Treatment of rectal cancer varies enormously between different European countries

 Biomechanism 

“Study hopes to standardize clinical practice across Europe.”

Stockholm, Sweden: First results from an international comparison of the care of patients with rectal cancer have shown there are substantial differences in the use of chemotherapy and radiotherapy between European countries.

The European Registration of Cancer Care (EURECCA) study, initiated by ECCO – the European CanCer Organisation – compared the treatment of 6,597 patients in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and The Netherlands who were diagnosed with rectal cancer between 2008 and 2009. It also compared the numbers of deaths 30 days after surgery.

In a presentation to the 2011 European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress [1] today, Dr Colette van den Broek MD, a PhD student and research fellow at Leiden University Medical Centre (Leiden, The Netherlands), explained that by using the results from the EURECCA study, she and the other researchers involved in the project, hoped to identify those aspects of cancer care that played a role in improving clinical practice, treatments, survival, and the limiting of undesired side effects. Then, they would be able to develop recommendations for treatment that could lead to more standardised clinical practice across Europe.

The project started three years ago, and the data presented today, which have been obtained from comparisons of cancer registries in the four countries, show that the use of radiotherapy, or radiotherapy combined with chemotherapy, varied enormously between the countries, despite the fact that the patients had comparable stages of disease.

“The use of radiotherapy or chemotherapy or both was the lowest in Denmark at 25 percent, followed by Norway at 50 percent, Sweden at nearly 61 percent and the highest in The Netherlands at 81 percent,” said Dr Van den Broek. “Its use varied depending on the stage of the disease in each country. For instance, in Denmark and The Netherlands, patients with stage I, II and III disease received radiotherapy, chemotherapy or both most often; in Sweden it was patients with stage II or III disease, and in Norway patients with stage IV disease, who received it most often.”

At present, the researchers are comparing the deaths within 30 days after surgery between countries. “We will be able to compare treatment strategies, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or both, for different stages of disease”, said Dr Van den Broek. [2]

“It is clear from our results so far, that different countries in Europe have different guidelines for treating rectal cancer patients. An earlier study has shown that radiotherapy, delivered before surgery, reduces local recurrences of the disease. But, in The Netherlands, we use radiotherapy for almost all stages, while in Denmark, for example, they use a combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

The differences in treatment do not necessarily cause big differences in survival, and recent research has shown that, although radiotherapy decreases deaths from cancer, it increases deaths due to other causes. So we have to find the right balance between the ‘gain and pain’ of radiotherapy and between under- and over-treatment. With this study we hope to be able to give an answer to the ongoing discussion about this and it is a first step towards a single guideline that can be used in different countries.”

The EURECCA project is looking at a number of cancers in addition to rectal cancer, and Dr Van den Broek says that the researchers are hoping to look at long-term survival as well. “This is just a first step in the process,” she concluded.

ECCO president, Professor Michael Baumann, said: “Cancer professionals know well that treatment practice varies widely in Europe. These differences have many reasons, such as regional experience and expertise as well as available infrastructure. To some extent differences in approach may, therefore, be quite appropriate. On the other hand it appears unlikely that all different approaches could be equally effective and equally well tolerable. Comparison of outcome after different approaches in large cohorts is an evidence-based way to identify shortcomings in specific services. For this reason, ECCO and several of its member societies strongly support the EURECCA study, which provides a show-case on what can be achieved for improved cancer care by such multidisciplinary, multinational clinical research projects.”

Professor David Kerr, president of ESMO and Professor of Cancer Medicine at the University of Oxford, said: “This important study gives an insight into one aspect of the reasons underpinning variation in recurrence and survival from rectal cancer – access to optimal treatment around the time of diagnosis. Although heterogeneity in the biology of cancer is accepted and the subject of much research, unwarranted variation in clinical outcome may be related to lack of knowledge, lack of funding, inadequate healthcare systems or failure to apply effective treatment protocols. This report serves as a wake-up call to the European cancer community that further work needs to be done to find how widespread this phenomenon is.”

__________________

Abstract no: 6000. Saturday 11.15 hrs (CEST), Gastrointestinal Malignancies – Colorectal Cancer session, Victoria Hall.

[1] The 2011 European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress is the 16th congress of the European CanCer Organisation (ECCO), the 36th congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the 30th congress of European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO).

[2] At the time of writing this press release results of the 30-day analysis were not complete, but will be ready in time to be presented at the congress.

Targeting HIV’s sugar coating: New microbicide may block AIDS virus from infecting cells

 Biomechanism 

University of Utah researchers have discovered a new class of compounds that stick to the sugary coating of the AIDS virus and inhibit it from infecting cells – an early step toward a new treatment to prevent sexual transmission of the virus.

Caption: University of Utah bioengineer Patrick Kiser has discovered a new class of compounds that stick to the AIDS virus' sugary coating to prevent it from infecting cells. The new substances may provide a way to prevent sexual transmission of the virus. Credit: University of Utah

Development and laboratory testing of the potential new microbicide to prevent human immunodeficiency virus infection is outlined in a study set for online publication by Friday in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.

Despite years of research, there is only one effective microbicide to prevent sexual transmission of HIV, which causes AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Microbicide development has focused on gels and other treatments that would be applied vaginally by women, particularly in Africa and other developing regions.

To establish infection, HIV must first enter the cells of a host organism and then take control of the cells’ replication machinery to make copies of itself. Those HIV copies in turn infect other cells. These two steps of the HIV life cycle, known as viral entry and viral replication, each provide a potential target for anti-AIDS medicines.

“Most of the anti-HIV drugs in clinical trials target the machinery involved in viral replication,” says the study’s senior author, Patrick F. Kiser, associate professor of bioengineering and adjunct associate professor of pharmaceutics and pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Utah.

“There is a gap in the HIV treatment pipeline for cost-effective and mass-producible viral entry inhibitors that can inactivate the virus before it has a chance to interact with target cells,” he says.

Kiser conducted the study with Alamelu Mahalingham, a University of Utah graduate student in pharmaceutics and pharmaceutical chemistry; Anthony Geonnotti of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.; and Jan Balzarini of Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and the Fund for Scientific Research, also in Belgium.

Synthetic Lectins Inhibit HIV from Entering Cells

Lectins are a group of molecules found throughout nature that interact and bind with specific sugars. HIV is coated with sugars that help to hide it from the immune system. Previous research has shown that lectins derived from plants and bacteria inhibit the entry of HIV into cells by binding to sugars found on the envelope coating the virus.

However, the cost of producing and purifying natural lectins is prohibitively high. So Kiser and his colleagues developed and evaluated the anti-HIV activity of synthetic lectins based on a compound called benzoboroxole, or BzB, which sticks to sugars found on the HIV envelope.

Kiser and his colleagues found that these BzB-based lectins were capable of binding to sugar residues on HIV, but the bond was too weak to be useful. To improve binding, they developed polymers of the synthetic lectins. The polymers are larger molecules made up of repeating subunits, which contained multiple BzB binding sites. The researchers discovered that increasing the number and density of BzB binding sites on the synthetic lectins made the substances better able to bind to the AIDS virus and thus have increased antiviral activity.

“The polymers we made are so active against HIV that dissolving about one sugar cube’s weight of the benzoboroxole polymer in a bath tub of water would be enough to inhibit HIV infection in cells,” says Kiser.

Depending on the strain, HIV displays significant variations in its viral envelope, so it is important to evaluate the efficacy of any potential new treatment against many different HIV strains.

Kiser and his colleagues found that their synthetic lectins not only showed similar activity across a broad spectrum of HIV strains, but also were specific to HIV and didn’t affect other viruses with envelopes.

The scientists also tested the anti-HIV activity of the synthetic lectins in the presence of fructose, a sugar present in semen, which could potentially compromise the activity of lectin-based drugs because it presents an alternative binding site. However, the researchers found that the antiviral activity of the synthetic lectins was fully preserved in the presence of fructose.

“The characteristics of an ideal anti-HIV microbicide include potency, broad-spectrum activity, selective inhibition, mass producibility and biocompatibility,” says Kiser. “These benzoboroxole-based synthetic lectins seem to meet all of those criteria and present an affordable and scalable potential intervention for preventing sexual transmission in regions where HIV is pandemic.”

Kiser says future research will focus on evaluating the ability of synthetic lectins to prevent HIV transmission in tissues taken from the human body, with later testing in primates. Kiser and his colleagues are also developing a gel form of the polymers, which could be used as a topical treatment for preventing sexual HIV transmission.

माधान्य आरती - शिर्डी

Protein ‘switches’ could turn cancer cells into tiny chemotherapy factories

 Biomechanism 

Johns Hopkins researchers have devised a protein “switch” that instructs cancer cells to produce their own anti-cancer medication.

In lab tests, the researchers showed that these switches, working from inside the cells, can activate a powerful cell-killing drug when the device detects a marker linked to cancer. The goal, the scientists said, is to deploy a new type of weapon that causes cancer cells to self-destruct while sparing healthy tissue.

This new cancer-fighting strategy and promising early lab test results were reported this week in the online early edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Although the switches have not yet been tested on human patients, and much more testing must be done, the researchers say they have taken a positive first step toward adding a novel weapon to the difficult task of treating cancer.

One key problem in fighting cancer is that broadly applied chemotherapy usually also harms healthy cells. In the protein switch strategy, however, a doctor would instead administer a “prodrug,” meaning an inactive form of a cancer-fighting drug. Only when a cancer marker is present would the cellular switch turn this harmless prodrug into a potent form of chemotherapy.

“The switch in effect turns the cancer cell into a factory for producing the anti-cancer drug inside the cancer cell,” said Marc Ostermeier, a Johns Hopkins chemical and biomolecular engineering professor in the Whiting School of Engineering, who supervised development of the switch.

“The healthy cells will also receive the prodrug,” he added, “and ideally it will remain in its non-toxic form. Our hope is that this strategy will kill more cancer cells while decreasing the unfortunate side effects on healthy cells.”

To demonstrate that these switches can work, the research team successfully tested them on human colon cancer and breast cancer cells in Ostermeier’s lab and in the laboratory of James R. Eshleman, a professor of pathology and oncology in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

“This is a radically different tool to attack cancers,” said Eshleman, a co-author of the PNAS journal article, “but many experiments need to be done before we will be able to use it in patients.”

The next step is animal testing, expected to begin within a year, Ostermeier said.

Ostermeier’s team made the cancer-fighting switch by fusing together two different proteins. One protein detects a marker that cancer cells produce. The other protein, from yeast, can turn an inactive prodrug into a cancer-cell killer. “When the first part of the switch detects cancer, it tells its partner to activate the chemotherapy drug, destroying the cell,” Ostermeier said.

In order for this switch to work, it must first get inside the cancer cells. Ostermeier said this can be done through a technique in which the switch gene is delivered inside the cell. The switch gene serves as the blueprint from which the cell’s own machinery constructs the protein switch. Another approach, he said, would be to develop methods to deliver the switch protein itself to cells.

Once the switches are in place, the patient would receive the inactive chemotherapy drug, which would turn into a cancer attacker inside the cells where the switch has been flipped on.

Although many researchers are developing methods to deliver anti-cancer drugs specifically to cancer cells, Ostermeier said the protein switch tactic skirts difficulties encountered in those methods.

“The protein switch concept changes the game by providing a mechanism to target production of the anti-cancer drugs inside cancer cells instead of targeting delivery of the anti-cancer drug to cancer cells,” he said.

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The lead author of the PNAS study was Chapman M. Wright, who worked on the project as an assistant research scientist in Ostermeier’s lab and who now works for a private biotech company. Co-authors on the paper were Ostermeier, Eshleman and R. Clay Wright (not related to Chapman Wright), a doctoral student in Ostermeier’s lab. Through the Johns Hopkins Technology Transfer office, Ostermeier and Chapman Wright have filed for patent protection covering the protein switch for cancer technology.

Scientists turn back the clock on adult stem cells aging

 by Biomechanism 

Researchers have shown they can reverse the aging process for human adult stem cells, which are responsible for helping old or damaged tissues regenerate. The findings could lead to medical treatments that may repair a host of ailments that occur because of tissue damage as people age. A research group led by the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and the Georgia Institute of Technology conducted the study in cell culture, which appears in the September 1, 2011 edition of the journal Cell Cycle. 

The regenerative power of tissues and organs declines as we age. The modern day stem cell hypothesis of aging suggests that living organisms are as old as are its tissue specific or adult stem cells. Therefore, an understanding of the molecules and processes that enable human adult stem cells to initiate self-renewal and to divide, proliferate and then differentiate in order to rejuvenate damaged tissue might be the key to regenerative medicine and an eventual cure for many age-related diseases. A research group led by the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology, conducted the study that pinpoints what is going wrong with the biological clock underlying the limited division of human adult stem cells as they age.

“We demonstrated that we were able to reverse the process of aging for human adult stem cells by intervening with the activity of non-protein coding RNAs originated from genomic regions once dismissed as non-functional ‘genomic junk’,” said Victoria Lunyak, associate professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.

Adult stem cells are important because they help keep human tissues healthy by replacing cells that have gotten old or damaged. They’re also multipotent, which means that an adult stem cell can grow and replace any number of body cells in the tissue or organ they belong to. However, just as the cells in the liver, or any other organ, can get damaged over time, adult stem cells undergo age-related damage. And when this happens, the body can’t replace damaged tissue as well as it once could, leading to a host of diseases and conditions. But if scientists can find a way to keep these adult stem cells young, they could possibly use these cells to repair damaged heart tissue after a heart attack; heal wounds; correct metabolic syndromes; produce insulin for patients with type 1 diabetes; cure arthritis and osteoporosis and regenerate bone.

The team began by hypothesizing that DNA damage in the genome of adult stem cells would look very different from age-related damage occurring in regular body cells. They thought so because body cells are known to experience a shortening of the caps found at the ends of chromosomes, known as telomeres. But adult stem cells are known to maintain their telomeres. Much of the damage in aging is widely thought to be a result of losing telomeres. So there must be different mechanisms at play that are key to explaining how aging occurs in these adult stem cells, they thought.

Researchers used adult stem cells from humans and combined experimental techniques with computational approaches to study the changes in the genome associated with aging. They compared freshly isolated human adult stem cells from young individuals, which can self-renew, to cells from the same individuals that were subjected to prolonged passaging in culture. This accelerated model of adult stem cell aging exhausts the regenerative capacity of the adult stem cells. Researchers looked at the changes in genomic sites that accumulate DNA damage in both groups.

“We found the majority of DNA damage and associated chromatin changes that occurred with adult stem cell aging were due to parts of the genome known as retrotransposons,” said King Jordan, associate professor in the School of Biology at Georgia Tech.

“Retroransposons were previously thought to be non-functional and were even labeled as ‘junk DNA’, but accumulating evidence indicates these elements play an important role in genome regulation,” he added.

While the young adult stem cells were able to suppress transcriptional activity of these genomic elements and deal with the damage to the DNA, older adult stem cells were not able to scavenge this transcription. New discovery suggests that this event is deleterious for the regenerative ability of stem cells and triggers a process known as cellular senescence.

“By suppressing the accumulation of toxic transcripts from retrotransposons, we were able to reverse the process of human adult stem cell aging in culture,” said Lunyak.

“Furthermore, by rewinding the cellular clock in this way, we were not only able to rejuvenate ‘aged’ human stem cells, but to our surprise we were able to reset them to an earlier developmental stage, by up-regulating the “pluripotency factors” – the proteins that are critically involved in the self-renewal of undifferentiated embryonic stem cells.” she said.

Next the team plans to use further analysis to validate the extent to which the rejuvenated stem cells may be suitable for clinical tissue regenerative applications.

Meeting Minutes

“People can hold meetings to glorify the Lord in their respective languages and with melodious songs, and if such performances are executed in an offenseless manner, it is certain that the participants will gradually attain spiritual perfection without having to undergo more rigorous methods.” (Shrila Prabhupada, Shrimad Bhagavatam, Introduction) In this age of quarrel and hypocrisy, the Kali Yuga, man is generally unfortunate, short-lived, and always under duress. Stress does not even have to be a bad thing, for anxiety, ulcers and constant pain and worry are much bigger problems than ordinary stress. To find relief from the struggles encountered daily, one need not look further than the heavens, the upper planetary realm where the Supreme Lord and the divine figures reside. From His causeless mercy, God makes the processes most effective at allowing others to know Him also the most readily available. This is a simple principle that should never be forgotten. The more difficulty there is in a religious practice, the further it is away from the constitutional position of the soul. Since the name, forms, pastimes and glories of the Supreme Being are what the spirit souls roaming the land of earth are meant to immerse their minds in, something as simple as an assembly held to discuss these aspects can provide full enlightenment. Eternal happiness can come about as quickly as attending a meeting and hearing what is discussed. Why are we short-lived in the Kali Yuga? What is a yuga anyway? The Vedas are the ancient scriptures of India, and rather than be taken as a sectarian treatise targeted for a select few individuals, the correct viewpoint is to understand that the Vedas are all-inclusive; they are meant to be heard and understood by every class of men, from every type of background. We know that there must have been a point in time when the earth was created, for that is how objects around us come into being. Indeed, our current body was the result of past work performed, growth and development cycles that started before we even had the ability to remember things. We know from the authority of our parents that we existed within the womb for nine months and then finally emerged into a land unknown to us. Just as the bodies of the living entities come into existence, so the entire cosmic manifestation goes through cycles of creation and destruction. It is said that Lord Vishnu, the four-armed form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, exhales just once to create the many universes. And when He inhales, everything gets destroyed. As time and space represent the limits to our understanding, they do not apply to the Supreme Lord or to the divine energy in general. Therefore there is actually not just one creation, as that would put God’s abilities under the jurisdiction of time. Rather, this world and other worlds go through cycles of creation, millennia of manifestations if you will. Each creation has an allotted time of existence, and to further understand the conditions in society and how to cope in it, there are divisions to this one time period, which is known as a yuga, or maha-yuga. “The whole cosmic order is under Me. By My will it is manifested again and again, and by My will it is annihilated at the end.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 9.8) The Kali Yuga is the last of the four divisions, and it is marked by the tenuous standing of dharma. Religiosity, piety, righteousness, or occupational duties - these are the many ways to translate dharma, though the word itself relates to an essential characteristic. As time goes by, man’s fealty to dharma, the established codes of conduct passed down by the authority figures, dwindles. In the Kali Yuga, dharma stands as a table with only one leg, with the other three wiped out in favor of vice, sin and overall debauchery. The allure of sinful activity is that it will somehow bring happiness. “Just eat a little bit more. Just have some more beer. Just cheat on your wife this one time. Just make one more wager and then you’ll be satisfied.” Obviously, these temptations aren’t so fast to go away. By giving in to them what results is a loss of peace of mind and rationale. In a society where sinful behavior is rampant, there will not be any happiness. What’s even worse is that the symptoms will not be properly understood; recognizing them will not lead to a proper identification of the problem. That adherence to dharma should diminish over time is not that surprising. In America, deference to pious behavior in society was much higher than it is today as recently as fifty years ago. In many communities, there was rampant poverty, also much worse than it is today, but since the families were more centered on religious life, the children had morals instilled in them. Hard work, discipline, respect for life and other values remained even in the harshest of conditions. As that adherence to piety gradually diminished, however, so did man’s ability to interact with his fellow man. Hence the Kali Yuga is known for quarrels erupting over the most trivial things. Cut someone off on the highway and you could trigger a meltdown from the other driver. Wear a jersey of a sports team that someone else doesn’t like and you can get beaten up if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, what can be done to fix the problem? The holy names of the Lord, especially those found in the maha-mantra, “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare”, are meant to deliver the fallen people of this age. How can these names be disseminated, and who will be willing to accept them, especially given man’s affinity for sinful life? The best way to spread the holy names is through congregational chanting, wherein groups of devoted individuals chant the sacred mantras in a call-and-response fashion. Bring the holy name to the masses and you will have a revolution in thought and behavior. As people don’t like to be bothered in the street, another effective way to spread the glories of the Supreme Lord that everyone is inclined to worship is to hold meetings, public gatherings where discourses on Krishna philosophy, or bhakti-yoga, can take place. Krishna is the complete manifestation of the Supreme Lord. Shri Krishna is fully opulent, all-powerful, and has a transcendental sweetness that is unique. With karma, the expectation is to have a nice reward, a fruit at the end that tastes sweet. Since Krishna is the reservoir of all sweetness, there can be no tastier fruit than His constant association. The public assembly discussing Krishna’s nature, pastimes and teachings can bring that delight to a large number of people. Why would people be interested in attending such gatherings? It is seen that there is already the tendency to congregate. The church is the weekly gathering place for the religiously inclined, and the bars and nightclubs the places to go to for fun and enjoyment. If these places don’t fancy you, then there are the coffee shops and restaurants. Irrespective of the nature of the place, the fatigued worker looking for relaxation enjoys getting out of the house and spending some time out in public with other people. The Vaishnava gathering, the assembly where Krishna is talked about, provides the best of all worlds. The dedication to religion found in the church is present when discussing Krishna. In fact, the interaction is quite unique, as the verses from the sacred texts like the Bhagavad-gita, Shrimad Bhagavatam and Ramayana that are discussed can be studied over and over again, day after day, with new revelations revealed along the way. The more one practices bhakti-yoga and the more they hear about Krishna, the more the covering of nescience enveloping their soul comes off. Every individual life form is fully intelligent; we just don’t notice this because of the covering of maya. Even the ant is cognizant of Krishna’s status as the Supreme Lord, but due to past karma and the resultant reactions, the ant is in a form of body not conducive to acting upon the natural love felt within the heart for God. The friendly atmosphere of the night club is also there in the Krishna gathering, except that there is no need for darkness. For the night club experience to be enjoyed, there must be intoxication. The music is so loud and the lighting so dim that the patrons really have nothing else to do except drink. If the lights were on bright and everyone could hear each other talk, what need would there be for inebriation? With the Krishna gathering, full sobriety is a prerequisite for understanding the truths of life espoused in the sacred texts. Moreover, the congregational chanting that takes place brings bliss and happiness to those who are not distracted in mind. “If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit, or water, I will accept it.” (Lord Krishna, Bg. 9.26) The sumptuous food available in the restaurants can also be found in the Krishna gathering. Part of the typical worship program involves the offering of food to the deity of the Supreme Lord. It is said in the Bhagavad-gita that if anyone offers Krishna a leaf, flower, fruit or water, He will gladly accept it. This means that God cannot be invisible or formless. Moreover, He is a personality with arms, legs, ears and a mouth. He is different, however, in that His features are not limited. He is all-pervading and simultaneously situated in the spiritual sky of Goloka Vrindavana, so He can hear every prayer offered to Him and enjoy every tasty prasadam dish presented in a mood of love and devotion. The offered food gets returned to the worshiper in a sanctified form, becoming prasadam, or the Lord’s mercy. This food is then distributed to the guests at the assembly. In this way there is a very simple formula for gaining enlightenment, happiness and a worthwhile occupation of free time. No matter what the person’s background, this simple formula can be followed. Chant a few mantras, listen to topics about Krishna, and eat prasadam. Who could be against this? The more these programs are done, the more they get repeated. In fact, people can follow the same formula in their homes, inviting their friends and family over for a night of Krishna-related fun. Why worship once a week when you can meditate on Krishna every day? Why just enjoy the restaurant food when you can taste Krishna’s mercy all the time? Why suffer the ill effects of intoxication when you can enjoy Krishna’s sweetness in full sobriety? Though the sacred Vedic texts were composed in Sanskrit and its derivative languages, these gatherings need not be limited to a particular language. Across any land, amongst any group of people, the same subject matter can be discussed. This is what it means to be transcendental. Krishna is God for everyone, not just for the Hindus. Any type of food in the mode of goodness prepared even to the local style can be accepted by Krishna, for the Lord doesn’t just listen to the prayers of those residing in India. The gopis of Vrindavana always thought of Krishna when the Lord left for Mathura and Dvaraka. Were they bereft of His company? Did Krishna forget them? Did He not hear every single one of their prayers offered from many miles away? Krishna was always with them, even though physically He may have been many miles away. Simply attending these assemblies on a regular basis can provide all perfection, without having to make any extraneous endeavor. No need to travel to the Himalayas, starve yourself for weeks on end, or quit your job and live as a mendicant. Other methods of spiritual life can certainly help, provided that the aim is genuine and authorized, but just following behavior that we are already accustomed to and prefer can bring the desired benefits. The key to the assembly, or any activity in bhakti for that matter, is the holy name. The aim of the gathering is to spread Krishna’s transcendental sound vibrations in a palatable way, in a manner that can be accepted, understood, and relished by every one of the participants. This way everyone can go home and eagerly anticipate the next meeting, the next time they will get to hear about their beloved Krishna. In Closing: To hear at meeting place should everyone gather, About Him who has in His hair peacock’s feather. The delight of Vrindavana, of Yadu’s fame, Complete form of Godhead, Krishna is His name. Gathering place you already prefer to go to, Why not meet to discuss He of bluish hue? Don’t need to quit your job or to the mountains run, Chant Krishna’s names together and enjoy the fun. In the present age of Kali man is unfortunate, Forces of sin upon mankind do conglomerate. No other way for salvation except chanting, The holy names of the Lord, never forgetting. Visit the Vaishnava assembly and the truth learn, Invite people to the home and spiritual merits earn. To the deity of Shri Krishna offer food in goodness, Distribute prasadam, happily relish the sweetness.

008 KALVARE KALVARE = PAARVATHI = JUNIOR VS SENIOR = AIRTEL SUPERSINGER

Airtel Super Singer 3 - 09-06-2011 Juniors Vs Seniors Round - Day 4 - ...

Super Star 02 - (Favourite songs) Parvathy

The Trailer for "Urbanized," a Documentary About the Design of Cities

Video: The Trailer for "Urbanized," a Documentary About the Design of Cities

The latest in the design trilogy from "Objectified" director Gary Hustwit

By Dan Nosowitz

Urbanized Poster Build/Gary Hustwit

The newest documentary from one of our favorite directors, Gary Hustwit, just dropped. TitledUrbanized, it's the third movie in Hustwit's "design trilogy," which also includes Helvetica (whichwe reviewed shortly after its premiere) and Objectified, and focuses this time on the design of modern cities, and the more interesting question of who actually designs them.

Hustwit's design trilogy has gotten steadily broader and more ambitious, and this newest film "features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers" pontificating on one of the grandest design projects there is: an entire city. There's a ton to talk about with this subject, so we're hoping Hustwit can bring his signature style and ability to both fascinate his viewers and make them feel like experts. The movie is due to hit the festival circuit later this year, followed by a theatrical release probably sometime in 2012.

[Urbanized, the Film]