#Why (and how) retailers should embrace'showrooming'More evidence emerged this week suggesting the power of smartphones to reshape how retailers stock,
a medical geneticist who heads artificial pancreas research for the JDRF. A third kind of algorithm tries to model human physiology, for instance by considering how quickly food passes through your system
#How a Wiki Is Keeping Direct-to-Consumer Genetics Alive When Meg Deboe decided to tap her Christmas fund to order a $99 consumer DNA test from 23andme last year,
a geneticist based in Maryland, and Mike Cariaso, a computer programmer. It works by comparing a person DNA data with entries in SNPEDIA,
a sprawling public wiki on human genetics that the pair created eight years ago and run with the help of a few dozen volunteer editors.
Consumer DNA tests determine which common versions of the 23,000 human genes make up your individual genotype.
As science links these variants to disease risk, the idea has been that genotypes could predict your chance of getting cancer or heart disease
a professor at Stanford university who helped developed a DNA interpretation site called Interpretome as part of a class he teaches on genetics. s it going to be concentrated by medical associations,
the FDA said it has authority to regulate software that interprets genomes, even if such services are given away free.
Gene Results Promethease can reanalyze the results of genotype tests sold legally for $99 to $199 by a variety of genealogy companies,
which are provided to customers as a text file containing a list of genetic variations. To Barbara Evans, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, the idea that people can gather DNA from one company
MIT Technology Review tested several interpretation-only sites using DNA data of anonymous donors posted publicly by the Personal Genome Project,
It organizes a person genetic variations under categories such as edical conditionsand edicines. Users can then click to see information about individual genes that scientific research has suggested could raise,
The information in the report is similar to that in 23andme banned ersonal Genome Service, but there are differences.
2035hat the genome will all make sense, and that the day you are allowed to see it,
Determining whether her relief is justified really might require the help of a trained geneticist. At least that the current view of the FDA and medical societies.
the surge of interest in Promethease and SNPEDIA represents a triumph for a no-frills approach to genetics.
Lennon says the site was modeled on Wikipedia. hat was the promise of the genome, that it should be for everybody,
Lick, who is adopted, says he became interested in genetics while searching for his birth parents and now spends a few hours a week updating SNPEDIA.
which raised $126 million and hired more than a dozen Phd geneticists to curate its own gene lists.
If you can have a simpler mechanism that doesn't require anatomical changes that's pretty darn good says Daniel Voytas director of the Center for Genome Engineering at the University of Minnesota.
Maureen Hansen a professor of molecular biology and genetics at Cornell says the advances won't be seen in commercially grown food crops for at least five or 10 years.
A sequencer this small might one day let police read off a genome from a spot of blood at a crime scene or permit doctors to pinpoint viruses in the midst of an epidemic.
There were a lot of smart people saying this is physically not possible to do says Jeffery Schloss head of the division of genome sciences at the National Human genome Research Institute in Bethesda Maryland.
Those bits then have to be puzzled back together to create a genome. Even with a supercomputer the puzzle often can't be solved there can be repeated too many sequences
Like having the edges of a puzzle long reads make it much easier to reassemble a genome especially of a species never studied before.
which was introduced early this year (see Does Illumina Have the First $1000 Genome?)to labs interested in sequencing hundreds of thousands of human genomes for medical research h
#Motorized Pants to Help Soldiers and Stroke Victims A soft exoskeleton being developed by researchers at Harvard could let soldiers carry heavy backpacks over long distances or help stroke victims walk more steadily.
Called oligonucleotides these strands of nucleotides are hugely useful in processes such as genetic testing forensics and DNA amplification.
Now teams of scientists from research centers around the world, looking at the genetics of nearly 80,000 people, have worked together to identify 108 genetic loci associated with the disorder.
Mobile technologies, sensors, genome sequencing, and advances in analytic software now make it possible to capture vast amounts of information about our individual makeup and the environment around us.
which a deletion on chromosome 22 causes problems such as learning and memory deficits, are building a database of information from genomic tests, clinical medical records, extensive family surveys and histories,
just two years after chromosome 22 was sequenced. t just sitting there waiting to be used. s
Say Genome-Editing Scientists Scientists working at the cutting-edge of genetics say one possible application of a powerful new technology called genome editing has the potential to cause ecological mayhem and needs
but it possible to engineer an organism chromosomes to alter those odds. Researchers have used already the idea to design mosquitoes that only make male offspring
what worries the scientists is that new genome editing methods, known as CRISPR/Cas9, will make it much easier to do.
Today, genetic research is moving even faster, but with few if any constraints on laboratory science.
#British Government Picks Illumina to Sequence 100,000 Genomes The british government says that it plans to hire the U s. gene-sequencing company Illumina to sequence 100,000 human genomes in
While the number of genomes to be sequenced is 100 000, the total number of Britons participating in the study is smaller, about 70,000.
and Illumina rival BGI (see nside China Genome Factory. At the time, the average cost of completing a genome was about $3, 000 to $4, 000.
Completing all 100,000 genomes would have cost more than twice Genomics England budget. The agency said in December it intended to use its negotiating power to drive prices down.
Illumina reacted by releasing a new system the Hiseq X Ten, which it says would be able to sequence genomes for $1, 000 each,
crossing a long-anticipated price barrier (see oes Illumina Have the First $1, 000 Genome?.
That system is actually 10 machines, each costing $1 million. By requiring buyers to invest at least $10 million in equipment,
the price per genome is still closer to $2, 000 than $1, 000. Parry says Illumina will carry out the sequencing on behalf of Genomics England,
Illumina will carry out sequencing on behalf of Genomics England of 100,000 genomes. An earlier version of this article said incorrectly that Genomics England intended to sequence the DNA of 100,000 distinct individuals
#Genome Editing to Reverse Bubble Boy Syndrome Researchers used an emerging technique to correct the gene behind a fatal immune system disorder in an infant.
A new kind of gene therapy which involves editing, rather than replacing, faulty genes in sick people, is being used experimentally in patients.
The latest report shows how scientists can correct a broken gene as it sits in the patient genome.
Genome editing technology is considered a promising new tool for curing disease. For decades gene therapy has meant that a virus delivers a functional copy of a gene that is dysfunctional in a patient.
The dysfunctional copy remains and the therapeutic version typically remains separate from the rest of the genome.
The technology has drawbacks. First, by sitting outside of the genome, the activity of therapeutic gene isn regulated properly.
In some cases, the therapeutic copy is delivered by a retrovirus the plunks the new gene down near randomly in the patients genome,
which risks disrupting another gene, potentially causing cells to turn cancerous. Second, some diseases, such as Huntington
Using genome editing to repair genes could circumvent these issues (see enome Surgery. In the new study, published today in the journal Nature,
Children with this genetic condition have been treated with the additive gene therapy method in the past, and some suffered leukemia-like diseases as a side effect (see he Glimmering Promise of Gene therapy.
In the new report, researchers describe treating a single infant with zinc-finger nucleases designed to repair a defective copy of an important immune system gene.
But the team shows that the genome editing did reconstitute a functional copy of the immune system gene in a small fraction of bone marrow cells
his work is undoubtedly a step towards using gene repair for gene therapy, writes immunologist Alain Fischer in an accompany article also published in Nature.
Fischer led the first successful gene therapy trials for SCID patients. In March, researchers reported an even more dramatic example of gene repair.
Scientists used zinc fingers to engineer the immune cells of patients with HIV to resist the virus (see an Gene therapy Cure HIV?.
#Cochlear Implant Also Uses Gene therapy to Improve Hearing More than 300,000 people worldwide have cochlear implants.
Lustig group and others have been exploring gene therapy, but they use a virus to deliver the neurotrophin gene.
Robert Shepherd, director of the Bionics Institute, a nonprofit medical research center in Melbourne, Australia, says electrode-directed gene therapy could improve other kinds of neural interfaces. herever wee applying electrodes,
to test the electrode and gene therapy combination in a clinical trial i
#Increasingly, Robots of All Sizes Are Human Workmates Most industrial robots are far less friendly than the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner,
#Yeast 2. 0 Designer changes in the first artificial yeast chromosome could help advance synthetic biology.
Scientists have synthesized an entire yeast chromosome, the first artificial chromosome for the kingdom of life that includes humans, plants, and fungi.
Yeast with the artificial chromosome appeared to be just as happy as their aturalcounterparts, reports the team.
The methods developed to create the designer genomic structure could help synthetic biologists better use the single-celled fungi as biological factories for chemicals like biofuels and drugs.
Yeast also has long been a lab organism for studying molecular biology and genetics; in fact, a lot of what we know about cancer genetics comes from research on our fungal friends.
In recent years, scientists have figured out how to engineer new biochemical pathways into yeast, creating living factories for medicines, biofuels,
The report of the first artificial, designer yeast chromosome suggests ways for researchers to produce new chemicals in the microbes
Six years ago, the J. Craig Venter Institute built the first artificial chromosome, which encompassed the complete genome of a bacterium (see ynthesizing a Genome From scratch.
Two years later that 582,970 base pair manmade genome was transplanted into a cell which successfully began to carry out its instructions (see ynthetic Genome Reboots Cell.
The first synthetic yeast chromosome, reported in Science on Thursday, represents just part of that organism complete genome
and is 272,871 base pairs long. The Johns hopkins university-led team first designed the chromosome on a computer, streamlining the natural chromosome sequence
so that it had less repetitive sequences and other tweaks. Undergraduate students in a class called uild-A-Genomeat Johns Hopkins used molecular biology tricks to string together snippets of DNA around 70 nucleotides (A
T, G and C) long into 750-base pair blocks. Then, other researchers continued to assemble those blocks into longer stretches of the chromosome,
and eventually the largest chunks were delivered into yeast cells, which took over the last assembly steps to create the whole, artificial chromosome.
The artificial chromosome is a designer version of just one of the yeast 16 chromosomes,
and the smallest one at that. But the work is an important step forward for synthetic biology
and a milestone in an international effort to build a completely synthetic yeast genome, project Sc2. 0 (from the scientific name for baker yeast,
Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In addition to deleting some unnecessary sequences from the code of their designer chromosome, the researchers also flanked many genes on the chromosome with tiny bits of DNA that act as landing sites for a protein that can be used to create on-demand mutations.
With these designer changes, the researchers say they will be able to test how many mutations a yeast genome can tolerate at once
and potentially discover beneficial mutations that could give rise to strains that can survive in a wider range of conditions
or perhaps be better factories for useful molecules like fuels and drugs. Already the researchers have shown that inducing mutation in yeast using the designer sites led to some cells that grow more slowly,
Lead researcher Jef Boeke tells The Verge that the team plans to create these mutation-ready additions in all 16 chromosomes.
Hopkins followed detailed rules from GMO pinch-zoom controls or tiny icons allowed, for examplend spent two years developing the app,
Specifically, the copper surfaces destroyed both the virus'genome, and its capsid, or protein shell."
Dr William R Wilcox, a human genetics professor at Emory University, called the results"promising.""But he expressed caution, given that only 10 children were getting the high dose
or DNA molecule representing a genome of a virus-an action that leads to a massive,
Rappocciolo and her colleagues searched for patterns in gene expression, or the degree to which specific genes are turned on or off."
which tested Merck and Newlink Genetics'VSV-ZEBOV vaccine on some 4, 000 people who had been in close contact with a confirmed Ebola case,
and when as a result of instructions contained in an organism's DNA genome.""From the features of the proposed method, it's easy to expect that we can obtain the same accuracy in a liquid environment,
when they divide each new cell has a complete genome. Mitotic spindles are made of microtubules
A cell needs to share chromosomes accurately when it divides otherwise the two new cells can end up with the wrong number of chromosomes.
This is called aneuploidy and this has been linked to a range of tumours in different body organs.
The mitotic spindle is responsible for sharing the chromosomes and the researchers at the University believe that the mesh is needed to give structural support.
and cells had trouble sharing chromosomes during division. Dr Emma Smith, senior science communications officer at Cancer Research UK, said:
roblems in cell division are common in cancer cells frequently end up with the wrong number of chromosomes.
This early research provides the first glimpse of a structure that helps share out a cell chromosomes correctly
and Ralstonia, a genus of bacteria that contains various soil-borne pathogens. All these bacteria were destroyed by the newly developed nanoparticles.
Nanoflares have been very useful for researchers that operate in the arena of quantifying gene expression. Aurasense, Inc.,a biotechnology company that licensed the Nanoflare technology from Northwestern University,
but the researchers expect expenses to drop over time (as has been the case with genome sequencing).
and quantify nucleic acid sequences. Source: http://www. asu. edu
#Researcher Integrates"Motherboard"in Textiles for Determining Sleep Cycles The specialist in infrared physics found a way for the technology to reach the majority of the population,
"Researchers have been working out the genetic sequence-the blueprint-of all human viruses for many years. The team used this information to generate a pool of bacteriophage-viruses that grow easily in the laboratory-with each bacteriophage expressing a tiny fragment of this human-virus blueprint on its surface.
The mechanism of the circadian clock works by circadian clock proteins CLOCK and BMAL1 heterodimers binding to a genetic sequence called E-box (CACGTG),
#Complex, large-scale genome analysis made easier The mset algorithm by Oliver Stegle at EMBL-EBI makes large-scale,
complex genome analyses easier. Researchers at EMBL-EBI have developed a new approach to studying the effect of multiple genetic variations on different traits.
The new algorithm, published in Nature Methods, makes it possible to perform genetic analysis of up to 500,000 individuals-and many traits-at the same time.
The relationship between genes and specific traits is complicated more than simple one-to-one relationships between genes and diseases.
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) show that many genetic factors are at play for any given trait
but scientists are just beginning to explore how, specifically, genetic variations affect health and disease. Two major statistical challenges to finding these connections involve analysing associations between many different genetic variants and multiple traits,
and can explain a larger proportion of these traits in terms of the genetics that drive them."
and uncover new insights into the genetics behind our countless biological processes.""Source: European Molecular biology Laborator r
#New cell division mechanism discovered Canadian and British researchers have discovered that chromosomes play an active role in animal cell division.
and it was unknown until now that chromosomes could play an active role at this step in cytokinesis.
the separation of chromosomes followed by splitting of the cell into two new daughter cells by cytokinesis."
called microtubules, were involved in pulling chromosomes to opposite poles of the cell during the division process."
"At this time, microtubules physically separate the chromosomes via their central kinetochores while other microtubules signal to the cortex of the cell where its equator is, i e.,
Furthermore until now, it was believed that the chromosomes only played a passive role: that they were pulled by the microtubules
Chromosomes'active role Initially working with the cells of fruit flies using powerful genetic tools and sophisticated microscopy,
the research team discovered that chromosomes emit signals that influence the cortex of the cell to reinforce microtubule action.
"When chromosomes are segregated, they approach the membrane at the poles of the cell, and thanks to this enzyme's actions, this contributes to the softening of the polar membrane,
who is co-senior author of the study with Dr. Bruce Conklin, a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular disease and a professor of medical genetics and cellular and molecular pharmacology at UC San francisco."
"There has been huge investment in sequencing the human genome with the idea that if we get all the relevant genetic information we can predict
whether you have a predisposition to cancer and, ultimately, use a precision medicine-based approach to develop a therapeutic approach.
Measuring the levels of the proteins in patient tissues followed by database analysis of clinical information from The Cancer Genome Atlas
such as through epigenetic modifications of proteins, however the present study reveals that signalling though cell wall-based receptors can occur without receptor activation
CRISPR/Cas9 enables the human genome to be altered with extreme precision by'cutting'both strands of the DNA in the double helix
and deleting defective genetic material. Gene-editing techniques could be used to edit almost any gene and treat genetic conditions,
Dr Marcy Darnovsky, director of the Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley, California has criticised the Asilomar conference model.
the first author of the study published in Nature Genetics.''This could potentially benefit those who are at danger from lack of pain perception and help in the development of new treatments for pain relief.'
which are able to switch other genes on and off-an epigenetic effect. By studying mouse and frog embryos as well as human stem cells
Epigenetic effects have been linked to pain sensitivity (see Bionews 741) and possibilities for using these mechanisms as a basis for treatments of pain are already being investigated.
Blood samples were analysed using a technique called'massively parallel sequencing'to look for an excess of genetic material from chromosome 21
The researchers, who presented their findings at the European Society of Human genetics conference in Glasgow,
#Study paves way for genetics-first approach to brain cancer treatment Two US studies have identified specific genetic mutations in gliomas
Previous studies have looked at the genomes of those with autism to identify the genes that might be responsible,
'Instead of starting from genetics, we've started with the biology of the disorder itself to try to get a window into the genome,
and potentially decide on a drug choice based on some of the genetic testing copy number variations of certain genes that you would find in the sample taken from the patient. he technology also removes barriers to testing that cities
The UC Berkeley team realized that the only way to clarify such vague classifications was to sequence the genomes of these organisms,
Colleagues at the Department of energy Joint Genome Institute shotgun-sequenced the DNA of all the microbes in the filtered sample,
a technique known as metagenomic analysis. Banfield team then assembled the millions of DNA pieces into eight complete bacterial genomes from four new and one previously studied phyla,
and draft genomes most of them more than 90 percent complete for 789 other bacteria. They are lumping the 35-plus phyla into a cluster they call the andidate phyla radiationbecause of their similarities to one another
and small genomes, may be the reason they can be grown in lab culture: they are stripped-down life forms with the barebones requirement of genes,
The new discovery allowed the team not only to define about a third of all bacterial phyla but, thanks to the nearly complete genomes
the multi-protein machines that translate genetic instructions into proteins. he unusual ribosomes, the small genomes between 600 and 1,
Hetzer suspects that other nucleoporins also have roles in gene expression control, but cautions that the roles could be very differentach nucleoporin,
and developmental disorders might actually be caused by the ability of these genes to regulate gene expression programs.
"The tool and its proof-of-concept testing were reported June 12 in the journal Molecular and Cellular Proteomics.
Through modern mass spectrometry proteomics techniques, scientists have identified more than 300,000 post-translational modifications (PTMS) in different families of proteins across numerous species. These PTMS come in many forms, resulting
and they expect to see their program become part of informatics systems used to analyze large volumes of proteomics data emerging from labs around the world."
. assistant professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and a researcher in UNC Gene therapy Center and Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, developed the experimental treatment in studies conducted at UNC.
This trial is the first in history to deliver gene therapy through the spinal fluid to test the potential to achieve broad treatment of the spinal cord and brain (central nervous system or CNS.
and wee already seeing clear application of this approach to treat other diseases studied in my lab. ray serves as an associate investigator on the trial as does R. Jude Samulski, Ph d.,director of the UNC Gene therapy Center."
"This specific study represents a culmination of years of basic research from the UNC Gene therapy Center
if we could'help save her child',to last week gene therapy administration; a remarkable and humbling journey that I privileged to be a part of."
"This first intrathecal (into the spinal fluid) delivery of a viral gene therapy vector in a human patient is a fundamental step towards developing a causal treatment for giant axonal neuropathy (GAN), a devastating progressive neurogenetic
immunology and molecular genetics and a director of the signal transduction and therapeutics program at the Jonsson Cancer Center. his demonstrates the effectiveness of our treatment
sirna has been shown to effectively shut down gene expression in tumor cells grown in the laboratory. But the technique had not been effective in living organisms
The team developed a series of genetic parts that can be used to precisely program gene expression within the bacteria. sing these parts
or biosensors, in bacteria that are placed then in the gut, this paper stands out from the crowd by first engineering a member of the Bacteroides genus,
a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular disease and a professor of medical genetics and cellular and molecular pharmacology at UC San francisco. his technology could help us quickly screen for drugs likely to generate cardiac birth defects,
For future experiments, Ruder is building real-world robots that will have the ability to read bacterial gene expression levels in E coli using miniature fluorescent microscopes.
According to Adaptimmune, the trial is published the first study of lentiviral vector mediated TCR gene expression in humans.
scientists have devised a new strategy to precisely modify human T cells using the genome-editing system known as CRISPR/Cas9.
and inexpensively edit genetic information in virtually any organism. T cells, which circulate in the blood, are an obvious candidate for medical applications of the technology,
But in practice, editing T cell genomes with CRISPR/Cas9 has proved surprisingly difficult, said Alexander Marson, Ph d.,a UCSF Sandler Fellow,
and allows new genetic sequences to be inserted, has generally been introduced into cells using viruses or circular bits of DNA called plasmids.
so there increasing clinical infrastructure that we could potentially piggyback on as we work out more details of genome editing,
when they divide each new cell has a complete genome. Mitotic spindles are made of microtubules
A cell needs to share chromosomes accurately when it divides otherwise the two new cells can end up with the wrong number of chromosomes.
This is called aneuploidy and this has been linked to a range of tumours in different body organs.
The mitotic spindle is responsible for sharing the chromosomes and the researchers at the University believe that the mesh is needed to give structural support.
and cells had trouble sharing chromosomes during division. Dr Emma Smith, senior science communications officer at Cancer Research UK, said:
roblems in cell division are common in cancer cells frequently end up with the wrong number of chromosomes.
This early research provides the first glimpse of a structure that helps share out a cell chromosomes correctly
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