Candida Community News |
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DSHB-Microbe: a monoclonal antibody resource for the microbial research community (Posted November 5, 2007)
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An announcement from David Soll:
The Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank (DSHB) is a national resource established under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health to maintain and distribute at cost hybridomas and their monoclonal antibodies to the general scientific community. For example, monoclonals cost $25 per ml of supernatant, not $200 or $700 per ml. The DSHB now banks close to 1,000 hybridomas and filled close to 9,000 orders for multiple antibodies last year. It will rapidly grow in the near future due to its selection by the National Cancer Institute as the official bank and distributor of the 20,000 hybridomas, now being generated by the NCI Proteomics Initiative, and the antibodies they secrete against 5,000 human genes involved directly or indirectly in cancer. This represents antibodies against proteins encoded by one-fourth of the entire human genome.
The DSHB has now embarked on a new mission, to generate a bank, the DSHB-Microbe, that will collect and distribute hybridomas and their antibodies against microbial antigens - select viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites.
What will the DSHB do for you? It will provide you with relevant monoclonals at one-tenth to one-fifteenth the commercial price. It will relieve those of you who have made hybridomas from the burden of distribution. Most importantly, it will facilitate microbial research. It will maintain, reclone and characterize the hybridomas and secreted monoclonals, and help customers use them through a phone hot line.
What can you do? Send us your hybridomas for distribution. Remember, we distribute them, but you still own and can commercialize them. Alternatively, if you know of hybridomas that you would like made available at low cost and high quality, let us know their name, the scientist who generated them, and other details. We will contact the scientist and try to secure the hybridoma for the collection.
The DSHB has served the community of animal cell researchers for 20 years. Help me build the DSHB-Microbe so that it can do the same for microbiologists. [See our web page: dshb.biology.uiowa.edu].
Email: dshb@uiowa.edu
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Candida albicans DNA oligonucleotide arrays (Posted May 2, 2007)
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An announcement from Victoria Brown Kennerly:
We have generated DNA oligo arrays representing the Candida albicans genome for use in microarray experiments. They are now available to the community at cost: $100/array (3 genomes spotted per array).
Please see the following website for a complete description, or to order arrays: http://genome.wustl.edu/activity/ma/calbicans/.
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Remembering Myra (Posted November 18, 2005)
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One of the true pioneers of our field, Myra Kurtz, died at home on November 1, 2005, after a long struggle with cancer. Her loving family was by her side. She was 60 years old.
Myra's proudest professional accomplishment was her team's development of the hugely successful antifungal, caspofungin, at Merck. Her seminars were highlighted by "before" and "after" photographs documenting caspofungin's efficacy in treating esophageal candidiasis. We also remember Myra professionally as the first to develop C. albicans transformation methods, along with strains and vectors. Never satisfied with her success, Myra continued to improve upon her initial transformation strategies, and maintained an interest in new antifungal targets long after caspofungin proved to be a winner.
Myra's collegiality set the standard for our field. She was enthusiastic about publication of her group's results as a mechanism to share her information. She was a regular participant at meetings that focused on basic science, offering encouragement and advice. It was common knowledge that a request for meeting support sent to Myra would make its way quickly to the appropriate desk, and would not be unanswered.
Those of us lucky enough to know Myra personally remember her incredible breadth of interests and talents, fueled by endless energy. Whether the topic was poetry, beading, or cross-country skiing, Myra offered informed opinions based on considerable thought and experience. Most of all, Myra was fun! Her love of life was truly infectious.
Myra set the bar high. We are fortunate to have had such a gifted individual as our friend and colleague.
Aaron P. Mitchell
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Candida gene disruption resource (Posted February 10, 2005)
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An announcement from Aaron Mitchell:
We have a new resource that will facilitate disruption of large numbers of genes at little cost to the investigator, using UAU1 methodology [Enloe, B., Diamond, A., and Mitchell, A. P. (2000) J Bacteriol 182, 5730; Davis, D. A., Bruno, V. M., Loza, L., Filler, S. G., and Mitchell, A. P. (2002) Genetics 162, 1573].
We have created Tn7-UAU1 transposon insertions in 4170 (or 65.5%) of the 6362 unique ORFs defined by the NRCC annotation http://candida.bri.nrc.ca/candida/index.cfm. The insertions are carried in a genomic library constructed from strain CAI4 DNA. Typical clones in the library are over 10 Kbp and are flanked by NotI restriction sites, permitting excision of the insertion-bearing C. albicans DNA for transformation. We have selected insertions that lie at least 300 bp from the nearest end of the clone, permitting efficient targeting into the C. albicans genome. The project is described at http://www.tigr.org/tdb/e2k1/caa1/. In our pilot studies, we have been able to construct multiple C. albicans insertion homozygotes in parallel.
We invite you to request up to 20 insertion-bearing clones that we will provide free of charge, and as quickly as possible. Requests must come from the lab head, and should be emailed to Aaron Mitchell apm4@columbia.edu.
To place a request, please follow this procedure.
1. Search the TIGR database for insertions in genes of interest. You may use your browser's search function, entering ORF19 designations, at http://www.tigr.org/tigr-scripts/e2k1/qzhao/complete_list.pl. The precise location of each insertion may be determined by following the "Seq_ID" link (2nd column from the left) to find the flanking sequence read with Tn7 primer "S" from one end of the transposon. (I can send the Excel file if you have trouble accessing the site.)
2. Note the "Clone_Name" (of the form "CAGxxxx") for the insertion of interest (listed in the 3rd column from the left).
3. Send the list of CAGxxxx clone numbers and shipping information to Aaron Mitchell apm4@columbia.edu. If you have a Fedex account, please send that information too.
4. You will receive an email acknowledging your request.
5. You will receive DNA samples spotted on sterile filter paper. We ask for your patience, because we are uncertain of demand right now, and there is some labor associated with filling each request. You should transform into E. coli, selecting AMP (and, if you wish, KAN) resistance.
6. In publications that benefit from these materials, please acknowledge:
Qi Zhao and William C. Nierman (TIGR), Frank J. Smith and Aaron P. Mitchell (Columbia University), and NIH grant 1R01AI057804.
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