Interactive Genetics
Actress Glenn Close has had her genome mapped by Illumina, one of the companies that is leading the race in whole-genome sequencing. This is not just empty celebrity gossip. Close says that she decided to take the test, which costs $48,000, to “move science forward.” I have no idea whether she personally paid for the test or Ilumina covered the cost for obvious reasons.
No matter who has paid for her personal test she made a great PR effort for the whole-Genome sequencing.
Turkey's government is about to pass legislation that could cripple the country's biological research.
Nature 463, 1000 (25 February 2010) | doi:10.1038/4631000a; Published online 24 February 2010
An absurd law
When politicians respond to popular distrust of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), they sometimes fail to grasp how intricately molecular technologies infiltrate different areas of science. A case in point is now playing out in Turkey, where an attempt to regulate GMOs in agriculture has morphed into a draft law that could wipe out the country's biomedical research.
Young scientists at a Chinese genomics institute are foregoing conventional postgraduate training for the chance to be part of major scientific initiatives. Is this the way of the future?
In 1980s, if you finish your work on the kinetics of a particular enzyme you used to earn your Ph.D.
During early 90s complete analysis of a gene and associated pathways with western and southern techniques was a complete Ph.D. topic.
Avandia is an oral medication used to treat Type II diabetes. It is manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline and was approved by the FDA. So far the diabetes drug has been used by over 6 million people worldwide, and could be responsible for thousands of heart attacks and deaths every year.
Pharma, biotech and agriculture markets as well as academic institutions are craving for DNA sequence information as their future is depending on genome data in silico. Scientists understand the business side of the sector, and realize that outsourcing can be a pretty cost efficient way to get the data they need, rather than investing in the resources to perform the sequencing in their labs. In addition, outsourcing gives these institutions the ability to focus their efforts on their core competencies, usually drug discovery and development, instead of acquiring the tools for sequencing.
Is there something like American Genes, a group of genes that is unique to USA ?
The following NY-times article is the answer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02...
Relevant:
http://www.theroot.com/
http://www.cyberpursuits.com/g...
http://AfricanDNA.com
The Genome Reviews database provides an up-to-date, standardized and comprehensively annotated view of the genomic sequence of organisms with completely deciphered genomes. Currently, Genome Reviews contains the genomes of archaea, bacteria, bacteriophages and selected eukaryota. Genome Reviews is available as a MySQL relational database, or a flat file format derived from that in the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database.
MySQL is a convenient platform for open source data transactions. That means genetic data of nearly all available species can be uploaded and retrieved.
It is not as complicated as you think as long as you stick on the recipe.
1. Apply POI (Perturbation Of Interest) to your cells.
This could be a drug treatment, hyper- or hypo- oxia treatment or simply disease cells.
2. Get your normal control, untreated cells ready.
Now we are going to take molecular genetics pictures of your cells.
3. Spin down your cells.
4. Isolate RNA.
5. Get the cDNA copy of the RNA.
The cDNA copy of your cells represents the most recent status of cells of interest. Ready to take the picture.
Amyloid beta (Aβ or Abeta) is a peptide of 39–43 amino acids that appear to be the main constituent of amyloid plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients.
The protein fragment, Aβ, that is broken down in a normal brain, begins to accumulate into tiny clusters known as plaques. These plaques exist between nerve cells in the brain and have the effect of destroying nerve tissue. It has been known for some time that the higher the levels of beta amyloid in the brain the greater the level of brain impairment.
Genetics is a abstract concept. Everybody knows that genetics is about DNA, about genes, diseases and about your children. But the details are obscure to the general public. How genes are associated with diseases ? How a disease is transmitted from your grand parents to your children ? These are important questions.
However, if you try to explain these with scary terminology such as epigenetics, neural pathways, biotechnology, dominant inheritance, gene-methylation you more often scare the average Joe.
