetrees. For maximum likelihood and maximum parsimony trees where ancestral sequences are present, an option has been added to navigate through sites where a change in the estimated ancestral state differs between the parent and child on the currently selected branch. The tree information box (B) has been updated for timetrees to show branch- and node-specific information, such as earliest and latest sample times in the currently selected subtree, days elapsed between the divergence time for a selected node and the latest sample time, the nearest and furthest tip from a selected node, clade size and clade taxa, and spatiotemporal information if available.

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MEGA6: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis version 6.0

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:01 am

F ig . 2.

( A ) Timetree inferred in MEGA6 and shown in the Tree Explorer

(A) Timetree inferred in MEGA6 and shown in the Tree Explorer, where it is displayed with divergence times and their respective 95% confidence intervals. A scale bar for absolute divergence times is shown. (B) An information panel that can be made visible by pressing the icon marked with an i. When focused on a tree node (left side), it shows the internal node identifier, and absolute or relative divergence time as appropriate; when focused on a branch (right side), it displays the local clock rate as well as the relative branch length. (C) A timetable exported using the displayed timetree, which shows the ancestordescendant relationship along with relative node times, relative branch rates, absolute divergence times, and confidence intervals. Users can display internal node identifiers in the Tree Explorer as well as internal node names, which can be provided in the input topology file. On pressing the Caption in the Tree Explorer menu bar, MEGA produces the following text to inform the user about the methods, choices, and data used. Caption: The timetree shown was generated using the RelTime method. Divergence times for all branching points in the user-supplied topology were calculated using the Maximum Likelihood method based on the General Time Reversible model. Relative times were optimized and converted to absolute divergence times (shown next to branching points) based on user-supplied calibration constraints. Bars around each node represent 95% confidence intervals which were computed using the method described in Tamura et al. (2013). The estimated log likelihood value of the topology shown is 247671.60. A discrete Gamma distribution was used to model evolutionary rate differences among sites (4 categories, +G, parameter = 38.07). The tree is drawn to scale, with branch lengths measured in the relative number of substitutions per site. The analysis involved 446 nucleotide sequences. All positions with less than 95% site coverage were eliminated. That is, fewer than 5% alignment gaps, missing data, and ambiguous bases were allowed at any position. There were a total of 1,048 positions in the final data set. Evolutionary analyses were conducted in MEGA6 (Tamura et al. 2013).

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ASBMB names 2023 award winners – ASBMB Today

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:01 am

The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology announced today the winners of its annual awards. Colleagues and other leaders in the field nominated the winners for making significant contributions to biochemistry and molecular biology and to the training of emerging scientists.

The recipients will give talks about their work at the societys2023 annual meeting, Discover BMB, slated for March 2528 in Seattle.

In addition to cash prizes ranging from $500 to $35,000, each ASBMB award consists of a plaque and transportation expenses to the ASBMB annual meeting.

Learn more about the ASBMB awards.

Regina Stevens-Truss

Recognizes an individual who encourages effective teaching and learning of biochemistry and molecular biology.

Regina StevensTruss is a professor at Kalamazoo College in Michigan who has served in numerous leadership positions at the ASBMB. She has been a member of the societys Education and Professional Development Committee and Minority Affairs Committee (now Maximizing Access Committee). She is a past member of the steering committee that created the concept-driven teaching strategies that laid the foundation for the ASBMBs certification exam. She was the principal investigator in 2012 on a National Science Foundation grant that supported a STEM K-12 outreach initiative by the society called Hands-on Outreach to Promote Engagement in Science (HOPES for short).

Squire Booker

Recognizes outstanding contributions to research in biochemistry and molecular biology.

Squire J. Bookeris an Evan Pugh professor of chemistry and of biochemistry and molecular biology and the Eberly Family distinguished chair in science at The Pennsylvania State University. He is also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His lab studies catalytic mechanisms of redox enzymes involved in natural product biosynthesis and human health. He is deputy editor of ACS Bio & Med Chem Au, an open-access journal of the American Chemical Society, and an executiveassociate editor of the ACS journal Biochemistry. He becamean inaugural fellowof the ASBMB in 2021. He also won this years Ruth Kirschstein Diversity in Science Award. (See below.)

Russell DeboseBoyd

Recognizes outstanding research contributions in the area of lipids.

Russell DeBoseBoydis the Beatrice and Miguel Elias distinguished chair in biomedical science and professor of molecular genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. DeBoseBoyds lab studies regulatory mechanisms governing feedback regulation of HMG-CoA reductase, the rate-limiting enzyme in cholesterol synthesis. He is an associate editor for the Journal of Lipid Research and an editorial board member for the Journal of Biological Chemistry, both ASBMB journals. Readour Q&Awith DeBoseBoyd.

Erica Saphire

Awarded to an established scientist for outstanding accomplishments in basic biomedical research.

Erica Ollmann Saphire is a professor and the president and chief executive officer of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. Saphires lab has solved structures of key proteins of the Ebola, Marburg, rabies and Lassa viruses and explained how they remodel these structures as they drive themselves into cells, how their proteins suppress immune function and where human antibodies can defeat these viruses. She used this information to galvanize two international consortia of former competitors to advance antibody therapeutics together. Saphire is a two-time ASBMB award winner. In 2015, she won the ASBMB Young Investigator Award.

Eytan Ruppin

Given to a scientist forthemost accessible and innovative development or application of computer technology to enhance researchin the life sciencesat the molecular level.

Eytan Ruppin is a computational biologist and chief of the Cancer and Data Science Laboratory in the Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute. His lab develops computational approaches for the integration of multiomics data to understand better the pathogenesis and treatment of cancer. His research focuses on basic and translational studies aimed at broadening the scope of precision oncology to the realm of tumor transcriptomics.

Scott Dixon

Awarded to a scientist with 10 years or less of post-postdoctoral experience.

Scott Dixonis an associate professor in the biology department at Stanford University.His labstudies cell death and lipid metabolism using small-molecule screening, biochemical analysis of protein function, and model organism genetics. Dixon is a member of theprogram planning committeefor Discover BMB, the societys annual meeting.

Anne Kenworthy

Recognizes and honors scientists at all stages of their careers who have made substantial advances in understanding biological chemistry using innovative physical approaches.

Anne Kenworthy is a professor of molecular physiology and biological physics at the University of Virginia and the assistant director of its Center for Membrane and Cell Physiology. Her lab studies membrane nanodomains, such as lipid rafts and caveolae, to learn how they assemble and function in health and disease. (Read about her recent high-content analysis of membrane vesicles.)Together with collaborators at the University of Michigan and Vanderbilt University, her group also recently provided the first glimpse into molecular architecture of an essential building block of caveolae oligomeric complexes formed by the membrane protein caveolin-1.

Squire Booker

Honors an outstanding scientist who has shown a strong commitment to the encouragement of scientists from historically marginalized groups.

This is the second award this year forSquire J. Booker, a professor and distinguished chair at The Pennsylvania State University. (See the ASBMBMerck Award above.) Booker is a past chair of the ASBMBs Minority Affairs Committee and established the ASBMBgrant-writing workshop, which now is known as the Interactive Mentoring Activities for Grantsmanship Enhancement workshop. He also co-organized the 2016 ASBMB annual meeting. He now serves on the Finance and Nominating committees.

Itay Budin

Recognizes outstanding research contributions in the area of lipids by a young investigator.

Itay Budin is an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California San Diego. His laboratory uses approachesranging from membrane biophysics to synthetic biology to investigate lipid function. Current areas of focus in his lab include the inner mitochondrial membrane and lipid adaptation for life in extreme conditions. In 2017, Budin received a Journal of Biological Chemistry/Herbert Tabor Young Investigator Award.

Catherine Drennan

Recognizes outstanding contributions to biochemical and molecular biological research and a demonstrated commitment to the training of younger scientists.

Catherine Drennanis a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.Drennans labstudies the structural biology of metalloenzymes. Her teams targets have included multiple enzymes that depend on metal cofactors, such as ribonucleotide reductase, an early enzyme in DNA biosynthesis. She is a former member of the ASBMB Education and Professional Development Committee. As a postdoctoral fellow, she started the undergraduate poster competition at the ASBMBs annual meeting. Her pedagogical work includes research into best practices for active lectures and the development of resources that help undergraduates appreciate the value of chemical principles in biology and medicine. She was a member of the ASBMBsinaugural classof fellows in 2021.

Gira Bhabha

Recognizes individuals with a strong commitment to advancing the careers of women in biochemistry and molecular biology along with demonstrated excellence in research and/or service.

Gira Bhabhais an assistant professor at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where she began her independent career in 2017. The Bhabha lab works closely with the lab of Damian Ekiert; since their inception, the two labs have functioned synergistically as a single group. TheBhabha and Ekiert labsstudy structural mechanisms and cell biology of microbes and their interactions with hosts, using integrative approaches including X-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, cryo-electron tomography, optical microscopy, biochemistry, microbiology and cell biology techniques.

Kerry-Ann Rye

Recognizes individuals with a strong commitment to advancing the careers of women in biochemistry and molecular biology along with demonstrated excellence in research and/or service.

Kerry-Anne Rye is a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and co-editor-in-chief of the ASBMBs Journal of Lipid Research. Before taking the helm at the JLR in 2020, she had been an associate editor since 2008. She has been a research professor since 2013 at UNSW, where she serves as the deputy head of the School of Medical Sciences and studies atherosclerosis and diabetes. Rye was a member of the inaugural class of ASBMB fellows in 2021. She wrote an essay earlier this year about being a member of the society.

Dyann Wirth

Keith Matthews

Recognizes established investigators who are making seminal contributions to the field of molecular parasitology.

Dyann Wirth is a professor at Harvard Universitys T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Broad Institute. Her lab studies the Plasmodium genus, members of which commonly infect humans with malaria. Her team is working on methods for molecular genetic manipulation of protozoan parasites to analyze genes important for their virulence and resistance to drugs.

Keith Matthewsis a professor at the University of Edinburgh.His laboratorystudies African trypanosomes, parasites spread by the tsetse fly, and the changes they undergo in the fly, using targeted reverse genetic approaches, global RNA and protein analysis, and other strategies.

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Yale’s Department of Psychiatry Chair to Join Clearmind Medicine – The Bakersfield Californian

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:01 am

Dr. John H. Krystal, world-leading expert in alcoholism and depression, will serve on scientific advisory board

VANCOUVER, June 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Clearmind Medicine Inc. (CSE: CMND, OTC Pink: CMNDF, FSE: CWY0) (Clearmind or the "Company"), a biotech company focused on discovery and development of novel psychedelic-derived therapeutics to solve major undertreated health problems, today announced the appointment to its Scientific Advisory Board of John Krystal, Chair of the Psychiatry Department at Yale Universitys School of Medicine.

A leading expert on alcoholism, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, and depression, Dr. Krystals work links psychopharmacology, neuroimaging, molecular genetics, and computational neuroscience to study the neurobiology and treatment of these disorders. He is best known for leading the discovery of the rapid antidepressant effects of ketamine.

"We are truly honored to add Dr. Krystal, one of the worlds most recognized experts in alcoholism, to our Scientific Advisory Board, said Dr. Adi Zuloff-Shani, Clearmind's Chief Executive Officer. Clearmind has emphasized collaboration with scientists and clinicians at the very best academic, medical and research institutions in the world, helping us bring innovative expertise to bear on some of the most pressing global health needs.

Dr. Krystal is a Professor of Translational Research; Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Psychology; he chairs the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University; and he is Chief of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Yale University School of Medicine

Among many other positions he holds or has held, Dr. Krystal is the Director of the NIAAA Center for the Translational Neuroscience of Alcoholism and the Clinical Neuroscience Division of the VA National Center for PTSD, co-director of the Neuroscience Forum of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; and editor of Biological Psychiatry (IF=12.1). He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

We believe that the scientists on our Scientific Advisory Board, working closely with us to challenge, validate and guide our scientific agenda for developing breakthrough therapies that improve human mental-health at scale, increase access to care, reduce suffering and improve health outcomes around the world, said Zuloff-Shani.

About Clearmind Inc. (CSE: CMND), (OTC: CMNDF), (FSE:CWY0)

Clearmind is a new biotech company focused on the discovery and development of safe and novel psychedelic-derived therapeutics to treat alcohol use disorder and other pressing health challenges.

The Israeli Canadian company holds several patents for the non-hallucinogenic compound MEAI (5-methoxy-2-aminoindane, a novel psychoactive substance). The company intends to seek additional patents for its compounds whenever warranted and will remain opportunistic regarding the acquisition of additional intellectual property to build its portfolio.

Clearmind has established a research collaboration with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar Ilan University. The partnerships aim to expand its R&D capabilities and discover new candidate treatments for other mental health issues.

For further information, please contact:

Investor Relations

invest@clearmindmedicine.com

Telephone: (604) 260-1566

General Inquiries

Info@Clearmindmedicine.com

http://www.Clearmindmedicine.com

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:

This news release may contain forward-looking statements and information based on current expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Such statements include submission of the relevant documentation within the required timeframe to the satisfaction of the relevant regulators and raising sufficient financing to complete the Company's business strategy. There is no certainty that any of these events will occur. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will prove to be correct. We assume no responsibility to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances.

Investing into early-stage companies inherently carries a high degree of risk, and investment into securities of the Company shall be considered highly speculative.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any province in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities issued, or to be issued, under the Private Placement have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration requirements.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange (the CSE) nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

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Gene interaction that contributes to rice heat tolerance identified – EurekAlert

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:01 am

image:Dubbed thermotolerance 3, or TT3, the genetic module is the physical location in the cells genetic material containing the genes, TT3.1 and TT3.2, that interact to enhance rice thermotolerance. view more

Credit: Image credit to Science

Rice is one of the most important staple crops, on which more than half of the world's population depends. But as temperatures rise and extreme weather events increase, rice is becoming more vulnerable. Genetically modified strains can withstand some flooding, but few, if any, can survive the heat stress caused by the combination of high temperatures and draught. There may be hardier crops on the horizon, though, with the help of a molecular map that details the specific gene interactions that control how tolerant rice is to heat.

Published today in Science, the map may not lead to pirate treasure, according to the study authors, but it does lay the foundation for something far more valuable to far more people food security.

"During its lifecycle, rice is easily influenced by heat stress, and it's even more vulnerable under global warming," said corresponding author Lin Hongxuan, professor, National Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, Chinese Academy of Science Centre for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology. "Improving the thermal tolerance of rice plays a key role in maintaining and increasing the yield of rice crops under high temperatures, ensuring supply for the food demand of the world population."

The thermal tolerance of rice is a quantitative trait that results from how multiple genes interact, as well as input from the environment. According to Lin, plants have multiple mechanism developed specifically to protect themselves against heat, but how the cells sense high temperatures and communicate that information internally has remained elusive until now.

In a series of experiments with African and Asian rice varieties, the researchers knocked out various genes and studied how that influenced the genetic make-up and physical manifestation of the resulting plants.

"We found that a genetic module in rice links heat signals from the cell's plasma membrane to its internal chloroplasts to protect them from heat-stress damage and increase grain yield under heat stress," Lin said.

Dubbed thermotolerance 3, or TT3, the genetic module is the physical location in the cells genetic material containing the genes, TT3.1 and TT3.2, that interact to enhance rice thermotolerance. A piece of TT3.1 appears to serve as a heat sensor, as it moves away from the plasma membrane to the cells transport pathway, where it tags its partner, TT3.2, to be degraded and removed by the cell. TT3.2 is involved in jeopardizing chloroplasts, and the cell can better protect against heat stress when the abundance of TT3.2 is decreased in chloroplasts, according to Lin.

In the plant analysis, the researchers found that TT3, whether it occurred naturally or was genetically edited, enhanced heat tolerance and reduce yield loss caused by heat stress.

"After seven years of effort, we successfully finely mapped and cloned a newly identified thermotolerant rice module, comprising two genes, and revealed a new plant thermotolerant mechanism, Lin said. This study demonstrates that this genetic interaction can enhance the thermotolerance of rice, significantly reduce the yield loss caused by heat stress and maintain the stable yield of rice."

The researchers plan to continue identifying thermotolerant genes and developing genetic resources to integrate into crop breeding.

"The genes we have already identified are conserved in other major crops, such as maize and wheat," Lin said. "They are valuable resources for breeding highly heat stress-tolerant crops to address food security concerns caused by global warming."

Cells

A genetic module at one locus in rice protects chloroplasts to enhance thermotolerance

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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Hold science to higher standards on racism – STAT

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:01 am

Shortly before an 18-year-old white supremacist entered a supermarket in a Black neighborhood of Buffalo, N.Y., and shot 13 shoppers and employees with an assault rifle bearing a racist epithet, he posted an online diatribe. Other white nationalist terrorists have done that, but this one was different: It cited a considerable quantity of scientific research to support its authors racist claims and actions.

In the weeks since the mid-May shooting, journalists and scientists have discussed what to make of the Buffalo terrorists references to science. Overwhelmingly, these discussions describe the diatribe as relying on pseudoscience or discredited science and co-opting or misreading mainstream science.

But this framing doesnt do enough to hold scientists and the institutions of science accountable for the societal consequences of racist science and scientific racism.

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The term pseudoscience, as used in media descriptions of the Buffalo terrorists diatribe, obscures more than it reveals. Historian of science Michael Gordin has explained that pseudoscience is not a real thing. Rather, the term is a negative category, always ascribed to somebody elses beliefs, not to characterize a doctrine one holds dear oneself. The invocation of pseudoscience in reports about the Buffalo shooting serves mainly to distance science from this horrific massacre, producing the false impression that real science cant be racist.

But real science can be racist. A century ago, racist science was the norm rather than the exception, and the legacy of scientific racism continues to reverberate through the institutions of science. To be sure, some of the research cited by the Buffalo terrorist is outdated and has been discredited, meaning that it is no longer widely accepted as valid. The key words here are no longer this research was once regular, acceptable science until other scientists began to question and critique it.

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The discredited science from the Buffalo terrorists diatribe that is referenced most frequently in the press was produced by J. Philippe Rushton and Richard Lynn, psychologists whose research was heavily supported by the openly racist Pioneer Fund. From the 1980s to the 2010s, these men produced a raft of scientific articles and books that supposedly demonstrated the biological inferiority of people of African descent, purporting to show that they are innately less intelligent and more prone to crime and sexual promiscuity than people of European or Asian descent.

Its important to note that Rushton and Lynn werent pseudoscientists working in pseudoscience labs or institutions. They were tenured professors, Rushton at the University of Western Ontario until his death in 2012 and Lynn at Ulster University until he was finally stripped of his title in 2018. They published in reputable journals, such as the International Journal of Neuroscience and Psychological Science, though they also published in shadier outlets, such as Mankind Quarterly and Personality and Individual Differences. Lynn was a member of the editorial board of the journal Intelligence until 2018. Rushton was a fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. His work was praised and defended by Edward O. Wilson, one of the most celebrated biologists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Although much of Rushton and Lynns research is now widely recognized as racist garbage, it is still available through the journals in which they originally published, in print and online, and does not come with any kind of warning label. An unwitting student searching Google Scholar for race and intelligence could easily stumble upon their work, or a wide variety of similar research, and get no indication it is not to be trusted: It looks like science because it was and in many cases still is science.

Rushton and Lynn are just the most visible edge of a much larger phenomenon, the majority of which hasnt come under the same scrutiny as these men and their work. Racist science is still regularly published in seemingly reputable scientific venues. A case in point is Michael Woodley, a scientist whose affiliation with the Vrije Universiteit Brussel was suspended only after a reference to one of his many racist publications appeared in the Buffalo terrorists diatribe, inspiring a petition by an international group of genetics researchers.

Openly racist research is not the only problem. The Buffalo terrorist also cited cutting-edge research in molecular genetics that is not explicitly racist. Most notable is a 2018 meta-analysis published in Nature Genetics that identifies genomic correlates of educational attainment in white people of European genetic ancestry. UCLAs Daniel Benjamin, a co-founder of the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium, which coordinated the study, described himself as horrified by how the Buffalo terrorist used his groups research. Indeed, their study says little about race other than that the genetic variants that predict educational attainment in white Americans do not predict educational attainment in Black Americans.

To suggest that this study shows any kind of systematic genetic difference between white and Black Americans that makes the former innately more intelligent than the latter is absolutely a misreading that was not intended by the studys authors. Such misreading, however, does not occur only in online white nationalist cesspools. Research in behavior genetics has been consistently misread in this way by scientists since the birth of the field in the 1960s. These scientists include Arthur Jensen, Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray, Glayde Whitney, and Bo Winegard, all of whom have advanced this misinterpretation dubbed Jensenism in a deluge of popular and scientific books and articles that continue to be published in reputable outlets.

For these scientists, Jensenism appears to be justified by the research. If there are genetic variants that make people smarter (the fundamental tenet of behavior genetics), and if genetic variants are distributed differently in different populations (the fundamental tenet of population genetics), then differences between racial groups in intelligence or educational attainment must be rooted in genetic differences.

These basic premises, however, are false. Scientists have not identified any genetic variants that promote intelligence or education, and racial categories do not represent biological populations. To their credit, some behavior geneticists have publicly denounced the drawing of racist conclusions from their findings. Nonetheless, scientific articles and the books scientists write to popularize their findings too often oversell the research in ways that invite racist misreading, which other scientists are only too willing to provide.

Science is a vitally important social activity, contributing positively to all areas of life. Yet scientists are not always right and their work is not always beneficial. If scientists and the institutions of science are to maintain their credibility, they need to do a better job of confronting and addressing their own racism and the press needs to hold them to higher standards.

Emily Klancher Merchant is an assistant professor of science and technology studies at University of California, Davis and the author of Building the Population Bomb (Oxford University Press, 2021).

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Mainz Biomed B.V. (NASDAQ:MYNZ) Now Covered by Analysts at HC Wainwright – Defense World

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:01 am

Research analysts at HC Wainwright initiated coverage on shares of Mainz Biomed B.V. (NASDAQ:MYNZ Get Rating) in a research report issued on Tuesday, The Fly reports. The firm set a buy rating on the stock.

MYNZ stock opened at $8.98 on Tuesday. Mainz Biomed B.V. has a 1 year low of $7.80 and a 1 year high of $30.00. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $11.89 and a 200-day simple moving average of $13.34.

An institutional investor recently bought a new position in Mainz Biomed B.V. stock. Citadel Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Mainz Biomed B.V. (NASDAQ:MYNZ Get Rating) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 11,593 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $120,000.

Mainz Biomed B.V., a molecular genetics cancer diagnostic company, develops in-vitro diagnostic (IVD) and research use only tests for clinical diagnostics in human genetics. It offers ColoAlert, a colorectal cancer screening test; PancAlert, a product candidate for a pancreatic cancer screening test; GenoStrip to detect pathogens in environments on a molecular genetic basis; and research-use-only and IVD tests.

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The "Age" Of Your Sperm Could Predict Your Chances Of Pregnancy – Fatherly

Posted: June 22, 2022 at 2:01 am

Measuring how old a persons sperm is could help predict the chances of them getting pregnant, according to a new study. But sperms age isnt just how many birthdays its had. It takes about 64 days for a sperm cell to mature, and depending on how much sex youre having (or how much youre masturbating), its released into the world shortly thereafter. But a sperms age has nothing to do with that cycle. Instead, it has to do with the aging process that occurs at the cellular level. And that biological age is linked to how long it takes a couple to conceive.

Chronological age, or how much time a person has lived, is an important factor when it comes to pregnancy especially for pregnant people, who have a finite number of egg cells. But it doesnt tell the whole story.

All your friends from high school, they're the same age, right? says J. Richard Pilsner, Ph.D., director of Molecular Genetics and Infertility at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, and lead author of the study. But that number doesn't capture some of the genetic differences they have or environmental factors like smoking or exercising, which can have major impacts on the aging process, Pilsner says.

Chronological age is actually somewhat of an arcane way of thinking about aging. If we have a precise measurement of the biological age, that's going to give us more information, he says.

Thats why his team developed a novel technique to read the true biological age of sperm cells. They measured this age by reading how much DNA methylation a sperm cell has how many of a type of chemical called methyl groups are attached to the sperms DNA, which alters how its genes are expressed. The more methylation, the older the sperm. Using this method, the researchers can tell whether sperms biological age is up to nine years younger or older than its makers chronological age.

Pilsner and his team used this technique to analyze the sperm of 379 people from 16 different locations across the U.S. from 2005 to 2009, then followed the participant couples for up to 12 months or until they got pregnant. They compared the sperms biological age against the ability of the couple to get pregnant. Couples with older sperm took 17% longer to get pregnant than people with younger sperm.

17%

How much longer it took people with older sperm to get their partners pregnant compared to people with younger sperm.

A sperms biological age can match up with a persons chronological age, but it doesnt necessarily have to. A man could be 30 years old, but his sperm's epigenetic age may be 35, and that's causing a lower pregnancy probability, Pilsner says.

Lifestyle choices can advance the biological aging of sperm. For example, the study found that men who smoked had older sperm.

Pilsner will be conducting more research on what can speed up or slow down sperm aging in the coming months, but he notes that the basics of a healthy lifestyle, sleep, diet, and exercise are important for ensuring that your cells dont mature too quickly. Future research could also shed light on whether sperms age affects the babys health.

Knowing sperms true age could also help couples get pregnant faster. If a person has very old sperm, for example, they may decide to look into assisted reproductive technology sooner.

There's very little screening for male reproductive health, Pilsner says. He hopes that the new technique for determining sperms age could one day help doctors diagnose clinical infertility, given that the semen parameters currently used have been shown to be poor predictors of reproductive success. We need this new biomarker that really captures what's happening biologically within the cell, he says.

The next step? After validating these findings, Pilsners lab will run experiments on mice to see whether there could be pharmacological options for rejuvenating older sperm cells. One day, its possible that men having trouble getting their partners pregnant could turn back the clock on their sperm to increase their chances of getting pregnant.

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