In this talk, cellular and molecular details on the human and microbial responses to short and long-duration spaceflight will be detailed, which span several NASA, SpaceX, and Axiom missions and provide key lessons for upcoming lunar and Mars missions. Then, recent advances in biotechnology, multi-omics, data modeling, and cross-species genome engineering will be highlighted, which have shown novel means of extremophile adaptation in space and chimeric human cells with increased radioresistance. Together, these tools, methods, and data support an ethical and ambitious, 500-year plan of reengineering biology to enable life on other worlds, and also reveal the best candidate planets for life in new solar systems. Learning Objectives: 1. List types of sequencing and genomics methods. 2. List several methods for epigenome engineering. 3. Describe the genomic changes that occur in a spacecraft and in astronauts.

In this session, you will learn how to differentiate NPS by promoting our beginning to bedside patient safety solution. This solution includes Syntrac™ Integration Tools with HL7 integration, Isotrac, and the Safetrac™ Barcoding System. SafetracTM is the first and only solution on the market that enables radiopharmaceuticals to be scanned and verified against the patient’s medication administration record (MAR) at time of administration. When implemented with our end to end suite of solutions, it helps customers reduce order entry and dose administration errors, and increase productivity. Through a series of sales call role plays, we will show you what TO DO and NOT DO when promoting the solution. You will leave this session ready to create a sense of urgency, answer questions, address objections, and convince customers and prospects that they must have it.

BGI Group has been at the forefront in the fight against COVID-19, from sequencing the 2019-nCoV virus genome to offering RT-PCR and sequencing-based detection solutions. BGI's RT-PCR Kit received FDA EUA on Mar 26 and ready for commercial distribution in the US market. This webinar will present details of the RT-PCR kit as well as BGI's integrated workflows from automated sample prep, viral RNA extraction to RT-PCR testing, as well as a mNGS test that have been deployed in China and over 60 countries.

The remarkable diversity we see between different cell types in the human body is governed by the specificity attained through transcriptional and epigenetic regulatory programs. Cancer is a disease that targets specific tissues, and in the case of cancer-causing germline mutations, it is perplexing that primary tumors arise in a restricted subset of tissues only. Understanding why a mutation can be suppressed in one tissue but not others stands to unlock insights into tissue-specific transcriptional regulation and how these programs promote fragility or resistance of cancer-causing mutations. We have been studying cancer-causing germline mutations in the context of cell type-specific gene regulatory networks. Using a comprehensive tissue expression atlas from the FANTOM5 consortium, we have access to CAGE sequencing data that captures promoter usage and gene expression in over 1000 human samples, including primary cells, tissues and cell lines. Levering information from COSMIC, the Cancer Gene Census, and FANTOM5, two classes of genes that have tissues-specific, cancer-causing mutations have been identified - (1) genes that are expressed in the cell type where the cancer occurs, (2) genes that are expressed ubiquitously across many different cell types. For this second class, we have begun comparing regulatory networks associated with these genes in susceptible versus resistant cell types to identify changes in network topology that may change a cell type's oncogenic potential.

When studying the transcriptome, most of our inferences revolve around changes in average expression. However, more recent examples have demonstrated that analysis of the variability of gene expression can also highlight important regulators too. In this talk, I outline some of the bioinformatics methods my lab has developed to investigate the functional consequences of gene expression variability to understand transcriptional regulation. I present a recently published method called pathVar, which provides functional interpretation of variability changes at the level of pathways and gene sets. Application of pathVar to cancer patient cohort data will be shown to demonstrate the utility of this method. I also describe a method based on the third statistical moment, skewness, to model heterogeneously expressed genes. Using skewness-based metrics, we can uncover new genes with regulatory roles in cancer, as well as those that vary with DNA methylated loci. Collectively, this series of related studies outline the value

Background: Preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) and structural rearrangement (PGT-SR) have been widely used within indications of previous miscarriages, repeated implantation failures, and balanced translocation carriers. The purpose of this survey is to investigate factors associated with yield of transferrable embryos having copy number = 2. Method: The 124 couples with male or female balanced translocation carriers were enrolled between Sep 2019 to May 2020. Mean female age and number of tested embryos were 36.40±3.90 years and 5.87±3.83 counts, respectively. All sequencing libraries were amplified by Ion SingleSeq Kit from ReproSeq and the data were produced by Ion 530 chip with at least 200,000 uniquely mapped sequencing reads. Results: The overall rate of transferrable embryo with copy number = 2 is about 20% but the rate of couples with at least 1 embryo having normal copy number is 64.5%. The factors of female age < 40 years and trophectoderm biopsy mostly presented beneficial effects on increased rate of transferrable embryos. Male translocation carriers and counts of tested embryos showed limited associations with yield of embryos having copy number = 2. Conclusion: The couples with male or female balanced translocation carriers may have a difficulty of having transferrable embryo but the issue may be improved by trophectoderm biopsy and increased counts of tested embryos.

La anemia es un trastorno que afecta principalmente células progenitoras y diferenciadas del linaje eritroide y corresponde a una disminución anormal de la masa eritrocitaria (hematocrito), concentración de hemoglobina (según OMS, niveles inferiores a 12g/dl en mujeres y 13g/dl en hombres a nivel del mar) con o sin alteraciones morfológicas de las células implicadas. Estudios muestran que la anemia no constituye una enfermedad en sí misma, sino la consecuencia de otras patologías de base como síndromes de mal absorción intestinal, exposición a compuestos tóxicos, infecciones virales, desnutrición, enfermedades autoinmunes, entre otras, que actúan de forma sinérgica con factores de riesgo asociados con condiciones demográficas y socio-económicas para generar una gran variedad de manifestaciones clínicas que abarcan desde signos o síntomas generales como la adinamia y palidez muco-cutánea hasta manifestaciones clínicas más específicas como visceromegalia, infecciones oportunistas, ictericia o alteraciones neurológicas. Una perspectiva de clasificación de las anemias se basa en el criterio morfológico asociado con la determinación del volumen corpuscular medio (VCM) de los eritrocitos, permitiendo dividir las anemias en microcíticas (VCM 100 fl); de forma interesante, en el grupo de anemias microcíticas se encuentran tres tipos de anemias que son de alta prevalencia en la población mundial: anemia ferropénica, anemia secundaria a inflamación y anemia sideroblástica. A través de este seminario virtual exploraremos algunos aspectos de la fisiopatología de estas anemias y nuevos parámetros de laboratorio que apoyan su diagnóstico. OBJETIVOS DE APRENDIZAJE Revisar aspectos generales sobre el diagnóstico de las anemias Examinar la fisiopatología de las anemias asociadas con alteración del hierro Discutir nuevas pruebas para el diagnóstico diferencial de anemias por alteración del hierro No se pierda ningún seminario virtual próximo. Regístrese hoy para recibir actualizaciones. Este seminario virtual podrá ser visto ilimitadamente después del evento en vivo, previa petición. LabRoots is approved as a provider of continuing education programs in the clinical laboratory sciences by the ASCLS P.A.C.E. ® Program. By attending this webinar, you can earn 1 Continuing Education credit once you have viewed the webinar in its entirety.

The remarkable diversity we see between different cell types in the human body is governed by the specificity attained through transcriptional and epigenetic regulatory programs. Cancer is a disease that targets specific tissues, and in the case of cancer-causing germline mutations, it is perplexing that primary tumors arise in a restricted subset of tissues only. Understanding why a mutation can be suppressed in one tissue but not others stands to unlock insights into tissue-specific transcriptional regulation and how these programs promote fragility or resistance of cancer-causing mutations. We have been studying cancer-causing germline mutations in the context of cell type-specific gene regulatory networks. Using a comprehensive tissue expression atlas from the FANTOM5 consortium, we have access to CAGE sequencing data that captures promoter usage and gene expression in over 1000 human samples, including primary cells, tissues and cell lines. Levering information from COSMIC, the Cancer Gene Census, and FANTOM5, two classes of genes that have tissues-specific, cancer-causing mutations have been identified (1) genes that are expressed in the cell type where the cancer occurs, (2) genes that are expressed ubiquitously across many different cell types. For this second class, we have begun comparing regulatory networks associated with these genes in susceptible versus resistant cell types to identify changes in network topology that may change a cell types oncogenic potential. Learning Objectives *To understand how normal human tissues use gene networks differently. *To appreciate that some genes with cancer-causing mutations are expressed in a wide range of tissues but tumors develop in only a restricted subset of those tissues.

Understanding how genes coordinate their expression across cells in a growing embryo can provide insights into the transcriptional programs that control development. Intercellular variability of gene expression reflects how consistent expression levels are between cells of the same embryo. An analysis of expression variability can therefore identify which genes are consistently or heterogeneously expressed in a population of cells, and provides a window into regulatory control. Using an analysis of previously published single-cell RNA-seq data set on embryos at collected at different developmental stages, we have identified a putative set of gene expression markers of morulae and blastocyst stages based on changes in intercellular variability. We highlight how genes with extreme levels of variability are enriched for distinct functions and pathways; lowly variable genes operate in maintenance pathways such as protein synthesis, gene expression and cell cycle while highly variable genes tend to be involved in metabolism. Our results suggest that genes with critical and survival roles for the cell are expressed stably while those related to specialized functions are have variable inter-cellular expression. We identified genes with invariant expression across the development stages; such genes fall clearly into three categories of modes corresponding to off, on and highly activated levels of expression. Genes switched on are involved in critical regulatory pathways like EIF2 signaling, protein ubiquitination and mTOR signaling. Genes that are consistently off function in the development of specialized cell types and metabolites. Overall, our analysis suggests new regulators involved in controlling the development of human embryos that would have otherwise been missed using methods that focus on average expression levels and highlight the value in studying expression variability.

Tumors are often categorized into standard molecular subtypes. However, largescale studies have demonstrated that patient heterogeneity in the regulatory make-up of tumors remain. At the transcriptional level, one example of heterogeneity in a patient population is the presence of bimodally-expressed genes. Bimodality in expression signifies the presence of potentially new patient sub-groups. Here, we present a new statistical approach called oncomix, that models transcriptional heterogeneity in tumor and adjacent normal (i.e. tumor-free) using bimodality to find oncogene candidates. Oncomix was applied to RNA-sequencing data from the breast cancer cohort of the Cancer Genome Atlas, and a set of oncogene candidates that were over-expressed in only a subset of tumors was identified. Intronic DNA methylation was strongly associated with the overexpression of chromobox 2 (CBX2), an oncogene candidate that was identified using our method but not through other approaches. CBX2 overexpression in breast tumors was associated with the upregulation of genes involved in cell cycle progression and is associated with poorer 5-year survival. The predicted function of CBX2 was confirmed in vitro providing the first experimental evidence that CBX2 promotes breast cancer cell growth. Modeling mRNA expression heterogeneity in tumors through bimodal profiles is a novel powerful approach with the potential to uncover therapeutic targets that benefit subsets of cancer patients.

THIS WEBINAR WILL BE BROADCAST IN SPANISH Clinical laboratories generate most of the objective data on which diagnostic, preventive, and therapeutic decisions are made. By considering the current availability of information analytics technologies, health institutions have an opportunity to drive best practices and outcomes for patients and the health system. In this virtual seminar, we will show a real example of how the integration of information sources and the use of the clinical decision support system has contributed to an institution achieving optimized patient care and simultaneously, has transformed the Clinical Laboratory into a center of decision and value creation. Dr. Maria Salinas will show us the exciting journey of the Hospital de San Juan de Alicante on its route to turning its laboratory into a leading laboratory, capable of actively contributing to the achievement of better patient outcomes, through the adoption of CDS as a pillar to deliver relevant information that supports clinical decisions. Learning Objectives Laboratories around the world face similar challenges. Among the most important is the lack of real-time access to information for decision-making and time constraints to be delivered to activities that generate value Understand how Decision support systems (CDSS) help professionals in the laboratory, at the point of care, and at other times of the care act to define personalized behaviors in favor of better outcomes for patients. Learn about how CDS Applications contribute to improving adherence to best practices, execution of reflex tests, automatic clinical validation of laboratory results, optimization of the demand for interventions, and population characterization Demonstrate value by reducing the time spent on operational tasks and actively dedicating more time to clinical value generation, makes laboratories to become leaders in the health system Webinars will be available for unlimited on-demand viewing after live event. Labroots is approved as a provider of continuing education programs in the clinical laboratory sciences by the ASCLS P.A.C.E. ® Program. By attending this webinar, you can earn 1 Continuing Education credit once you have viewed the webinar in its entirety.

Cells of the liver and pancreas are highly polarized and well differentiated, contributing to food digestion through the secretion of lipid emulsifying bile, and proteolytic juice into the gut. Both have sophisticated cytoskeletal membrane trafficking machineries that aid in this secretory process while ensuring the maintenance of apical and basolateral membrane domains. Unfortunately, these organs can become steatotic (fatty), leading to a variety of different diseases. Further, as the liver is a central blood filtering organ, it also can become infected by a substantial variety of different pathogens. Both steatosis and chronic infections are known to lead to cancers of the liver and pancreas that are among the most lethal of all cancers with exceptionally poor prognoses. This presentation is divided into three parts that are aimed at providing insights into the membrane trafficking processes that play a key role in diseases and neoplasia of the liver and pancreas. The focus is the role of the actin cytoskeleton and its interaction with both small regulatory GTPases (Rabs) and the large mechanochemical GTPases (dynamins). The presentation will cover: first, cytoskeletal dynamics at the leading edge of invading tumor cells that support metastatic migration, second, identification of a new autophagic process (lipophagy) that acts to degrade lipid droplets in steatotic hepatocytes, and finally, an anti-viral dynamin family member that associates with hepatocyte mitochondria to alter the genome of this organelle. Key references for this presentation include: • The cell biology of the hepatocyte: A membrane trafficking machine. J. Cell Biol. 2019 Jul 1;218(7):2096-2112. • Dynamin 2 interacts with α-actinin 4 to drive tumor cell invasion. Mol. Biol. Cell. 2020 Mar 15;31(6):439-451. • A novel Rab10-EHBP1-EHD2 complex essential for the autophagic engulfment of lipid droplets. Sci. Adv. 2016 Dec 16;2(12):e1601470. • The anti-viral dynamin family member MxB participates in mitochondrial integrity. Nat. Commun. 2020 Feb 26;11(1):1048. Learning Objectives: 1. Analyze one cytoskeletal component of tumor cell metastasis. 2. Defining the basis of hepatocellular steatosis and “lipophagy”. 3. Defining a role for an anti-viral dynamin in mitochondrial integrity.

The DNA Vector Lab at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) has developed Nano-S/MARt (nS/MARt), a novel DNA Vector platform that combines prolonged CAR/TCR expression with minimal disruption of T cell activity. This antibiotic-free, nanovector technology uses scaffold/matrix attachment regions (S/MARs) for DNA vector maintenance and replication and it can be introduced efficiently into primary human T Cells without toxicity. When combined with GMP-compliant MaxCyte Flow Electroporation® and CliniMACS Prodigy™ automated cell processing, nS/MARt enables the production of clinically relevant recombinant CAR or TCR T cells with enhanced anti-tumor activity in a single week. Learning Objectives Discuss how n/SMART vectors are used to optimize adoptive cell therapies Realize the value of coupling GMP-compliant MaxCyte Flow Electroporation® and CliniMACS Prodigy® automated cell processing to produce safer cell therapies Summarize the role of MaxCyte ExPERT GTx Flow Electroporation system in rapid, clinical scale T cell production Webinars will be available for unlimited on-demand viewing after live event. LabRoots is approved as a provider of continuing education programs in the clinical laboratory sciences by the ASCLS P.A.C.E. ® Program. By attending this webinar, you can earn 1 Continuing Education credit once you have viewed the webinar in its entirety.

Human T cells are central effectors of immunity and cancer immunotherapy. CRISPR-based functional studies in T cells could prioritize novel targets for drug development and improve the design of genetically reprogrammed cell-based therapies. However, large-scale CRISPR screens have been challenging in primary human cells. Critical biology of human immune cells, including key signaling pathways and effector functions, may not be recapitulated in immortalized cell lines. We developed a new method, sgRNA lentiviral infection with Cas9 protein electroporation (SLICE), to identify regulators of stimulation responses in primary human T cells. Genome-wide loss-of-function screens identified essential T cell receptor signaling components and genes that negatively tune proliferation following stimulation. Targeted ablation of individual candidate genes characterized hits and identified perturbations that enhanced cancer cell killing. SLICE coupled with single-cell RNA-Seq revealed signature stimulation-response gene programs altered by key genetic perturbations. SLICE genome-wide screening was also adaptable to identify mediators of immunosuppression, revealing genes controlling responses to adenosine signaling. In summary, we have developed a novel pooled CRISPR screening technology with the potential to explore unmapped genetic circuits in primary human cells and to guide the design of engineered cell therapies. Learning Objectives: Identify the components of a new pooled CRISPR screening technique (SLICE) using molecular biology Understand how to explore unmapped genetic circuits in primary human cells using SLICE Learn how to design engineered cell therapies using SLICE Webinars will be available for unlimited on-demand viewing after live event. LabRoots is approved as a provider of continuing education programs in the clinical laboratory sciences by the ASCLS P.A.C.E. ® Program. By attending this webinar, you can earn 1 Continuing Education credit once you have viewed the webinar in its entirety.

With humans pushing to live further off Earth for longer periods of time, it is increasingly important to understand the changes that occur in biological systems during spaceflight whether these be astronauts, their microbial commensals, or their plant-based life support systems. In a three-part presentation, we discuss GeneLab and recent discoveries regarding the microbiota of spacecrafts and space-flown animals. Part 1: GeneLab: Open Science for Life in Space, Jonathan Galazka, NASA Ames Research Center Abstract: To accelerate the pace of discovery from precious spaceflight biological experiments, NASA as develop the GeneLab data system (genelab.nasa.gov), which allows unfettered access to omics data from spaceflight and spaceflight relevant experiments. GeneLab houses metagenomic datasets from spacecraft and relevant spacecraft models. Users can download this data and associated metadata to make new discoveries about how microbial communities may change and adapt to spaceflight. Part 2: Reproducible changes in the gut microbiome suggest a shift in microbial and host metabolism during spaceflight, Peng Jiang, Northwestern University Abstract: The gastrointestinal microbiota interacts with multiple aspects of mammalian physiological functions. Microbiome changes in response to the challenging space environmental factors, such as microgravity and radiation, are thus thought to be important for astronaut health during long-term missions. Spaceflight-associated changes in the gut microbiome include an elevated microbial diversity and an altered community structure, which appeared to be consistent across studies in both humans and mice. Ongoing-studies are aiming to understand microbiome-host interactions during spaceflight and the significance of such interactions impact mammalian functions such as metabolism, immune functions, and sleep. Part 3: Novel technologies to identify Antimicrobial resistances in hospitals, urban environments and on the NASA International Space Station Abstract: With the revolution of next-generation sequencing technologies the field of microbiome and metagenomics research continues to expand and transform several fields. The Extreme Microbiome Project (XMP) launched in 2014 characterizes the microbial communities of extreme sites on Earth. In 2015 we launched the International MetaSUB consortium with more than 200 members in 25 countries. We experimenting with new technologies to find better solutions to for the remote and rapid sequencing of infectious diseases in hospitals, on the International Space Station (ISS) and in NASA clean rooms to inform the spacecraft assembly engineers and biological scientists of any potential bacterial or human contamination. Furthermore, we have been testing a broad range of cutting-edge technologies in the NASA Twins study. To better understand the impact of spaceflight on the human body and to prepare for future exploration-class missions, a pair of identical twin astronauts was monitored before, during, and after a one-year mission resulting in one of the most comprehensive studies ever have been made on one individuum.

The emergence of NGS is revolutionizing the microbiological sciences and transforming medicine. Deep sequencing has revealed that virtually all environments, including the human body, are teeming with diverse microbial communities. While microbes have predominantly been studied in the context of pathogenicity, it is now evident that the human microbiota contributes biological functions essential to health. Conversely, disrupting the microbiota host homeostasis in healthy individuals can lead to dysbiosis and is associated with many diseases and pathologies. As a consequence, research into the human microbiome has started to transform the healthcare landscape providing novel approaches for diagnostics and therapeutics. Other areas benefitting from metagenomics include biological safety of food and water. And in agriculture, changes in soil and in animal microbiomes can now be evaluated in the context of crop yield, livestock health, and reduced dependency on herbicides, pesticides, and antibiotics. However, translating microbiome research into routine applications depends on robust methods for data generation and interpretation. Yet, metagenomic sequencing is uniquely vulnerable to the introduction of bias and contamination creating a need for standardized workflows and controls. In this presentation, the transformative application of microbiome analysis in diagnostics, drug development, public health, agriculture, and water safety will be discussed. Potential error modes and strategies to control the sequencing and analysis workflow will be surveyed. Learning Objectives: How to standardize NGS library preparation Premises for reliable microbiome data How to implement laboratory automation in your lab LabRoots is approved as a provider of continuing education programs in the clinical laboratory sciences by the ASCLS P.A.C.E. ® Program. By attending this webinar, you can earn 1 Continuing Education credit once you have viewed the webinar in its entirety.