NEWS

Research results on the modeling and simulation of brain hippocampal signal transduction by Institute for Advanced Biosciences project research associate Shinichi Kikuchi was published in Neural Networks (vol. 16, Issue 9 , November 2003, pp 1389-1398) in the article "Kinetic simulation of signal transduction system in hippocampal long-term potentiation with dynamic modeling of protein phosphatase 2A".

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Bio Finance Guild 2003, a biotechnology training program for investors sponsored by Nikkei Business Publications, Inc., was held at the Institute for Advanced Biosciences on August 1-2, 2003.

Undergradute students Misaki Sato and Hitomi Umeki of the bioinformatics research group directed by Dr. Masaru Tomita published their results on computational analysis of stop codon readthrough in fruit flies (D.melanogaster) in Bioinformatics (Vol. 19 no. 11 2003 Pages 1371-1380).

In their work, a list of 85 candidates were extracted from 4082 nucleic acid sequences of Drosophila melanogaster in the GenBank genome database, based on the presence of a protein motif at the 3' untranslated region (UTR).

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A new bioventure, Human Metabolome Technologies (HMT), was established as a spin out from Keio University. The key technology of HMT, the measurement of metabolites in cells, came from the laboratories of Professor Masaru Tomita and Associate Professor Tomoyoshi Soga at the Institute for Advanced Biosciences (Keio University Tsuruoka Town Campus).

First IECA Conference on Systems Biology of E.Coli was held at the Institute for Advanced Biosciences on Jun 23-25 2003. The 2002 Nobel Laureate in Physiology of Medicine, Dr.Sydney Brenner, delivered the keynote lecture "What is a System?".

The Japanese government has established a new system called "Special Zones for Structural Reform". Based on the new system, Tsuruoka city is now authorized as the "Tsuruoka Bio Campus Special Zone" in spring 2003, allowing the visa extension for 3 Chinese researchers at the Institute for Advanced Biosciences.