Bill Clinton and Bloomberg unveil ‘climate risk’ project

Clinton and Bloomberg at a 2009 CGI meeting (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)NEW YORK—Former President Bill Clinton and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a new climate initiative Monday to help cities measure their risk for severe weather and natural disasters. The hope is to help curb the impact of deadly storms like Superstorm Sandy, which devastated parts of New York City last October.

The project will be run through C40, a coalition of major cities around the world that united to study the impact of climate change on their municipalities. The group, chaired by Bloomberg, merged two years ago with the Clinton Climate Initiative—an offshoot of Clinton’s philanthropic foundation.

Known as the C40 Risk Assessment Framework, the "climate risk" project, as Bloomberg referred to it, would develop a consistent set of measures by which cities could assess their risk of a natural disaster, including hurricanes and floods.

“Cities simply cannot afford to close their eyes and hope for the best,” Bloomberg said, as he and Clinton unveiled the project during a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in Manhattan.

“If you can’t measure a risk, you can’t manage it,” Bloomberg added, warning that a damaging storm like Sandy could happen again.

Bloomberg and Clinton argued that having a consistent measure of risk would help lawmakers prioritize on where to spend money to ward off natural disasters and sell voters on why infrastructure is necessary. Among other things, the framework would examine a city's potential for flooding or other issues related to the environment.

A framework "gives legislators something to hang their hats on ... an independent measure of what the risks are,” Bloomberg said.

The mayor added, “It’s like a rating on your bonds. People will believe it.”

Their joint appearance also had the feeling of a political lovefest. Before Bloomberg took the stage, Clinton praised Bloomberg for his work in trying to combat climate change and for his leadership before, during and in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Bloomberg, for his part, praised Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had appeared on stage a few minutes before to announce that she and her husband plan to hold a CGI meeting in Brazil this fall to focus on development in Latin America.

To wild applause, Hillary Clinton noted that this CGI meeting was her first “as a private citizen.”

Afterwards, Bill Clinton took the stage and praised both his wife and their daughter, Chelsea, for taking greater roles in his philanthropic foundation. And he was followed by Bloomberg, who also paused in his remarks to praise Hillary Clinton, a former Democratic senator from New York whom he reportedly courted to be his successor at City Hall when he leaves later this year.

But Bloomberg made no mention of those overtures as he praised Hillary Clinton "as the real star of the show" at the meeting. "I am honored to welcome Secretary Clinton back to New York City," Bloomberg said.

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Teen arrested, expelled for ‘science project gone bad’

A 16-year-old girl was arrested and expelled from her high school after what a friend called a "science project gone bad" resulted in a small explosion.

WTSP reports that Kiera Wilmot of Bartow, Fla., is accused of mixing household chemicals in a small water bottle that later exploded at her high school. No one was hurt.

Principal Ron Pritchard told WTSP that Wilmot is "a good kid" and has "never been in trouble before. Ever." He added:

She made a bad choice. Honestly, I don't think she meant to ever hurt anyone. She wanted to see what would happen [when the chemicals mixed] and was shocked by what it did. Her mother is shocked, too.

WTSP reports that Wilmot was forthcoming with school authorities following the blast. Pritchard also told WTSP that Wilmot "told us everything and was very honest. She didn't run or try to hide the truth. We had a long conversation with her."

The arrest report explains that Wilmot told her assistant principal, Dan Durham, that the explosion was part of a science experiment. However, her science teacher told Durham the explosion was not associated with any school project, and he called the police. Wilmot was arrested and charged with the possession and discharge of a weapon on school grounds and the discharging of a destructive device.

The Polk County School District released a statement:

Anytime a student makes a bad choice it is disappointing to us. Unfortunately, the incident that occurred at Bartow High School yesterday was a serious breach of conduct. In order to maintain a safe and orderly learning environment, we simply must uphold our code of conduct rules. We urge our parents to join us in conveying the message that there are consequences to actions. We will not compromise the safety and security of our students and staff.

Wilmot has plenty of supporters, though. A petition at Change.org argues that Wilmot's "life should not be turned upside down, her future crushed, because someone wants to make a statement." Signers are asking authorities to drop the charges. So far, the petition has over 1,500 signatures.

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Gene sequencing project finds new mutations to blame for a majority of brain tumor subtype

The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital – Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project advances understanding of genetic defects underlying childhood low-grade gliomas and identifies promising new drug therapies

MEMPHIS, Tenn., April 14, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital – Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project has identified mutations responsible for more than half of a subtype of childhood brain tumor that takes a high toll on patients. Researchers also found evidence the tumors are susceptible to drugs already in development.

The study focused on a family of brain tumors known as low-grade gliomas (LGGs). These slow-growing cancers are found in about 700 children annually in the U.S., making them the most common childhood tumors of the brain and spinal cord. For patients whose tumors cannot be surgically removed, the long-term outlook remains bleak due to complications from the disease and its ongoing treatment. Nationwide, surgery alone cures only about one-third of patients.

Using whole genome sequencing, researchers identified genetic alterations in two genes that occurred almost exclusively in a subtype of LGG termed diffuse LGG. This subtype cannot be cured surgically because the tumor cells invade the healthy brain. Together, the mutations accounted for 53 percent of the diffuse LGG in this study. Researchers also demonstrated that one of the mutations, which had not previously been linked to brain tumors, caused tumors when introduced into the glial brain cells of mice.

The findings appear in the April 14 advance online edition of the scientific journal Nature Genetics.

"This subtype of low-grade glioma can be a nasty chronic disease, yet prior to this study we knew almost nothing about its genetic alterations," said David Ellison, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the St. Jude Department of Pathology and the study's corresponding author. The first author is Jinghui Zhang, Ph.D., an associate member of the St. Jude Department of Computational Biology.

The Pediatric Cancer Genome Project is using next-generation whole genome sequencing to determine the complete normal and cancer genomes of children and adolescents with some of the least understood and most difficult to treat cancers. Scientists believe that studying differences in the 3 billion chemical bases that make up the human genome will provide the scientific foundation for the next generation of cancer care.

"We were surprised to find that many of these tumors could be traced to a single genetic alteration," said co-author Richard K. Wilson, Ph.D., director of The Genome Institute at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "This is a major pathway through which low-grade gliomas develop and it provides new clues to explore as we search for better treatments."

The study involved whole genome sequencing of 39 paired tumor and normal tissue samples from 38 children and adolescents with different subtypes of LGG and related tumors called low-grade glioneuronal tumors (LGGNTs). Although many cancers develop following multiple genetic abnormalities, 62 percent of the 39 tumors in this study stemmed from a single genetic alteration.

Previous studies have linked LGGs to abnormal activation of the MAPK/ERK pathway. The pathway is involved in regulating cell division and other processes that are often disrupted in cancer. Until now, however, the genetic alterations involved in driving this pathway were unknown for some types of LGG and LGGNT.

This study linked activation in the pathway to duplication of a key segment of the FGFR1 gene, which investigators discovered in brain tumors for the first time. The segment is called a tyrosine kinase domain. It functions like an on-off switch for several cell signaling pathways, including the MAPK/ERK pathway. Investigators also demonstrated that experimental drugs designed to block activity along two altered pathways worked in cells with the FGFR1 tyrosine kinase domain duplication. "The finding suggests a potential opportunity for using targeted therapies in patients whose tumors cannot be surgically removed," Ellison said.

Researchers also showed that the FGFR1 abnormality triggered an aggressive brain tumor in glial cells from mice that lacked the tumor suppressor gene Trp53. 

Whole-genome sequencing found previously undiscovered rearrangements in the MYB and MYBL1 genes in diffuse LGGs. These newly identified abnormalities were also implicated in switching on the MAPK/ERK pathway.

Researchers checked an additional 100 LGGs and LGGNTs for the same FGFR1, MYB and MYBL1 mutations. Overall, MYB was altered in 25 percent of the diffuse LGGs, and 24 percent had alterations in FGFR1. Researchers also turned up numerous other mutations that occurred in just a few tumors. The affected genes included BRAF, RAF1, H3F3A, ATRX, EP300, WHSC1 and CHD2.

"The Pediatric Cancer Genome Project has provided a remarkable opportunity to look at the genomic landscape of this disease and really put the alterations responsible on the map. We can now account for the genetic errors responsible for more than 90 percent of low-grade gliomas," Ellison said.  "The discovery that FGFR1 and MYB play a central role in childhood diffuse LGG also serves to distinguish the pediatric and adult forms of the disease."

The other authors are Gang Wu, Ruth Tatevossian, James Dalton, Bo Tang, Wilda Orisme, Chandanamali Punchihewa, Ibrahim Qaddoumi, Frederick Boop, Matthew Parker, Ryan Lee, Robert Huether, Xiang Chen, Erin Hedlund, Panduka Nagahawatte, Michael Rusch, Kristy Boggs, Jinjun Cheng, Jared Becksfort, Jing Ma, Guangchun Song, Yongjin Li, Lei Wei, Jianmin Wang, Sheila Shurtleff, John Easton, David Zhao, Bhavin Vadodaria, Heather Mulder, Chunlao Tang, Charles Mullighan, Amar Gajjar, Richard Kriwacki, Richard Gilbertson, James Downing and Suzanne Baker, all of St. Jude; Claudia Miller, formerly of St. Jude; Charles Lu, Cyriac Kandoth, Li Ding, Robert Fulton, Lucinda Fulton, David Dooling, Kerri Ochoa and Elaine Mardis, all of Washington University; and Denise Sheer of Queen Mary University of London.

The research was funded in part by the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project, including Kay Jewelers, a lead partner; a grant (CA096832) from the National Institutes of Health; and ALSAC.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is internationally recognized for its pioneering research and treatment of children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. The hospital's research has helped push overall survival rates for childhood cancer from less than 20 percent when the institution opened to almost 80 percent today. It is the first and only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children, and no family ever pays St. Jude for anything. For more information, visit www.stjude.org. Follow us on Twitter @StJudeResearch.

Washington University School of Medicine
Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

SOURCE St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

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