BiotechnologyThis is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader, such as GoogleReader, or to display this data on your own website or blog. Subscribe to this data using MyMedWorm.Subscribe to this data using GoogleReader.Subscribe to this data using Bloglines.Subscribe to this data using MyYahoo.

Get the very latest Swine Flu news via the MedWorm Swine Flu RSS news feed - updated hourly from thousands of authoritative health and news sources.

• Contents
• Discussions

Pages: 1  2  

The horse genome: Riding highEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The DNA of the domesticated horse shows evolution at workTHE genomes of many mammals have now been completed, including the cow, the dog, the chimpanzee and, of course, the human. This week it was the turn of the horse to have its DNA sequence decoded. With it emerged further evidence of how horses have been close human companions and, like other mammals that share an evolutionary history with man, how they could help the understanding of hereditary diseases. But there was also a surprise: horses have a newly forming part in their genetic make-up which shows the evolutionary process in action in a way that has not been see...
Source: Biotechnology - November 5, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Nanobiotechnology: Seeding the seedsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Carbon nanotubes find an unusual use as fertilisersMANURE, compost and ash were used as fertilisers for centuries before the 1800s, but people did not understand how they worked until the science of chemistry was developed in the 19th century and it became clear that they supply plants with nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Today, something similar may be happening with a different sort of fertiliser altogether. For reasons that are not yet entirely clear, it looks as though exposing seeds to carbon nanotubes before they germinate makes the seedlings that subsequently sprout grow faster and larger.A carbon nanotube is, ...
Source: Biotechnology - November 5, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

The rise of epigenomics: Methylated spiritsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The human genome gets more and more complicatedIT WAS, James Watson claimed, something even a monkey could do. Sequencing the human genome, that is. In truth, Dr Watson, co-discoverer of the double-helical structure of DNA back in the 1950s, had a point. Though a technical tour-de-force, the Human Genome Project was actually the sum of millions of small, repetitive actions by cleverly programmed robots. When it was complete, so the story went, humanity’s genes—the DNA code for all human proteins—would be laid bare and all would be light.It didn’t quite work out like that. Knowing the protein-coding ...
Source: Biotechnology - October 15, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

The Nobel science prizes: Winning waysEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Prizes for optical fibres, charge-coupled devices, ribosomes and telomeresHOW do you look through a window that is 100km thick? That, in essence, was the question facing Charles Kao in 1966. For working out the answer, Dr Kao has been awarded part of this year’s Nobel prize for physics. Besides being thick, the window was narrow: it was an optical fibre. Dr Kao’s prize is a belated recognition of his contribution to the telecommunications revolution of the past few decades. But better late than never. The rest of the physics prize goes almost as belatedly to Willard Boyle and George Smith who, in 1969, ushered ...
Source: Biotechnology - October 8, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Biohacking: Hacking goes squishyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Biotechnology: The falling cost of equipment capable of manipulating DNA is opening up a new field of “biohacking” to enthusiastsMANY of the world’s great innovators started out as hackers—people who like to tinker with technology—and some of the largest technology companies started in garages. Thomas Edison built General Electric on the foundation of an improved way to transmit messages down telegraph wires, which he cooked up himself. Hewlett-Packard was founded in a garage in California (now a national landmark), as was Google, many years later. And, in addition to computer hardware and sof...
Source: Biotechnology - September 3, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Artificial biochemistry: Blood simpleEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
An attempt to mimic part of a cell on a chip“WHAT is a Golgi apparatus used for?” sounds like a question from the more recherche type of television quiz show. The answer is “putting the finishing touches to proteins”. Many proteins will not work properly unless they are coated with the right mixture of sugar molecules. The Golgi apparatus (named after Camillo Golgi, who discovered it in 1898, and illustrated in the accompanying picture) is the part of a cell that sweetens them up.This need for adjunct sugar molecules is one reason why making protein-based drugs is not as simple as it looks. Biotechn...
Source: Biotechnology - August 11, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Biofuels from algae: Craig's twistEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Algae inch ahead in the race to produce the next generation of biofuelsWHEN BP branded itself as “Beyond Petroleum”, and the fashionable colour among oil companies was green, Exxon Mobil stood aloof from the rush to embrace alternative sources of energy. Indeed Rex Tillerson, the firm’s chief executive, once humorously referred to biofuels as “moonshine”. Now, when some of the enthusiasts are having second thoughts and scaling back on alternatives, Exxon seems to be going the opposite way yet again. On July 14th the oil giant said it would put $300m into what is probably the biggest effort so ...
Source: Biotechnology - July 15, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Monitor: Third time luckyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Industrial biotech: A “third wave” of biotechnology is arriving. Will it be able to avoid a poor reception from the general public this time around?FOR a long time the public has perceived biotechnology to mean dangerous meddling with the genes in food crops. But biotechnology is of course about much more than transgenic food: it also encompasses the use of microbes to make pharmaceuticals, for example. The many benefits of the first wave of biotech products, in medicine, have unfortunately been overshadowed by the supposed risks of biotech’s second wave, in agriculture. Might its third wave—so-call...
Source: Biotechnology - June 4, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Civil engineering: Filling in the cracksEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
How to preserve concrete with bacteriaCONCRETE is one of the most commonly used building materials. It is cheap, strong and easy to work with. But, as a short walk through any city centre will prove, it cracks easily. The cracking of concrete pavements is merely a nuisance, but cracks in roads, bridges and buildings are a hazard. A way of making concrete that healed such cracks spontaneously would thus be very welcome. And a team led by Henk Jonkers at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands may have come up with one.The way to stop concrete cracking is to bung up small cracks before they enlarge. That proces...
Source: Biotechnology - April 30, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

North Carolina: Pipettes at the readyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The state helps engineer a biotech boomDURING a laboratory session at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, a dozen students gathered around a chromatography column. They were sending clarified lysate through an anion exchange, and some compared notes on the peculiar chemical smell of the classroom. “It’s like bad chicken noodle soup,” said one, wrinkling her nose. Others explained how they had ended up in the protective goggles and booties. Wrennie Edwards said that she had started her career in textiles, but now she was “transitioning” to a livelier field. Megan Crum explained that, gr...
Source: Biotechnology - April 16, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Getting personalEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The promise of cheap genome sequencing“TWENTY years ago doctors had tight control over all medical information. We want that power to shift to individuals,” says Anne Wojcicki, a co-founder of 23andMe, a Californian genomics firm that counts Google as one of its investors. Her firm takes in saliva samples by mail, analyses a tiny bit of the genetic material they contain and posts information about the provider’s health and ancestry gleaned from them on a secure website. She wants to extend the idea of patient empowerment to the age of genomics (the study of all genes in the genome and the interactions amo...
Source: Biotechnology - April 16, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Science and the president: A new era of integrity, sort ofEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A science-friendly president overstates his caseDURING his campaign, Barack Obama promised to end two wars. The one in Iraq smoulders on. But “The Republican War on Science”, to borrow the title of an influential book, is now over. On March 9th, as he lifted some restrictions on federal funding for stem-cell research, Mr Obama spoke of “restoring scientific integrity to government”. From now on, he said, scientists will be “free from manipulation or coercion,” and the government will “[listen] to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient.” Unlike a certain ex-presi...
Source: Biotechnology - March 12, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Monitor: Bone in a bottleEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Tissue engineering: Attempts to grow artificial bone marrow in the laboratory have failed—but now a new approach is showing promiseGROWING human cells in a laboratory is easy. Making those cells arrange themselves into something that resembles human flesh is, alas, rather more difficult. So-called tissue engineers have mastered the arts of making artificial skin and bladders, and they recently managed to cook up a windpipe for a patient whose existing one was blocked. But more complicated organs elude them. Nor has anyone managed to grow bone marrow.At first sight, that is surprising. The soft and squishy marrow insi...
Source: Biotechnology - March 5, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Embryonic stem cells: Can I serve you now?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
American attitudes to stem-cell therapies are changing fastFOR the past eight years, America’s government has declined to fund new research into one of the world’s most promising medical technologies: the use of human embryonic stem cells to repair or replace damaged tissue in the diseased and injured. Embryonic stem cells are special for two reasons, one scientific and one ethical. The scientific reason is that they are able to turn into any of the body’s myriad cell types, which is why they might be used in this way. The ethical reason is that, at the moment, harvesting them usually involves killing hum...
Source: Biotechnology - January 29, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Stem cells: Breathe in deeply, pleaseEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Stem-cell medicine takes a step forwardIN THE hierarchy of transplant surgery, replacing a bronchus (the passage from the main windpipe, the trachea, into a lung) does not sound difficult compared with, say, plumbing in a new heart. In fact, until a few months ago, it had never been attempted. The reason was not that the surgery itself would be hard, but that the tissue in question, which is the first line of defence against the bacteria and viruses that come with every lungful of air, has a remarkably active immune response. So active, indeed, that if you transferred part of an airway from one person to another, the resul...
Source: Biotechnology - November 20, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Pharmaceuticals: A chill windEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Iceland’s promising drugs firms are in troubleIT MAY seem surprising, but tiny Iceland has produced two of the world’s most innovative small drugs companies. By combining advanced gene-sequencing technologies with privileged access to the genetic data of Icelanders, DeCode Genetics pioneered the field of personal genomics. And Actavis, its compatriot, has grown from obscurity a few years ago through clever acquisitions and global investments into the world’s fifth-largest generic drugs maker. In normal times, these firms would be the toast of the town in Reykjavik. Iceland is an ideal place to study the l...
Source: Biotechnology - October 23, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

DNA sequencing: The hole storyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Nanopores may lead the way to a new generation of sequencingTHE desk in Gordon Sanghera’s office at Oxford Nanopore proudly displays a piece of knobbly plastic. It has a hole running through it and looks rather like a cruller doughnut, though with grey icing. In fact, it is a model of a protein molecule called alpha-hemolysin. Dr Sanghera, the firm’s boss, believes this molecule will revolutionise the sequencing of DNA. In nature, alpha-hemolysin is used by Staphylococcus aureus, a disease-causing bacterium, to punch holes in cells’ outer membranes. The cell contents, particularly its ions (electrically c...
Source: Biotechnology - October 16, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Cancer stem cells: The root of all evil?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Cancer may be caused by stem cells gone bad. If that proves to be correct, it should revolutionise treatmentMUCH of medical research is a hard slog for small reward. But, just occasionally, a finding revolutionises the field and cracks open a whole range of diseases. The discovery in the 19th century that many illnesses are caused by bacteria was one such. The unravelling of Mendelian genetics was another. It now seems likely that medical science is on the brink of a finding of equal significance. The underlying biology of that scourge of modern humanity, cancer, looks as though it is about to yield its main secret. If it ...
Source: Biotechnology - September 11, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Medicine: Shooting down cancerEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A theory linking the scourge to stem cells may offer new ways of treating this most terrifying of diseasesEVERY age is afraid of plagues. For the most part, such plagues have been infections. The rich world, though, has brought infectious disease under control and, AIDS aside, the memory dims with every generation. Instead, the fear of disease has transferred itself to cancer. How to prevent it, and how to treat it if prevention has failed, fills the health pages of the newspapers. How this or that celebrity won or lost his or her battle with it seems to fill much of the rest.The military metaphor is not confined to newspa...
Source: Biotechnology - September 11, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Pharmaceuticals: Convergence or conflict?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Drug giants’ recent attempts to buy big biotech firms have provoked a backlashDALLIANCES between conventional pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology firms are nothing new. Big Pharma, eager to refill its emptying drug pipelines, has in recent years looked hopefully to biotech’s upstarts. The drugs giants have pursued all sorts of tie-ups, from alliances to licensing deals to outright purchases of a few smallish companies. But mindful of the sharp cultural differences between the two sorts of firms, they have generally avoided big acquisitions.Until now, that is. In recent weeks Roche, a Swiss pharmaceutical...
Source: Biotechnology - August 28, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Pharmaceuticals:Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Drug giants’ recent attempts to buy big biotech firms have provoked a backlashDALLIANCES between conventional pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology firms are nothing new. Big Pharma, eager to refill its emptying drug pipelines, has in recent years looked hopefully to biotech’s upstarts. The drugs giants have pursued all sorts of tie-ups, from alliances to licensing deals to outright purchases of a few smallish companies. But mindful of the sharp cultural differences between the two sorts of firms, they have generally avoided big acquisitions.Until now, that is. In recent weeks Roche, a Swiss pharmaceutical...
Source: Biotechnology - August 28, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Gene doping:Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
On the eve of the Beijing Olympics, we examine the prospect of athletes using gene therapy to enhance their performance—and of catching them if they tryFOR as long as people have vied for sporting glory, they have also sought shortcuts to the champion’s rostrum. Often, those shortcuts have relied on the assistance of doctors. After all, most doping involves little more than applying existing therapies to healthy bodies. These days, however, the competition is so intense that existing therapies are not enough. Now, athletes in search of the physiological enhancement they need to take them a stride ahead of their...
Source: Biotechnology - July 31, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Gene doping:Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
What athletes may or may not do ought to be decided on grounds of safety, not fairnessANOTHER Olympics, another doping debate. And this time it is a fervent one, as recent advances in medical science have had the side-effect of providing athletes with new ways of enhancing performance, and thus of putting an even greater strain on people’s ethical sensibilities. This is especially true of gene therapy. Replacing defective genes holds out great promise for people suffering from diseases such as muscular dystrophy and cancer. But administered to sprightly sportsmen, the treatment may allow them to heave greater weights...
Source: Biotechnology - July 31, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Gene doping: Fairly safeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
What athletes may or may not do ought to be decided on grounds of safety, not fairnessANOTHER Olympics, another doping debate. And this time it is a fervent one, as recent advances in medical science have had the side-effect of providing athletes with new ways of enhancing performance, and thus of putting an even greater strain on people's ethical sensibilities. This is especially true of gene therapy. Replacing defective genes holds out great promise for people suffering from diseases such as muscular dystrophy and cancer. But administered to sprightly sportsmen, the treatment may allow them to heave greater weights, swim...
Source: Biotechnology - July 31, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Gene doping: Genetically Modified Olympians?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
On the eve of the Beijing Olympics, we examine the prospect of athletes using gene therapy to enhance their performance--and of catching them if they tryFOR as long as people have vied for sporting glory, they have also sought shortcuts to the champion's rostrum. Often, those shortcuts have relied on the assistance of doctors. After all, most doping involves little more than applying existing therapies to healthy bodies. These days, however, the competition is so intense that existing therapies are not enough. Now, athletes in search of the physiological enhancement they need to take them a stride ahead of their opponents ...
Source: Biotechnology - July 31, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Tech.view: It?s in your genes?maybeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Peering into your medical future is riskyIT HAS already delivered ever cheaper and more powerful computers. Now Moore's Law--the prediction four decades ago by Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel, that computer chips would roughly double in performance every 18 months or so--is promising to turbo-charge our health care as well. The "genome chip"--a matchbox-sized micro-array, fabricated on a slither of silicon or quartz, that can detect 1m or more specific genetic variations in an individual's DNA at a time--is following an even steeper price-performance curve than Mr Moore ever imagined. ... (Source: Biotechnology)
Source: Biotechnology - July 18, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

It?s in your genes?maybeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Peering into your medical future is riskyIT HAS already delivered ever cheaper and more powerful computers. Now Moore's Law--the prediction four decades ago by Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel, that computer chips would roughly double in performance every 18 months or so--is promising to turbo-charge our health care as well. The "genome chip"--a matchbox-sized micro-array, fabricated on a slither of silicon or quartz, that can detect 1m or more specific genetic variations in an individual's DNA at a time--is following an even steeper price-performance curve than Mr Moore ever imagined. ... (Source: Biotechnology)
Source: Biotechnology - July 18, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

No IVF please, we?re BritishEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Test-tube babies are rare in the country where the first was born"BABY of the century" ran the front-page headline of the Daily Express on July 11th, 1978. The paper promised the story of Lesley Brown, who was barricaded inside Oldham and District General Hospital, near Manchester, waiting to give birth. The world's press was camped outside; the front doors locked and staff forced to sneak in and out via a side entrance. Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards, the obstetrician and physiologist who had, nine months before, taken an egg from one of Mrs Brown's ovaries under anaesthetic and fertilised it in vitro with her husband...
Source: Biotechnology - July 17, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Better living through chemurgyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Efforts to replace oil-based chemicals with renewable alternatives are taking offFORTY years ago Dustin Hoffman?s character in ?The Graduate? was given a famous piece of career advice: ?Just one word?plastics.? It was appropriate at the time, given that the 1960s were a golden age of petrochemical innovation. Oil was cheap and seemed limitless. Since then, scientists have kept on coming up with wondrous new products made from petroleum that helped to ensure, in the words of one corporate slogan, better living through chemistry. Even so, someone offering advice to today?s promising graduates might invoke a different, uglier...
Source: Biotechnology - June 26, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Getting personalEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A genomics merger highlights the potential for personalised medicineFANS of genomics have long argued that decoding genomes one person at a time would revolutionise health care by leading to ?personalised? medicine, in which doctors match the treatment to the individual. As the cost of gene sequencing has fallen, firms have rushed to offer genetic tests directly to consumers, often raising grand expectations. There now seems to be a backlash. Doctors have groused about being bypassed. Punters have grown wary as they realise that most such tests do not provide conclusive evidence of the risk of disease. This month officials...
Source: Biotechnology - June 19, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

From across the divideEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Europe's biotech firms need to think big if they are to prosper, says Lisa Drakeman of GenmabIS EUROPE'S biotechnology industry finally ready for the big time? For decades the continent's scientific elite watched as boffins in America fled academia to start biotech firms. European governments poured billions of euros into ?technology corridors?, ?poles de competitivite?, and other top-down schemes to create biotech clusters. But most of the venture capital still went to American firms, and Europe failed to produce a rival to America's Amgen or Genentech. Defenders of Europe's efforts to promote innovation in biotechnology ...
Source: Biotechnology - June 12, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Seeing is believingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The prospects for using genes as a therapy may be improvingFOR around 40 years scientists have understood how genes work. They have known the structure of genes, how they replicate, how they are controlled and expressed and, crucially, how to manipulate them. Such knowledge has been the basis of a genetic revolution that offers the power to rewrite the material from which all living organisms are made. There has been great progress in realising some of this promise, in the form of genetically modified organisms. But ways to correct the genetic mistakes that cause many human diseases have been slower to arrive. Gene therapy...
Source: Biotechnology - May 1, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Stemming the tumorous tideEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Cancers grow from stem cells. That discovery should translate into better treatment for tumours of all typesSTEM cells have a controversial reputation, but in truth they are what makes human life possible. Each tissue in the body grows from a particular sort of stem cell. When it divides, one of its daughters remains a stem cell while the other eventually turns into whatever tissue its mother was designed to produce?be it blood, muscle, nerve or whatever. That is how healthy tissues are renewed, and it is now looking likely that it is how unhealthy tissues are renewed, too. Indeed, many researchers think that the underlyin...
Source: Biotechnology - April 17, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

No knee-jerk reactionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
An innovative way to fix knees appears to provide lasting benefitsFOR centuries, healers have had high hopes for cell therapy. Various scientists and courtiers since the days of Louis XIV tried infusing those who were ailing with tissue from healthy humans or animals. In 1912 German doctors attempted to treat children who had underactive thyroids with normal thyroid cells, but to little avail. Advances in medicine now offer greater promise for the technique, especially as Carticel implants, which in 1997 became the first cell therapy to be given approval in America, show signs of providing long-term benefits.Over 14,000 pa...
Source: Biotechnology - March 13, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

A chip off the old block, pleaseEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Choosing children is not a straightforward businessHOW much right do parents have to shape their children? Except in cases of downright neglect, we generally allow them a pretty free hand. The religious, the musical and the sporty all push their offspring down certain paths and?even if just by spending time that could have been used for other pursuits?close off others.But new reproductive technologies allow parents to choose their children, rather than merely make choices on their behalf. Take Londoners Tomato Lichy and Paula Garfield, who are both profoundly deaf, as is their daughter Molly. They would like another child ...
Source: Biotechnology - March 13, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Big, bigger, biggestEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The courts ponder how much genetic information the police should holdIT IS an object lesson in the unwisdom of shopping your nearest and dearest after an argument. In 2001 Michael Marper was arrested after his partner complained of harassment; the couple were later reconciled and the case was dropped. But in the meantime Mr Marper had to give police a sample of his DNA--which is still sitting in Britain's DNA database, along with 4.5m others. That collection, already the world's largest, covers 7% of the population (and 40% of black men). It is still growing, boosted by samples taken from all those arrested for a wide rang...
Source: Biotechnology - February 28, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Telltale hairsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
You can tell where someone has been from his hair POLICE now have a new test to help catch criminals and verify alibis. By analysing the chemical composition of human hair, researchers can determine the source of the water someone has been drinking in recent months. And that can indicate where he has been.The technique depends upon studying isotopes. These are naturally occurring variants of elements, which share the same chemical properties but have different weights because their nuclei contain different numbers of neutrons. James Ehleringer and Thure Cerling, at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and their collea...
Source: Biotechnology - February 28, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

The next green revolutionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Europe may not like it, but genetic modification is transforming agricultureFOR a decade Europe has rebuffed efforts by biotechnology firms such as America's Monsanto to promote genetically modified crops. Despite scientific assurances that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are safe for human consumption, and a ruling by the World Trade Organisation against national import bans in the European Union, many Europeans have yet to touch or taste them. But that may soon change, according to Iain Ferguson, boss of Tate & Lyle, a British food giant. "We sit at a moment of history when GM technology...is a fact of life," h...
Source: Biotechnology - February 21, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Conceiving the futureEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The profits and perils of genetic tinkeringPREPARE to enter the era of directed human evolution, says Ronald Green, a bioethicist and seasoned scientific observer, in his new book, "Babies by Design", which came out in America last November and is now being published in Britain. In the very near future scientists will be snipping and splicing the DNA in human eggs, sperm and embryos, not only fixing faulty genes but adding enhancements too. Soon, we may be able to eradicate terrible genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs and cystic fibrosis. We may be able to make our children more resistant to disease than we are--as well as ...
Source: Biotechnology - February 7, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Nearly thereEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The penultimate step towards the creation of artificial life has just been announcedLIKE a striptease artist in front of an eager audience, Craig Venter has been dropping veils over the past few years without ever quite revealing what people are hoping to see: the world's first artificial organism. He has been discussing making one since 1995, when he worked out the first complete genetic sequence of a natural living organism. And, after a lot of hard graft and blind alleys, he and his team have almost got there. As they report in this week's Science, they have replicated the genome of Mycoplasma genitalium, the species th...
Source: Biotechnology - January 24, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Son of Frankenfood?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Produce from cloned animals has won regulatory approval. Now companies must persuade consumers to buy it"IT IS beyond our imagination to even find a theory that would cause the food to be unsafe." With that ringing endorsement, Stephen Sundlof, the chief food-safety expert at America's Food and Drug Administration (FDA), this week declared food derived from the offspring of cloned cows, pigs and goats to be safe for human consumption. The decision came just days after the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) publicly reached the same conclusion.At first blush this seems likely to lead to a repetition of the controversies ...
Source: Biotechnology - January 17, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Eyes on the prizeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Not so much designing a better mousetrap as designing a better mouseTO ENCOURAGE people to take his ideas seriously, Aubrey de Grey, the originator of the strategies for engineered negligible senescence, has organised a competition. He is offering a prize for the development of what he calls a Methuselah mouse.There are actually two prizes to be had. One is for longevity, the other for rejuvenation. The prize for longevity can be won by a new strain of mouse--one bred or genetically engineered to live a long time. That for rejuvenation requires treatment to begin when the mice are already in middle age. ... (Source: Biotechnology)
Source: Biotechnology - January 3, 2008 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

DNA, directEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The race for the $1,000 genome is onJUST as computers used to occupy entire rooms, and were able to make only a few thousand computations a second, so the first DNA-sequencing machines were able to read only about 5,000 genetic "letters" a day. Technology changes. Now it is possible for a single machine to sequence a human genome of about 3 billion letters in two months. At this rate, those 5,000 letters would take less than ten seconds.So where next? If the X Prize Foundation has its way, it will soon be possible to sequence a genome in hours. To make that happen, the foundation, perhaps better known for its spaceflight p...
Source: Biotechnology - December 6, 2007 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Taking your genes in handEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Personal genetic testing is advancing rapidly. But beware of oversellingGENETIC testing promises a lot. In particular, it promises to tell people things ranging from their risks of developing ailments as diverse as heart disease, cancer and autism to how much coffee they can safely drink. It also promises a lucrative market for those doing the testing. Single-gene tests, such as those for particular forms of genes that predispose people to breast cancer, have been available for a while. This year, however, has seen the arrival of commercial versions of techniques that can sample a person's entire genetic make-up, and do so...
Source: Biotechnology - December 6, 2007 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Within spitting distance?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The era of personalised medicine takes a step closer. But it is not quite here yetMEDICINE has long been a mysterious art. Some people are more susceptible to disease than others, and the pills and potions that may help one person leave others uncured. But the past few days have seen steps forward in personalised medicine, in which diagnosis and treatments are tailored to each person's genetic make-up. Two rival firms have just unveiled services that will allow people to scrutinise their own genomes for $1,000.The first was deCODE genetics, an Icelandic firm that has already developed genetic tests for several diseases. On...
Source: Biotechnology - November 22, 2007 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news

Me too, tooEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
How to make human embryonic stem cells without destroying human embryosSCIENCE moves fast. On November 14th Nature, one of the world's leading scientific journals, published a paper about the creation of embryonic stem cells using a technique called somatic-cell nuclear transfer (basically, taking the nucleus from a body cell and putting it in an unfertilised egg). This made the news because the researchers had performed their trick in monkeys. The result was thus the first primate embryos to have been cloned, as earlier reports of human cloning turned out to have been fraudulent.There is, however, a second way of making a...
Source: Biotechnology - November 22, 2007 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: news