Kentucky head coach John Calipari watches his team during their Blue-White NCAA college basketball scrimmage, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, in Lexington, Ky. The Blue team won 99-71. (AP Photo/James Crisp)
Kentucky head coach John Calipari watches his team during their Blue-White NCAA college basketball scrimmage, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, in Lexington, Ky. The Blue team won 99-71. (AP Photo/James Crisp)
Kentucky men's coach John Calipari speaks to the audience waiting for the start of the NCAA college basketball team's Big Blue Madness, Friday, Oct. 18, 2013, in Lexington, Ky. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
Kentucky head coach John Calipari watches his team during their Blue-White NCAA college basketball scrimmage, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, in Lexington, Ky. The Blue team won 99-71. (AP Photo/James Crisp)
Michigan State head basketball coach Tom Izzo responds to a question during the Big Ten Conference NCAA college basketball media day Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, in Rosemont, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo listens to a question during the Big Ten Conference NCAA college basketball media day Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, in Rosemont, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Every time Kentucky coach John Calipari starts to praise his latest crop of talented freshmen, he's just as quick to point out that it is a work in progress.
As the Wildcats take the first step toward coming together, Calipari will also have to remind his players to get through those growing pains quickly, because they are now the team to beat in college basketball.
Kentucky — with a collection of high school All-Americans — is ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press' preseason Top 25, a significant step considering the Wildcats finished 21-12 last season and were upset by Robert Morris in the first round of the NIT.
It's Kentucky's third preseason No. 1 and first since 1995-96 when the Wildcats won the national championship. The other preseason No. 1 was in 1980-81.
Kentucky was ranked for just one week in the final 16 polls of last season but Calipari enters this season with a roster featuring two returnees — Alex Poythress and Willie Cauley-Stein — and six freshmen who were selected McDonalds All-Americans last season.
To say that a ninth national championship is this year's goal is an understatement considering Kentucky has social media and blogs suggesting an unbeaten season is possible.
Calipari would just like to get to the Nov. 8 opener against North Carolina-Asheville first. The Wildcats begin the exhibition season Friday.
"It's a nice honor, but it's way too early to figure out who's the best team in the country," Calipari said. "We may be very talented, but I can't imagine us being the best team in the country at this point."
Kentucky beat out Michigan State in a close vote from the 65-member panel.
The Wildcats received 27 first-place votes and 1,546 points in the poll released Thursday. The Spartans, who return four starters from the team that lost to Duke in the NCAA tournament's round of 16, snared 22 first-place votes and 1,543 points.
It won't take long for the schools to settle the issue. Kentucky and Michigan State meet on Nov. 12 at the State Farm Champions Classic in Chicago.
If their rankings hold, it'll set up the earliest meeting between the top two teams. No. 1 Indiana beat No. 2 UCLA 84-64 on Nov. 29, 1975 in St. Louis, Mo.
The polling also enhances what already figured to be a strong showdown between two heavyweights.
"A 1-2 matchup is a win-win deal," Spartans coach Tom Izzo told the AP. "If you win, you understand where you are and what you have as a team. If you lose, you've got time to figure out what you need to do to get better. I'm not sure, though, how kids and fans will react to winning or losing that game."
Of his team's ranking, Izzo added, "it's exciting because it means a group of people think we're good, and we've got a chance to be great."
Defending national champion Louisville received 14 first-place votes and was third while Duke, which received the other two No. 1 votes, was fourth.
Kansas was fifth, followed by Arizona and Michigan. Oklahoma State and Syracuse tied for eighth and Florida rounded out the Top Ten.
Ohio State was 11th and was followed by North Carolina, Memphis, VCU, Gonzaga, Wichita State, Marquette, Connecticut, Oregon and Wisconsin.
The last five ranked teams were Notre Dame, UCLA, New Mexico, Virginia and Baylor.
The last preseason No. 1 not to be ranked in the final poll of the previous season was Indiana in 1979-80.
Indiana was the preseason No. 1 last season and the Hoosiers were fourth in the final poll.
Gonzaga was No. 1 in the final poll last season and 18 teams in that final poll were in the preseason Top 25.
The Atlantic Coast Conference had the most teams in the preseason Top 25 with five and the Big Ten had four. The new American Athletic Conference, the Big 12 and Pac 12 all had three ranked teams.
Though Kentucky's objective is winning its second NCAA title in three seasons, playing like it's the nation's best is also a priority for the Wildcats a year after falling from the poll weeks after starting No. 3.
"It's a blessing to be No. 1, but it means we have a (target) on our backs now and we really have to stay focused," Kentucky 7-footer Dakari Johnson said Thursday. "That's not the main thing we're focused on. We're just trying to be the best team that we can be."
Michigan State senior guard Keith Appling echoed that sentiment, especially since the Spartans came within three votes of being top-ranked.
"That has to be one of the things to drive us to work harder," he said.
The consensus is that Calipari landed his best in a series of No. 1 recruiting classes. The group features Julius Randle, James Young, Johnson, Marcus Lee and identical twin guards Aaron and Andrew Harrison, along with in-state standouts Dominique Hawkins and Derek Willis.
Along with Cauley-Stein, Poythress and senior reserves Jarrod Polson and Jon Hood, Kentucky has a mix of experience somewhat similar to the 2011-12 title team led by Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.
The season will determine whether Kentucky is able to deliver, and Willis said the Wildcats are just focused on being on top at the end.
"There's a lot of talk about 40-0 and all that stuff," Willis said, "but we're just working on ourselves and not worrying about what the media is saying right now."
__
AP Basketball Writer Jim O'Connell In New York, and AP Sports Writer Larry Lage in East Lansing, Mich., contributed to this report.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A fungus targeting white pine forests has mutated and poses new threats more than a century after it first hit the United States, American and Canadian scientists said Thursday.
A mutant form of white pine blister rust was discovered by Cornell University researcher Kerik Cox in 2011 in Connecticut. After two years of study, scientists now believe a large number of host plants — called ribes (pronounced RYE'-beez) — previously thought to be immune to the fungus are susceptible. Ribes include valuable niche crops like black currants and gooseberries that are used in products from jam to vodka.
Spores from infected ribes are carried by wind to the pines where the fungus invades the tree, eventually killing it.
"This is a problem both for the forest industry and for growers (of ribes)," said Isabel Munck, a plant pathologist for the U.S. Forest Service based in Durham, N.H. She estimates up to half the plants previously thought to be immune have been found to be infected.
When the fungus first hit in 1909 and spread outward from New York state, a massive eradication effort including a federal ban on planting ribes, helped stem the destruction. Still, within 13 years, about half the pines in New Hampshire were infected by the fungus, which is native to Asia and is believed to have hitchhiked here on an infected pine seedling from Europe.
Philippe Tanguay, a molecular forest pathologist with the Canadian Forest Service, said a genetic fingerprint of the new discovery determined it was a mutation of an existing strain of blister rust and not a new strain.
Several states, including New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts, still ban the planting of certain varieties of currants and other ribes. In light of the 2011 discovery, New Hampshire will add the previously immune plants to the banned list, and Munck said other states may follow.
There are other treatments including fungicides used on ribes, pruning of infected pine branches or removal of trees, she said.
It's a worry in timbering states like New Hampshire and Maine and in Canada.
"Pine is still the king in New Hampshire," said Kyle Lombard, the state's forest health program manager. "We grow and cut more pine in New Hampshire than any other tree species."
Eastern white pine is native to eastern North America. It ranges as far north as the Canadian Maritimes, westward to the Great Lakes and as far south as Mississippi. Munck said scientists are just getting a handle on the mutation and part of the early effort will focus on outreach to other states.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Thursday sharply criticized U.S. states that are defying the Pentagon by refusing to allow National Guard facilities to issue ID cards that enable same-sex spouses of military members to claim benefits.
"This is wrong," Hagel said in remarks prepared for delivery in New York.
"Not only does this violate the states' obligation under federal law, their actions have created hardship and inequality by forcing couples to travel long distances to federal military bases to obtain the ID cards they're entitled to," he said.
Hagel said this is causing division among the military ranks.
In his remarks prepared for an Anti-Defamation League centennial dinner speech, Hagel did not name the states that are defying Pentagon policy on this issue. But the Pentagon has cited nine: Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia.
The Pentagon says there are 114 Army and Air National Guard sites in those nine states that are not providing ID cards to eligible same-sex spouses.
Hagel also used his speech to announce that he has directed the Marine Corps to expedite the manufacture and delivery to Israel of V-22 Osprey aircraft, hybrids that take off and land like a helicopter and cruise like an airplane. It is to be the first overseas sale of the Osprey.
Hagel also offered assurances that the Obama administration's interest in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program is a way of testing Iranian intentions for a diplomatic solution to a matter that has been in dispute for years.
"If we can find ways to resolve disputes peacefully, we are wise to explore them," he said in his prepared remarks. Israel is skeptical of any negotiation with Iran.
Convinced Iran is pursuing the development of nuclear weapons to threaten his country, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Iranians are trying to trick the West into easing economic sanctions while still pushing forward with their nuclear program. Iran insists its program is for peaceful purposes.
Hagel focused much of his dinner speech on the gay rights matter, which was a central issue during the tenure of his predecessor at the Pentagon, Leon Panetta. Panetta, who retired in February, was honored at the dinner for his long career in public service.
Under Pentagon policy that took effect Sept. 3, same-sex spouses of military members are eligible for the same health care, housing and other benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex spouses. That decision followed the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in June on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.
Some states, however, have refused to allow issuance of the necessary Pentagon ID cards on National Guard facilities.
In Oklahoma, for example, Gov. Mary Fallin ordered her state's National Guard to stop processing requests, making legally married gay couples apply for benefits on federal facilities like Tinker Air Force Base. Oklahoma in 2004 approved a constitutional amendment prohibiting giving benefits of marriage to gay couples.
Hagel said these states' policies are unfair. He said he ordered the chief of the National Guard Bureau, Gen. Frank Grass, to "take immediate action to remedy this situation."
It was not immediately clear what legal authority Grass has to force the states to change course.
Hagel said he instructed Grass to meet with the adjutants general from the nine states where the ID cards are being denied at state facilities. He said those adjutants general, who work for their states' governor, "will be expected to comply" with Pentagon policy on this issue.
Defense officials estimate there are 18,000 same-sex couples in the active-duty military, National Guard and Reserves and among military retirees. It's unclear how many of those are married. The Pentagon policy on equal access to benefits does not apply to unmarried gay partners of military members.
A Pentagon ban on gays serving openly in the military was dropped in September 2011.
Scientists capture most detailed picture yet of key AIDS protein
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31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Sarah Smith sas2072@med.cornell.edu 646-317-7401 Weill Cornell Medical College
Finding represents a scientific feat and progress towards an HIV vaccine
NEW YORK (October 31, 2013) -- Collaborating scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Weill Cornell Medical College have determined the first atomic-level structure of the tripartite HIV envelope protein -- long considered one of the most difficult targets in structural biology and of great value for medical science.
The new data provide the most detailed picture yet of the AIDS-causing virus's complex envelope, including sites that future vaccines will try to mimic to elicit a protective immune response.
"Most of the prior structural studies of this envelope complex focused on individual subunits, but we've needed the structure of the full complex to properly define the sites of vulnerability that could be targeted, for example with a vaccine," said Dr. Ian A. Wilson, the Hansen Professor of Structural Biology at TSRI and a senior author of the new research with biologists Drs. Andrew Ward and Bridget Carragher of TSRI and virologist and immunologist Dr. John Moore of Weill Cornell.
The findings were published in two papers in Science Express, the early online edition of the journal Science, on October 31, 2013.
A Difficult Target
HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, infects about 34 million people globally, 10 percent of whom are children, according to World Health Organization estimates. Although antiviral drugs are now used to manage many HIV infections, especially in developed countries, scientists have long sought a vaccine that can prevent new infections and would help perhaps to ultimately eradicate the virus from the human population.
However, none of the HIV vaccines tested so far has come close to providing adequate protection. This failure is due largely to the challenges posed by HIV's envelope protein, known to virologists as Env.
HIV's Env is not a single, simple protein but rather a "trimer" made of three identical, loosely connected structures with a stalk-like subunit, gp41, and a cap-like region, gp120. Each trimer resembles a mushroom and about 15 of these Env trimers sprout from the membrane of a typical virus particle, ready to latch onto susceptible human cells and facilitate viral entry.
Although Env in principle is exposed to the immune system, in practice it has evolved highly effective strategies for evading immune attack. It frequently mutates its outermost "variable loop" regions, for example, and also coats its surfaces with hard-to-grip sugar molecules called glycans.
Even so, HIV vaccine designers might have succeeded by now had they been able to study the structure of the entire Env protein at atomic-scale--in particular, to fully characterize the sites where the most effective virus-neutralizing antibodies bind. But Env's structure is so complex and delicate that scientists have had great difficulty obtaining the protein in a form that is suitable for atomic-resolution imaging.
"It tends to fall apart, for example, even when it's on the surface of the virus, so to study it we have to engineer it to be more stable," said Dr. Ward, who is an assistant professor in TSRI's Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology.
The key goal in this area has been to engineer a version of the Env trimer that has the stability and other properties needed for atomic-resolution imaging, yet retains virtually all of the complex structural characteristics of native Env.
Imaging Env
After many years in pursuit of this goal, Drs. Moore, Rogier W. Sanders and their colleagues at Weill Cornell, working with Drs. Wilson, Ward and others at TSRI, recently managed to produce a version of the Env trimer (called BG505 SOSIP.664 gp140) that is suitable for atomic-level imaging work--and includes all of the trimer structure that normally sits outside the viral membrane. The TSRI researchers then evaluated the new Env trimer using advanced versions of two imaging methods, X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy. The X-ray crystallography study was the first ever of an Env trimer, and both methods resolved the trimer structure to a finer level of detail than has been reported before.
"The new data are consistent with the findings on Env subunits over the last 15 years, but also have enabled us to explain many prior observations about HIV in structural terms for the first time," said Dr. Jean-Philippe Julien, a senior research associate in the Wilson laboratory at TSRI, who was first author of the X-ray crystallography study.
The data illuminated the complex process by which the Env trimer assembles and later undergoes radical shape changes during infection and clarified how it compares to envelope proteins on other dangerous viruses, such as flu and Ebola.
Arguably the most important implications of the new findings are for HIV vaccine design. In both of the new studies, Env trimers were imaged while bound to broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV. Such antibodies, isolated from naturally infected patients, are the very rare ones that somehow bind to Env in a way that blocks the infectivity of a high proportion of HIV strains.
Ideally an HIV vaccine would elicit large numbers of such antibodies from patients, and to achieve that, vaccine designers would like to know the precise structural details of the sites where these antibodies bind to the virus--so that they can mimic those viral "epitopes" with the vaccine.
"It's been a privilege for us to work with the Scripps' team on this project," said Dr. Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell. "Now we all need to harness this new knowledge to design and test next-generation trimers and see if we can induce the broadly active neutralizing antibodies that an effective vaccine is going to need."
"One surprise from this study was the revelation of the complexity and the relative inaccessibility of these neutralizing epitopes," Dr. Julien added. "It helps to know this for future vaccine design, but it also makes it clear why previous structure-based HIV vaccines have had so little success."
"We found that these neutralizing epitopes encompass features such as the variable loop regions and glycans that were excluded from previous studies of individual Env subunits," said Dmitry Lyumkis, first author of the electron microscopy study, who is a graduate student at TSRI participating in the NIH-funded National Resource for Automated Molecular Microscopy. "We observed, too, that neutralizing antibody binding to gp120 can be influenced by the neighboring gp120 structure within the trimer--another complication that was not apparent when we were not studying the whole trimer."
Having provided these valuable structural insights, the new Env trimer is now being put to work in vaccine development. "We and others are already injecting the trimer into animals to elicit antibodies," Dr. Ward said. "We can look at the antibodies that are generated and if necessary modify the Env trimer structure and try again. In this iterative way, we aim to refine and increase the antibody response in the animals and eventually, humans."
###
Other contributors to the studies, "Cryo-EM structure of a fully glycosylated soluble cleaved HIV-1 Env trimer," and "Crystal structure of a soluble cleaved HIV-1 envelope trimer in complex with a glycan-dependent broadly neutralizing antibody," included TSRI's Natalia de Val, Devin Sok, Drs. Robyn L. Stanfield and Marc C. Deller; and Weill Cornell Medical College's Albert Cupo and Dr. Per-Johan Klasse. In addition to Drs. Wilson, Ward and Carragher, senior participants at TSRI included Drs. Clinton S. Potter and Dennis Burton.
The research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (HIVRAD P01 AI82362, R01 AI36082, R01 AI084817, R37 AI36082, R01 AI33292), the NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM103310) and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative Neutralizing Antibody Consortium. IAVI has filed a patent that includes WCMC and TSRI authors on the development of the BG505 SOSIP.664 trimers as vaccine antigens.
Weill Cornell Medical College
Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University's medical school located in New York City, is committed to excellence in research, teaching, patient care and the advancement of the art and science of medicine, locally, nationally and globally. Physicians and scientists of Weill Cornell Medical College are engaged in cutting-edge research from bench to bedside, aimed at unlocking mysteries of the human body in health and sickness and toward developing new treatments and prevention strategies. In its commitment to global health and education, Weill Cornell has a strong presence in places such as Qatar, Tanzania, Haiti, Brazil, Austria and Turkey. Through the historic Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, the Medical College is the first in the U.S. to offer its M.D. degree overseas. Weill Cornell is the birthplace of many medical advances -- including the development of the Pap test for cervical cancer, the synthesis of penicillin, the first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and birth in the U.S., the first clinical trial of gene therapy for Parkinson's disease, and most recently, the world's first successful use of deep brain stimulation to treat a minimally conscious brain-injured patient. Weill Cornell Medical College is affiliated with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where its faculty provides comprehensive patient care at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The Medical College is also affiliated with Houston Methodist. For more information, visit weill.cornell.edu.
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Weill Cornell Medical College
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email: pr@med.cornell.edu
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Scientists capture most detailed picture yet of key AIDS protein
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Sarah Smith sas2072@med.cornell.edu 646-317-7401 Weill Cornell Medical College
Finding represents a scientific feat and progress towards an HIV vaccine
NEW YORK (October 31, 2013) -- Collaborating scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Weill Cornell Medical College have determined the first atomic-level structure of the tripartite HIV envelope protein -- long considered one of the most difficult targets in structural biology and of great value for medical science.
The new data provide the most detailed picture yet of the AIDS-causing virus's complex envelope, including sites that future vaccines will try to mimic to elicit a protective immune response.
"Most of the prior structural studies of this envelope complex focused on individual subunits, but we've needed the structure of the full complex to properly define the sites of vulnerability that could be targeted, for example with a vaccine," said Dr. Ian A. Wilson, the Hansen Professor of Structural Biology at TSRI and a senior author of the new research with biologists Drs. Andrew Ward and Bridget Carragher of TSRI and virologist and immunologist Dr. John Moore of Weill Cornell.
The findings were published in two papers in Science Express, the early online edition of the journal Science, on October 31, 2013.
A Difficult Target
HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, infects about 34 million people globally, 10 percent of whom are children, according to World Health Organization estimates. Although antiviral drugs are now used to manage many HIV infections, especially in developed countries, scientists have long sought a vaccine that can prevent new infections and would help perhaps to ultimately eradicate the virus from the human population.
However, none of the HIV vaccines tested so far has come close to providing adequate protection. This failure is due largely to the challenges posed by HIV's envelope protein, known to virologists as Env.
HIV's Env is not a single, simple protein but rather a "trimer" made of three identical, loosely connected structures with a stalk-like subunit, gp41, and a cap-like region, gp120. Each trimer resembles a mushroom and about 15 of these Env trimers sprout from the membrane of a typical virus particle, ready to latch onto susceptible human cells and facilitate viral entry.
Although Env in principle is exposed to the immune system, in practice it has evolved highly effective strategies for evading immune attack. It frequently mutates its outermost "variable loop" regions, for example, and also coats its surfaces with hard-to-grip sugar molecules called glycans.
Even so, HIV vaccine designers might have succeeded by now had they been able to study the structure of the entire Env protein at atomic-scale--in particular, to fully characterize the sites where the most effective virus-neutralizing antibodies bind. But Env's structure is so complex and delicate that scientists have had great difficulty obtaining the protein in a form that is suitable for atomic-resolution imaging.
"It tends to fall apart, for example, even when it's on the surface of the virus, so to study it we have to engineer it to be more stable," said Dr. Ward, who is an assistant professor in TSRI's Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology.
The key goal in this area has been to engineer a version of the Env trimer that has the stability and other properties needed for atomic-resolution imaging, yet retains virtually all of the complex structural characteristics of native Env.
Imaging Env
After many years in pursuit of this goal, Drs. Moore, Rogier W. Sanders and their colleagues at Weill Cornell, working with Drs. Wilson, Ward and others at TSRI, recently managed to produce a version of the Env trimer (called BG505 SOSIP.664 gp140) that is suitable for atomic-level imaging work--and includes all of the trimer structure that normally sits outside the viral membrane. The TSRI researchers then evaluated the new Env trimer using advanced versions of two imaging methods, X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy. The X-ray crystallography study was the first ever of an Env trimer, and both methods resolved the trimer structure to a finer level of detail than has been reported before.
"The new data are consistent with the findings on Env subunits over the last 15 years, but also have enabled us to explain many prior observations about HIV in structural terms for the first time," said Dr. Jean-Philippe Julien, a senior research associate in the Wilson laboratory at TSRI, who was first author of the X-ray crystallography study.
The data illuminated the complex process by which the Env trimer assembles and later undergoes radical shape changes during infection and clarified how it compares to envelope proteins on other dangerous viruses, such as flu and Ebola.
Arguably the most important implications of the new findings are for HIV vaccine design. In both of the new studies, Env trimers were imaged while bound to broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV. Such antibodies, isolated from naturally infected patients, are the very rare ones that somehow bind to Env in a way that blocks the infectivity of a high proportion of HIV strains.
Ideally an HIV vaccine would elicit large numbers of such antibodies from patients, and to achieve that, vaccine designers would like to know the precise structural details of the sites where these antibodies bind to the virus--so that they can mimic those viral "epitopes" with the vaccine.
"It's been a privilege for us to work with the Scripps' team on this project," said Dr. Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell. "Now we all need to harness this new knowledge to design and test next-generation trimers and see if we can induce the broadly active neutralizing antibodies that an effective vaccine is going to need."
"One surprise from this study was the revelation of the complexity and the relative inaccessibility of these neutralizing epitopes," Dr. Julien added. "It helps to know this for future vaccine design, but it also makes it clear why previous structure-based HIV vaccines have had so little success."
"We found that these neutralizing epitopes encompass features such as the variable loop regions and glycans that were excluded from previous studies of individual Env subunits," said Dmitry Lyumkis, first author of the electron microscopy study, who is a graduate student at TSRI participating in the NIH-funded National Resource for Automated Molecular Microscopy. "We observed, too, that neutralizing antibody binding to gp120 can be influenced by the neighboring gp120 structure within the trimer--another complication that was not apparent when we were not studying the whole trimer."
Having provided these valuable structural insights, the new Env trimer is now being put to work in vaccine development. "We and others are already injecting the trimer into animals to elicit antibodies," Dr. Ward said. "We can look at the antibodies that are generated and if necessary modify the Env trimer structure and try again. In this iterative way, we aim to refine and increase the antibody response in the animals and eventually, humans."
###
Other contributors to the studies, "Cryo-EM structure of a fully glycosylated soluble cleaved HIV-1 Env trimer," and "Crystal structure of a soluble cleaved HIV-1 envelope trimer in complex with a glycan-dependent broadly neutralizing antibody," included TSRI's Natalia de Val, Devin Sok, Drs. Robyn L. Stanfield and Marc C. Deller; and Weill Cornell Medical College's Albert Cupo and Dr. Per-Johan Klasse. In addition to Drs. Wilson, Ward and Carragher, senior participants at TSRI included Drs. Clinton S. Potter and Dennis Burton.
The research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (HIVRAD P01 AI82362, R01 AI36082, R01 AI084817, R37 AI36082, R01 AI33292), the NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM103310) and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative Neutralizing Antibody Consortium. IAVI has filed a patent that includes WCMC and TSRI authors on the development of the BG505 SOSIP.664 trimers as vaccine antigens.
Weill Cornell Medical College
Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University's medical school located in New York City, is committed to excellence in research, teaching, patient care and the advancement of the art and science of medicine, locally, nationally and globally. Physicians and scientists of Weill Cornell Medical College are engaged in cutting-edge research from bench to bedside, aimed at unlocking mysteries of the human body in health and sickness and toward developing new treatments and prevention strategies. In its commitment to global health and education, Weill Cornell has a strong presence in places such as Qatar, Tanzania, Haiti, Brazil, Austria and Turkey. Through the historic Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, the Medical College is the first in the U.S. to offer its M.D. degree overseas. Weill Cornell is the birthplace of many medical advances -- including the development of the Pap test for cervical cancer, the synthesis of penicillin, the first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and birth in the U.S., the first clinical trial of gene therapy for Parkinson's disease, and most recently, the world's first successful use of deep brain stimulation to treat a minimally conscious brain-injured patient. Weill Cornell Medical College is affiliated with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where its faculty provides comprehensive patient care at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The Medical College is also affiliated with Houston Methodist. For more information, visit weill.cornell.edu.
Office of External Affairs
Weill Cornell Medical College
tel: 646.317.7401
email: pr@med.cornell.edu
Follow WCMC on Twitter and Facebook
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Women under 60 with diabetes at much greater risk for heart disease
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31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Patrick Smith psmith88@jhmi.edu 410-955-8242 Johns Hopkins Medicine
Results of a Johns Hopkins study published today in the journal Diabetes Care found that young and middle-aged women with type 2 diabetes are at much greater risk of coronary artery disease than previously believed.
Generally, women under 60 are at far less risk for coronary artery disease than men of the same age. But among women of that age who have diabetes, their risk of heart disease increases by up to four times, making it roughly equal to men's risk of this same form of heart disease.
"Our findings suggest that we need to work harder to prevent heart disease in women under 60 who have diabetes," says Rita Rastogi Kalyani, M.D., M.H.S., endocrinologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead study author. "This study tells us that women of any age who have diabetes are at a high risk for coronary artery disease."
While men generally have a higher incidence of heart disease than women, the study found that diabetes had little or no effect on men's heart disease risk.
Kalyani said the new study is believed to be the first to focus specifically on gender differences in coronary artery disease among younger and middle-aged people with diabetes.
For the research, she and her colleagues analyzed data from more than 10,000 participants in three widely regarded studies: the GeneSTAR Research Program, the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III. None of the participants had a history of heart disease. All three studies yielded similar gender differences in rates of diabetes and the risk of developing heart disease.
"Our study adds to growing evidence that gender differences exist in the risk of coronary artery disease brought on by diabetes," Kalyani says.
Interestingly, in both women and men, these findings were unrelated to differences in obesity and other traditional cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking.
Kalyani and her colleagues offer several possible explanations for the increased risk. There may be distinct genetic and hormonal factors related to the development of heart disease by gender. Differences in adherence to heart-healthy lifestyle behaviors, compliance and treatment of cardiovascular treatments between genders are also possible but need to be further investigated, Kalyani says. Also, the relationship of diabetes duration and glucose control to risk of heart disease remains unclear.
###
In addition to Kalyani, the study's authors are Mario Lazo, M.D.; Pamelo Ouyang, M.B.B.S.; Karinne Chevalier, M.S.; Frederick Brancati, M.D., M.H.S.; Diane Becker, Sc.D., M.P.H.; and Dhananjay Vaidya, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, as well as Evrim Turkbey, M.D., of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center.
About Johns Hopkins Medicine
Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is a $6.7 billion integrated global health enterprise and one of the leading academic health care systems in the United States. JHM unites physicians and scientists of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with the organizations, health professionals and facilities of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. JHM's vision, "Together, we will deliver the promise of medicine," is supported by its mission to improve the health of the community and the world by setting the standard of excellence in medical education, research and clinical care. Diverse and inclusive, JHM educates medical students, scientists, health care professionals and the public; conducts biomedical research; and provides patient-centered medicine to prevent, diagnose and treat human illness. JHM operates six academic and community hospitals, four suburban health care and surgery centers, and more than 35 Johns Hopkins Community Physicians sites. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in 1889, was ranked number one in the nation for 21 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report. For more information about Johns Hopkins Medicine, its research, education and clinical programs, and for the latest health, science and research news, visit http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org.
Media Contacts: Patrick Smith
410-955-8242; psmith88@jhmi.edu or
Helen Jones
410-502-9422; hjones49@jhmi.edu
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Women under 60 with diabetes at much greater risk for heart disease
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Patrick Smith psmith88@jhmi.edu 410-955-8242 Johns Hopkins Medicine
Results of a Johns Hopkins study published today in the journal Diabetes Care found that young and middle-aged women with type 2 diabetes are at much greater risk of coronary artery disease than previously believed.
Generally, women under 60 are at far less risk for coronary artery disease than men of the same age. But among women of that age who have diabetes, their risk of heart disease increases by up to four times, making it roughly equal to men's risk of this same form of heart disease.
"Our findings suggest that we need to work harder to prevent heart disease in women under 60 who have diabetes," says Rita Rastogi Kalyani, M.D., M.H.S., endocrinologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead study author. "This study tells us that women of any age who have diabetes are at a high risk for coronary artery disease."
While men generally have a higher incidence of heart disease than women, the study found that diabetes had little or no effect on men's heart disease risk.
Kalyani said the new study is believed to be the first to focus specifically on gender differences in coronary artery disease among younger and middle-aged people with diabetes.
For the research, she and her colleagues analyzed data from more than 10,000 participants in three widely regarded studies: the GeneSTAR Research Program, the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III. None of the participants had a history of heart disease. All three studies yielded similar gender differences in rates of diabetes and the risk of developing heart disease.
"Our study adds to growing evidence that gender differences exist in the risk of coronary artery disease brought on by diabetes," Kalyani says.
Interestingly, in both women and men, these findings were unrelated to differences in obesity and other traditional cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking.
Kalyani and her colleagues offer several possible explanations for the increased risk. There may be distinct genetic and hormonal factors related to the development of heart disease by gender. Differences in adherence to heart-healthy lifestyle behaviors, compliance and treatment of cardiovascular treatments between genders are also possible but need to be further investigated, Kalyani says. Also, the relationship of diabetes duration and glucose control to risk of heart disease remains unclear.
###
In addition to Kalyani, the study's authors are Mario Lazo, M.D.; Pamelo Ouyang, M.B.B.S.; Karinne Chevalier, M.S.; Frederick Brancati, M.D., M.H.S.; Diane Becker, Sc.D., M.P.H.; and Dhananjay Vaidya, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, as well as Evrim Turkbey, M.D., of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center.
About Johns Hopkins Medicine
Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is a $6.7 billion integrated global health enterprise and one of the leading academic health care systems in the United States. JHM unites physicians and scientists of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with the organizations, health professionals and facilities of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. JHM's vision, "Together, we will deliver the promise of medicine," is supported by its mission to improve the health of the community and the world by setting the standard of excellence in medical education, research and clinical care. Diverse and inclusive, JHM educates medical students, scientists, health care professionals and the public; conducts biomedical research; and provides patient-centered medicine to prevent, diagnose and treat human illness. JHM operates six academic and community hospitals, four suburban health care and surgery centers, and more than 35 Johns Hopkins Community Physicians sites. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in 1889, was ranked number one in the nation for 21 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report. For more information about Johns Hopkins Medicine, its research, education and clinical programs, and for the latest health, science and research news, visit http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org.
Media Contacts: Patrick Smith
410-955-8242; psmith88@jhmi.edu or
Helen Jones
410-502-9422; hjones49@jhmi.edu
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Contact: Judy Romero jromero@crf.org Cardiovascular Research Foundation
'Hybrid procedure' combining minimally invasive corornary artery bypass surgery (CABG) with percutaneous coronary intervention is feasible and safe compared with traditional CABG
SAN FRANCISCO, CA October 31, 2013 A hybrid approach to treating coronary artery disease that involves a "hybrid procedure" combining a minimally invasive bypass surgery with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) was found to be feasible and safe in a clinical trial. This is the first randomized study of the technique. These findings were presented today at the 25th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
Hybrid coronary artery revascularization (HCR) as studied within this trial combined a minimally invasive left internal mammary artery bypass grafting to the left anterior descending artery (LAD) with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation to other coronary arteries. Due to the lack of data from large, prospective randomized trials comparing HCR with standard surgical revascularization, HYBRID was designed as a feasibility study to assess the safety and efficacy of HCR in patients with multi-vessel coronary artery disease referred for standard coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).
Two hundred consecutive patients, with angiographically confirmed multi-vessel coronary artery disease (CAD) involving the LAD and a critical (>70%) lesion in at least one major epicardial vessel (except LAD) amenable to both PCI and CABG, were randomized in a 1:1 fashion to HCR or standard surgical revascularization.
The primary objectives of this trial were to investigate the feasibility and safety of HCR. The feasibility assessment was defined both as the percentage of patients in the hybrid group that had a complete HCR procedure according to the study protocol and a percentage that had to be converted to standard CABG. The safety endpoint was the occurrence of MACE (major adverse cardiac events) such as death, myocardial infarction, stroke, repeat revascularization, major bleeding within the 12 month period after randomization.
In the trial, 93.9 percent of the patients in the hybrid group had the completed HCR procedure and 6.1 percent were converted to CABG.
At one year, 92.2 percent of the CABG group and 89.8 percent of the hybrid group were free from MACE. No strokes were reported in either group. The rate of death was 2.9 percent in the CABG group and 2.0 percent in the HCR group.
"This first randomized pilot study on hybrid coronary revascularization shows promising feasibility and safety results supporting the idea of hybrid coronary revascularization in patients with multi-vessel disease," said Michal Hawranek, MD, PhD, on behalf of the investigation team at the Silesian Center for Heart Disease in Zabrze, Poland.
###
The HYBRID trial was funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland. Dr. Hawranek reported no disclosures.
About CRF and TCT
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is an independent, academically focused nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life for people with cardiovascular disease through research and education. Since its inception in 1991, CRF has played a major role in realizing dramatic improvements in the lives of countless numbers of patients by establishing the safe use of new technologies and therapies in interventional cardiovascular medicine. CRF is the sponsor of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. For more information, visit http://www.crf.org and http://www.tctconference.com.
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Results of the HYBRID trial presented at TCT 2013
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Judy Romero jromero@crf.org Cardiovascular Research Foundation
'Hybrid procedure' combining minimally invasive corornary artery bypass surgery (CABG) with percutaneous coronary intervention is feasible and safe compared with traditional CABG
SAN FRANCISCO, CA October 31, 2013 A hybrid approach to treating coronary artery disease that involves a "hybrid procedure" combining a minimally invasive bypass surgery with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) was found to be feasible and safe in a clinical trial. This is the first randomized study of the technique. These findings were presented today at the 25th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
Hybrid coronary artery revascularization (HCR) as studied within this trial combined a minimally invasive left internal mammary artery bypass grafting to the left anterior descending artery (LAD) with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation to other coronary arteries. Due to the lack of data from large, prospective randomized trials comparing HCR with standard surgical revascularization, HYBRID was designed as a feasibility study to assess the safety and efficacy of HCR in patients with multi-vessel coronary artery disease referred for standard coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).
Two hundred consecutive patients, with angiographically confirmed multi-vessel coronary artery disease (CAD) involving the LAD and a critical (>70%) lesion in at least one major epicardial vessel (except LAD) amenable to both PCI and CABG, were randomized in a 1:1 fashion to HCR or standard surgical revascularization.
The primary objectives of this trial were to investigate the feasibility and safety of HCR. The feasibility assessment was defined both as the percentage of patients in the hybrid group that had a complete HCR procedure according to the study protocol and a percentage that had to be converted to standard CABG. The safety endpoint was the occurrence of MACE (major adverse cardiac events) such as death, myocardial infarction, stroke, repeat revascularization, major bleeding within the 12 month period after randomization.
In the trial, 93.9 percent of the patients in the hybrid group had the completed HCR procedure and 6.1 percent were converted to CABG.
At one year, 92.2 percent of the CABG group and 89.8 percent of the hybrid group were free from MACE. No strokes were reported in either group. The rate of death was 2.9 percent in the CABG group and 2.0 percent in the HCR group.
"This first randomized pilot study on hybrid coronary revascularization shows promising feasibility and safety results supporting the idea of hybrid coronary revascularization in patients with multi-vessel disease," said Michal Hawranek, MD, PhD, on behalf of the investigation team at the Silesian Center for Heart Disease in Zabrze, Poland.
###
The HYBRID trial was funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland. Dr. Hawranek reported no disclosures.
About CRF and TCT
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is an independent, academically focused nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life for people with cardiovascular disease through research and education. Since its inception in 1991, CRF has played a major role in realizing dramatic improvements in the lives of countless numbers of patients by establishing the safe use of new technologies and therapies in interventional cardiovascular medicine. CRF is the sponsor of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. For more information, visit http://www.crf.org and http://www.tctconference.com.
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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.
DETROIT (AP) — After recovering from an undisclosed illness, Aretha Franklin is returning to the concert stage with a December performance in her hometown of Detroit.
The Detroit News (http://bit.ly/1h3Gbms ) says the Queen of Soul will sing Dec. 21 at the MotorCity Casino Hotel's Sound Board.
Franklin is involved in recording an album for Clive Davis and Sony Music in November, produced by Don Was and Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds.
Franklin told reporters Oct. 16 that "the side effects were rough" from her treatment for the mystery condition and says she's "glad to be back."
___
Information from: The Detroit News, http://detnews.com/
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — As cannons thundered and mortar shells exploded nearby, the young Syrian woman in a slinky dark dress and stylish bob performed a song by pop star Adele, taking refuge behind a microphone from the civil war raging outside.
Performing with a guitarist at a cafe in the heart of the historic Old Town of Damascus, Reem Khunsar lost herself in the lyrics. About a failed love, they also struck a chord closer to home: "Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?"
While most people in the Syrian capital lock themselves fearfully in their homes at night, young Syrians dressed in tight jeans and designer clothes go wild at the handful of clubs still operating in a city once renowned for its nightlife.
"The war can't stop life," declared Oday Al-Khayyatt, as he took in the music scene at the Roma cafe. "You hear bad news in Syria, dangers, war and death. But in our reality, we are still alive."
Such revelries show the human side of a conflict that has killed more than 120,000 people as the Syrian civil war grinds into its third year.
The Damascus nightclub scene often gets mentioned by the Syrian state news agency SANA on its English-language Twitter feed, drawing ridicule from observers outside the country. But people still brave the dangers to come to the cafes to take their mind off what is happening.
At the Roma Cafe, couples smiled as they danced on the black-and-white checkered dance floor. Some smoked flavored tobacco from water pipes. Women, some in big hair and low-cut dresses and others wearing headscarves, chatted as they mingled by the bar. There were no liquor bottles in sight, though some patrons were able to buy alcohol.
"There is a big difference between now and before the war," conceded Titar Sahinian, another young singer. "People are afraid to come out of their houses ... but they still come.
"Of course, it's all devastating. We can't pretend that nothing is happening. But at the same time we can't stop living," she said.
As she spoke, the sound of government cannons pounding rebels just a few miles away echoed down the stone walls of the ancient quarter. Nearby, so-called Popular Committees, local hard-line militiamen brandishing Kalashnikov assault rifles, threw up impromptu roadblocks, searching cars for bombs.
They also kept a close watch on the young revelers, many of whom said they believe the militiamen, die-hard supporters of President Bashar Assad and his embattled government, don't approve of the Damascus nightlife.
"We were afraid of being attacked" by the popular committee militiamen, Roma cafe owner Rami Dahbour said. "We were threatened once. But nothing happened, and we are no longer affected by the threat."
Several mortars launched from rebel positions on the outskirts of Damascus have rained down near the cafe. Still, the singing goes on.
Khunsar said she feels like she is giving hope to the people who come to listen.
"Here in Syria we have not given up," she said. "We hope that everything will go back to where it was before."
As she threw herself into the Metallica classic, "Nothing Else Matters," those in the cafe joined in: "Life is ours and we live it our way, I don't just say, and nothing else matters."
___
Associated Press writers Darko Bandic and Dusan Vranic contributed to this report.
This undated photo provided by Christie's shows the Fender Stratocaster a young Bob Dylan played at the historic 1965 Newport Folk Festival. On Dec. 6, 2013, it could bring as much as half a million dollars when it comes up for auction in New York. The festival marked the first time Dylan went electric, a defining moment that marked his move from acoustic folk to electric rock and roll, drawing boos from folk-music purists. (AP Photo/Christie's)
This undated photo provided by Christie's shows the Fender Stratocaster a young Bob Dylan played at the historic 1965 Newport Folk Festival. On Dec. 6, 2013, it could bring as much as half a million dollars when it comes up for auction in New York. The festival marked the first time Dylan went electric, a defining moment that marked his move from acoustic folk to electric rock and roll, drawing boos from folk-music purists. (AP Photo/Christie's)
This undated photo provided by Christie's shows the Fender Stratocaster a young Bob Dylan played at the historic 1965 Newport Folk Festival. On Dec. 6, 2013, it could bring as much as half a million dollars when it comes up for auction at Christie's New York. The festival marked the first time Dylan went electric, a defining moment that marked his move from acoustic folk to electric rock and roll, drawing boos from folk-music purists. (AP Photo/Christie's)
NEW YORK (AP) — The sunburst Fender Stratocaster that a young Bob Dylan played at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when he famously went electric, perhaps the most historic instrument in rock 'n' roll, is coming up for auction, where it could bring as much as half a million dollars.
Though now viewed as changing American music forever, Dylan's three-song electric set at the Rhode Island festival that marked his move from acoustic folk to electric rock 'n' roll was met by boos from folk purists in the crowd who viewed him as a traitor. He returned for an acoustic encore with "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."
The guitar is being offered for sale Dec. 6, Christie's told The Associated Press. Five lots of hand- and typewritten lyric fragments found inside the guitar case — early versions of some of Dylan's legendary songs — also are being sold. The lyrics have a pre-sale estimate ranging from $3,000 to $30,000.
With a classic sunburst finish and original flat-wound strings, the guitar has been in the possession of a New Jersey family for nearly 50 years. Dylan left it on a private plane piloted by the owner's late father, Vic Quinto, who worked for Dylan's manager.
His daughter, Dawn Peterson, of Morris County, N.J., has said her father asked the management company what to do with the guitar but nobody ever got back to him.
Last year, she took it to the PBS show "History Detectives" to try to have it authenticated. The program enlisted the expertise of Andy Babiuk, a consultant to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and owner of an upstate New York vintage instrument shop, and Jeff Gold, a Dylan memorabilia expert. Both men, who appeared on the episode, unequivocally declared the artifacts belonged to Dylan.
Babiuk took the instrument apart and also compared it to close-up color photos of the guitar taken at the 1965 festival.
"I was able to match the wood grain on the body of the guitar ... and the unique grain of the rosewood fingerboard. Wood grains are like fingerprints, no two are exactly alike," Babiuk said in an interview. "Based on the sum of the evidence, I was able to identify that this guitar was the one that Bob Dylan had played in Newport."
Dylan's attorney and his publicist did not respond to email and phone requests for comment. Dylan and Peterson, who declined to be interviewed, recently settled a legal dispute over the items.
The terms of the settlement were not disclosed but allowed Peterson to sell the guitar and lyrics, according to Rolling Stone, which wrote in July about Peterson's quest to authenticate the guitar.
"Representatives for Bob Dylan do not contest the sale of the guitar, and are aware of Christie's plan to bring it to auction," a statement issued through Christie's said.
Dylan has generally looked upon his instruments to convey his art, akin to a carpenter's hammer, Howard Kramer, curatorial director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, said last year. "I don't think he's dwelled on a guitar he hasn't played for 47 years," he said. "If he cared about it, he would have done something about it."
Festival founder George Wein told the AP that when Dylan finished playing, Wein was backstage and told him to go back out and play an acoustic number because that's what people expected. Dylan said he didn't want to do it and said he couldn't because he only had the electric guitar. Wein called out for a loaner backstage and about 20 musicians raised their acoustic guitars to offer them.
The lyrics for sale include "In the Darkness of Your Room," an early draft of "Absolutely Sweet Marie" from Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" album, and three songs from the record's 1965 recording session that were not released until the 1980s: "Medicine Sunday" (the draft is titled "Midnight Train"), "Jet Pilot" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover."
Dylan's "going electric changed the structure of folk music," the 88-year-old Wein said. "The minute Dylan went electric, all these young people said, 'Bobby's going electric, we're going electric, too.'"
___
Associated Press writer Michelle R. Smith in Providence, R.I., contributed to this report.
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta announces that government safety rules are changing to let airline passengers use most electronic devices from gate-to-gate during a news conference, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport. The change will let passengers read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music _ but not make cellphone calls. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta announces that government safety rules are changing to let airline passengers use most electronic devices from gate-to-gate during a news conference, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport. The change will let passengers read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music _ but not make cellphone calls. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta announces that government safety rules are changing to let airline passengers use most electronic devices from gate-to-gate during a news conference, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport. The change will let passengers read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music _ but not make cellphone calls. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta announces that government safety rules are changing to let airline passengers use most electronic devices from gate-to-gate during a news conference, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport. The change will let passengers read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music _ but not make cellphone calls. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta announces that government safety rules are changing to let airline passengers use most electronic devices from gate-to-gate during a news conference, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport. The change will let passengers read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music _ but not make cellphone calls. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta announces that government safety rules are changing to let airline passengers use most electronic devices from gate-to-gate during a news conference, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport. The change will let passengers read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music _ but not make cellphone calls. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Airline passengers will be able to use their electronic devices gate-to-gate to read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music — but not talk on their cellphones — under much-anticipated guidelines issued Thursday by the Federal Aviation Administration.
But passengers shouldn't expect changes to happen right away, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said at a news conference. How fast the change is implemented will vary by airline, he said.
Airlines will have to show the FAA how their airplanes meet the new guidelines and that they've updated their flight-crew training manuals, safety announcements and rules for stowing devices to reflect the new guidelines. Delta and JetBlue said they would immediately submit plans to implement the new policy.
Currently, passengers are required to turn off their smartphones, tablets and other devices once a plane's door closes. They're not supposed to restart them until the planes reach 10,000 feet and the captain gives the go-ahead. Passengers are supposed to turn their devices off again as the plane descends to land and not restart them until the plane is on the ground.
Under the new guidelines, airlines whose planes are properly protected from electronic interference may allow passengers to use the devices during takeoffs, landings and taxiing, the FAA said. Most new airliners and other planes that have been modified so that passengers can use Wifi at higher altitudes are expected to meet the criteria.
But connecting to the Internet to surf, exchange emails, text or download data will still be prohibited below 10,000 feet. Passengers will be told to switch their devices to airplane mode. That means no Words With Friends, the online Scrabble-type game that actor Alec Baldwin was playing on his smartphone in 2011 when he was famously booted off an American Airlines jet for refusing to turn off the device while the plane was parked at the gate. Heavier devices such as laptops will continue to have to be stowed because of concern they might injure someone if they go flying around the cabin.
Airline passenger Ketan Patel, 24, said he's pleased with the change and happy that regulators have debunked the idea that the devices pose a safety problem. "If it isn't a problem, it should be allowed," he said as he stepped into a security line at Reagan National Airport near Washington, a smartphone in his hand.
Another passenger entering the same line, insurance marketing manager Melinda Neuman, 28, of Topeka, Kan., was disappointed that she still won't be able to text.
"If you can't download data, what's the point?" she said. "I don't power it off all the time, anyway."
In-flight cellphone calls will continue to be prohibited. Regulatory authority over phone calls belongs to the Federal Communications Commission, not the FAA. The commission prohibits the calls because of concern that phones on planes flying at hundreds of miles per hour could strain the ability of cellular networks to keep up as the devices keep trying to connect with cellphone towers, interfering with service to users on the ground.
An industry advisory committee created by the FAA to examine the issue recommended last month that the government permit greater use of personal electronic devices.
Pressure has been building on the FAA to ease restrictions on their use. Critics such as Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., say there is no valid safety reason for the prohibitions. Restrictions have also become more difficult to enforce as use of the devices has become ubiquitous. Some studies indicate as many as a third of passengers forget or ignore directions to turn off their devices.
The FAA began restricting passengers' use of electronic devices in 1966 in response to reports of interference with navigation and communications equipment when passengers began carrying FM radios, the high-tech gadgets of their day.
A lot has changed since then. New airliners are far more reliant on electrical systems than previous generations of aircraft, but they are also designed and approved by the FAA to be resistant to electronic interference. Airlines are already offering Wi-Fi use at cruising altitudes on planes modified to be more resistant to interference.
The vast majority of airliners should qualify for greater electronic device use under the new guidelines, Huerta said. In rare instances of landings during severe weather with low visibility, pilots may still order passengers to turn off devices because there is some evidence of potential interference with instrument landing systems under those conditions, he said.
Today's electronic devices generally emit much lower power radio transmissions than previous generations of devices. E-readers, for example, emit only minimal transmissions when turning a page. But transmissions are stronger when devices are downloading or sending data.
Among those pressing for a relaxation of restrictions on passengers' use of the devices has been Amazon.com. In 2011, company officials loaded an airliner full of their Kindle e-readers and flew it around to test for problems but found none.
A travel industry group welcomed the changes, calling them common-sense accommodations for a traveling public now bristling with technology. "We're pleased the FAA recognizes that an enjoyable passenger experience is not incompatible with safety and security," said Roger Dow, CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.
___
Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy
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