Complete Genomics launched this week with an announcement to provide a person’s entire genetic sequence for $5,000 each.
The company’s ultimate goal is to sequence 1 million complete genomes, or 1,000 people each in 1,000 disease studies, in the hopes of revealing the genetic basis behind major human diseases. From a scientist’s point of view, this is exactly the data and perhaps sample size we need to study the role of genetics on development and cause of disease. It would be a nightmare to analyze, but it won’t be for lack of data, if the sequence will be made available …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

At last one for the girls!
 … Geneticists at Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) are the first to determine the DNA sequence of a woman. She is also the first European whose DNA sequence has been determined
The DNA is that of Dutch scientist Dr Marjolein Kriek, a clinical geneticist at LUMC. “If anyone could properly consider the ramifications of knowing his or her sequence, it is a clinical geneticist,”says professor Gert-Jan B van Ommen, leader of the LUMC team. 
Now we have  a new ‘Watson and Kriek’ to compare genetic diversity!
Elaine Warburton  www.geneticsandhealth.com

 (Tasmanian Tiger – photo credit www.bbc.co.uk/news)
Using transgenic mice, Australian and American researchers have shown that they can “resurrect” a snippet of DNA from the genome of an extinct animal — the Tasmanian tiger — and test its biological function in a living animal.   The last Tasmanian Tiger died in an Australian zoo in 1936 having been hunted to extinction.
Dr Andrew Pask, of the Department of Zoology at Melbourne University, who led the research, said it was the first time that DNA from an extinct species had been used to carry out a function in a living organism.
“As more and more …read more

A team from The University of Alabama (UAB) have found that among billions of HIV variants only a few lead to sexual transmission.
George M. Shaw Professor in the UAB departments of Medicine and Microbiology and senior author on the report, said the research sheds new light on potential vulnerabilities in the virus at a time when science, medicine and society are still reeling from the failure of a major HIV vaccine clinical trial.
“We can now identify unambiguously those viruses that are responsible for sexual transmission of HIV-1. For the first time we can see clearly the face of the enemy. …Our …read more

Researchers have found marked genetic differences between brains of men who committed suicide and the brains of men who did not. Of those individuals studied, all had been victims of child abuse.
Even though the genetic sequence was the same in the suicide and non-suicide brains, researchers at the McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, led by Moshe Szyfa, discovered that epigenetic markings were different. That is, the researchers noted a chemical coating on genes that was influenced by environmental factors. In this unique study, the DNA of male suicide victims from Quebec was analysed. The 13 people who committed suicide all had been …read more

 
Scientists from Imperial College London and other international institutions have discovered a gene sequence that is associated with a 2cm expansion in waist circumference, a 2kg gain in weight, and a tendency to become resistant to insulin, which can lead to type 2 diabetes. The sequence is found in 50% of the UK population.
The study shows that the sequence is a third more common in those with Indian Asian than in those with European ancestry. This could provide a possible genetic explanation for the particularly high levels of obesity and insulin resistance in Indian Asians, who make up 25% of the world’s population, …read more

A nationwide team of researchers, funded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has produced the first sequence-based map of large-scale structural variation across the human genome.
Recently created maps such as the HapMap have catalogued the patterns of small-scale variations in the genome that involve single DNA letters, or bases.  A sequence-based map provides much finer resolution and location information.
Researchers constructed the structural variation map by partially sequencing the genomes of eight people: four people of African descent, two of Asian descent and two of European descent. Sequence data …read more

G&H’s INTERVIEW WITH NAVIGENICS
Navigenics approached Genetics and Health for an interview. With so much written about similar genomics companies such as 23andme, Knome, deCODE genetics, I was intrigued to learn more about this company.  In particular, Navigenics appears to be the only company within this industry genre who provides a comprehensive wellness model – a healthcare model that Opaldia, the genetic screening and health surveillance company I founded, endorsed whole-heartedly. 
I interviewed Navigenics’ Medical Director Dr Michael A Nierenberg MD, clinical professor of medicine, emeritus at Stanford University to find out what makes Navigenics stand out amongst its competition.  He was …read more

 
Scientists from Helicos BioSciences, Ohio University, and Stanford University have published a paper in Science describing the first single-molecule sequencing of a whole genome.
The researchers used a single-molecule sequencing, sequencing-by-synthesis method, developed by Helicos, to sequence the roughly 7,000-nucleotide genome of the M13 virus.  In the company’s version of single-molecule sequencing, an approach first proposed in the late 1980s, nucleic acid templates that are created by digesting genomic DNA are hybridized to primers that are covalently anchored in random positions on a proprietary glass cover slip in a flow cell. Then, a polymerase and labeled DNA bases are added, one nucleotide at a …read more