MIT News: New source of cells for modeling malaria

Liver cells derived from stem cells can be infected with malaria and used to test potential drugs
MIT researchers engineered liver-like cells that can be infected with several strains of the parasite that causes malaria, including Plasmodium falciparum (top row) and Plasmodium berghei (bottom row). The red stain reveals parasite infection.


CAMBRIDGE, MA -- In 2008, the World Health Organization announced a global effort to eradicate malaria, which kills about 800,000 people every year. As part of that goal, scientists are trying to develop new drugs that target the malaria parasite during the stage when it infects the human liver, which is

MIT researchers engineered liver-like cells that can be infected with several strains of the parasite that causes malaria, including Plasmodium falciparum (top row) and Plasmodium berghei (bottom row). The red stain reveals parasite infection. Courtesy of the researchers

crucial because some strains of malaria can lie dormant in the liver for several years before flaring up.
A new advance by MIT engineers could aid in those efforts: The researchers have discovered a way to grow liver-like cells from induced pluripotent stem cells. These cells can be infected with several strains of the malaria parasite and respond to existing drugs the same way that mature liver cells taken from human donors do.
Such cells offer a plentiful source for testing potential malaria drugs because they can be made from skin cells. New drugs are badly needed, since some forms of the malaria parasite have become resistant to existing treatments, says Sangeeta Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT.
“Drug resistance is emerging that we are continually chasing. The thinking behind the call to eradication is that we can’t be chasing resistance and distributing bed nets to protect from mosquitoes forever. Ideally, we would rid ourselves of the pathogen entirely,” says Bhatia, who is also a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES).
These cells, described in the Feb. 5 online issue of Stem Cell Reports, could also allow scientists to test drugs on cells from people with different genetic backgrounds, who may respond differently to malaria infection and treatment.
The paper’s lead author is Shengyong Ng, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering and IMES. Other authors of the paper are former IMES postdoc Robert Schwartz; MIT research scientist Sandra March; IMES research technician Ani Galstian; HST graduate students Nil Gural and Jing Shan; former IMES research technician Mythili Prabhu; and Maria Mota, a researcher at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Portugal.

Modeling infection
Until now, malaria researchers have not had many reliable ways to test new drugs in liver tissue. “What’s historically been done is people have tried to make do with the systems that were available,” Bhatia says.
Those systems include testing drugs in cancerous liver cells or in mice infected with a rodent-specific version of the malaria parasite. However, cancerous cells divide much more frequently than normal adult liver cells, and are missing some of the genes required for drug metabolism. The mouse model is not ideal because the rodent version of malaria is different from the human one, so drugs that are successful in mice don’t always work in humans.
In 2013, Bhatia and colleagues showed that they could mode malaria infection in adult liver cells, known as hepatocytes, taken from human donors. However, this generates only a limited supply from each donor, and not all of the cells work well for drug studies.
The researchers then turned to induced pluripotent stem cells. These immature cells can be generated from human skin cells by adding several genes known as reprogramming factors. Once the cells are reprogrammed, they can be directed to form differentiated adult cells by adding specific growth factors.
To create liver cells, the researchers added a series of growth factors, including hepatocyte growth factor. Working with Charles Rice of Rockefeller University and Stephen Duncan of the Medical College of Wisconsin, Bhatia’s lab generated these cells in 2012 and used them to model infection of hepatitis C. However, these cells, known as hepatocyte-like cells, did not seem to be as mature as real adult liver cells.
In the new study, the MIT team found that these cells could be infected with several strains of malaria, but did not have the same drug responses as adult liver cells. In particular, they were not sensitive to primaquine, which works only if cells have a certain set of drug-metabolism enzymes found in mature liver cells. This is important because primaquine is one of only two drugs approved to treat liver-stage malaria, and many of the drugs now in development are based on primaquine.
To induce the cells to become more mature and turn on these metabolic enzymes, the researchers added a molecule they had identified in a previous study. This compound, which the researchers call a “maturin,” stimulated the cells to turn on those enzymes, which made them sensitive to primaquine treatment.

Toward better drugs
The MIT team is now working with the nonprofit foundation Medical Malaria Ventures to test about 10 potential malaria drugs that are in the pipeline, first using adult donor liver cells and then the hepatocyte-like cells generated in this study.
These cells could also prove useful to help identify new drug targets. In this study, the researchers found that the liver-like cells can be infected with malaria when they are still in the equivalent of fetal stages of development, when they become cells known as hepatoblasts, which are precursors to hepatocytes.
In future studies, the researchers plan to investigate which genes get turned on at the point when the cells become susceptible to infection, which may suggest new targets for malaria drugs. They also hope to compare the genes needed for malaria infection with those needed for hepatitis infection, in hopes of identifying common pathways to target for both diseases.
The research was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; the Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and Research; and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Written by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office



Contact: Sarah McDonnell, MIT News Office

E: s_mcd@mit.edu, T: 617-253-8923

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue Building 11-400, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 United States

The Games People Play

UCSB’s new Center for Digital Games Research takes a multidisciplinary approach to the study and design of digital media and games

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Want to add some adventure to your daily run? Try jogging through a zombie apocalypse with “Zombies, Run!” Or sign up with a virtual personal trainer who will be available 24/7 and won’t cost an arm and a leg with Nike+ Kinect Training.

Debra Liebermann,
Photo Credit: Spencer Bruttig

Video games have come a long way since Pac-Man and Space Invaders. As technology has advanced by leaps and bounds so have storylines, graphics and user interfaces. Once the province of adolescent boys, this form of digital media now appeals to people of both genders and of all ages. What’s more, it has found applications in a host of areas such as K-12 learning, health education in hospitals and clinics, physical therapy and rehabilitation at home, psychotherapy and counseling, workplace training, op-ed journalism and crowdsourcing for scientific discovery.

The impact of video games — and digital media in general — as well as their boundless potential to engage and entertain in ways that enrich people’s lives, is the focus of the newly established Center for Digital Games Research at UC Santa Barbara.

Erica Biely, Photo Credit: Spencer Bruttig

“Many of our affiliated faculty members investigate players’ cognitive and emotional responses to digital media and games, and how these responses can be used to advance player knowledge, skills, attitudes and behavior as a way to move design and implementation forward,” said Debra Lieberman, Ph.D., the center’s director and a researcher at UCSB’s Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research. Supported by seed money from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Center for Digital Games Research studies digital media and games from a multidisciplinary perspective. Faculty affiliates bring a wide range of expertise in areas such as human-computer interaction, virtual environments, simulations, social networks, data mining, interactive storytelling and narrative, media neuroscience, and behavioral health.

“Our research contributes to the evidence-based design of digital media and games to improve their quality and effectiveness and to serve the needs and abilities of end users,” said Lieberman, who is also a lecturer in UCSB’s Department of Communication. Her own research is focused on processes of learning, motivation and behavior change with interactive media and games, with special interests in the design of games for health and learning.

Lieberman’s current grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation follows her 2007 award

that established at UCSB a six-year, $8.25-million national program called Health Games Research, with

Lieberman serving as director. She and her team provided scientific leadership in the emerging health

games field and funded 21 research projects across the country that studied the design and effectiveness

of health games.

“The field has grown enormously, and the research has, too,” said Lieberman. “UCSB saw an

opportunity to continue our work in a way that would include the university’s faculty from many

academic disciplines and would bring together their wide range of research and development expertise.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation liked the idea and provided start-up funding to help us establish

the center.”

“As we work to build a Culture of Health, digital games — which are ingrained in the daily lives

of Americans across the ages — have a role in helping us make healthier decisions and foster healthier

lifestyles,” said Paul Tarini, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation senior program officer. “We have good

evidence that games can be used to improve health. The Center for Digital Games Research will put that

knowledge to work, guiding gamers and designers in developing the next generation of health games.”

The center at UCSB is novel in its research approach. “We wanted the word ‘research’ in the

name of our center because it is fundamental to what we do. Building an evidence base that leads to

effective principles of game design is essential to creating interactive media and games that will engage,

entertain and inspire people and will immerse them in compelling and impactful virtual experiences.”

UCSB’s center is novel also in its interdisciplinary nature. Affiliated faculty members — 30 so

far — cut a broad swath across campus, with home departments in the physical and biological sciences,

computer and engineering sciences, social and behavioral sciences and the arts and humanities. “We now

have a wide range of expertise and initiatives,” Lieberman continued. “And we’re working with a variety

of digital media.”

Take Frank Doyle’s research, for example. The professor and chair of chemical engineering is

working with his team to develop an artificial pancreas as a way of delivering insulin to individuals who

have Type-1 diabetes. “This is a profound change in their treatment because they’re letting technology

manage their disease,” Doyle said.

But what do video games have to do with an artificial pancreas?

DIGITAL GAMES RESEARCH 3-3-3

technology. There’s a profound link between what we’re doing and the behavioral aspects that come out

of things like digital games research.”

Other research projects connected to the Center for Digital Games Research are looking at topics

such as the changes that occur in the brain when people are using media; the design of cellphone sensors

that can contribute to health behavior change and health self-monitoring; and even the use of tablet games

for learning English.

In Matthew Turk’s Four Eyes Lab at UCSB, research focuses on interactive technologies using

sensing and other techniques to communicate with people in ways that normal computing doesn’t. “Our

biggest overlap with the center,” the professor of computer science explained, “is to introduce new kinds

of technologies into the gaming environment — sensing people, understanding their identity, their

motion, their activities, and also sensing the world, building models of the world so we can bring the

physical space into the gaming scenario.”

A good example of that is augmented reality, continued Turk, who is also a faculty member in the

campus’s Media Arts and Technology Program. “In augmented reality we’re dealing with mixing

computer-generated imagery with some sort of display of reality, maybe on a mobile device or a

computer screen.”

The same augmented-reality technologies that make video games more, well, realistic have other

applications as well. Remote collaboration — people trying to work on things together when those things

involve the physical space around them — is only one example. “Take for example a repair task or

something similar. It doesn’t work very well with Skype or some 2-D-oriented conferencing,” Turk

explained. “But when we can model the local world and let people interact spatially rather than just

through 2-D imagery, something that’s very relevant to gaming could be transformational for video-based

communications.”

It could also transform remote medicine and the ability of a physician in, say, Baltimore to lend

medical expertise to a patient in South Africa. “That’s an area where the gaming technologies have a real

clear use in lots of areas in the world,” Turk said.

In addition to conducting research and development, the Center for Digital Games Research

maintains an online searchable Health Games Database that provides information about hundreds of

health games and hundreds of related publications, resources, organizations and events. “The database has

been widely used over the past several years and we have received very positive feedback from our users,

who appreciate having a comprehensive collection of games-related resources assembled in one place that

is easy to use and navigate,” said Erica Biely, the center’s associate director.

“All these pieces — the database, the broad multidisciplinary research, the application of research

to advance the design of media, games and related technologies — come together in a center that is

building our understanding of the ways interactive media and games affect our lives today and how we

can improve them and innovate with them in the future,” Lieberman said.

Note to editors: Debra Lieberman is available at debra.lieberman@ucsb.edu or (805) 893-7571. Erica

Biely is available at erica.biely@ucsb.edu or (805) 893-7787.

 Andrea Estrada

(805) 893-4620

andrea.estrada@ucsb.edu

George Foulsham

(805) 893-3071

george.foulsham@ucsb.edu

February 2, 2015

Deep-Sea Mining: What are the risks?

GEOMAR coordinates European joint project on impact assessment 

29 January 2015/Kiel. 50 specialists in deep-sea ecology, marine mining and deep-sea observation from 25 European research institutions met this week at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel to start the three-year research project "JPI Oceans Ecological aspects of deep-sea mining". It aims at investigating the impact of potential ore mining on the deep-sea environment. The project is coordinated by GEOMAR. 

In some regions of the oceans manganese nodules
occur in vast amounts on the seafloor. Photo: Nils Brenke, CeNak

The world’s population is growing. This also means that more and more people need a home, want to work with computers and consume energy. For the construction of houses, for the production of electronic goods, but also for the installation of wind turbines significant amounts of various metals are needed. Currently, all metal ores are mined on less than a third of earth's surface – on the continents. However, in recent decades governments and exploration companies directed their focus towards the other two thirds, the oceans. "Many questions about potential ore mining in the deep sea, however, are still unanswered," says Dr. Matthias Haeckel from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. He is the scientific coordinator of the project "Ecological aspects of deep-sea mining" which is aimed at investigating the potential environmental impacts in the next three years. A consortium of research ministries in eleven European countries is funding the project as part of the Joint Program Healthy and Productive Seas (JPI Oceans) initiative of the European Union with a total budget of 9.5 million euros. This week, the project started with a kick-off meeting at GEOMAR.

The project is realized by 25 partners from 11 European countries. In the coming three years the participating scientists will study the deep-sea ecosystems in two areas hosting vast amounts of polymetallic nodules. Nodules have caught industry's interest because of promising prospects for heavy metals, such as rare earth elements (REE), copper, nickel, and cobalt. They mainly occur in the abyssal plains of the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Ocean. First pilot mining projects were conducted in the 1970s but stopped again soon. 1994, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) was founded to set up internationally binding regulations for the utilization of the seabed beyond national jurisdiction (called 'The Area') within the regularity of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Today the ISA has granted 13 licenses for the exploration of polymetallic nodule fields in the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the north-east Pacific and one license in the Indian Ocean. Several European countries are among the license holders. “But these are no mining licenses, which are anticipated  to follow in the next decade or so,” says Dr. Haeckel.

One of the obligations of the ISA is to ensure effective protection of the marine environment from harmful effects that may arise from commercial deep-sea mining operations. “Such activities will indisputably affect the status of the marine environment by disturbing the seafloor and the overlying oceanic water column”, adds Dr. Haeckel. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to assess how the habitats of benthic and pelagic communities are affected by different mining technologies, what size of seafloor area and ocean water is impacted directly by mining gear and indirectly by the dispersion of created sediment plumes as well as how long it takes for the deep-sea ecosystem to recover, prior to the employment of any mining activities at industrial scale.

From March to April this year, the JPIO project will embark on Germany’s newest research vessel SONNE to visit the German, Belgian, and French license areas and, for the first time, one of the nine protected areas defined in the CCZ by ISA. The primary goals are to assess the ecosystem status prior to any mining activities, to study the long-range connectivity of benthic fauna across the CCZ, and to evaluate if seamounts are suitable refuges and seeds for recolonization for species from mined areas.

From July to October 2015, scientific cruises with RV SONNE are planned to revisit the DISCOL experimental area in the Peru Basin, where a seafloor area was scientifically disturbed by ploughing in 1989. Studying this unique site will allow to assess the long-term impact of mining activities. At the DISCOL site the scale of recovery, the ecosystem status, and the biogeochemical situation after 26 years will be investigated by comparing disturbed plough tracks with adjacent undisturbed areas.
"We should get to know the deep sea better before we start to change it on potentially large scale," says project coordinator Dr. Haeckel.

Links:
www.geomar.de GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel

Images:
Images are available for download at www.geomar.de/n2261-e

Contact:
Jan Steffen (GEOMAR, Communication & Media), Tel.: (+49) 0431 600-2811, presse@geomar.de

Philae on 67P – MUPUS experiment hammers probe into a comet 500 million kilometres from Earth

Probe discovers hard ice and measures temperature of minus 170 degrees Celsius on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

The thermal probe of the MUPUS instrument measures the temperature and, below the comet surface, the thermal conductivity of the ground. Credit: DLR (CC BY-3.0), Cologne

The MUPUS instrument, one of 10 experiments on the Philae lander that touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko encountered very hard material with a temperature of about minus 170 degrees Celsius – probably rich in ice. "This is a surprise! We did not expect to find such hard ice below the surface," explained Tilman Spohn from the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), the Principal Investigator for MUPUS.

Ice under loose dust layer

During the night of 13 to 14 November 2014, the MUPUS instrument was deployed from the 'balcony' of the lander – that is, from the open instrument bay on the rear wall of Philae – and was hammered about 40 centimetres into the comet's surface. This was unsuccessful, although the hammer power was gradually increased to the highest available level. "Using comparative measurements performed in the laboratory, we estimate that the probe must have likely encountered a layer with the same strength as ice under a 10 to 20 centimetre thick layer of dust," says Spohn. The infrared sensor incorporated into the instrument found that the covering layer of dust exhibited a low thermal inertia. "The team believes that under the very porous dust layer, ice is present." This ice contains dust and might even be quite porous, but, having been thermally sintered over the course of centuries to millions of years, its ingredients have been baked together by repeated temperature changes.

Measurements on approach and after landing

The instrument's infrared sensor, which was developed by the Institute of Planetology at the University of Münster, together with the Space Research Centre in Warsaw and other international partners, is now managed by the DLR Institute of Planetary Research. Data was recorded during the approach and bounces across the comet surface. However, the MUPUS thermal sensors and accelerometers in the anchors could not be used because the anchor harpoons did not fire into the comet surface beneath the lander. "Philae was not anchored to the surface of the comet and possibly came to rest in a tilted position; one of the three legs of the landing gear was not in contact with the surface. After landing, it was not clear whether the MUPUS experiment would be able to perform as intended."

Philae's ultimate landing site is probably at least one kilometre away from the targeted position – likely in front of a wall composed of ice. The team at the DLR Lander Control Center (LCC) was, however, able to operate all 10 instruments on board the lander and obtain data. "We are very happy that many measurements were possible and are currently in the process of analysing the data," says Spohn. "MUPUS could be used again, if we can collect sufficient energy to charge the lander's battery. Then we can examine the layer on which the probe is situated, and observe how the comet develops as it moves closer to the Sun."

The mission

Rosetta is an ESA mission with contributions from its member states and NASA. Rosetta's Philae lander is funded by a consortium led by DLR, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung; MPS), the French Space Agency (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales; CNES) and the Italian Space Agency (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana; ASI).

Contacts:

Manuela Braun German Aerospace Center (DLR) Corporate CommunicationsEditor, Human Space Flight, Space Science, Engineering Tel.: +49 2203 601-3882 Fax: +49 2203 601-3249 mailto:Manuela.Braun@dlr.de

Prof.Dr. Tilman Spohn German Aerospace Center (DLR) DLR Institute of Planetary Research Tel.: +49 30 67055-300 Fax: +49 30 67055-303 mailto:Tilman.Spohn@dlr.de

Norman Borlaug’s Statue Installed Today in US Capitol on 100th anniversary of his birth

The agricultural scientist and hunger fighter is credited with saving more lives than anyone who has ever lived. 
Other global celebrations in Mexico, Washington DC, Iowa.


Every state in the United States is permitted two statues of notable citizens to represent it in the nation’s capitol building; Iowa leaders voted to return another statue and add Borlaug, which will be especially fitting as March 25 is celebrated as National Agriculture Day, and Iowa celebrates its leadership in agriculture and the biosciences.
Borlaug dedicated his life to breeding better varieties of wheat, and worked with farmers, scientists, politicians and others to improve agricultural methods and policies to alleviate hunger and malnutrition worldwide. His achievements earned him recognition as “Father of the Green Revolution” and the distinction of being the only American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal and the National Medal of Science.
“This is a historic event for the State of Iowa and a celebration of our role in feeding the world,” Gov. Branstad said. “Dr. Borlaug is credited with saving an estimated one billion people around the world from hunger and starvation, so it’s fitting that we honor this Cresco, Iowa native and great American hero for his extraordinary agricultural achievements on the 100th anniversary of his birth and National Agriculture Day.”
“The unveiling of Norman E. Borlaug’s statue is a proud moment for our state and all Iowans,” said Iowa Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds. “Visitors to the United States Capitol will now have an opportunity to see his statue and learn more about his remarkable achievements and our state’s leadership in agriculture, biosciences and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education.”
“I spent a decade working with Dr. Borlaug and he was the most humble, hard-working and inspiring person I have ever known,” said Ambassador Kenneth M. Quinn, president of Borlaug’s World Food Prize Foundation and chairman of the Borlaug Statue Committee. “Today’s unveiling not only honors him and our state, but also will be a monument to American agricultural achievement in our nation's capitol that will inspire a new generation to carry on his legacy of agricultural innovation to ensure we have enough nutritious food for all.”
Today’s Statue Dedication Ceremony at 11 a.m. EDT will be webcast live at speaker.gov/live and will include remarks by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), along with remarks by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, members of the Iowa congressional delegation, Gov. Branstad and Quinn, who is also president of Borlaug’s World Food Prize Foundation. Statue artist Benjamin Victor of South Dakota will also be in attendance.

Other events are taking place around the globe to honor Dr. Borlaug, including:

In Mexico, the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative is hosting a technical workshop March 22-25; the Association for Agricultural Research and Experimentation of the State of Sonora will with CIMMYT host a Field Day and Birthday Celebration on March 25; and CIMMYT will host the Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security March 25-28. The World Food Prize will present its Dr. Norman E. Borlaug Medallion to CIMMYT, which was Dr. Borlaug’s research institute in Mexico.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will host a Borlaug Symposium this afternoon focusing on the next generation of agricultural scientists who will lead food production and the fight to end hunger. The symposium will feature several World Food Prize interns and will take place at the USDA Jefferson Auditorium in Washington, D.C. from 2:30 to 5 p.m.

The World Food Prize will host free events all day at its Hall of Laureates in Downtown Des Moines. Watch a webcast of the Statue Unveiling Ceremony, help package meals to feed hungry people, enjoy children's storytimes, tour the building with Iowa artists who have studied and painted Borlaug, explore interactive educational exhibits about Dr. Borlaug, watch a documentary about him, view Howard G. Buffett's international photography exhibit, and see cultural dances at 6 p.m. from the regions of the world in which Dr. Borlaug worked: Mexico, India and Africa. Full schedule will be updated at www.worldfoodprize.org/visit.  

More information about the Iowa Borlaug Statue is available at www.iowaborlaugstatue.org. More information about Dr. Borlaug and The World Food Prize is available at www.worldfoodprize.org/norm. 

Contact: 

Megan Forgrave, Director of Communications, mforgrave@worldfoodprize.org or 515-229-1705 (mobile)

(Des Moines, Iowa) March 25, 2014 – Dr. Norman E. Borlaug’s statue will be installed today at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on what would have been the great agricultural scientist’s 100th birthday. The leadership of the United States Congress, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Governor Terry E. Branstad of Borlaug’s home state of Iowa, and Amb. Kenneth M. Quinn, who chaired the Borlaug Statue Committee, will be part of the ceremony at 11 a.m. Eastern Time.

Research funders set out steps to prevent re-identification of anonymised study participants

Media release from Cancer Research UK, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust

A group of medical research funders today set out the steps they will take to reduce the risk of re-identification of anonymised individual research subjects from genomic, epidemiological and social science data in the UK.

Cancer Research UK, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust have issued a joint response to a statement from the Expert Advisory Group on Data Access (EAGDA), a group of experts established by the funders to provide strategic advice on emerging scientific, ethical and legal issues in relation to data access.

The issue of re-identification was highlighted by a study in the journal Science last year, which showed that it was possible to identify participants in the 1000 Genomes Project through a complex technique that involved combining publicly available demographic information with anonymised genomic datasets.

In October 2013, EAGDA noted that “although the data in a genomic dataset may be fully anonymised in the conventional sense, cross-linking with general demographic data that are available from elsewhere makes it technically possible in some circumstances to triangulate the identities of individual research participants. Large datasets, particularly those including extensive genomic information, cannot be completely safe from inferential exploitation, including subject re-identification. Although the likelihood of such re-identification may currently be low for most types of study, it is likely to increase in the future.”

EAGDA has now set out a number of recommendations to reduce the impact of this risk and these have been accepted in full by the four organisations. They include: assessing and regularly reviewing the risk of re-identification; explaining the risk to participants when obtaining consent for studies; controlling access to data that could potentially identify individuals; and including sanctions that are proportionate to the nature of the offence, such as a withdrawal of funding, if researchers deliberately attempt to re-identify individuals from anonymised data.

Dr Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust, says: "We accept the recommendations made by EAGDA to manage the potential risks and will set about implementing them into our funding policies and communicating this to the research community. Whilst it is impossible to eliminate entirely the risk of re-identification of individuals, it is possible to minimise this risk with proportionate safeguards. We believe that a deliberate attempt to re-identify individuals should be viewed as malpractice and be met with appropriate sanctions."

Sir John Savill, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, says: “It’s important that we protect the interests and anonymity of individuals while enabling research that benefits all society. As funders, we are committed to working together to reduce the risk of re-identification in a way that does not block valuable research to advance social and medical science and improve health.”

The four funders have committed to ensuring that both the EAGDA statement and their response are clearly communicated to their funded communities and are incorporated where appropriate into relevant guidance for studies. The principles and sanctions will be incorporated into their respective existing policies on research misconduct.

Contact

Clare Ryan

Senior Media Officer

The Wellcome Trust

T: +44 (0)20 7611 7262

E: c.ryan@wellcome.ac.uk 

Notes for editors

The Expert Advisory Group on Data Access (EAGDA) was established by the Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the Medical Research Council to provide strategic advice on the emerging scientific, legal and ethical issues associated with data access for human genetics research and cohort studies. For further details, seehere.

About the Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust’s breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests. www.wellcome.ac.uk

About the Medical Research Council

The Medical Research Council has been at the forefront of scientific discovery to improve human health. Founded in 1913 to tackle tuberculosis, the MRC now invests taxpayers’ money in some of the best medical research in the world across every area of health. Twenty-nine MRC-funded researchers have won Nobel prizes in a wide range of disciplines, and MRC scientists have been behind such diverse discoveries as vitamins, the structure of DNA and the link between smoking and cancer, as well as achievements such as pioneering the use of randomised controlled trials, the invention of MRI scanning, and the development of a group of antibodies used in the making of some of the most successful drugs ever developed. Today, MRC-funded scientists tackle some of the greatest health problems facing humanity in the 21st century, from the rising tide of chronic diseases associated with ageing to the threats posed by rapidly mutating micro-organisms. www.mrc.ac.uk

Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting 2014: 600 Young Participants Selected

@ Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings

Approximately 600 aspiring young researchers representing almost 80 countries will be taking part in the 64th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. The organising council has now announced the results of the multi-stage selection process. For the first time in the history of the meetings the percentage of female participants is higher than the male`s percentage (52 to 48%). The students, doctoral students and post-docs will be meeting with 37 Nobel Laureates from 29 June to 4 July 2014. A select group of excellent young scientists will have the opportunity to present and discuss their research in a master class hosted by a Nobel Laureate. This year the dialogue between

@ Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings

generations and cultures, which has been fostered by the meetings since 1951, is dedicated to medicine.

Starting in September 2013 thousands of scientists under the age of 35 applied to participate in the 2014 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. The majority of them were nominated by the more than 200 academic partner organisations of the meeting organisers after they had conducted an internal evaluation process of all submitted applications. Interested young researchers without access to these “Academic Partners” were able to apply through an open application process. In addition to the scientific achievements, the motivation of the applicants was decisive for a positive evaluation. Julie Bonano, a postdoc at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virgina, expresses her excitement of being selected: “I sincerely look forward to the opportunity to meet and network with some of the greatest scientific minds of this generation. My attendance at the Lindau Meeting will hopefully provide me with a new perspective on my research.” 

The selection process was conducted by a scientific panel led by the Lindau Council’s Vice-President Burkhard Fricke, emeritus Professor for Theoretical Physics at the University of Kassel. “The selected young researchers belong to the top of their class”, says Stefan Kaufmann, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Berlin Charité and director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology. “This is the next generation of leading researchers, who expect to gain inspiration from their encounters with Nobel Laureates”, adds Klas Kärre, Professor for Molecular Immunology at the Stockholm Karolinska Institutet. Since 2006 Kärre has been a member of the Nobel Committee, which chooses the laureates for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. 

As council members and scientific chairmen of the up-coming meeting, Kaufmann and Kärre are responsible not only for the selection process but also for conceiving the meeting programme. The main focus of the numerous lectures, panel discussions and master classes is on molecular, genetic and cellular mechanisms, as they are among the keys to the prevention and healing of diseases. Some of the Nobel Laureates, such as J. Michael Bishop or Harald zur Hausen will present the latest findings in cancer research. For many years zur Hausen, the 2008 Nobel Laureate in Medicine, was the chairman and member of the scientific board of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, distinguished with the 2008 Nobel Prize as well, will report about the advancements made in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Another important topic, which Elizabeth H. Blackburn (2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine) will address, is the process of ageing at the cellular level and the diseases associated with that. 

Contact:

Christian Schumacher, Head of Communications 

Email: christian.schumacher@lindau-nobel.org

Phone: + 49 (0) 8382 27731 15 

Fax : + 49 (0) 8382 27731 13 

 Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings 

Lennart-Bernadotte-Haus 

Alfred-Nobel-Platz 1 

88131 Lindau - Germany 

www.lindau-nobel.org