HUM-MOLGEN archive: CALL: various messages

New CALLs! The CALL section is open for requests and offers of information, collaboration, help, finding persons or telephone numbers (NOT related to diagnostic issues or patient requests), out-of print books and all other kinds of non-trivial information-exchange concerning genetics. You can reach over 5000 of your colleagues, and on average you may expect up to twenty replies to a single message. This service is absolutely FREE of charge. Help yourself by helping your colleagues! -Please send high quality messages only, including full name, address and purpose. -Please use the appropraite TOPIC subject heading in your message. -Please state non-trivial questions only. -Please reply by private E-mail only, unless your request is of general interest to the entire HUM-MOLGEN community Other messages may be refused without further notification. Good CALLs!! Arthur Bergen Min Ae Lee Abdel Hakim Ben Nasr (CALL editors) ************************************************************************ This CALL contains the following subjects: 1) Gene transfer into CNS 2) Search engine for sientists 3) Grants by the National Niemann-Pick Disease Foundation 4) Cell line data base ************************************************************************ 1) Gene transfer into CNS Hello there, I am currently preparing to scale up some in vitro work to in vivo for intracerebral gene transfer. I currently am working with liposomal transfection of in vitro astroyctes which have "matured" in culture for three weeks and acheived transfection efficiencies of about 3%. I would like to ask for input from those on the list who have experience in gene transfer to brain. I am specifically wondering what sort of vectors seem to give the best transfection efficiencies in vivo. By efficiency, I mean the number of cells transfected versus number of cells not transfected. The current literature I have seen seems to indicate it to be rather low (less than 5%). For instance, Peel et. al. (Gene Therapy, 4:16-24) seemed to have about 2500 positive cells in a 2.2 mm length of spinal cord slices following aav transduction with a NSE promoter (Green Flourescent Protein reporter). What sort of efficiencies are people achieving in their labs (1%, 10% >20%?). What vectors seem to be working best? Thanks in advance, David McKalip, M.D. Neurosurgery Chief Resident david_mckalip@unc.edu University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Personal Homepage: http//www.unc.edu/~dmmckali UNC Neurosurgery Website: http://sunsite.unc.edu/Neuro ************************************************************************ 2) Search engine for sientists Dear colleague, I wish to inform you of the existence of a new search engine designed by scientists, Biolinks (http://www.biolinks.com). We offer a broad list of scientific companies, journals, associations & societies, software for scientists, meetings, publishers, national organizations, medical sites, career opportunities, research tools & databases, a university and a national organization listing and a BioBoard. Biolinks is a unique search engine since a member of our staff has visited each site listed on our search engine. Thus, the information listed on our site is relevant to our needs as researchers. Please take time to visit Biolinks, the address is http://www.biolinks.com/ The search engine is useful since you can type in a product (ex. pipette, antibody) or a city to facilitate your search. Also, the search engine is similar to medline, no needs for Boolean expressions like AND & OR. The search engine is fast and simple, without having to browse through hundreds or thousands of results to your simple query as you would expect to receive at other internet search engines. We would appreciate your help by informing your colleagues of the existence of Biolinks and forwarding this email to people that would find our site of interest. By doing so, you will be helping colleagues to find a resource that is of value. You are als o welcome to give us feedback on our site, to adapt it to your needs. Please be assured that this is not "spam" and your email will remain confidential within our organization. Thank you for your consideration, Sincerely, Dr. Luc Levesque Ph.D. Biolinks' Webmaster http://www.biolinks.com/ ************************************************************************ 3) Grants by the National Niemann-Pick Disease Foundation The National Niemann-Pick Disease Foundation offers grants for research into the cause, effects, and/or treatment of Niemann-Pick Disease. Past grants have ranged from $10,000 to $160,000. All applications are reviewed by the Foundation's Scientific Advisory Board. The deadline to apply for the current round of grants is June 1, 1998. Grant proposals submitted after that date would be considered in the next round of grants (January 1999). For more information, please contact Marie Zahner Director of Research 421 Grace Hill Road Jamesburg, NJ 08831 Information concerning past grants, Niemann-Pick disease, and current research efforts can be found on the Foundation's website at http://www.nnpdf.org Douglas Pease webmaster@nnpdf.org National Niemann-Pick Disease Foundation Inc. ************************************************************************ 4) Cell line data base Dear all, this is to announce you that a new version of HyperCLDB has been set up and is available at the following URL: http://www.biotech.ist.unige.it/cldb/indexes.html HyperCLDB is the hypertext version of the Cell Line Data Base, devoted to information on availability of human and animal cell lines within European collections and laboratories. Among the others are: - European Collection of Animal Cell Cultures - ECACC (818 cell lines, UK), - German Collection of Cell Cultures - DSMZ (265 lines, DE), - German Cancer Research Center - DKFZ (267 lines, DE), - Istituto Pediatrico Gaslini (822 lines, IT) - Russian Cell Culture Collections (526 lines, RU) - Centro Genetica Umana - Istituto Galliera (652 lines, IT) - Interlab Cell Line Collection - ICLC (100 lines, IT) - Istituto Zooprofilattico Brescia (203 lines, IT) See you soon on HyperCLDB! Paolo Romano Paolo Romano Biotechnology Department, Advanced Biotechnology Centre Largo Rosanna Benzi, 10, I-16132, Genova, Italy Tel: +39-10-5737-288 Fax: +39-10-5737-295 Email: paolo@ist.unige.it ************************************************************************ Min Ae Lee, M.D. Assistant Editor Human Molecular Genetics Network Molecular Genetics and Genetic Epidemiology Cardiovascular Division Department of Medicine Brigham and Women's Hospital Harvard Medical School tel: 617-732 8174 fax: 617-264 6830 email: mal@calvin.bwh.harvard.edu