This is a teen-written article from our friends at Youth Communication, a nonprofit organization that helps marginalized youth develop their full potential through reading and writing.
By Juana Campos
When I was seven, my father taught me how to ride a horse. It was the most beautiful experience of my entire life.
My family still lived in the Dominican Republic then, and one day my father took a day off from work to go with me to my uncle?s farm. The horse he chose for me to ride was dark brown and her name was Susanne, but I couldn?t pronounce that, so I called her chucale, which later became my nickname.
It was a beautiful sunny, breezy day, and the green field was full of flowers. The wind was moving my curly hair and all I could hear were the birds singing. I rode Susanne while my father guided me.
?Gather the rope around her neck,? he said.
?OK, Daddy.?
I accidentally grabbed Susanne?s mane instead of the rope and she reared up. I was going to scream for help but then I realized I was pulling her hair so I let it go and she stopped. I was worried that I might fall, but I had fun, too, as though I was going up and down on a roller coaster.
?Are you having fun with Susanne?? my father asked me. He was really excited that I didn?t fall off the horse and he seemed happy.
?Her name is Chucale,? I yelled at him, rolling my eyes.
?Fine, however you want to call her. Just don?t hit her so she won?t get angry.?
I kept going in circles with Susanne until it started raining. We got wet and then my father took me inside so I wouldn?t catch a cold. My dad had taken a picture of me riding Susanne, and he wanted to give it to me but I refused to accept it.
?It?s OK, Daddy, you keep it. After all, I had a great time with Chucale and I don?t need a photo to remember this moment.?
Two years later, my father left our home and I haven?t seen him since. But I?m pretty sure he remembers that day as much as I do.
A Desert Inside
The day I went from living with both of my parents to live with only my mother, I felt like a desert, empty and like everyone had abandoned me. I was 9, and I?d arrived home early from school. The front door was open so I entered the house unnoticed. I heard my mom and dad talking in their bedroom. I couldn?t hear what they were saying, but my mother sounded as if she was about to cry so I got closer and listened.
?Why did you do this to me?? my mother asked.
?I don?t know. It was an impulse,? my father replied.
?What impulse? What are you talking about? How many times have you cheated on me?? she yelled at my father.
?Is this how much you ?love? me?? she asked. Mom started crying.
?Don?t cry,? Dad said.
?How am I supposed to tell the kids about this?? she said with a sad voice.
They stopped talking for a second but then my father said that they should divorce because he wanted to marry the other woman. He told her he was sorry for her and the kids, and that he was sorry for not telling her before.
?I?ll leave next week and when the kids ask you where am I, just tell them that Daddy found a new job and had to move to the city for a few months.?
I felt a lump rising in my throat, but if I cried, my parents would notice I was listening.
The next few days were agony. When mom told me and my siblings that our dad was leaving for a few months because he found a new ?job? in the city, my siblings believed what my mother was saying. But I knew the truth, and later I told my mom that I?d overheard their conversation.
He Never Came Back
She hugged me. She tried to deny it, but then she realized she had to be honest with me. ?Oh honey, I wish you hadn?t heard that, but things aren?t going well between Mommy and Daddy so we have to divorce,? she said in a quiet, comforting voice. She gave me a kiss on my forehead.
I felt angry but tears flooded my eyes. I rolled my eyes and they disappeared. I didn?t want to look weak in front of Mom. I wanted her to see I was a brave girl. I promised never to tell my siblings the real reason my father left.
After that, I saw my father twice and then he never came back. The last time I saw him, he took me to a park in the city of Santiago and bought me ice cream. I understood that I wasn?t going to see him frequently after that, but I never thought that was going to be the last time.
At first, my brother and sister believed what Mom said about him and his new ?job,? but soon they noticed that he didn?t keep in touch with us. They were sad but they weren?t so close to my father, so I don?t think it affected them as much as it affected me.
My sister and I talked a lot about how we felt. My sister said that she was sad that our dad had left but she said she understood that he?d found someone else and maybe that person made him happier than my mom had. She was 14, so maybe it was easier for her to take that in.
Click here to read the rest of the story on YCTeenmag.org.
Reprinted with permission from Youth Communication.
What is Kickstarter? The answer you'll hear, as long-winded as it may be, will likely touch on Pebble. If it doesn't, you'll probably want to ask someone else -- with more than $10 million pledged, the people's smartwatch catapulted past the crowdfunding site's records and the startup's own expectations. It achieved a $100,000 funding goal in two hours, and it was clearly a favorite among our readers. Of course, there were doubts that Eric Migicovsky, the company's founder, would deliver such an appealing and seemingly powerful product for $125, but following our first look during the company's CES press conference, that dream became real.
So, what is Pebble? It's not a smartphone for your wrist, as we've seen attempted before. In fact, it's far less sophisticated than you might expect -- the lightweight device reads out basic text, lets you skip through music tracks and, of course, displays the time. It's hardly the greatest achievement of our generation, or even the device of the year. It's become incredibly popular, sure, but despite the hype, you certainly don't need to own one. Yet, somehow, even the most technologically inept people in our lives have heard it mentioned on morning talk shows, FM radio stations or from pre-teens anxious to impress their friends. Having a smartphone alone isn't enough anymore. Or is it?
We tested a black Pebble, which is the first color to ship. The face is slightly glossier than renders implied, but otherwise the production device looks nearly identical to early prototypes. There's a 22mm rubber strap for mounting the device to your wrist -- you'll likely be able to swap in your own band with matching dimensions. It's a fairly attractive combination, though regardless of the strap you choose, you'll probably want to leave Pebble behind during formal events, or walks down the runway.
Pebble feels very comfortable when fastened on the wrist -- it's relatively lightweight, and the smooth edges maintain their distance from sensitive skin. Still, it feels solid enough for regular use, and thanks to waterproofing down to 50 meters (164 feet), it can stay on your wrist during laps in the pool (or in the ocean), and it'll work just fine in the shower as well. There are two exposed metal connectors, used to pair up with the proprietary magnetic USB charging cable (the only accessory that ships in the box), but the housing appears to be properly sealed.
The secret to Pebble's weeklong battery life and daylight readability is a technology similar to what's penetrated the lives of bookworms young and old: an e-paper display. The 114 x 168 black-and-white screen sports nearly 20,000 pixels, letting you view emails and a time readout in several fonts, along with watch faces and other indicators. The display looks great both indoors and out, though we did notice some odd black spotting while viewing the panel in direct sunlight -- adjusting the angle eradicates the issue.
There's a simple backlight that illuminates the panel briefly at night, automatically when you receive a notification or manually when you activate any of the four side-mounted buttons. It's fairly dim, enabling you to avoid disturbing fellow moviegoers or that patient significant other sharing your bed, but still bright enough for you to catch every detail. Pebble will reflect even a small amount of ambient light, however, so your backlight usage is likely to be fairly minimal.
Pebble doesn't offer much functionality without a smartphone. You'll need one (and an accompanying app) to get started, and although you'll be able to display the time while disconnected (in Airplane Mode, for example), software updates, feature additions and notifications all require a Bluetooth connection. Fortunately, there's Bluetooth 4.0 support, which offers speedy performance with reduced energy consumption. This also contributes to Pebble's weeklong battery life, and a reported five to 10 percent hit to your smartphone's longevity.
We'll detail the user interface more in the section below, but since there's no touch functionality here, you'll need to navigate using the four side-mounted buttons. There's a home (or back) button on the top left side, which brings you back to Pebble's main configuration page. Positioned to the right of the e-paper panel: a top button scrolls up, a smaller center button makes selections and the control on the bottom scrolls down -- through messages, menus or tracks while controlling music playback. All of these buttons require a firm press, rather than a tap, and while you won't accidentally activate the controls, registering input can take a bit of effort.
Software
Pebble's two apps -- one for Android 2.3 or later and the second for Apple devices running iOS 5 or later -- enable everything from initial setup to push notifications. There's no user manual in the box, so you'll need to download your respective app to get started. Pairing takes a few seconds, and then you're good to go. The smartwatch will automatically adopt the local time on your smartphone, and you can select from a few default watch faces, ranging from Text Watch, which you're probably already familiar with, to Classic Analog.
To take full advantage of the device's functionality, you'll need to head back over to the smartphone app, where you can push additional watch faces (there are currently just five to download, including TicTockToe). Eventually, this custom app store will include third-party apps, such as the bike computer and golf rangefinder that the company pitched on its Kickstarter page, though they're not available now.
The app's Settings page is where you'll select notifications to push. Based on the apps installed on our Galaxy Note II, we were able to choose from incoming call alerts, text messages, calendar reminders, email previews, Google Talk messages, Google Voice messages and Facebook messages. Each option has a checkbox, so if you want to use your Pebble for caller ID but don't want to be bothered with Facebook messages, that's perfectly OK. With each notification, the watch will vibrate once, the backlight will flip on (for a few seconds) and the message will pop up.
Theoretically, you can simply shake your wrist to dismiss the notification, though we were only able to accomplish this by pressing one of the buttons. You can choose from large and small fonts for notifications, but regardless of the size, you can scroll to see more using the up and down buttons. You'll need to hop over to your smartphone to read the full message or send a response. Similarly, when you receive a call, your only option on the watch is to dismiss the notification, but doing so won't send your caller to voicemail.
Unless you're looking at your watch every few seconds, there will likely come a time when your inbox contains multiple messages. Unfortunately, Pebble will only display the very last notification received, so it won't completely eliminate a need to check your smartphone. Also, it's not currently able to display certain languages -- a message we received with Chinese characters rendered as several lines of rectangles on the display.
At this point, all of the interactions between Pebble and a connected smartphone go in one direction -- from your handset to the watch -- with one exception. The wristwatch's music player controls playback on your Android or iOS device, including play / pause and track skipping. There's no volume control, which seems reasonable given the limited number of buttons. With our Android phone, the watch was able to identify and control music from the native app, but not third-party services, such as Spotify.
The competition
Although it may seem to be the case given the excitement surrounding this launch, Pebble is not the only smartwatch on the market. Sony and now Toshiba are two of the giants behind similar tech, and the former company's SmartWatch is even reasonably priced, at $149. Allerta, the company behind Pebble, released its own wearable several years ago, called inPulse, but smartphone compatibility was limited to BlackBerry models and certain Android-powered handsets, and the device uses an OLED display. Similarly, WIMM Labs' WIMM One was made available to developers, but is no longer in production.
Pebble's success stems from the promise of third-party apps and the practical e-paper display, along with the marketing power of Kickstarter. Functionality remains somewhat limited, but this is a first-generation device from a small manufacturer that's currently only in the hands of a very limited number of lucky backers. If consumer interest is any indication, developers will likely soon be hard at work on a variety of unique applications, if they aren't already. The platform is incredibly young, and the best is yet to come.
Wrap-up
We've really enjoyed our time with Pebble so far -- it's not a fashion statement, necessarily, but we wouldn't be surprised to see it pop up on many wrists in the weeks and months to come. Functionality is still quite limited at this point, and considering how fresh the device is, that's to be expected. The features that are already available work well, and the smartwatch has been a pleasure to use.
Taking price into account, Pebble is an excellent value, especially for lucky Kickstarter backers who were able to take advantage of $99, $115 and $125 pre-orders. We're very optimistic for the device's future -- our chief concern relates not to the hardware, but how it will affect behavior: If you thought that friend who glances at his smartphone every few minutes was rude, just wait until they own a Pebble.
Update: Pebble's fearless leader, Eric Migicovsky, responded with the answers to a few of our questions. He confirmed that the goal is to fulfill all Kickstarter orders within the next 6-8 weeks, with preorders following. The device may eventually end up in retail stores, but there's no firm timeline there. Pebble is powered by an ARM Cortex-M3 processor, with a 140mAh battery keeping you up and running for up to a week with occasional use, or five days with frequent notifications and backlight activation. On the cosmetic front, the dark spots we saw in sunlight was likely a "Mura Effect" from the lens -- it's possible that other users will notice this as well. Finally, English is the only language currently supported (which explains why our Chinese characters rendered as rectangles), but others will soon follow.
Update 2: Apps that support the Audio / Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) should be compatible with Pebble's audio controls. Spotify, however, does not include this support.
FILE - This Aug. 28, 2012 file photo shows Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus speaking at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. Priebus has been elected to lead the Republican National Committee for another two years. The 40-year-old RNC chairman ran unopposed in his bid for a second term, which begins less than three months after what most Republicans consider a disastrous election cycle. The GOP in November lost a competitive presidential election and gave up seats in the House and Senate. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)
FILE - This Aug. 28, 2012 file photo shows Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus speaking at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. Priebus has been elected to lead the Republican National Committee for another two years. The 40-year-old RNC chairman ran unopposed in his bid for a second term, which begins less than three months after what most Republicans consider a disastrous election cycle. The GOP in November lost a competitive presidential election and gave up seats in the House and Senate. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) ? Reince Priebus has been elected to lead the Republican National Committee for another two years.
The 40-year-old RNC chairman ran unopposed in his bid for a second term, which begins less than three months after what most Republicans consider a disastrous election cycle. The GOP in November lost a competitive presidential election and gave up seats in the House and Senate.
"The task before us is transforming the party ? to be a force from coast to coast," Priebus said Friday in his acceptance speech in Charlotte, N.C., where Republican National Committee members from across the country gathered this week for the GOP's annual winter meeting.
Maine national committeeman Mark Willis tried to challenge Priebus but could not muster the backing of three states needed to qualify for the ballot. All but two of the Republican National Committee's 168 members ? both from Maine ? voted to reelect the chairman.
Despite the party's struggles last fall, Priebus was widely praised for improving the RNC's financial problems. In his acceptance speech, he called for sweeping changes in the GOP over the coming years, particularly the need to connect with the minority voters that helped propel President Barack Obama to a second term.
"We want to be Republicans for everybody," Priebus said. "We have to take our message of opportunity where it's not being heard. We have to build better relationships in minority communities, urban centers and college towns. We need a permanent growing presence."
This post originally appeared on Green Money Journal blog.
By Amy Domini,?founder, Domini Social Investments
Looking forward ten, even twenty years, what will Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) have become? What will it have accomplished? What will the field look like? Today, I build a case for a good future. In a word, it will largely be marvelous.
Roughly 15 years ago, I spoke in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It is a spectacular setting, one that makes a person proud to be in a great nation like ours, one that protects such places. Yet, as I reminded the audience that day, it had not been the public that had kept the Grand Tetons pristine. It was one man, John D. Rockefeller, who had purchased the land and given it to the nation.
This is the classic dilemma we in SRI struggle with every day. It is great that the Grand Tetons are a public treasure, but they became so on the backs of crushed labor forces, pollution and selfishness. One man made his money and then gave it away, but he set in motion the international oil industry, an industry that is robbing us of a climate, a future.
That day I challenged SRI to become relevant. Today, I can see clearly that it has. Over the next twenty years, the positions we have taken and the battles we have fought will lead to a universal understanding that what we have been saying,?the way you invest matters, is absolutely correct. We will see our guiding principles integrated into the mainstream. We will be astonished at the acceptance and the impact that we have had.
How We Became Relevant ? Performance Matters
Perhaps the most devastating argument we faced early on was the Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT). It argues that the previous ?prudent man? idea of buying good stocks alone, created risk. Introduced in 1952 by Harry Markowitz, the original premise was simple: investors should focus on overall portfolio risk. Simply put, even if you love software, you still shouldn?t build an entire portfolio of software stocks. Astonishingly, this revelation won Mr. Markowitz a Nobel Prize in Economics and caused the entire financial services industry to argue that the individual risk characteristics of a company mattered little.
Against this backdrop, SRI seemed hopelessly old fashioned. We argue that each company, by virtue of the industry within which it operates, faces a series of risks that we label as risks to people or the planet. We then argue that taking too large a risk is not necessary and further, that it perpetuates an acceptance of these risks. Wall Street pundits stated with great authority, but with no basis, that our form of analysis flew in the face of Modern Portfolio Theory and so would fail. Our largest barrier was that, to use the vernacular, every smart person knew SRI was stupid.
The evidence proved otherwise. The MSCI KLD 400 Social Index has not only debunked the premise of MPT, but also shown that risk avoidance works. The index has outperformed ? and has done so with a lower standard deviation. Clearly, examining the risk of corporate behavior tells us something about a company that is useful to investors.
Why We Are Relevant ? An Increase in Reporting
SRI practitioners have pushed for ?extra-financial? data and have gotten it. At first, true comparative data on companies was extremely scarce in some areas of keen interest to the concerned investor. Any good researcher understands that the newspapers are a lousy place to start. The fact that we know that Apple sourced from Foxconn does not tell us what Hewlett Packard does. What is needed is data that is universally ascertainable, without the company answering a questionnaire (which allows them to self-define), and the data must be quantitative in nature, e.g. I don?t care as much about a statement that a company seeks diversity as I do about how many minorities have been hired.
Today, thousands of companies self-report. Whereas the one or two companies that issued Social Responsibility reports thirty years ago were real outliers, today it is so mainstream that?Forbes magazine?maintains a blog to follow them. Accounting giant PWC makes available the 2010 survey of CSR reporting on their website. The highlights: 81 percent of all companies have CSR information on their websites; 31 percent have these assured (or verified) by a third party. Their 2012 update contains examples of what to look for when writing (or reading) them.
Who was pushing for this disclosure? It wasn?t civil society, it wasn?t Wall Street; it wasn?t government. It was a loose confederation of concerned investors who consistently pushed for greater and more standardized ?non-financial? information.
Why We Are Relevant ? An Increase in Regulation to Disclose
Regulators are beginning to expand on the data corporations are required to disclose. Remember, there was no God-given definition of the right way to report financials to investors. In 1932, when reforms to protect investors began, regulators looked at some of the pre-existing methods and evaluated them. This led to audited annual reports on income statements and balance sheets. It led to quarterly unaudited reports. These had, in the past, come to be viewed as important in judging the financial soundness of a corporation.
However, the regulators did not stop with accounting issues. Given that the 1930s were a period of high unemployment, the number of company employees was considered important, and so its disclosure became mandated. There is no reason that more robust social and environmental reporting shouldn?t be in the financial reports. We already disclose a company?s hometown, without companies complaining of the inappropriateness and burden of so doing.
The Initiative for Responsible Investment at Harvard University maintains a database of Global CSR Disclosure requirements. In it we find 34 nations are taking steps. In 2009, Denmark, required companies to disclose CSR activities and use of environmental resources. In 2010, the United Kingdom requiredcompanies that use more than 6,000MWh per year to report on all emissions related to energy use. Malaysia, in?2007,?required?companies to publish CSR information on a ?comply or explain? basis. Regulators, recognizing the societal costs of less than full cost accounting, are moving in to mandate disclosure.
Mainstreaming ? With this solid base, here come the ?big boys?
Conventional asset managers and the academic community have brought SRI to the mainstream. I began by saying the future for SRI is marvelous. Consider a world in which every major financial asset management firm demands that its staff study the social and environmental implications of the investments they make and bases recommendations upon it.
But this has already begun. Consider MEAG, the American portfolio management branch of Munich Re. Their team buys only publicly traded bonds which then back the insurance the firm issues. They use ESG criteria to give their research the edge and to avoid risk. When I met with their research team, I found that they use several of Domini?s Key Indicators. No, we don?t publish the indicators. It also was not a coincidence. The two firms independently discovered the same indicators to be telling because they both use the same logic in approaching the issues. Or there is UBS Investment Bank, where analysts specifically address the social, environmental or governance risks of a company they are recommending.
Finally, look at the all-important realm of academia, where MPT began. Just three recent examples are telling:
The Impact of a Corporate Culture of Sustainability on Corporate Behavior and Performance?by?Professors Robert Eccles and George Serafeim, Harvard Business School. ?? we provide evidence that High Sustainability companies significantly outperform their counterparts over the long-term, both in terms of stock market and accounting performance. The outperformance is stronger in sectors where the customers are individual consumers, companies compete on the basis of brands and reputation, and in sectors where companies? products significantly depend upon extracting large amounts of natural resources.?
Corporate Social Responsibility and Access to Finance?by Beiting Cheng, Harvard Business School, Ioannis Ioannou, London Business School, and George Serafeim, Harvard Business School. ?Using a large cross-section of firms, we show that firms with better CSR performance face significantly lower capital constraints. The results are confirmed using an instrumental variables and a simultaneous equations approach. Finally, we find that the relation is primarily driven by social and environmental performance, rather than corporate governance.?
An FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for Financial Innovation: Applying the Insurable Interest Doctrine toTwenty-First?Century?Financial Markets,?by Eric A. Posner and E. Glen Weyl, Law School, University of Chicago. ?We propose that when firms invent new financial products, they be forbidden to sell them until they receive approval from a government agency designed along the lines of the FDA, which screens pharmaceutical innovations. The agency would approve financial products if they satisfy a test for social utility ??
The Next Twenty Years
This article limits its scope to only one leg of the SRI stool. It does not discuss the growth of shareholder activism, which is vibrant. Nor does it address the mainstreaming of selling products with narrow and specific social purpose, also a burgeoning field. Rather, by looking at the application of social criteria to an investable universe alone, we see that barriers have been removed, and that now both a mountain of money, and the force of government and academia, will work with us and introduce our goals into mainstream investment thinking.
We know we can make money, government is increasingly with us, and academia is swinging our way. Now, the rapid acceptance of more robust and integrated accounting has done away with the last barriers. This brings us the assets to have impact. As society sees the full cost of traditional business behavior, SRI will be embraced as the single most important lever towards building a better world than the planet has ever seen.
Amy Domini has worked for decades to advocate that financial systems must be used to create a world of universal human dignity and ecological sustainability. She authored or co-authored several books. Her most recent,?Socially Responsible Investing: Making a Difference and Making Money, was published by Dearborn Trade in 2001. She writes on the topic frequently. Her articles have appeared on the?Huffington Post, the?OECD Observer,?GreenMoney Journal?and the?Journal of Investing. She is a regular columnist for?Ode Magazine.
The University of Toledo College of Business and Innovation will conduct a Franchise Summit Friday, Feb. 8, from 8 to 11 a.m. on Main Campus.
This free workshop is intended for area entrepreneurs considering this business structure as well as executives at nonprofit organizations who are exploring new options to fund their missions.
The featured speaker will be Dr. Ben Litalien, founder and principal of Franchise Well, a consulting practice dedicated to the enhancement of franchising. He is a frequent author and speaker on franchising, is a certified franchise executive as designated by the International Franchise Association, and he designed and oversees the Franchise Management Certificate Program at Georgetown University.
?Franchising is a powerful model for generating value,? Litalien said. ?Entrepreneurs and nonprofit management should not miss this unique opportunity to learn how to harness franchising in new and beneficial ways, including growing business concepts, creating jobs, and achieving above market-rate returns.?
Litalien also will moderate a panel discussion that will include W. Rhett Linke, executive director of national business development, NISH; Jeannie Hylant, vice president, Hylant; Anthony Calamunci, attorney, franchise law group Roetzel & Andress; Kevin Lent, president, Sonic Drive-In; and Bryon Stephens, vice president, Marco?s Franchising.
?The University of Toledo College of Business and Innovation embraces its mission of presenting innovative ways to educate and assist the regional business community,? said Dr. Anand Kunnathur, executive associate dean of the college. ?Franchising is an increasingly popular and viable format for many people to establish their own businesses, so we are pleased to work with experts in this field to develop this free educational program.
?We know that the more we can do to help area businesses and entrepreneurs, the better it is for the regional economy,? Kunnathur said.
The Franchise Summit is free, but seating is limited. Register here.
This entry was posted ?on? Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013?at? 4:07 am?and is filed under? Business and Innovation, Events, UToday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.? You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.?
Gene sequencing project mines data once considered 'junk' for clues about cancerPublic release date: 24-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Carrie Strehlau carrie.strehlau@stjude.org 901-595-2295 St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project takes new approach to measuring the repetitive DNA at the end of chromosomes and opens new window on mechanisms fueling cancer
(MEMPHIS, Tenn. January 24, 2013) Genome sequencing data once regarded as junk is now being used to gain important clues to help understand disease. The latest example comes from the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project, where scientists have developed an approach to mine the repetitive segments of DNA at the ends of chromosomes for insights into cancer.
These segments, known as telomeres, had previously been ignored in next-generation sequencing efforts. That is because their repetitive nature meant that the resulting information had defied analysis and the data were labeled as junk. But researchers have now traced changes in the volume of telomeric DNA to particular types of cancer and their underlying genetic mistakes. Investigators found that 32 percent of pediatric solid tumors carried extra DNA for telomeres, compared to just 4 percent of brain tumors and none of the leukemia samples studied. The findings were published recently in the journal Genome Biology.
Using this new approach, the investigators have linked changes in telomeric DNA to mutations in the ATRX gene and to longer telomeres in patients with a subtype of neuroblastoma, a cancer of the sympathetic nervous system. Telomere length limits how many times cells can divide. Mechanisms that maintain or lengthen telomeres contribute to the unchecked cell division that is a hallmark of cancer.
"This paper shows how measuring the DNA content of telomeres can enhance the value of whole- genome sequencing," said Matthew Parker, Ph.D., the paper's first author and a St. Jude postdoctoral fellow. "In the case of the ATRX mutation, the telomere findings gave us information about the mutation's impact that would have been hard to get through other means."
The results stem from the largest study yet of whole-genome sequencing to measure the content of telomeric DNA. The effort involved whole-genome sequencing of normal and tumor DNA from 235 pediatric patients battling 13 different cancers. For comparison, normal DNA from 13 adult cancer patients was included in the research.
"There's been a lot of interest among cancer researchers into telomere length," said Richard Wilson, Ph.D., director of The Genome Institute at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "While more research remains, we think it's important to begin to characterize the genetic sequences that make up the telomeres. That's a crucial first step to understanding more precisely any role they may play in cancer."
The Pediatric Cancer Genome Project sequenced the complete normal and cancer genomes of more than 600 children and adolescents with some of the most aggressive and least understood cancers. Investigators believe the project's findings will lay the foundation for a new generation of clinical tools. Despite advances, cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease of U.S. children age 1 and older.
The human genome is stored in the four-letter chemical alphabet of DNA, a molecule that stretches more than 3 billion characters in length and provides the instructions for building and sustaining life. Those instructions are the genes that are organized into the 46 chromosomes found in almost every cell.
Each chromosome ends with the same six-letter DNA sequence that is associated exclusively with telomeres. The DNA sequence does not vary, but the number of times it is repeated does, affecting the length of the telomeres. Telomeres shorten each time cells divide, which explains why their length declines naturally with age.
Researchers have known cancer cells use several mechanisms to circumvent the process and keep dividing. But until now the repetitive nature of the telomeric DNA sequence meant they had little to offer researchers using whole-genome sequencing to map the human genome. Other genes can be assigned to a particular spot on a particular chromosome; telomeres cannot.
"For scientists analyzing whole-genome sequencing data the telomeres were just a headache," said the study's corresponding author Jinghui Zhang, Ph.D., an associate member of the St. Jude Department of Computational Biology. "We could not properly map them to a position on the human genome, so we didn't really use them."
Then listening to a colleague's presentation, Parker had an idea: "Why not just count the telomeric DNA and look for changes between the normal and cancer cells of patients?"
Zhang said the question was a conceptual leap in thinking about how to use whole-genome sequencing data to study telomeres and cancer. "This is the classic story of how one person's problem is another person's gold," she said.
Parker and his colleagues developed an approach that correctly distinguished between older and younger individuals based on the amount of telomeric DNA in their blood or bone marrow cells. Researchers used three other methods to confirm that whole-genome sequencing could be used to reliably capture telomeric DNA differences between normal and cancer cells. Additional supportive evidence came when investigators found that the method yielded similar estimates of the telomeric DNA content of twins with leukemia who shared similar genetic alterations.
When investigators used the method to study pediatric cancer patients, they found tumors that gained telomeric DNA were also more likely to contain chromosomal abnormalities, including rearrangements within and between chromosomes. Researchers also found that different cancers had distinct patterns of telomeric DNA change. In some cases, the change offered clues about the mechanism responsible for lengthening the telomeres, pointing to a process called alternative lengthening of telomeres.
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The other authors are Xiang Chen, Armita Bahrami, James Dalton, Michael Rusch, Gang Wu, John Easton, Michael Dyer, Charles Mullighan, Richard Gilbertson, Suzanne Baker, Gerard Zambetti, David Ellison and James Downing, all of St. Jude; Nai-Kong Cheung, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York; and Elaine Mardis, of The Genome Institute at Washington University, St. Louis.
The research was funded in part by the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project, including Kay Jewelers, a lead partner; a Cancer Center Support Grant (CA021765) from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health; the Henry Schueler 41&9 Foundation in conjunction with Partnership4Cures; and ALSAC.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is internationally recognized for its pioneering research and treatment of children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. The hospital's research has helped push overall survival rates for childhood cancer from less than 20 percent when the institution opened to almost 80 percent today. It is the first and only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children, and no family ever pays St. Jude for anything. For more information, visit www.stjude.org. Follow us on Twitter @StJudeResearch.
Washington University School of Medicine
Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
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.
Gene sequencing project mines data once considered 'junk' for clues about cancerPublic release date: 24-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Carrie Strehlau carrie.strehlau@stjude.org 901-595-2295 St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project takes new approach to measuring the repetitive DNA at the end of chromosomes and opens new window on mechanisms fueling cancer
(MEMPHIS, Tenn. January 24, 2013) Genome sequencing data once regarded as junk is now being used to gain important clues to help understand disease. The latest example comes from the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project, where scientists have developed an approach to mine the repetitive segments of DNA at the ends of chromosomes for insights into cancer.
These segments, known as telomeres, had previously been ignored in next-generation sequencing efforts. That is because their repetitive nature meant that the resulting information had defied analysis and the data were labeled as junk. But researchers have now traced changes in the volume of telomeric DNA to particular types of cancer and their underlying genetic mistakes. Investigators found that 32 percent of pediatric solid tumors carried extra DNA for telomeres, compared to just 4 percent of brain tumors and none of the leukemia samples studied. The findings were published recently in the journal Genome Biology.
Using this new approach, the investigators have linked changes in telomeric DNA to mutations in the ATRX gene and to longer telomeres in patients with a subtype of neuroblastoma, a cancer of the sympathetic nervous system. Telomere length limits how many times cells can divide. Mechanisms that maintain or lengthen telomeres contribute to the unchecked cell division that is a hallmark of cancer.
"This paper shows how measuring the DNA content of telomeres can enhance the value of whole- genome sequencing," said Matthew Parker, Ph.D., the paper's first author and a St. Jude postdoctoral fellow. "In the case of the ATRX mutation, the telomere findings gave us information about the mutation's impact that would have been hard to get through other means."
The results stem from the largest study yet of whole-genome sequencing to measure the content of telomeric DNA. The effort involved whole-genome sequencing of normal and tumor DNA from 235 pediatric patients battling 13 different cancers. For comparison, normal DNA from 13 adult cancer patients was included in the research.
"There's been a lot of interest among cancer researchers into telomere length," said Richard Wilson, Ph.D., director of The Genome Institute at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "While more research remains, we think it's important to begin to characterize the genetic sequences that make up the telomeres. That's a crucial first step to understanding more precisely any role they may play in cancer."
The Pediatric Cancer Genome Project sequenced the complete normal and cancer genomes of more than 600 children and adolescents with some of the most aggressive and least understood cancers. Investigators believe the project's findings will lay the foundation for a new generation of clinical tools. Despite advances, cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease of U.S. children age 1 and older.
The human genome is stored in the four-letter chemical alphabet of DNA, a molecule that stretches more than 3 billion characters in length and provides the instructions for building and sustaining life. Those instructions are the genes that are organized into the 46 chromosomes found in almost every cell.
Each chromosome ends with the same six-letter DNA sequence that is associated exclusively with telomeres. The DNA sequence does not vary, but the number of times it is repeated does, affecting the length of the telomeres. Telomeres shorten each time cells divide, which explains why their length declines naturally with age.
Researchers have known cancer cells use several mechanisms to circumvent the process and keep dividing. But until now the repetitive nature of the telomeric DNA sequence meant they had little to offer researchers using whole-genome sequencing to map the human genome. Other genes can be assigned to a particular spot on a particular chromosome; telomeres cannot.
"For scientists analyzing whole-genome sequencing data the telomeres were just a headache," said the study's corresponding author Jinghui Zhang, Ph.D., an associate member of the St. Jude Department of Computational Biology. "We could not properly map them to a position on the human genome, so we didn't really use them."
Then listening to a colleague's presentation, Parker had an idea: "Why not just count the telomeric DNA and look for changes between the normal and cancer cells of patients?"
Zhang said the question was a conceptual leap in thinking about how to use whole-genome sequencing data to study telomeres and cancer. "This is the classic story of how one person's problem is another person's gold," she said.
Parker and his colleagues developed an approach that correctly distinguished between older and younger individuals based on the amount of telomeric DNA in their blood or bone marrow cells. Researchers used three other methods to confirm that whole-genome sequencing could be used to reliably capture telomeric DNA differences between normal and cancer cells. Additional supportive evidence came when investigators found that the method yielded similar estimates of the telomeric DNA content of twins with leukemia who shared similar genetic alterations.
When investigators used the method to study pediatric cancer patients, they found tumors that gained telomeric DNA were also more likely to contain chromosomal abnormalities, including rearrangements within and between chromosomes. Researchers also found that different cancers had distinct patterns of telomeric DNA change. In some cases, the change offered clues about the mechanism responsible for lengthening the telomeres, pointing to a process called alternative lengthening of telomeres.
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The other authors are Xiang Chen, Armita Bahrami, James Dalton, Michael Rusch, Gang Wu, John Easton, Michael Dyer, Charles Mullighan, Richard Gilbertson, Suzanne Baker, Gerard Zambetti, David Ellison and James Downing, all of St. Jude; Nai-Kong Cheung, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York; and Elaine Mardis, of The Genome Institute at Washington University, St. Louis.
The research was funded in part by the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project, including Kay Jewelers, a lead partner; a Cancer Center Support Grant (CA021765) from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health; the Henry Schueler 41&9 Foundation in conjunction with Partnership4Cures; and ALSAC.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is internationally recognized for its pioneering research and treatment of children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. The hospital's research has helped push overall survival rates for childhood cancer from less than 20 percent when the institution opened to almost 80 percent today. It is the first and only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children, and no family ever pays St. Jude for anything. For more information, visit www.stjude.org. Follow us on Twitter @StJudeResearch.
Washington University School of Medicine
Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
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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Public release date: 24-Jan-2013
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