Monthly Archive for June, 2011

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As part of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) mission of protecting and promoting public health, it is continually requesting nominations of qualified experts interested in serving on FDA advisory committees.  Anyone may nominate one or more qualified persons for one or more of the advisory committees or advisory panels.  Self-nomination are also accepted.  Persons nominated as scientific members must be technically qualified experts in their field and have experience interpreting complex data.  Candidates must be able to analyze detailed scientific data and understand its public health significance.  Candidates will be required to provide detailed information concerning such matters as financial holdings, employment, and research grants/contracts to permit evaluation of possible sources of conflict of interest.

Nominations of qualified individuals must include the following:

• A complete curriculum vitae/resume
• Current business and/or home address, telephone number and e-mail address
• The advisory committees) or advisory panel(s) for which the nominee is recommended
• A written confirmation that the nominee is aware of the nomination  (unless self-nominated)

You may submit your information via e-mail to cv@oc.fda.gov or by regular mail at:  Food and Drug Administration, Advisory Committee Oversight and Management Staff, 10903 New Hampshire Avenue, WO 32, Room 5129, Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002. For more information, visit the Committee Membership section on FDA’s website at:  www.fda.gov/AdvisoryCommittees/default.htm; or call FDA at (301)796-8220.

Please send us a copy of your newsletter after the publication of our article.

On behalf of the FDA, I want to thank.

Doreen L. Brandes

Outreach Coordinator

Advisory Committee Oversight and Management Staff

FDA

Office of the Commissioner

Office of Special Medical Programs

(301) 796-8858

By Kenan Malik from New Humanist.org.uk

“If God does not exist, everything is permitted.” Dostoevsky never actually wrote that line, though so often is it attributed to him that he may as well have. It has become the almost reflexive response of believers when faced with an argument for a godless world. Without religious faith, runs the argument, we cannot anchor our moral truths or truly know right from wrong. Without belief in God we will be lost in a miasma of moral nihilism.In recent years, the riposte of many to this challenge has been to argue that moral codes are not revealed by God but instantiated in nature, and in particular in the brain. Ethics is not a theological matter but a scientific one. Science is not simply a means of making sense of facts about the world, but also about values, because values are in essence facts in another form.

Few people have expressed this argument more forcefully than the neuroscientist Sam Harris. Over the past few years, through books such as The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, Harris has gained a considerable reputation as a no-holds-barred critic of religion, in particular of Islam, and as an acerbic champion of science. In his new book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, he sets out to demolish the traditional philosophical distinction between is and ought, between the way the world is and the way that it should be, a distinction we most associate with David Hume.

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By Miranda Marquit from PhysOrg.com

Shu has been working with his students, Qi-Wen Wang and Kian-Yan Yong, at Nanyang Technical University to propose a way that the manipulation of DNA strands could be used to solve certain types of problems. Their work has been published in Physical Review Letters: “DNA-Based Computing of Strategic Assignment Problems.”

The computations that the human body performs naturally are much faster than even the fastest silicon-based computer. On top of that, Shu points out, silicon is not very environmentally friendly. “There are also heat problems. DNA-based computing could be faster, friendlier for the environment, and eliminate some of the other problems that come with silicon.”

DNA-based computing could prove especially useful for strategic assignment problems. “Even with developments in silicon-based computing, there are some problems that take even the fastest computers months to solve,” Shu says. With DNA-based computing, massive parallel problems, combinatorial problems and AI solving problems could all be addressed with the possibility of greater efficiency.

To Read More…