BUSM in vitro study identifies potential combination therapy for breast cancer

Public release date: 2-Jul-2012
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Contact: Jenny Eriksen Leary
jenny.eriksen@bmc.org
617-638-6841
Boston University Medical Center

(Boston) A study conducted at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) demonstrates an effective combination therapy for breast cancer cells in vitro. The findings, published in the July 2012 issue of Anticancer Research, raise the possibility of using this type of combination therapy for different forms of breast cancer, including those that develop resistance to chemotherapy and other treatments.

The study was led by researchers at the Boston University Cancer Center. Sibaji Sarkar, PhD, adjunct instructor of medicine at BUSM, is the study's corresponding author.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States aside from non-melanoma skin cancer. Breast cancer also is one of the leading causes of cancer death among women of all races and Hispanic origin populations.

Triple negative breast cancer, which accounts for approximately 14 to 20 percent of all breast cancer cases, is a type of the disease that occurs when the cancer cells lack hormone receptors, including the receptor called HER-2, and typically will not respond to hormone and herceptin-based therapies. Triple negative breast cancer occurs more often in African-American women and is considered to be a more aggressive form of the disease with higher rates of recurrence and mortality than other forms of breast cancer.

"Cancer is like a car without brakes. Cell growth speeds up and it doesn't stop," said Sarkar. "When expressed, tumor suppressor genes, which work in a protective way to limit tumor growth, function as the brakes. They are not expressed in most cancers, causing the cancer to grow and potentially metastasize."

A major focus in the area of anti-cancer drug development is to find a way to re-express tumor suppressor genes so that they can help inhibit cancer cell growth. Some tumor suppressor genes are imprinted, meaning that from the two genes inherited from the mother and father, only one of the genes is functional. In cancer, both imprinted tumor suppressor genes may become non-functional and unable to stop tumor growth.

The researchers tested, in vitro, a combination therapy of an epigenetic drug with a protease inhibitor on breast cancer cell lines that are hormone responsive and breast cancer lines, like triple negative, that are not hormone responsive. They utilized histone deacetylases inhibitors (HDACi) and calpeptin, which inhibits calpain, a protein involved in the regulation of signaling proteins. Calpain inhibition is being studied as a potential treatment model for blood clots and other neurological diseases.

In this study, they found that the combination therapy both inhibited cell growth and increased cell death in both cancer cell lines by inducing cell cycle arrest and cell death. However, the mechanism of how the combination therapy stops the cells from growing was different. Cells in the hormone responsive line stopped the cell cycle in an earlier phase compared to the non-hormone responsive cells. In the triple negative breast cancer cell line, the inhibitors allowed an imprinted tumor suppressing gene, ARHI, to re-express, which helped stop the growth of the cancer cells and led to cancer cell death.

"The study data demonstrates that HDACi's bring back the brakes of the car, halting cell growth and promoting cell death," added Sarkar, who also is a faculty member at the Genome Science Institute at Boston University. "These results provide a model to investigate the re-expression of tumor suppressor genes, including imprinted genes, in many forms of breast cancer."

This study needs further investigation but raises the possibility of using this type of combination therapy for diverse types of breast cancers including those that are hormone refractory and develop drug resistance to conventional chemotherapy.

###

This study was funded by the American Cancer Society.

---

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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.

Public release date: 2-Jul-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jenny Eriksen Leary
jenny.eriksen@bmc.org
617-638-6841
Boston University Medical Center

(Boston) A study conducted at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) demonstrates an effective combination therapy for breast cancer cells in vitro. The findings, published in the July 2012 issue of Anticancer Research, raise the possibility of using this type of combination therapy for different forms of breast cancer, including those that develop resistance to chemotherapy and other treatments.

The study was led by researchers at the Boston University Cancer Center. Sibaji Sarkar, PhD, adjunct instructor of medicine at BUSM, is the study's corresponding author.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States aside from non-melanoma skin cancer. Breast cancer also is one of the leading causes of cancer death among women of all races and Hispanic origin populations.

Triple negative breast cancer, which accounts for approximately 14 to 20 percent of all breast cancer cases, is a type of the disease that occurs when the cancer cells lack hormone receptors, including the receptor called HER-2, and typically will not respond to hormone and herceptin-based therapies. Triple negative breast cancer occurs more often in African-American women and is considered to be a more aggressive form of the disease with higher rates of recurrence and mortality than other forms of breast cancer.

"Cancer is like a car without brakes. Cell growth speeds up and it doesn't stop," said Sarkar. "When expressed, tumor suppressor genes, which work in a protective way to limit tumor growth, function as the brakes. They are not expressed in most cancers, causing the cancer to grow and potentially metastasize."

A major focus in the area of anti-cancer drug development is to find a way to re-express tumor suppressor genes so that they can help inhibit cancer cell growth. Some tumor suppressor genes are imprinted, meaning that from the two genes inherited from the mother and father, only one of the genes is functional. In cancer, both imprinted tumor suppressor genes may become non-functional and unable to stop tumor growth.

The researchers tested, in vitro, a combination therapy of an epigenetic drug with a protease inhibitor on breast cancer cell lines that are hormone responsive and breast cancer lines, like triple negative, that are not hormone responsive. They utilized histone deacetylases inhibitors (HDACi) and calpeptin, which inhibits calpain, a protein involved in the regulation of signaling proteins. Calpain inhibition is being studied as a potential treatment model for blood clots and other neurological diseases.

In this study, they found that the combination therapy both inhibited cell growth and increased cell death in both cancer cell lines by inducing cell cycle arrest and cell death. However, the mechanism of how the combination therapy stops the cells from growing was different. Cells in the hormone responsive line stopped the cell cycle in an earlier phase compared to the non-hormone responsive cells. In the triple negative breast cancer cell line, the inhibitors allowed an imprinted tumor suppressing gene, ARHI, to re-express, which helped stop the growth of the cancer cells and led to cancer cell death.

"The study data demonstrates that HDACi's bring back the brakes of the car, halting cell growth and promoting cell death," added Sarkar, who also is a faculty member at the Genome Science Institute at Boston University. "These results provide a model to investigate the re-expression of tumor suppressor genes, including imprinted genes, in many forms of breast cancer."

This study needs further investigation but raises the possibility of using this type of combination therapy for diverse types of breast cancers including those that are hormone refractory and develop drug resistance to conventional chemotherapy.

###

This study was funded by the American Cancer Society.

---

[ | 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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-07/bumc-biv070212.php

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Utility crews making headway, but not fast enough

WASHINGTON (AP) ? A chainsaw's buzz and the thump of logs striking grass disturbed the ordinary stillness of a leafy, well-to-do neighborhood in upper northwest Washington.

A three-man contract crew for the utility company Pepco worked steadily to remove remnants of a tree that had fallen on a power line. A worker in a white hard hat, lifted by a crane some 50 feet in the air, used a saw to slice off leaves and branches from the wire. He chucked them to the ground or they fell on their own. But for a crew already working 16-hour days, feelings of success were short-lived.

"From here we've got another complaint," crew member Jose Climaco said Monday. "As soon as we finish here, we have to go to another complaint."

More than three days after a wave of violent thunderstorms wreaked havoc in parts of the Midwest and the Mid-Atlantic, utility crews had restored electrical service to more than 1 million customers but were working Tuesday morning to turn on the lights ? and air-conditioning ? at nearly 1.8 million other homes and businesses.

Utilities were warning that many neighborhoods could remain in the dark for much of the week, if not beyond. But public officials and residents were growing impatient.

"This has happened time after time and year after year, and it seems as if they're always unprepared," said John Murphy, a professional chauffeur from Burtonsville, Md., who was waiting for Pepco to restore power Monday to the homes of himself and his mother and sister, who live nearby. "The new neighborhoods are designed with underground power lines but the old neighborhoods, they don't want to spend the money to put them underground."

The wave of late Friday evening storms, called a derecho, moved quickly across the region with little warning. The straight-line winds were just as destructive as any hurricane ? but when a tropical system strikes, officials usually have several days to get extra personnel in place.

So utility companies had to wait days for extra crews traveling from as far away as Quebec and Oklahoma. And workers found that the toppled trees and power lines often entangled broken equipment in debris that had to be removed before workers could even get started.

Adding to the urgency of the repairs are the sick and elderly, who are especially vulnerable without air conditioning in the sweltering triple-digit heat. Many sought refuge in hotels or basements.

Officials feared the death toll, already at 22, could climb because of the heat and widespread use of generators, which emit fumes that can be dangerous in enclosed spaces.

After Maryland reported Monday that three people had died in the recent heat wave ? the deaths were not storm-related ? Deputy Secretary Fran Phillips stressed that people who are in areas without power need to take advantage of cooling centers.

At the Springvale Terrace nursing home and senior center in Silver Spring, Md., generators were brought in to provide electricity, and air-conditioning units were installed in windows in large common rooms to offer respite from the heat and darkness.

Residents using walkers struggled to navigate doors that were supposed to open automatically. Nurses had to throw out spoiled food, sometimes over the loud objections of residents.

The lack of power completely upended many daily routines. Supermarkets struggled to keep groceries from going bad. People on perishable medication called pharmacies to see how long their medicine would keep. In Washington, officials set up collection sites for people to drop off rotting food. Others held weekend cookouts in an attempt to use their food while it lasted. And in West Virginia, National Guard troops handed out food and water and made door-to-door checks.

When it comes to getting the power running again, all utilities take a top-down approach that seeks to get the largest number of people back online as quickly as possible.

First, crews repair substations that send power to thousands of homes and businesses. Next, they fix distribution lines. Last are the transformers that can restore power to a few customers at a time.

Some people said the destruction over the weekend was reminiscent of that caused by Tropical Storm Isabel in 2003 and Hurricane Irene in 2011.

Last year, it took Baltimore Gas and Electric company eight and a half days to restore power to all 750,000 customers who lost power during Hurricane Irene. This time, the power company initially confronted more than 600,000 people without power. It said restoration efforts will extend into the weekend.

Baltimore Gas and Electric said in a letter posted on its website that it would take hundreds of thousands of man-hours to clear debris and work through outages. Crews were working around the clock in 16-hour shifts.

"This type of widespread, extensive damage also complicates our ability to quickly provide accurate restoration times, especially when original damage assessments are revised upon closer inspection of the work required," the letter said.

However, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has been blunt that the utilities must work faster: "No one will have his boot further up Pepco's and BGE's backsides than I will," O'Malley said Sunday.

Pepco spokeswoman Myra Oppel said the differences between storms can be significant. Two storms could have the same number of customers with outages, but the root of the problem could be downed wires in one situation and downed poles in another. But repairing poles takes a lot longer.

As a result, the length of time it takes to restore power "depends on what damage has occurred, not the number of outages," Oppel said.

In the case of Friday night's storms, crews are contending with trees that have to be removed before crews can get to damaged infrastructure.

She said the fact that neighboring states were also hard-hit meant many utilities were competing to get the same backup crews for help.

In Baltimore County, Eveena Felder, a registered nurse, had been relying on air-conditioned public areas to keep cool during the day and a fan to help her family sleep.

"We've purchased a ton of batteries, that's where most of our money has gone," Felder said. "Turn the fan on and keep still, don't move, less energy."

Officials were especially concerned about people in isolated rural areas, such as Greenbrier County, W.Va.

"They have no radio station. They have no TV station. They have no communications because without power, they don't have phones," said Lt. Col. David Lester of the West Virginia National Guard.

In Potomac, Md., utility workers restored a steady flow of electricity to Leslie Saltsman's home Monday afternoon. But the enormous cherry tree blocking her driveway won't be removed until later this week.

Saltsman, a nurse who takes care of her elderly mother, watched as linemen in a bucket truck repaired cables above streets lined with piles of tree branches and trunk sections. She said she was irritated by the heat but not by Pepco.

"They're doing as much as they can," she said.

___

Barakat reported from Falls Church, Va., and Silver Spring, Md. Associated Press writers David Dishneau in Rockville, Md., Dan Sewell in Cincinnati; Kantele Franko in Columbus, Ohio; and Vicki Smith in Morgantown, W.Va., contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/utility-crews-making-headway-not-fast-enough-083020142.html

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UNESCO Adds German Opera House, Western Ghats to World Heritage Sites

[ [ [['Connery is an experienced stuntman', 2]], 'http://yhoo.it/KeQd0p', '[Slideshow: See photos taken on the way down]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['Connery is an experienced stuntman', 7]], ' http://yhoo.it/KpUoHO', '[Slideshow: Death-defying daredevils]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['know that we have confidence in', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/LqYjAX ', '[Related: The Secret Service guide to Cartagena]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['We picked up this other dog and', 5]], 'http://yhoo.it/JUSxvi', '[Related: 8 common dog fears, how to calm them]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['accused of running a fake hepatitis B', 5]], 'http://bit.ly/JnoJYN', '[Related: Did WH share raid details with filmmakers?]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['accused of running a fake hepatitis B', 3]], 'http://bit.ly/KoKiqJ', '[Factbox: AQAP, al-Qaeda in Yemen]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have my contacts on or glasses', 3]], 'http://abcn.ws/KTE5AZ', '[Related: Should the murder charge be dropped?]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have made this nation great as Sarah Palin', 5]], 'http://yhoo.it/JD7nlD', '[Related: Bristol Palin reality show debuts June 19]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have made this nation great as Sarah Palin', 1]], 'http://bit.ly/JRPFRO', '[Related: McCain adviser who vetted Palin weighs in on VP race]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['A JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/GV9zpj', '[Related: View photos of the JetBlue plane in Amarillo]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 15]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/white-house-stays-out-of-teen-s-killing-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120411/martinzimmermen.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 6]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/navy-jet-crashes-in-virginia-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120406/jet_ap.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP', ] ]

[ [ [['did not go as far his colleague', 8]], '29438204', '0' ], [ [[' the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 4]], '28924649', '0' ], [ [['because I know God protects me', 14], ['Brian Snow was at a nearby credit union', 5]], '28811216', '0' ], [ [['The state news agency RIA-Novosti quoted Rosaviatsiya', 6]], '28805461', '0' ], [ [['measure all but certain to fail in the face of bipartisan', 4]], '28771014', '0' ], [ [['matter what you do in this case', 5]], '28759848', '0' ], [ [['presume laws are constitutional', 7]], '28747556', '0' ], [ [['has destroyed 15 to 25 houses', 7]], '28744868', '0' ], [ [['short answer is yes', 7]], '28746030', '0' ], [ [['opportunity to tell the real story', 7]], '28731764', '0' ], [ [['entirely respectable way to put off the searing constitutional controversy', 7]], '28723797', '0' ], [ [['point of my campaign is that big ideas matter', 9]], '28712293', '0' ], [ [['As the standoff dragged into a second day', 7]], '28687424', '0' ], [ [['French police stepped up the search', 17]], '28667224', '0' ], [ [['Seeking to elevate his candidacy back to a general', 8]], '28660934', '0' ], [ [['The tragic story of Trayvon Martin', 4]], '28647343', '0' ], [ [['Karzai will get a chance soon to express', 8]], '28630306', '0' ], [ [['powerful storms stretching', 8]], '28493546', '0' ], [ [['basic norm that death is private', 6]], '28413590', '0' ], [ [['songwriter also saw a surge in sales for her debut album', 6]], '28413590', '1', 'Watch music videos from Whitney Houston ', 'on Yahoo! Music', 'http://music.yahoo.com' ], [ [['keyword', 99999999999999999999999]], 'videoID', '1', 'overwrite-pre-description', 'overwrite-link-string', 'overwrite-link-url' ] ]

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/unesco-adds-german-opera-house-western-ghats-world-174700924.html

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Mumbai terror suspect's taped voice comes to life

NEW DELHI (AP) ? The voice had long haunted Indian police investigating Mumbai's deadly 2008 terrorist attack.

They had repeatedly listened to a tape of cell phone intercepts containing chilling words from one of the men guiding 10 terrorists through the gun-blazing rampage that killed 166 people in India's financial capital.

"Pass this message to the media -- 'This is just the trailer; the real film is yet to come,'" the voice said.

Anti-terror police engaged in one of India's largest investigations had no idea who the man was, only that he had a Mumbai accent and used Hindi words unusual for Urdu speakers like the attackers on the ground.

Police believe they finally have the man behind the disembodied voice after ferreting out the suspect from Saudi Arabia where he was hiding, according to officials close to the investigation. They say he had given himself away to the police by opening a Facebook account under his real name -- Syed Zabiuddin Ansari.

Ansari ? an Indian citizen whose aliases include Abu Humza, Abu Jindal and Abu Jundal ? was arrested at New Delhi airport on June 21 after Saudi Arabia agreed to hand him to Indian officials and put him on a flight home.

Indian investigators told The Associated Press that Ansari was considered a key player in the Pakistan-based Islamic terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba's plans for attacks on India. They say he was so central to the Mumbai attack plans he was among those giving orders by the minute to the attackers or directing them on their cell phones from a control room in Karachi, Pakistan during the Nov. 26-28 bloodbath.

The investigators spoke on condition of anonymity because they were disclosing sensitive information.

Ansari's interrogation is expected to bolster the Indian government's accusations ? and accepted as a fact by most ordinary Indians ? that Pakistan was behind the attack, the most brazen terrorist operation on India's soil. His arrest is a rare piece of good news for a government reeling from economic and political troubles.

"Clearly there was state support for the 26/11 massacre," Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said Friday.

Indian investigators say Ansari has already told them that Pakistani intelligence officials were in the control room during the 60-hour siege ? corroborating testimony by American terrorist suspect David Coleman Headley, who said during his Chicago trial last year that Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence officials were involved.

Ansari has also told investigators he fled India in 2006 across the border to Bangladesh, escaping from a police raid in the western Indian town of Aurangabad on an illegal cache of weapons and explosives intended for future attacks within India, the officials said.

Ansari then moved to Pakistan, trained with Lashkar and joined in planning future attacks, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

Pakistan insists that the ISI, as its intelligence agency is known, has no links to Lashkar, and denies any connection to the Mumbai attacks.

The assault was like no other India had experienced. Bombs and grenades went off at the famed Taj Mahal and Trident hotels. Then, 10 trained Pakistani militants fanned out through the hotels and through the main train station and a Jewish cultural center and gunned down people in their paths.

The attack went on for three days, as Indian police scrambled to keep up with the militants who were receiving detailed instructions by cell phone.

Eventually all but one of the gunmen were killed. The survivor, Ajmal Kasab, told a special Indian court he and the others were tutored by a man named Abu Jindal on how to speak with a Hindi accent to avoid detection in India and confuse police about their origins.

Police are now looking for a second man who is heard on the tape from the Karachi control room. That man, who police believe is Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group commander Muzammil Butt, based on testimony from other suspects, is heard cutting the attackers off as they exclaimed about the size of the television screens and the luxury fittings in the five-star hotels.

At one point, he is heard saying: "How hard is it to throw a grenade? Just pull the pin and throw it."

Investigators had been looking for Ansari for years after he was implicated by other suspects in the Mumbai attacks, but they never knew his exact role in the attack, said officials close to the investigation.

India learned Ansari was living in Saudi Arabia on a Pakistani passport, officials said.

Both India and Pakistan then began lobbying for his release into their custody, but India clinched the arrest by providing DNA samples from Ansari's Indian family members, who live in the western state of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located, the officials said.

Intelligence agents are now interrogating Ansari in a secret location on the outskirts of New Delhi.

Ansari told Indian investigators he had gone to Saudi Arabia on Lashkar's orders to raise funds and recruit more Indians as militants. Investigators say Lashkar and Islamic militant groups routinely try to recruit Indians from among the two million Indians living in Saudi Arabia or the millions who visit the country to perform the Haj.

He might have remained in the shadows had he not opened a Facebook account in his real name to find new recruits, the officials said. The Times of India reported last week that Ansari also used the account to contact Lashkar accomplices, who may have been under global scrutiny by intelligence agencies.

Indian investigators followed his electronic trail to Riyadh, and this week used voice recognition tests to match Ansari's voice with the man on the tape. While the Hindi he spoke is similar enough to Urdu that speakers understand each other, there are many words that differ.

The man recorded giving instructions to the attackers used a few Hindi words an Urdu speaker would not use, such as "prashasan" for "administration," officials said. The Urdu word would be "intizamiya."

Investigators have sent the voice samples to a lab for further analysis, newspaper reports said.

Saudi Arabia's decision to hand Ansari over to India, rather than Pakistan, appeared to surprise Indian officials. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have long held close ties.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin described the arrest as something "rather new" in Saudi-Indian relations. "Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is expanding in a variety of ways."

Analysts said Riyadh's decision marked a significant shift.

"It is a signal to Pakistan that it will get isolated if it thinks state sponsorship of terrorism can be a viable policy option," said Ajit Doval, former chief of India's Intelligence Bureau.

___

You can reach Nirmala George at twitter.com/NirmalaGeorge1

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mumbai-terror-suspects-taped-voice-comes-life-073518031.html

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Switched On: The fight, the fancy, and the future

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

While Microsoft's motivations in announcing Surface differed meaningfully from Google's when it announced the Nexus One, the Redmond company took advantage of the precedent that Google set in releasing a device that competed with those of licensees. At Google I/O, it was Google's turn to again approach the hardware market, this time with three devices that took the company into new categories and targeting different competitors. The trajectory of each product reveals clues about the company's direction.

Continue reading Switched On: The fight, the fancy, and the future

Switched On: The fight, the fancy, and the future originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Jul 2012 17:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/eWnEKeghZeo/

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Super Guppy delivers space history to Seattle

John Brecher / msnbc.com

A crowd in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle watches NASA's Super Guppy aircraft approach Boeing Field, carrying a key piece of a space shuttle mockup that will go on display at Seattle's Museum of Flight.

By Alan Boyle

SEATTLE ? It may not be a real space shuttle, but it's ours.

Today NASA delivered a key piece of the mockup that astronauts used for space shuttle practice to the Museum of Flight in Seattle, my hometown. And it arrived aboard one of the most ungainly-looking airplanes ever built. The wingless mockup is known as the Full Fuselage Trainer, or FFT. The plane has a nickname that's more colorful: the Super Guppy.

The Super Guppy looks more like a Super Whale. The wide-body turboprop airplane has a cargo hold that's been built up into a bulbous shape, specifically to carry big stuff for outer space. Only five of the Guppies were ever produced, and they were used to cart spacecraft components around for the Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and shuttle programs. This Super Guppy is the only one of its kind still flying, and this week's odyssey with the most important piece of the Full Fuselage Trainer is one of the highest-profile flights the plane has ever taken.

---

For decades, the plywood-built FFT sat in a building at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The crew compartment ??the part of the structure that was flown to Seattle today ? was outfitted with all the buttons, switches, cockpit displays and middeck lockers that the real shuttles had. None of those gadgets worked, but they helped the astronauts get familiar with the layout before they started handling the real controls. Astronauts could also practice how they'd get out of the shuttle in the event of a landing-strip emergency.

With the end of the space shuttle era, NASA's Johnson Space Center no longer needed the FFT, so the space agency decided to donate it for display. The Seattle museum made a play for one of the flown shuttles, and even built a shuttle-sized, 15,500-square-foot Space Gallery to display it in. But Seattle lost out to Florida, California, New York and the "other Washington" in the competition for Atlantis, Endeavour, Enterprise and Discovery. The Full Fuselage Trainer served as the consolation prize.

Most of the FFT's plywood parts could be shipped up by traditional means for later assembly, but the shuttle crew compartment had to be transported all in one piece. That's why NASA's Super Guppy was called into service.

The airplane has a 25-foot-high, 25-foot-wide, 111-foot-long cargo compartment ??big enough to hold the mockup's most awkward piece, even when it's bound up in shrink wrap and a protective steel frame. Over the past couple of days, the Super Guppy has been making a journey from its home at Ellington Air Force Base in Texas, over to California, and then up to Seattle at a top speed of around 200 knots. It wasn't exactly a record-setting pace ??but what the Super Guppy lacks in speed, it more than makes up for in the "What the Heck Is That?" department.

The Guppy flew over my hometown and its surroundings with a Seattle-born astronaut, Greg Johnson, at the controls. Then it floated down to a landing right in front of the museum, which is adjacent to Boeing Field. One of the commentators at the museum called it a "beautifully ugly airplane."

Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire pointed to the craft with pride as the sky spit down rain. "When we get together in Washington state, we can land the big whale right behind me," she said.

Museum of Flight

NASA's Super Guppy and a chase plane fly above the mostly cloudy skies of Seattle.

Museum of Flight

After its touchdown at Seattle's Boeing Field, the turboprop-powered Super Guppy taxis over to the Museum of Flight next door.

Museum of Flight

The entire front of the Super Guppy swings open to reveal the cargo inside.

Museum of Flight

The 65,000-pound Tunner 60K aircraft cargo loader and transporter rolls toward the Super Guppy.

Museum of Flight

The cargo compartment for the Full Fuselage Trainer, wrapped in protective plastic, has been taken out of the Super Guppy for a short ride on the Tunner transporter to its new home in the Museum of Flight's Charles Simonyi Space Gallery.

Several thousand onlookers watched as the Super Guppy's entire front opened up to the side like a four-story-high door.?

"It's really cool that it's actually able to fly," Allison Kirkman, a 10-year-old student at Spirit Ridge Elementary School in Bellevue, Wash., told me as she watched from the tarmac. "It's an amazing plane, and how they built it is cool, too."

The shrink-wrapped shuttle crew compartment was moved out of the wide-yawning Super Guppy onto a 65,000-pound mobile transporter, then rolled over to the museum's Charles Simonyi Space Gallery. Over the next couple of months, the shuttle mockup will be assembled in a place of honor, alongside a Russian Soyuz capsule and a prototype lander that was used in Blue Origin's spacecraft development program. Museumgoers like Kirkman will be able to walk through the shuttle mockup's cargo bay ??and they might even be able to crawl through the crew compartment, just like the astronauts did.

Kids, prepare to be amazed ... again.

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Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

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Tech Credit Union selects Fiserv XP2

Financial services

29 June 2012

Tech Credit Union has selected Fiserv?s XP2 account processing platform to support its goals for increasing operational efficiency and enhancing member-service.

?The level of Fiserv investment in XP2 is impressive, and the functionality is indicative of that commitment,? said Mike Hussey, chief executive officer, Tech Credit Union. ?The integration that XP2 offers with all functional areas in our credit union meets our needs and exceeds our expectations. Our staff will have improved access to all member relationships as well as the ability to better analyse member data to offer relevant products and services.?

The level of Fiserv investment in XP2 is impressive, and the functionality is indicative of that commitment

Mike Hussey,?Tech Credit Union?In addition to XP2, Tech Credit Union will implement Wisdom for financial management and ConvergeIT: IVR for interactive voice response.

The credit union will also deploy Fiserv?s Integrated Desktop feature, which provides integration between XP2 and its existing debit card processing solution from Fiserv to deliver more immediate access to member profiles and enhanced service capabilities.

?XP2 is a proven solution with the efficiency-boosting technology and dedicated support staff necessary to help Tech Credit Union, and other institutions like it, achieve their goals for service and efficiency,? said Naseer Nasim, senior vice president, Credit Union Solutions, Fiserv. ?XP2 from Fiserv provides a total account processing solution with the ability to interface with the broad and ever-growing list of value-added technologies needed to remain competitive in today?s financial services marketplace.?

Tech Credit Union is a US$305 million institution serving nearly 43,000 members in Indiana, US.

XP2 account processing platform from Fiserv features a Microsoft .NET architecture.

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Source: http://www.onwindows.com/Articles/Tech-Credit-Union-selects-Fiserv-XP2/6911/Default.aspx

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