The University of Manchester and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) have launched a major new e-science resource for biologists which could accelerate research into treatments for H1N1 flu and cancer.

Biocatalogue.org, a centralised registry of curated life science Web Services, is being officially launched today (Wednesday 1 July) at the 17th Annual International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology and the 8th European Conference on Computational Biology conference (ISMB-ECCB 2009) in Stockholm.

This type of systematic access has the potential to significantly accelerate the work of researchers in the medical, agronomical and pharmaceutical fields. The service allows researchers to discover, annotate, register and use biological web-based services.

Biocatalogue.org already has around 1,000 biological Web Services and more and more will be registered and annotated by services providers, curators and users on a daily basis.

Services are monitored by automated mechanisms and by the user community for their availability and reliability. A simple traffic light system displays the current status of a Web Service.

In addition to providing the means to programmatically access life science tools and databases over the Internet, the facility acts as a place where researchers can contact and meet the experts and maintainers of these services.

Web services have gained a momentum as a means for packaging existing data and computational resources in a form that is amenable for use and composition by third party applications.

The life science community is among the first adopters of Web Services. Taverna, a workflow workbench that is popular within the life science community and which was jointly developed by computer scientists at The University of Manchester provides access to over 3,500 Web Services that can be composed by scientists for constructing and enacting their in silico experiments.

But one of the main issues that hinders the wide adoption and use of Web Services is the difficulty in locating those that perform the analysis the scientist is interested in.

With Biocatalogue.org, Web Services are annotated by expert curators, service providers and by the wider Community using tags, rating, comments and ontologies. Automated mining and monitoring tools are also used.

The project has been led by Prof Carole Goble at The University of Manchester and Rodrigo Lopez at EMBL EBI.

Other contributors include Khalid Belhajjame, Franck Tanoh, Jiten Bhagat, Katy Wolstencroft and Robert Stevens from The University of Manchester and Eric Nzuobontane, Hamish McWilliam and Thomas Laurent from EMBL EBI.

The project is been funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

Source: Manchester University

The opening of a unique centre will put Newcastle at the forefront of cancer research and bring benefits to patients in the North East.

The Newcastle Centre for Cancer Research based at Newcastle University will be jointly funded by three charities - Cancer Research UK, Leukaemia Research and the North of England Children’s Cancer Research Fund.

The Centre will bring together leading UK researchers and help set the pace for national and international progress in diagnosing and treating the whole spectrum of different cancers including cancers of the blood in adults and children.

It will concentrate on understanding the basic biology of how and why cancers develop so new drugs can be designed. A priority will also be personalised medicine where instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, treatments are tailored to individual cancer patient’s needs. This avoids unnecessary side effects and improves survival rates.

Collaboration will be the key to the success of the Centre, which will make it easier for researchers to work alongside doctors treating patients on the ward. This enables patients to benefit as soon as possible from any breakthroughs in research.

The Centre will be based at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research at Newcastle University. Cancer Research UK plans to launch up to 20 centres around the UK.

Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: “Funding these centres of excellence is one of the charity’s priorities and will enable us to work towards the goals we have set to improve the treatment and survival of cancer patients across all types of cancer. We’re now committing £5.5million every year towards research in the Newcastle centre. We continue to welcome the generous donations we receive from the public to ensure we can continue to build on what we have started today.”

Cathy Gilman, chief executive of Leukaemia Research, said: “Leukaemia Research has nearly £4million invested in research here in Newcastle. Closer collaboration between scientists at the Newcastle Centre for Cancer Research will mean we can make quicker progress towards new drugs and more personalised treatments for patients with leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma in the North East and the rest of the UK.”

David Wood, chairman of the North of England Children’s Cancer Research Fund, said: “Newcastle hosts one of the leading research teams in Europe focussed on childhood leukaemia and cancer. Great strides have been made in recent years, and here in Newcastle we have the infrastructure to develop new and even better treatments for childhood cancer. The formation of this centre of excellence will help expand this work and take a step nearer to our overall goal of finding a cure for childhood cancer.”

Source
Cancer Research UK

Vegetarians are 12 per cent less likely to develop cancer than meat eaters, according to new research published in the html” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”>British Journal of Cancer .

In a study of more than 61,000 people, Cancer Research UK scientists from Oxford followed meat eaters and vegetarians for over 12 years, during which 3,350 of the participants were diagnosed with cancer.

They found that the risk of being diagnosed with cancers of the stomach, bladder and blood* was lower in vegetarians than in meat eaters.

The most striking difference was in cancers of the blood including leukaemia, multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The risk of these diseases was 45 per cent lower in vegetarians than in meat eaters.

Professor Tim Key, study author from the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University, said: “Our large study looking at cancer risk in vegetarians found the likelihood of people developing some cancers is lower among vegetarians than among people who eat meat. In particular vegetarians were much less likely to develop cancers of the blood which include leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. More research is needed to substantiate these results and to look for reasons for the differences.”

The study looked at 20 different types of cancers. The differences in risks between vegetarians and meat eaters were independent of other lifestyle behaviours including smoking, alcohol intake and obesity which also affect the chance of developing cancer.

Sara Hiom, director of health information at Cancer Research UK, said: “These interesting results add to the evidence that what we eat affects our chances of developing cancer. We know that eating a lot of red and processed meat increases the risk of stomach cancer. But the links between diet and cancer risk are complex and more research is needed to see how big a part diet plays and which specific dietary factors are most important.

“The relatively low number of vegetarians who developed cancer in this study supports Cancer Research UK’s advice that people should eat a healthy, balanced diet high in fibre, fruit and vegetables and low in saturated fat, salt and red and processed meat.

“It’s understandable that what you eat can be linked to cancers of the digestive system, but more surprising to see an association between diet and leukaemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma or multiple myeloma. More research is needed to understand the mechanisms behind this.”

Notes

*Blood cancers include non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma and leukaemia

**The results include data from two previous studies - Oxford Vegetarian Study and EPIC-Oxford

Source
Cancer Research UK