mothernaturenetwork:

Mystery of ‘junk DNA’ solved

The findings suggest junk DNA really isn’t needed for healthy plants — and that may also hold for other organisms.

Oh, man, junk DNA, we think we got you figured out again, you sassy minx. This time, you’re back to being useless!  I believe just last month we thought you were ‘vital to life’.  

With new evidence, we must revise our hypotheses, however, I think it may be safe to say that ‘junk’ DNA is probably vital to some organisms and not to others.  What it actually does in those organisms is what is fascinating.

I found this thought on twitter regarding this new evidence, it certainly made me rethink the implications of this new bit of research; how far from ‘solved’ this question actually is:

“most plants have junk DNA, 1 doesn’t, thus junk DNA useless” == “most reptiles have legs, snakes don’t, thus legs useless” - Jonathan Eisen, ‏@phylogenomics

A bit glib, but a thought-provoking analogy nonetheless.

Photo:  Juniper French in the NICU (Cherie Diez)

23 weeks, 6 days.

Radiolab presents this extremely moving podcast based on journalists Kelley Benham and her husband Tom French’s experience being the parents of a micro-preemie.  Their daughter Juniper was born one day before 24 weeks gestation, the generally accepted week where a baby is considered viable outside the womb.

Their story contains an entire universe of questions about the lines between life and death, reflex and will, and the confusing tug of war between two basic moral touchstones: doing no harm…and doing everything in our power to help.  

Radiolab: http://www.radiolab.org/2013/apr/30/

Tampa Bay Times article: http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2012/reports/juniper/

Supreme Court set to hear landmark gene patent case

On Monday, the Supreme Court will consider whether or not companies can own patents on genes.  The case they will take on specifically involves biotech company Myriad Genetics and it’s two patents for BRCA1 and BRCA2, genes that are linked to increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

Myriad’s patents currently allow them to prevent any other institution from screening these genes for patients without paying a licencing fee, thus allowing them to charge $4000 for the diagnostic test, truly outrageous considering that we can now sequence an entire human genome (20,000 genes) for a similar sum.

Myriad’s lawyers will be making the argument “that “isolated DNA” is not the same as the natural DNA, and that this distinction allows companies to patent it,” an argument that was upheld in a lower appeals court.  Many consider this argument to be ridiculous, isolating DNA does not create a synthetic/artificial molecule, our bodies do it all the time when creating proteins. 

There are many, many issues at play when it comes to gene patents, so I’m linking some articles, resources, video below, and I encourage everyone to watch this case closely at this pivotal point in our medico/legal history!

Forbes: Myriad Genetics CEO Claims He Owns Your Genes

Point of View:  PBS Documentary In the Family

Slate:  Are your genes patented?

NY Times:  DNA Project aims to make public a companies data on cancer genes

Image: http://www.salon.com/2011/08/02/gene_patents/

The issues raised in Rebecca Skloot’s NYT article on the recent publication of the HeLa cell genome (see my post here) are by no means non-controversial, and many important figures in the medical/legal/ethical fields are chiming in.  I found this response (The Immortal Consenting of Henrietta Lacks) by HHMI biologist Michael Eisen quite good, and in fact Rebecca Skloot has already posted a reply.  He raises important questions about how much say a family should have when it comes to the genomic information of one individual family member, and, whether or not the story of Henrietta can even be useful to us on such questions.  He asks,

On what grounds do you think the Lacks family should have been consented for the genome paper? If it’s to correct the historical one, then your piece is not about the privacy of family or any current issue.

It’s quite fun to watch the debate unfold in real time!  Check out twitter for interesting (truncated) debate as well:

https://twitter.com/RebeccaSkloot

https://twitter.com/mbeisen

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the Sequel

 Rebecca Skloot, author of the extremely popular non-fiction novel “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” once again raises important moral and ethical dilemmas behind the ubiquitous HeLa cells, this time surrounding the recent publication of the HeLa cell genome.

LAST week, scientists sequenced the genome of cells taken without consent from a woman named Henrietta Lacks. She was a black tobacco farmer and mother of five, and though she died in 1951, her cells, code-named HeLa, live on. They were used to help develop our most important vaccines and cancer medications, in vitro fertilization, gene mapping, cloning. Now they may finally help create laws to protect her family’s privacy — and yours.

Now, HeLa cells cells have been back in the news, when researchers published the HeLa cell genome, seemingly without consent from the Lacks family.  This raises new questions surrounding genetic information and privacy.  How much can we learn from a raw human genome?  What are the major ethical issues behind using genetic material in research, and what does it mean to give consent?

I highly recommend Rebecca Skloot’s book, as well as this new article.  Issues behind the dissemination of genetic information, and what sort of laws/oversight need to be used to protect individual privacy are quickly becoming increasingly relevant to the research community and the general public.

OMG Microscope image to be displayed in Times Square

These stunning photos of mammalian cells in metaphase (the step in cell division where condensed chromosomes are aligned) was taken by IU research associate Jane Stout with a $1.2 million dollar microscope, nicknamed OMG (for reasons that are obvious to those who see their images).

“This particular high-resolution image allowed us to see individual strands within bundles of specialized structures that form the spindle, whereas before we could only infer the bundled structure from other types of imaging and assays,” Stout says. “In future images, we hope to see where the different members of the protein family act on the spindle to learn how their movements are coordinated to regulate the entire process of DNA segregation.”

Winning the GE Healthcare Life Sciences 2012 Cell Imaging Competition, the images will be displayed on a billboard in Times Square in April.  What beautiful science!

ilovesciencestyle:

DNA ring by Zanders Creations

More geneti-bling <3

BBC Knowledge Explainer DNA

Watch this beautifully artistic and informative intro to DNA, cells and genomes. Click through to read a description about The Explainer series, and the thought that went into the animation as well as the script.  Can you distill a topic as vast as DNA into a three minute mini-documentary?  Find out!

Watching Bodies Evolve

What’s so great about being multicellular?  And how did we go from being tiny one-celled beings to the complex conglomeration of specialized cells that we are?  Carl Zimmer for Nat Geo explores some new research trying to use our budding friend S. Cerevisiae to uncover the answers.

Valentine’s Day is coming up.  Nothing like a little genetics <3 for that special nerdy someone!

(Source: etsy.com)