For the first time, US researchers have decoded all the genes of a woman who died of myeloid leukemia, and they found 10 mutations that contributed to the development of her cancer.
This finding is significant on several fronts. It’s the first time that a cancer genome has been sequenced. The scientists took samples of both cancer and normal skin cells from the same woman, and sequenced the DNA on both samples. Previous to this, the focus was on select regions of the genome, called candidate regions, suspected of carrying genes that cause or contribute to cancer.
The study …read more

(Image credit: medicineworld.org) 
This week b5 media’s Health and Wellness channel is focusing on celebrities health.  Our focus is not on ‘tittle tattle’  and hot gossip about Angelina, Brad or ’Tomkat’ but rather a serious look at health issues that high profile individuals share with all of us. 
In the genetics world, our ‘celebrities’ are the likes of Craig Venter and James Watson – pioneering geneticists but basking in the eye of the media.
The race to sequence genomes has resulted in some major PR, particularly for Craig and James. 454 is sequencing James Watson’s genome and Craig has announced some of his results in PLoS.  TV …read more

 
Geneticist Craig Venter has announced that he is creating a life form that feeds on climate-ruining carbon dioxide to produce fuel.  He disclosed his potentially world-changing “fourth-generation fuel” project at an elite Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in California. Among the audience were Al Gore and Google co-founder Larry Page.
Biofuel alternatives to oil are third-generation. The next step, Venter says, is to re-engineer existing life forms that feed on CO2 and give off fuel such as methane gas as waste.  Simple organisms can be genetically re-engineered to produce vaccines or octane-based fuels as waste.
Venter’s team is using synthetic chromosomes to modify organisms that …read more

Google has been nominated for the 2006 Captain Hook Awards for Worst Corporate Offender:
Google are reportedly making their massive computing power available to the J Craig Venter Foundation for gene sequencing to generate a gene catalogue for all the genes on the planet. Individual users will then input their own genetic sequence for a read out of their genetic predispositions analyzed against the existing database.
The supposed link between Google and the Venter Foundation is old news and unconfirmed. Organizers of the Captain Hook Awards are accusing Google and the Venter Foundation of attempting to monopolize all genetic information – …read more

Middle school kids in the Baltimore-Washington Region are getting a chance to hop on the J. Craig Venter Institute sponsored Discover Genomics! Mobile Laboratory. All the equipment that’s needed to conduct biology experiements is on board: electricity, running water, micropipettes, centrifuges, electrophoresis supplies, and reagents. Each class gets hands-on experience in extracting DNA, studying human physiology, disease pathology, etc.
Makes me want to be a kid again to experience the excitement of a molecular biology lab for the first time. On second thought, getting hand cramps after loading the nth gel for the nth time in a month lost …read more