part 2 of the lunch

something wrong with blogger these few days, cant post up any pictures and the last post on the lunch is incomplete. so let me try again...

March Lunch

Prof's treat for the promotion. Shangri-La's The Line restaurant.
Feast your eyes out.

some notice

some building will be demolished and some taxpayer's money used to build some new building that looks somewhat nicer.

must get this shirt

http://www.printmojo.com/PHD/Store/Product.php?ProductID=7099

this is so me!

more celebration

brought a cake for Prof. Tiramisu cheese cake i think. its was rather frozen and taste buds not working that morning.

Flowers

Prof got promoted and we gave her flowers.

invitrogen's voucher

Invitrogen had a promotion this CNY season, buy stuff and they give you ang pau. Inside the ang pau you get vouchers to 'The Bakin' Boys' at Biopolis. We got $15 worth of vouchers but when I went there, the salesperson at the counter refused to let me get muffins with the voucher. She only allowed me to get coffee; and cant even use it to get hot chocolate or tea. The thing is, I dont drink coffee!!! Anyway, got some caffeine and came back. then Terror Teren called the Invitrogen people and found out actually the voucher can be used to buy anything! GRRRRRR...

Moral of the story: don't go to the shop called Bakin' Boys. They suck at PR.

name become shorter

my boss' name became shorter today, from "ap" to just "p". Send in your congratulatory emails now.

more new stuff

New cute dustbin for Etbr gels


New HUGE autoclave. can autoclave one whole person


New BSC hood replacing the laminar for cell culture. the old one was bought in 1978-ish i think


The other new BSC hood replacing the bacterial work laminar


The two CO2 cabinets

new CO2 incubators

not easy to lift that freaking heavy thing over the new one on the new black frame. both CO2 now for 37C. One for infected and the other clean cells. Hohohho...one step nearer to CO2 poisoning...5% + 5% = 10%..hiak...hiak...hiak...

stupid cat

somebody's cat trying to get into my house by going through the window. Grrrrh...
It managed to get in last week and sat on my couch, dropped lots of fur around.... which reminds me, i need to clean my windows soon.

bang!

the last week see accident at AYE



then yesterday also see got bang around



forgot to take down car number...

my name!!!

J Immunol. 2007 Mar 1;178(5):2699-705.

Immunization of Flavivirus West Nile Recombinant Envelope Domain III Protein Induced Specific Immune Response and Protection against West Nile Virus Infection.

Chu JH, Chiang CC, Ng ML.

Flavivirology Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, National University of Singapore, Singapore.

The domain III of the West Nile virus (WNV) envelope glycoprotein (E) was shown to serve as virus attachment domain to the cellular receptor, and neutralizing Abs have been mapped to this specific domain. In this study, domain III of the WNV E protein (WNV E DIII) was expressed as a recombinant protein and its potential as a subunit vaccine candidate was evaluated in BALB/C mice. Immunization of WNV E DIII protein with oligodeoxynucleotides (CpG-DNA) adjuvant by i.p. injection was conducted over a period of 3 wk. The immunized mice generated high titer of WNV-neutralizing Abs. Murine Ab against WNV E DIII protein was also capable of neutralizing Japanese encephalitis virus. The IgG isotypes generated were predominantly IgG2a in the murine sera against the recombinant protein. Splenocyte cultures from the mice coadministrated with WNV E DIII protein and CpG secreted large amounts of IFN-gamma and IL-2 and showed proliferation of T cells in the presence of WNV E DIII protein. Overall, this study highlighted that recombinant WNV E DIII protein delivered in combination with CpG adjuvant to mice generated a Th1 immune response type against WNV and can serve as a potential vaccine to prevent WNV infection.

PMID: 17312111 [PubMed - in process]

paper

Antiviral Res. 2006 Dec;72(3):216-23. Epub 2006 Jul 7.

Expression of vector-based small interfering RNA against West Nile virus effectively inhibits virus replication.

• Ong SP,
• Choo BG,
• Chu JJ,
• Ng ML.

Flavivirology Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, 5 Science Drive 2, National University of Singapore, 117597 Singapore, Singapore.

RNA interference is one of the effective emerging anti-viral strategies to inhibit virus infection in cells. In this study, a small interfering RNA expressing vector (pSilencer-NS5) targeting the NS5 gene of West Nile virus (WNV) was employed to target and destroy WNV transcripts. Real-time PCR revealed drastic reduction in WNV RNA transcripts in pSilencer-NS5-transfected Vero cells. The virus infectious titre was also significantly reduced by 90% as determined by plaque assays. The resulting decrease in virus replication was shown to be specific since both scrambled and nucleotide(s) mismatch siRNA against WNV NS5 gene did not have any effect on WNV productive yields. Furthermore, Western immunoblot analysis on the expression of viral NS5 and envelope (E) proteins showed significant down-regulation on the expression of viral NS5 and envelope (E) proteins in virus-infected cells that were pre-transfected with pSilencer-NS5. These data clearly supported the notion that the expression of vector-based siRNA against WNV NS5 gene is able to exert its silencing effect on WNV-infected cells without inducing cytotoxicity, hence holding promise in therapeutic treatment of this important emerging infectious disease.

PMID: 16870272 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]