New publication

I just got work yesterday from Hong that our collaboration with Dr. Kole has finally paid off. I am the 5th author on our new paper.

RNA repair restores hemoglobin expression in IVS2–654 thalassemic mice.

PNAS January 27, 2009 vol. 106 no. 4 pp1205–1210

Repair of b-globin pre-mRNA rendered defective by a thalassemia causing
splicing mutation, IVS2–654, in intron 2 of the human
b-globin gene was accomplished in vivo in a mouse model of
IVS2–654 thalassemia. This was effected by a systemically delivered
splice-switching oligonucleotide (SSO), a morpholino oligomer
conjugated to an arginine-rich peptide. The SSO blocked the
aberrant splice site in the targeted pre-mRNA and forced the
splicing machinery to reselect existing correct splice sites. Repaired
b-globin mRNA restored significant amounts of hemoglobin in the
peripheral blood of the IVS2–654 mouse, improving the number
and quality of erythroid cells.

Now I need to get published from my current lab. Hopefully it won't be too much longer.

Coulton Turner has arrived!

Yeah, my girlfriend Jean had her son last week! He was nearly 9lbs and healthy. I can't wait to get home to meet him. I am so happy for the family.

I also found out yesterday that my friend from college, Mandy, is pregnant and is due in May!

(Ryan is still working on getting our home computer working- so I'll upload photos soon. It looks like we were able to save everything, but it was hidden. It is still removing everything from our favorites and desktop each time we re-start it! Ugh.)

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas holiday and a Happy New Year! Sorry no new photos...our computer at home is fried once again (so wanting a Mac) so I don't want to take my photos off of our camera until we know what is going on. Ryan likes to leave the computer on overnight- well we woke up one day and everything was removed from the desktop and folders. All the programs are intact and we can get on the Internet, but we don't have any of our files. Much of it is saved on our external hard drive or jump drives, but not all of it. Ugh, I hate computers. My work computer is on the fritz too and its really old, refurbished and has a monster screen that takes up half of my desk. I don't anticipate getting a new one before I leave, so I hope it lasts another year.

My Christmas was White...maybe too much so. It snowed everyday I was there except the day I flew out. My parents had maybe 9 inches at their house. We made the most of it and went sledding and hiking in it. It was beautiful. I had a great time! I convinced my family to open presents early, since we wouldn't be doing it on Christmas anyways, so we could play with our gifts. The best was watching my Mom play tennis on the Wii (which they recently purchased). It got a bit of it on my phone, but the best was when she hit the ceiling with her little racket. If I had had a real video camera it could have won the $100,000 on America's Funniest Home Videos.

Steph drove us over the mtn and it was actually better coming over than it was once we go into Sandy. Originally I had wanted to go by way of the Santiam pass and see friends and family in Salem/Corvallis, but didn't want to drive anymore than we had to. The ruts and packed snow were terrible. We mostly stayed in and missed out on seeing most of Ryan's Mom's side of the family Christmas eve. Thankfully we made it out for the drive to Hillboro for Christmas. It was great to see everyone again. Ryan's cousin Kristen is pregnant again! This will be the 4th great grandchild in the family. All eyes are on me now, but we will wait a bit longer (Idocracy-rent it if you have not already seen it). I was also thankful to meet with my high school girlfriends and their sons. It was wierd. I had not seen them since last spring, but felt like it was last week from all of the pictures I have seen.

Time at home was way too short and I can't wait to be back in the NW. Thankfully I am back to work and am in the middle of an all-nighter experiment. It will be tough if it doesn't work out. Then I'll have to sleep in the lab again!

Have a wonderful new year! Stick to your resolutions...