Injured Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Josh Freeman watches an NFL football game against the Carolina Panthers during the second quarter on Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Brian Blanco)
Injured Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Josh Freeman watches an NFL football game against the Carolina Panthers during the second quarter on Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Brian Blanco)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers kicker Connor Barth (10) follows through on a 44-yard field goal in front of Carolina Panthers cornerback Captain Munnerlyn (41) during the second quarter of an NFL football game on Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011, in Tampa, Fla. Tampa Bay' Michael Koenen holds for Barth. (AP Photo/Brian Blanco)
Carolina Panthers wide receiver Legedu Naanee (17) celebrates after scoring on a 19-yard touchdown pass against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the second quarter of an NFL football game on Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Brian Blanco)
Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton (1) eludes Tampa Bay Buccaneers outside linebacker Quincy Black (58) during the second quarter of an NFL football game on Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Brian Blanco)
Carolina Panthers wide receiver Legedu Naanee (17) pulls in a 19-yard touchdown pass while being covered by Tampa Bay Buccaneers defenders middle linebacker Mason Foster (59), defensive back E.J. Biggers (31) and strong safety Sean Jones (26) during the second quarter of an NFL football game on Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Brian Blanco)
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) ? Cam Newton ran for three touchdowns to set the NFL single-season record for rushing TDs by a quarterback, leading the Carolina Panthers to a 38-19 rout of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday.
The 2010 Heisman Trophy winner scored the 11th, 12th and 13th TDs of his career on a trio of 1-yard runs. The rookie also had a reception to set up a touchdown and threw a pass to Legedu Naanee to finish one of Carolina's three scoring drives of 80-plus yards.
The Panthers (4-8) have doubled their victory total for last season. Tampa Bay (4-8) has lost six straight and seven of eight following a 3-1 start.
The Bucs played without quarterback Josh Freeman, who sat out with an injury to his throwing shoulder.
Fist-pumping must pay well. DJ Pauly D left a $500 tip for a waitress at Greenhouse on a $2,000 tab Thursday night. The spiky-haired reality star ? who just signed a deal with 50 Cent?s G-Note label ? was at the SoHo nightclub with a few friends filming scenes for his new MTV spinoff show. [...]
People wait to be interviewed during a job fair in Phoenix, Ariz., held last month.
By msnbc.com news services
Employment growth picked up speed in November, pushing the nation?s unemployment rate down to 8.6 percent -- its lowest level since March 2009.
The Labor Department reported Friday that nonfarm U.S. payrolls increased by 120,000 last month, accelerating from October?s 80,000 gain and roughly matching analysts? expectations. The U.S. jobless rate fell sharply from the prior month?s 9 percent level.
Private employers added a net gain of 140,000 jobs in November, but governments shed 20,000 jobs, mostly at the local and state level. Governments at all levels have shed nearly a half-million jobs in the past year. The Labor Department revised up its job gains for September and October by 52,000 and 20,000, respectively.
?The labor market is gradually healing. It?s a glacial pace, but we are taking small steps in the right direction,? said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Penn.
More than half the jobs added last month were by retailers, restaurants and bars, a sign that holiday hiring has kicked in. Retailers added 50,000, the sector's biggest gain since April. Restaurants and bars hired 33,000 workers. The health care industry added 17,000.
Still, a worrisome drop in the size of the U.S. workforce means that even with a big decline in the unemployment rate in November, it's still not time to break out the champagne.
The fall in the jobless rate was aided by 315,000 people leaving the workforce. That pushed the participation rate, a ratio of the amount of the population in the labor force, down to 64.0 percent.
Those who exited the workforce, many of whom gave up on looking for work, outnumbered the 278,000 people who found jobs, according the Labor Department's household survey, which is separate from payrolls data.
Even with the recent gains, the economy isn't anywhere close to replacing the jobs lost in the recession. Employers began shedding workers in February 2008 and cut nearly 8.7 million jobs for the next 25 months. Since then, the economy has regained nearly 2.5 million of those jobs.
The jobs report is unlikely to take much pressure off President Barack Obama, whose economic stewardship will face the judgment of voters next November. The outlook for the U.S. economy is also being threatened by Europe's ongoing financial crisis.
Speaking at a Washington, D.C., press event to promote a $4 billion effort to increase the energy efficiency of government and private sector buildings, Obama noted Friday that, despite some ?strong headwinds,? the U.S. private sector has now added jobs for 21 months in a row.
?We need to keep that growth going,? he added.
The relative strength of the jobs report is in keeping with a recent trend, bolstered by upward revisions to the employment counts for September and October. But it is not seen as proving decisive for the U.S. Federal Reserve, which is weighing whether the recovery needs further monetary policy support.
Data ranging from manufacturing to retail sales suggest the pace of expansion could top 3 percent, in contrast to China, where growth is cooling and much of Europe, where growth has stalled.
While the economy's growth pace appears to have accelerated from the third quarter's 2 percent annual rate, Europe's festering debt crisis poses a big threat. At the same time, U.S. fiscal policy is set to tighten in the new year, even if lawmakers extend a payroll tax cut.
Taken together, some analysts believe the headwinds facing the U.S. economy will lead the Fed to ease monetary policy further by buying more bonds.
Though the economy emerged from recession two years ago, about 25 million Americans are either out of work or underemployed, a fact that is hurting Obama's chances of winning a second term.
Analysts say the economy needs to create at least 125,000 jobs every month just to keep the unemployment rate steady. So far this year, job growth has averaged 125,600 jobs a month. At that pace, it would take about 4-1/2 years for employment just to return to where it was when the recession started.
But there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic.
While the government's survey of employers has shown a still tepid pace of job growth, its separate poll of households that is used to calculate the unemployment rate has suggested more-robust jobs gains.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
A drug discovery team at Genentech, Inc., has uncovered a chink in the molecular armor of Ras, the most commonly occurring oncogene, which is a gene that when mutated has the potential of causing cancer in humans.
The chink, binding pocket of "functional significance" on the Ras oncoprotein could provide the long-sought attack point for a therapeutic agent, making the "undruggable" Ras oncogene "druggable," the researchers reported at the American Society for Cell Biology's 51st Annual Meeting in Denver.
The first human oncogene to be identified, Ras is mutated in about 25% of all human tumors. For cancer patients, the presence of an activated Ras oncogene is a poor prognosis marker.
Ras has a molecular on-off switch, activated by the energy transfer molecule GTP. In the "on" position, the oncogene activates critical cell signaling pathways involving cell proliferation, cell migration and cell differentiation, all of which are in hyper-drive in tumors.
To develop a drug that would switch off Ras, scientists needed a binding site, an opening in the Ras oncoprotein to which the docking mechanism of a therapeutic molecule could attach.
At the ASCB meeting, Joachim Rudolph, Ph.D., Weiru Wang, Ph.D., and Guowei Fang, Ph.D., of Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, reported that they identified such a binding pocket by fragment-based lead discovery, a screening process that sorted through 3,300 small molecule compounds. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy was used to pinpoint molecules with even a weak affinity for binding to Ras oncoproteins. The researchers identified 25 compounds, none of which knocked out the oncoprotein.
However, NMR spectroscopy revealed that the 25 compounds were binding to the same location on the Ras oncoprotein. The researchers determined that the binding pocket was not static but could be enlarged once the ligand from the small molecule engaged it, providing researchers an opening for engineering the next generation of compounds.
Fang said that even the weak ligands formed by these compounds interfered with the Ras oncoprotein by blocking an enzyme, abbreviated SOS, that is required for activating the oncoprotein.
"The small molecules identified here represent the first generation of Ras inhibitors that directly prevent Ras activation," Fang said.
###
CONTACT:
Guowei Fang, Ph.D. Genentech, Inc. Fang.guowei@gene.com 650-228-8497
John Fleischman
American Society for Cell Biology
jfleischman@ascb.org
513-929-4635
513-706-0212 (cell)
Cathy Yarbrough
American Society for Cell Biology
sciencematter@yahoo.com
858-243-1814
AUTHOR PRESENTS:
Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011 5:35 to 5:55 p.m. Minisymposium: Chemical Biology: Probes and Therapeutics Presentation 24
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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.
Inhibitors of infamous Ras oncogene reported by Genentech researchers at ASCB annual meetingPublic release date: 4-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: John Fleischman
jfleischman@ascb.org
513-929-4635
513-706-0212 (cell)
A drug discovery team at Genentech, Inc., has uncovered a chink in the molecular armor of Ras, the most commonly occurring oncogene, which is a gene that when mutated has the potential of causing cancer in humans.
The chink, binding pocket of "functional significance" on the Ras oncoprotein could provide the long-sought attack point for a therapeutic agent, making the "undruggable" Ras oncogene "druggable," the researchers reported at the American Society for Cell Biology's 51st Annual Meeting in Denver.
The first human oncogene to be identified, Ras is mutated in about 25% of all human tumors. For cancer patients, the presence of an activated Ras oncogene is a poor prognosis marker.
Ras has a molecular on-off switch, activated by the energy transfer molecule GTP. In the "on" position, the oncogene activates critical cell signaling pathways involving cell proliferation, cell migration and cell differentiation, all of which are in hyper-drive in tumors.
To develop a drug that would switch off Ras, scientists needed a binding site, an opening in the Ras oncoprotein to which the docking mechanism of a therapeutic molecule could attach.
At the ASCB meeting, Joachim Rudolph, Ph.D., Weiru Wang, Ph.D., and Guowei Fang, Ph.D., of Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, reported that they identified such a binding pocket by fragment-based lead discovery, a screening process that sorted through 3,300 small molecule compounds. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy was used to pinpoint molecules with even a weak affinity for binding to Ras oncoproteins. The researchers identified 25 compounds, none of which knocked out the oncoprotein.
However, NMR spectroscopy revealed that the 25 compounds were binding to the same location on the Ras oncoprotein. The researchers determined that the binding pocket was not static but could be enlarged once the ligand from the small molecule engaged it, providing researchers an opening for engineering the next generation of compounds.
Fang said that even the weak ligands formed by these compounds interfered with the Ras oncoprotein by blocking an enzyme, abbreviated SOS, that is required for activating the oncoprotein.
"The small molecules identified here represent the first generation of Ras inhibitors that directly prevent Ras activation," Fang said.
###
CONTACT:
Guowei Fang, Ph.D. Genentech, Inc. Fang.guowei@gene.com 650-228-8497
John Fleischman
American Society for Cell Biology
jfleischman@ascb.org
513-929-4635
513-706-0212 (cell)
Cathy Yarbrough
American Society for Cell Biology
sciencematter@yahoo.com
858-243-1814
AUTHOR PRESENTS:
Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011 5:35 to 5:55 p.m. Minisymposium: Chemical Biology: Probes and Therapeutics Presentation 24
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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.
Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton embrace while speaking to the press after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton embrace while speaking to the press after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tour the grounds after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tour the grounds after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, right, talks with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton following a meeting at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Soe Than Win, Pool)
Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tour the grounds after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, two of the world's most recognizable women leaders, pledged on Friday to work together to bring democracy to Suu Kyi's long isolated and repressive nation.
Wrapping up a historic three-day visit to Myanmar, Clinton held hands with Suu Kyi on the porch of the Nobel peace laureate's lakeside home where she spent much of the past two decades under house arrest and thanked her for a her "steadfast and very clear leadership." The meeting was the second in as many days for the pair who appeared to have bonded almost as sisters after a private, one-on-one dinner in Yangon on Thursday.
"You have been an inspiration but I know that you feel you are standing for all the people of your country who deserve the same rights and freedoms as people everywhere," Clinton told Suu Kyi. "The people have been courageous and strong in the face of great difficulty over too many years. We want to see this country take its rightful place in the world."
Suu Kyi has welcomed Clinton's visit and tentatively embraced reforms enacted by Myanmar's new civilian government. She thanked the secretary and U.S. President Barack Obama for their "careful and calibrated" engagement that has seen the U.S. take some modest steps to improve ties.
"We are happy with the way in which the United States is engaging with us," she said. "It is through engagement that we hope to promote the process of democratization. Because of this engagement, I think our way ahead will be clearer and we will be able to trust that the process of democratization will go forward."
As she did in the capital of Naypyidaw on Thursday, Clinton said more significant incentives will be offered but only if the government releases all political prisoners, ends brutal campaigns against ethnic minorities, respects the rule of law and improves human rights conditions.
Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won 1990 elections that were ignored by the then-military junta but now plans to run in upcoming parliamentary elections, endorsed that approach and called for the immediate release of all political prisoners and cease-fires to end the ethnic conflicts..
"If we move forward together I am confident there will be no turning back on the road to democracy," Suu Kyi said, referring to her party, the government, the United States and other countries, including Myanmar's giant neighbor China. "We are not on that road yet, but we hope to get there as soon as possible with the help and understanding of our friends."
Suu Kyi, a heroine for pro-democracy advocates around the world, said Clinton's visit, the first by a secretary of state to Myanmar in more than half a century, represented "a historical moment for both our countries."
With U.S. assistance and pressure on the government, which is still backed by the military, she said she believed change was on the horizon for Myanmar
"There have been times that Naypyidaw has weakened but I don't think it has ever really broken," she said.
Clinton's meetings with Suu Kyi were the highlight of the U.S. secretary of state's visit to the long-isolated country known as Burma and forcefully underscored a U.S. challenge to Myanmar's leaders: The new civilian government must expand recent reforms, including the release of political prisoners, to improve relations as it emerges from more than a half-century of repressive military rule.
"We believe that any political prisoner anywhere should be released," the Clinton told reporters on Thursday. "One political prisoner is one too many in our view."
U.S. officials warned that even the modest incentives Clinton offered to Myanmar's new, military-backed leaders this week would come off the table if the country fails the political-prisoners and other tests of reform.
In meetings with top Myanmar officials in the capital of Naypyidaw and then with Suu Kyi in the commercial hub of Yangon, Clinton said the country's leaders must end violent campaigns against ethnic minorities and break military ties with North Korea
Clinton offered a small package of rewards for steps President Thein Sein and other leaders have already taken but said the U.S. was not ready to lift tough sanctions on the country. Removing some of those sanctions would require approval by Congress, where many lawmakers have criticized the Obama administration for rewarding Myanmar too quickly without enough evidence of change.
The modest first steps Clinton announced include Washington no longer blocking enhanced cooperation between Myanmar and the International Monetary Fund that could lead to the approval of much-needed loans and support for the poorest nation in the region. Also, the U.S. would support intensified U.N. health and microfinance programs and resume bilateral counternarcotics efforts.
Those steps could be followed by an upgrade in diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Myanmar, Clinton said, although U.S. officials stressed that concrete action on American concerns must be completed first. The U.S. has not had an ambassador in Myanmar since the early 1990s and is represented now by a charge d'affaires.
___
Associated Press writer Aye Aye Win in Yangon contributed to this report.
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Public release date: 4-Dec-2011
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