Francis Collins is in final talks as NIH head
May 26, 2009 by Grace Ibay
Filed under Health
Francis Collins, one of the major players who cracked the genetic code, is in final talks for taking the helm of the National Institutes of Health, reports the Bloomberg News.
As director of the National Human Genome Research Institutes (NHGRI) for 15 years, Collins spearheaded efforts to map the human genetic code. With a lot of help from J. Craig Venter at Celera, the project was completed ahead of schedule in 2003, and opened up a plethora of applications and implications for research into our genetic blueprint.
Collins resigned from the NHGRI position last year, in his own words, to have “greater latitude than my current position allows to pursue other potential positions of service without encountering any possible conflicts of interest, whether real or perceived."
Venter creates synthetic genome in one step
December 7, 2008 by Grace Ibay
Filed under Health
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And we thought artificial life was in the distant future… J. Craig Venter and his institute has successfully manufactured the first synthetic yeast organism, in one step!
The key? "Co-transformation of 25 different pieces at once" writes lead author Daniel Gibson, a JCVI scientist, in the advance issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
“Thus, large DNA molecules can be assembled much more rapidly from synthetic or naturally occurring sub-fragments than with any other system described previously.”
J. Craig Venter Institute has dedicated its efforts to creating a synthetic organism, and this new finding is one step closer to that goal. Synthetic Genomics, founded by Venter, is reportedly using the new method to come up with biofuels and other biochemicals using synthetic biology.
Genetics’ Lovers Gift Guide
November 28, 2008 by Grace Ibay
Filed under Health
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What do you give someone who is crazy about genetics?
You’d be surprised that there are other gift ideas besides books.
Genetics and Health Showroom has everything most of what you want (shameless promotion) for gift ideas of all occasion, such as the coming holidays. What better way to say Merry XX-Mas! (or Merry XY-Mas!)
Genetics and Health Showroom is also the right store for you, if you need a gift for any of the following reasons:
- Birthdays and anniversaries, graduate fellowships, employment, promotions, new discoveries, grant approval, postdoctoral work and all the major accomplishments in life!
- Something for your boss; your boss’ boss; your professor; your department head and all the important people who can sign your papers!
- Something for your laboratory head, technicians, the statisticians and programmers, and everyone who makes your life easier.
- Something for your classroom, art walls, bare walls, bathroom walls? and other walls you want jazzed up!
- and don’t forget YOU. You deserve to have the best.
For starters, your own DNA in Portrait. Yup, submit a cheek swab and DNA 11 will send you a printed canvas of your genetic material.
Want more gift ideas? Check out a sampling below.
POSTERS AND PRINTED ART
DNA Art. Posters, framed photographs and sketches of the blueprint of life.
(Image by Art.com)
TIME Magazine Covers, including the 50 years of the DNA, the men who cracked the code, and other milestones in the history of genetics and medicine.
(Image by Barewalls)
Find more art work at the Genetics and Health Showroom.
BOOKS!
The DNA Doctor. Candid Conversations with James D Watson (2007)
(Image by Amazon)
The Science of Heroes: The Real-Life Possibilities Behind the Hit TV Show
(Image by Amazon)
** This is on my nightstand.
My First Book About DNA (2002) perfect for the kid in your life!
(Image by Amazon)
The Genetics and Health Showroom has more biographies, fiction and nonfiction and educational books.
OTHER MERCHANDISE
Human DNA silk ties and bowties, for the formal occasions
(Image by Shopzeus)
DNA Onesies, T Shirts and hoodies, neckties, caps and mugs for the whole family
T Shirts with funny text
“Made from Well Preserved DNA”
“slightly used DNA available here”
“Genetically Superior” Male or Female
The Genetics and Health Showroom has more. Have fun shopping!
Researchers sequence first complete cancer DNA
November 12, 2008 by Grace Ibay
Filed under Health
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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 also found that 8 of the 10 mutations have never been suspected as contributing to the disease. The researchers found them on every cancer cell and none in the normal samples, which suggests that these mutations play as-yet unknown roles in skin cancer.
The research is focused on skin cancer, but scientists are enthusiastic about finding similar or the same genes in other types of cancers.
At her request, the woman’s identity is kept secret, but this is also the first time that a woman’s genome has been sequenced. Previous to her, only James Watson and Craig Venter’s DNA have been decoded.
Sequencing genome of celebrities – causing alarm
(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 star Larry King, cosmologist Stephen Hawking, Google co-founder Larry Page, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and junk bond trader Michael Milken have all paid a vast sum of money to have their genomes sequenced.
However, this is causing a degree of discomfort within the scientific community. They are worried that only the rich will benefit and it’s sending out the wrong messages to the public.
I have a different perspective. Research has to start somewhere. The very rich have always been the first to buy pioneering technology whether it’s a car, the latest computer or mobile phone. Their money will assist in further driving down the cost of the technology to such a price that will be affordable to us mere mortals.
Elaine Warburton www.geneticsandhealth.com
Craig Venter and his fourth generation fuels
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 already exist, not making new life. The limiting part of the equation isn’t designing an organism, it’s the difficulty of extracting high concentrations of CO2 from the air to feed the organisms. Scientists put “suicide genes” into their living creations so that if they escape the lab, they can be triggered to kill themselves.
“We have 20 million genes which I call the design components of the future,”Venter said. “We are limited here only by our imagination.”
“If they could produce things on the scale we need, this would be a methane planet,”Venter said. “The scale is what is critical; which is why we need to genetically design them.”
Venter anticipates having his fourth generation fuels available within 18 months with CO2 as the fuel stock.
Elaine Warburton www.geneticsandhealth.com
Artificial life close to being created by J Craig Venter
Micrograph images of synthetic Mycoplasma genitalium
J Craig Venter and his team at the J Craig Venter Institute Rockville, Md. Venter continue to expand our horizons of what constitutes life. They have built, from scratch, a synthetic chromosome containing all the genetic material needed to produce a primitive bacterium – this is considered a giant step toward the creation of artificial life.
The feat is described in an online edition of the journal Science. A team led by Dr. Hamilton Smith, director of the Venter Institute’s Synthetic Biology Group, has manufactured from laboratory chemicals a ring of DNA containing all the genes of Mycoplasma genitalium – the tiniest bacteria ever found. That means the team is incredibly close to creating an artificial form of life that could replicate itself using these machine-made genes.
The plan is to slip the synthetic chromosome inside the microscopic skin of one of the Mycoplasma bacterium, replacing its natural genome with the machine-made one and sparking the creature into a life form that can reproduce itself.
Venter says ”If we’d done that already, we’d be letting people know. That’s not the kind of secret you keep … But I am virtually certain it will happen this year … It puts a lot of power in the hands of humans”.
Venter insists that his Institute’s work is not merely a demonstration of laboratory finesse, but a step toward development of technologies that could grow fuel in bacterial vats and speed cures for diseases.
The resulting M genitalium ”creature” might pass for artificial life, it would not be entirely synthetic because only the genes would be machine made. In addition, scientists who work with much smaller viruses can now, almost routinely in elite laboratories, produce living viruses using laboratory-designed genes. What is different here is that the bacterial genome Venter’s lab has fabricated is about 20 times larger than the longest viral genome ever made by machines. Consisting of sequences of paired chemicals represented by the letters A, C, T and G, a computer printout of the Mycoplasma chromosome fills 147 single-spaced pages of paper. The secret to the success of the project was finding ways to assemble the 100 pieces into subgroups, then joining the subgroups into successive larger pieces, until the entire genome could be spliced together from four lengthy chains. Inside Smith’s lab, the heavy lifting was performed by yeast bacteria, which were genetically engineered to manufacture the largest sequences of DNA.
This photo issued by the J. Craig Venter Institute shows the synthetic Mycoplasma genitalium bacteria, single molecule from SMgTARBAC37 preparation isolated from yeast observed over a period of 0.6 seconds.
The actual synthetic chromosome, Venter said, is “the largest molecule ever built by humans, by a large margin.” And unlike human-made viruses, a synthetic bacterium would be able to make copies of itself by cell division. Viruses must hijack the machinery of living cells to replicate, a reason many biologists consider them infectious agents rather than living things. Once the laboratory produces living, replicating bacteria using this artificial chromosome, Venter scientists plan to strip away genes systematically, to find how few are truly necessary to sustain life. It is largely an academic exercise, but in the process the scientists hope to refine the tools for building living organisms from this fundamental base, and custom-design them to perform certain tasks – such as manufacturing fuel.
“We are sparking an industrial revolution,” said Venter, whose own genome has been decoded.
Jim Thomas, a Montreal researcher for ETC, a Canadian environmental and social justice advocacy group, said the “synthetic biology” work pursued by Venter’s group is potentially dangerous and ought to be subject to government oversight. “There are real concerns about biosafety for synthetic organisms, and this takes us a step closer to them,” he said. “Because of the push toward rapid commercialization, an environmental release of a synthetic organism is inevitable. This is an ecological disaster waiting to happen.” The push to develop synthetic fuels using these bugs, he suggested, will place more stress on farmland to produce energy crops. “We are already seeing fuel versus food conflicts because of the drive to produce ethanol,” he said.
With support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Venter Institute, MIT, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., published in October an analysis of the risks and benefits of synthetic biology. Not surprisingly, the group concluded that the benefits outweighed the risks. However, the group also acknowledged that public concern was not groundless, arguing instead that measures can be taken to minimize any misuse of the technology. “We found no ‘magic bullets’ for assuring that synthetic genomics is use only for constructive, positive applications,” the authors wrote. Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, has been following the implications of this technology since 1998. He received a grant from Venter to report on the ethics of the work, which was published in the journal Science in 1999. “Is it right for anyone to try to create synthetic life? The answer is yes,” said Caplan. “There is nothing that violates religious restrictions, or God’s will, and it is not too full of hubris to go down that road.” However, Caplan said that the safety concerns, and fears that a synthetic life form could escape, are justified. “Right now, there is not adequate oversight,” he said.
Elaine Warburton
Whole genome sequencing now available (for $350k)!
This blog should have been posted a while back, so apologies if appears a little behind the times!
Recently James Watson and Craig Venter let it be known that they had their genomes sequenced and analysed. Each reported their respective predispositions to various diseases.
Bearing in mind it cost several $bn to sequence the first human genome, for a cool $350K you can be one of the first to have your genome sequenced!
Knome of Cambridge, Massachusettes, USA is offering 20 individuals the opportunity to have their genome sequenced. They will have over 20,000 genes analysed and their predisposition to over 2,000 common and rare diseases assessed by a team of geneticists, clinicians and bioinformatics.
For further information visit www.knome.com
Elaine Warburton
Genetics and Health in Duke GenomeLIFE Magazine
Last year, Nature Reviews Genetics broached the subject of genetics blogging asking Would Mendel have been a blogger? It was a shallow piece with several factual errors (for example, naming me personally but attaching Mendel’s Garden to me rather than Genetics and Health… what the @#!), but it showed that blogging is very much on the minds of scientists. The current issue of Duke GenomeLIFE (March/April 2007) examines the role of web logs in genomics and the life sciences in a piece entitled, The Revolution will be Blogged.
I am pleased to be included in the piece along with other colleagues:
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RPM at evolgen
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Razib at ScienceBlogs Gene Expression (but no mention of the team at the original Gene Expression)
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Sandra Porter at Discovering Biology in a Digital World
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Jason Bobe at The Personal Genome (one of the first genetics blogs I ever read)
And in an interesting confluence of media attention, Genetics and Health was also mentioned in a piece about medical blogging in the Detroit Free Press and in a related news clip at iHealthBeat. My heart disease blog, A Hearty Life, was today’s health editor’s pick at the LA Times.
Colbert Begs Craig Venter for a Free Genome Scan
Craig Venter was on The Colbert Show recently touting his latest venture, Synthetic Genomics. Dr. Venter’s power of personality was apparently so strong that Colbert went from declaring hands-off his DNA at the beginning of the segment to begging for a free genome scan. No wonder the Human Genome Project got completed so quickly. 
Tags: craig venter, the colbert show, colbert, genetics, genome, genes, dna, diseases, illness, health, synthetic genomics
