The new swine flu virus that broke out in Mexico is unique and potentially dangerous in one way. It is a virus that has a combination of gene segments from human, bird and swine viruses, and can potentially become infectious in humans that have no immunity to the new strain.
Influenza viruses can change its make-up in one of two ways: Antigenic drift is a series of mutations that cause the virus to gradually evolve over time. Antigenic shift is an abrupt change in the surface antigen proteins that suddenly creates a new subtype of the virus. In the history of …read more

It’s Monday, and there’s plenty of catching up to do around the world of genetics. This week month -
The Broad Institute received an astonishing $400 million endowment from the donors that bear its name. The Institute helped mapped the full complement of the human genes. This record-setting gift will fund genomics research.
A melanoma cell line mistakenly identified as breast cancer cell line was used in more than 650 published breast cancer studies. The mistake happened 25 years ago, and could have implications for the cancer studies the cell line was used in.
The NIH awarded $138M to 47 scientists for …read more