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By Callum Borchers, Globe Correspondent

President Obama expanded his social networking repertoire Tuesday by joining Pinterest, the scrapbook-style website where users can pin messages, photographs and videos to virtual boards.

So far, the president has eight boards, or categories of pins. One, called Just the facts, includes three pins promoting Obamas signature health care law, whose constitutionality was debated in oral arguments before the Supreme Court this week.

But most of Obamas new Pinterest boards, managed by his campaign staff, are devoted to lighter fare: Obama-inspired recipes and Pet Lovers for Obama.

A majority of Pinterest users are young and female, a demographic the Obama campaign began targeting more heavily this month. Four years ago, Obama earned 56 percent of the female vote.

During the 2008 election and since, Obama has embraced social media as a way to connect with voters. He has more than 13 million Twitter followers and almost 26 million Facebook likes. The Obama campaign used Twitter to announce that the president had joined Pinterest.

By 4 p.m. Wednesday, he had more than 7,000 followers.

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President Obama joins Pinterest, the social networking website popular among young women

Public release date: 9-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Anita Srikameswaran SrikamAV@upmc.edu 412-578-9193 University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences

PITTSBURGH, May 9 Four years after they discovered the viral roots of a rare skin cancer, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) and the School of Medicine have now identified a molecule activated by this virus that, in animal studies, could be targeted to selectively kill the tumor cells. The treatment will soon be tested in patients.

Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), a skin cancer that is more common among seniors and those with weakened immune systems, could not be readily diagnosed at one time, and it still has a very poor prognosis, said Patrick S. Moore, M.D., M.P.H., and Yuan Chang, M.D., both of the Cancer Virology Program at UPCI and senior authors of a study that appears online today in Science Translational Medicine.

"This research effort shows the speed at which genomics can identify molecular causes for cancer and then point the way toward a rational and targeted treatment," Dr. Moore noted. "Since the inception of the 1971 U.S. National Cancer Act, researchers have strived to discover the underlying problems that trigger tumor development."

In 2008, the team first described the new Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCV) in Merkel cell carcinoma. Within a year, they showed it was responsible for tumor development in most cases of the disease. At least four out of five healthy adults world-wide are infected with MCV, which usually doesn't cause any symptoms.

"The virus remains in the skin cells, and in most cases, no damage is done," Dr. Chang said. "But when mutations occur to this virus, it can cause cancer. Most of the 1,500 new MCC cases per year in the U.S. are caused by MCV infection."

In quick succession, the team devised tests to identify virus-induced MCC, and began unraveling the biochemical pathways that encourage tumor formation. In their latest project, they "knocked out" a key viral protein called T antigen and found that MCV directly elevates a cellular protein called survivin.

Survivin prevents cells from dying and supports cell division, the researchers said. They found that a drug called YM155, which turns off the survivin gene again, was an extremely potent killer of MCC cells in test tubes and was able to suppress the growth of human tumors that had been established in experimental mice. In comparison, 1,360 other drugsincluding most of the common chemotherapy drugswere screened and failed to both kill MCC cells and prevent tumor growth at levels commonly achieved in patients. One of these drugs was able to kill tumor cells in culture dishes, but made no impact on the MCC tumors in mice. It remains a promising candidate drug since it may have better activity in people and is readily available.

A multicenter clinical trial of YM155, a still-experimental anti-cancer drug that is made by Deerfield, Ill.-based Astellas, is expected to begin in the next six months to determine its effectiveness in MCC patients. The trial will be led locally by Pitt School of Medicine assistant professor Hussein Tawbi, M.D., Ph.D., and professor John Kirkwood, M.D., who also is co-leader of the UPCI Melanoma Program, through the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, a multicenter cooperative group supported by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

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Pitt team uses genomics to identify a molecular-based treatment for a viral skin cancer

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire -05/08/12)- Joomla, one of the world's most popular open source content management systems (CMS) used for everything from websites to blogs to Intranets, today announced students will contribute to the Joomla CMS core and platform this summer as part of the Google Summer of Code. In all, there are eight students that are working on eight separate projects that may eventually be used by Joomla. These assignments include creating Facebook, Google services and MediaWiki APIs, multi-language options for installation, and much more. The Google Summer of Code is a global program that runs until August 24, offering students 18 years and older stipends to write code for open source projects.

The students working on Joomla projects are from Brazil, France, Romania, Sri Lanka and the United States. One such student is Aaron Schmitz who at just 18 years old is finishing up his junior year at the University of Minnesota and was the top American finisher at the Google Code-in competition, an open source coding competition for 13 to 17 year-old students. "It's exciting to be able to contribute to code that may eventually be incorporated into the Joomla core code that is used by millions of people to manage content on more than a million websites," said Schmitz.

Some of the assignments the students will be working on include:

"We're excited to see what kind of code these students come up with, but we're equally as excited to have these students join the Joomla community," said Elin Waring of the Joomla Production Working Group who is co-administering the Google Summer of Code projects. "The end goal with Joomla developers is all about creating code that millions of people use, but it is the interaction and sharing of ideas in our community that makes Joomla tick."

Although the students' code won't all be immediately committed to the Joomla CMS core at the end of the summer, it will continue to be developed for the core and may be used by extension developers. Many of the Google Summer of Code projects are focused on the Joomla Platform which provides the infrastructure that future development in the Joomla CMS and other applications build on. The Joomla Platform enables developers to build multi-purpose, multi-device applications like mobile and cloud computing apps, and enterprise business systems that can run independent from the core CMS.

For the next three months, the eight students will be working on coding for their Joomla assignments. They will present their projects to the Joomla community in mid-August. On August 24, students will find out whether their code is acceptable. They have the potential to receive a $5000 stipend from Google for participating, to be paid out in installments. More information about Joomla's Google Summer of Code students and all of the projects they are working on, go to http://community.joomla.org/blogs/community/1571-were-off-to-the-races.html.

About Joomla! Joomla is one of the world's most popular open source content management systems (CMS). With 2.7 percent of the Web running on Joomla, it is used for everything from small personal websites and blogs to some of the largest enterprise, highest trafficked websites and Intranets including those operated by Citibank, eBay, General Electric, Harvard University, Ikea, McDonald's, Sony, many large nations and more. Due to its power and elegance, the most inexperienced user to the most seasoned web developer can use it. Since its inception in 2005, Joomla has been 100 percent community owned and operated. The Joomla community is a true collaboration of thousands of open source developers and millions of everyday users who account for its software being downloaded more than 31 million times to date. For more information, visit http://www.joomla.org.

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Students Contribute to Joomla! CMS Core and Platform During Google Summer of Code

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The Indian owners of relegated Premier League club Blackburn Rovers, chicken farm operators Venky's, ducked the media on Tuesday amid a storm of criticism of their disastrous 18-month management.

British press reports slammed the absence of the Venky's family at the club's make-or-break Monday night clash with Wigan which saw the club lose 1-0 and confirm their drop from England's money-spinning top division.

Fans, who have vented their anger at Venky's and hapless manager Steve Kean all season, released a chicken onto the pitch during the game wrapped in a Blackburn flag with a one-word message for the owners: "Out."

The rain-soaked evening featured chants calling for Venky's to sell the club. One banner held by a fan standing on the pitch after the final whistle decried the management and owners as "Cowboys & Indians".

Arvind Chauhan, spokesman for the company based in the western city of Pune which paid 23 million pounds (37 million dollars) for Blackburn in November 2010, declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

Reaction in the Indian media was muted, with pundits saying Venky's had failed to generate any excitement in their home market despite interest in the English Premier League (EPL) taking off.

Their main promotional effort was in October last year when Blackburn travelled to the subcontinent for an exhibition match, becoming the first EPL team to play in the vast market of 1.2 billion people.

But barely 6,000 fans turned out for the game against a local side, and the trip was noted mostly for an advertising campaign that featured leading players eating fried chicken in the dressing room.

"There was really no Indian connection with Blackburn," India's best-known football writer Novy Kapadia told AFP. "Venky's ownership did not help our football in any way.

"I am not surprised Venky's are not popular in England. Their biggest mistake was to remove Sam Allardyce as manager as soon as they took over the club."

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Venky's ducks press over Blackburn relegation