MADISON, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Forensic DNA professionals confront many challenges: cold case investigations, DNA backlogs and new applications like rapid DNA and kinship DNA testing. The 23rd International Symposium on Human Identification (ISHI) presents forensic professionals with an opportunity to learn about these and other developing forensic DNA technologies alongside fellow scientists, law enforcement professionals and forensic experts. This years ISHI will be held October 15-18 in Nashville, Tennessee at the Gaylord Opryland Resort.

As the largest conference on DNA analysis for human identification, the symposium attracts more than 800 DNA analysts and forensic scientists from around the world, providing these professionals an opportunity to explore and debate the latest research, technologies and ethical issues in the industry today. This years presenters and topics include:

Author and Educator Douglas Starr

Co-director of Boston Universitys graduate program in Science and Medical Journalism and author of Gold Dagger award-winning book The Little Killer of Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science, Starr is this years keynote speaker. In his latest book, Starr tells the story of forensic sciences 19th century pioneers and the notorious serial killer they caught and convicted using their new scientific techniques. Winner of the Gold Dagger award in the U.K. and a finalist for the Edgar Allen Poe award in the U.S., the book received laudatory reviews, including an Editors Choice listing in the New York Times Book Review and a place on the True Crime Bestseller lists of the Wall Street Journal and Library Journal.

SNA International Founder Amanda Sozer

SNA International lends expertise to forensic labs and mass fatality identification projects. Founder and President Amanda Sozer, who received recognition for her outstanding efforts during 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, will be leading a workshop on forensic science and human rights at ISHI. The workshop will include speakers who have worked on human rights projects as well as a presentation on the AAAS Guidelines for Scientists and Human Rights Organizations, developed by a group of collaborating scientists and representatives of human right organizations. The guidelines are designed to be helpful to those establishing science and human rights partnerships and to facilitate and promote cooperation between scientists and human rights organizations seeking scientific expertise.

Sequencing the Black Death Genome: Hendrik Poinar

Hendrik Poinar and his colleagues at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada developed a technique to find and sequence the Black Death genome using the skeletal remains of its victims. The possibility of environmental contamination was high. To address this, Poinar and his team extracted the DNA using a molecular probe made from a modern strain of DNA, testing this new technique on approximately 100 samples of teeth and bone excavated from a London plague pit. The result was a strain of Y. pestis unlike any known today: the Black Death. Poinar will share details of this process during his talk at ISHI.

Workshops: DNA Backlog Reduction, Cold Case Investigative Techniques

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2012 International Symposium on Human Identification Features Emerging and Best Practice Forensic DNA Techniques ...

Man admits to theft at cemetery

Investigators were able to use DNA evidence to track down a man who has been accused of stealing thousands of dollars worth of equipment from the Houston National Cemetery.

According to investigators, a burglar got away with a golf cart, two John Deere utility carts, tools and damaged two trucks in December of last year. The cemetery's losses totaled $36,000.

Harris County sheriff's deputies said the burglar left behind a drop of blood. Using a national database, the blood was matched to 32-year-old David Torres, a convict with arrests for theft, burglary and drugs that date back to 1997.

Torres was forced to submit a DNA sample during his last stay in jail.

"At that point, when the CODIS was done, he was brought in, presented with the evidence and he couldn't fight it. He pled guilty with no jury," said Deputy Thomas Gilliam with the Harris County Sheriff's Department.

Torres is now serving three years in prison for looting the Houston National Cemetery.

The same DNA evidence also showed that Torres was a suspect in a second burglary.

Copyright 2012 by Click2Houston.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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DNA leads to arrest in cemetery thefts

ScienceDaily (Sep. 11, 2012) DNA is constantly being damaged by environmental agents such as ultraviolet light or certain compounds present in cigarette smoke. Cells unceasingly implement repair mechanisms for this DNA, which are of redoubtable efficacy. A team from Institut Jacques Monod (CNRS/Universit Paris Diderot), in collaboration with scientists from the Universities of Bristol in the UK and Rockefeller in the USA, has for the first time managed to follow real-time the initial steps in one of these hitherto little known DNA repair systems. Working in a bacterial model, and thanks to an innovative technique applied to a single molecule of DNA, the scientists were able to understand how several actors interact to ensure the reliable repair of DNA.

Published in Nature on 9 September 2012, their work aims to better understand the onset of cancers and how they become resistant to chemotherapies.

Ultraviolet light, tobacco smoke or even the benzopyrenes contained in over-cooked meat can cause changes to the DNA in our cells, which may lead to the onset of cancers. These environmental agents deteriorate the actual structure of the DNA, notably causing so-called "bulky" lesions (like the formation of chemical bonds between DNA bases). In order to identify and repair this type of damage, the cell can call on several systems, such as transcription-coupled repair (TCR), whose complex mechanism of action still remains poorly understood today. Abnormalities affecting this TCR mechanism -- which permits permanent monitoring of the genome -- are the cause of some hereditary diseases such as Xeroderma pigmentosum, sufferers from which are hypersensitive to the Sun's ultraviolet rays and are commonly referred to as "children of the night."

For the first time, a team from Institut Jacques Monod (CNRS/Universit Paris Diderot), in collaboration with scientists at the Universities of Bristol in the UK and Rockefeller in the USA, has succeeded in observing the initial stages of TCR repair mechanisms in a bacterial model. To achieve this, they employed a novel technique for the nanomanipulation of individual molecules[1] which allowed them to detect and follow real-time the interactions between the molecules in play in a single damaged DNA molecule. They elucidated the interactions between different actors during the first steps of this TCR process. A first protein, RNA polymerase[2], usually crosses DNA without mishap, but is stalled when it meets a bulky lesion (like a train blocked on its rails by a landslide). A second protein, Mfd, binds to the stalled RNA polymerase and removes it from the damaged "rail" so that it can then replace it with the other proteins necessary to repair the damage. Measurements of the reaction speeds enabled the observation that Mfd acts particularly slowly on RNA polymerase, pushing it out of the way in about twenty seconds. Furthermore, Mfd does indeed displace stalled RNA polymerase, but then remains associated with the DNA for a longer period (of about five minutes), allowing it to coordinate the arrival of other repair proteins at the damaged site.

Although the scientists were able to explain how this system can achieve almost 100% reliability, a even clearer understanding of these repair processes is still essential in order to determine how cancers appear and subsequently may become resistant to chemotherapies.

Notes:

[1] During these nanomanipulation experiments, damaged DNA was grafted onto a glass surface on one side and a magnetic microbead on the other. The bead surface enabled the perpendicular extension of the DNA and measurement of this end-to-end extension using videomicroscopy. The binding to DNA of different proteins, and their action, is identifiable from the modification the protein generates in the structure or conformation of the DNA. This technique enables an extremely detailed structural and kinetic analysis of in vitro biochemical reactions.

[2] RNA polymerase is responsible for the reading of DNA by a gene and its rewriting in an RNA form, a process known as transcription. It has been shown that RNA polymerase does not only transcribe genes, but also the DNA between genes (until recently referred to as "junk" DNA), allowing, for example, polymerase RNA to perform its quality control by TCR on the entire genome of an organism.

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Real-time observation of single DNA molecule repair

The lexicon of science is riddled with catchy yet misleading terms. The god particle is nothing of the sort. Genes cannot really be selfish, and when astronomers talk about metals, they usually mean something else entirely. Now, we must add junk DNA to the list of scientific misnomers.

Last week, the results of the multinational Encode Project were published across 30 papers in the journals Nature, Science, Genome Biology and Genome Research. The five-year collaboration involved some 450 scientists working in 32 institutions and took up 300 years of computer time. The goal was to analyse the vast bulk of human DNA that does not constitute a gene ie, does not directly code for the creation of particular proteins and is seemingly surplus to requirements.

The conclusion? That this DNA is not junk at all, but absolutely vital for the functioning of our cells. It turns out that as much as a fifth of the 98 per cent of our DNA that falls into this category is instead made up, among other things, of switches bits of DNA that turn some genes on and others off. It is now believed that, in order to get to grips with genetic illnesses such as hereditary heart disease, some forms of diabetes and Crohns Disease, we need to understand these regulatory elements as much as the genes themselves.

It has been clear for a long time that there is a lot more to DNA than just genes. Indeed, one of the great scientific surprises in recent decades has been the discovery that the human genome is surprisingly bereft of actual genes. When the first draft of it was published in the summer of 2001, it did not describe the 100,000 or more genes that most biologists assumed we had, but fewer than 20,000 making Homo sapiens not much more well-endowed genetically than a fruit fly or even a lump of yeast. As an editorial in Nature put it, Unless the human genome contains a lot of genes that are opaque to our computers, it is clear we do not gain our undoubted complexity over worms and plants by using many more genes.

Partly as a result, the idea that scanning a persons genome can tell us pretty much everything about them their likely intelligence, the chance of criminal tendencies, their probable age and cause of death is now seen as a simplistic fantasy. Indeed, the more we learn about our genome, the more complex the story becomes. We have genes that tell our bodies to make proteins, genes that affect other genes, genes that are influenced by the environment, segments of DNA that switch certain genes on and off, as well as our RNA, the still-not-fully understood messenger molecule that conveys information from our DNA to protein factories in the cells.

Despite the fanfare with which the Encode findings were greeted last week, biologists have known for years that junk DNA, a term coined in 1972 by the Japanese-American geneticist Susumu Ohno, performs a host of functions, among them gene regulation. Indeed, it was always obvious that much of our DNA must be tasked with the activation or suppression of other parts of itself: genes that make bone tissue are present in all cells but are only switched on in bone cells; heart muscle genes are present but inactive in your teeth and liver and everywhere else.

Furthermore, as Ohno pointed out, a great deal of the genome consists of pseudogenes non-functioning copies of active genes that form the raw material of evolution. Without this spare genetic material, natural selection would have nothing to act upon. We have also known for some time that the dark part of our genome contains what are known as human endogenous retroviruses: bits of the genetic code from viruses that are a legacy of our long battle with these microbes. In millennia to come, it is likely that bits of the genome for HIV will become similarly incorporated into our DNA, as a legacy of the Aids epidemic.

The more we learn, the more the recipe book of life turns out to resemble less a single tome than a well-organised library, complete with a sophisticated index and with the ability to lend and borrow books. Some of the volumes are crucial a mix-up in the code could kill or cripple us while others moulder in the stacks. There is probably a lot of built-in redundancy, which is not surprising considering that the genomes of any species are the result of three billion years of evolution. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that we can make any sense of it at all.

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'Junk DNA' and the mystery of mankind's missing genes

Last week, in response to a media blitz promoting a $288 million DNA project called ENCODE, headlines announced that most of our DNA formerly known as "junk" was actually useful.

A number of scientists both inside the study and out took issue with this claim - which centered on the 98 percent of our DNA that isn't officially part of any gene.

Sorting the workers from the freeloaders in our DNA is crucial to understanding how our genetic code works, how it drives human evolution and influences our traits and health.

Some biologists dislike the term "junk DNA" because they already knew at least part of it is doing something essential - like regulating how the instructions in the genes are carried out.

The genes hold recipes for making proteins - the working parts and scaffolding of the body. Some of the rest of the DNA tells the genes how much of a given protein to make at any given time.

The goal of the ENCODE (Encylopedia of DNA Elements) project was to figure out which parts have those important regulatory jobs.

According to some scientists involved, they succeeded in pinning down where many of those regulators lurked and identified variants in that DNA that other studies have connected to a variety of diseases. Those findings could lead to new targets for drug research and new avenues for predictive genetic testing.

But long before this project was conceived, scientists had begun to explore our jungle of mystery DNA. The question of non-gene DNA came up in 1975, when researchers discovered that humans and chimpanzees were 98 percent genetically identical. That meant we and chimps were more closely related than mice were to rats, or chimps were to gorillas.

The researchers who did the comparison pointed out that some of our differences might stem not from the genes, but from our other DNA that is regulating the genes.

That regulatory role is crucial when animals are developing in the womb. Some stretch of non-gene DNA could, for example, signal the human brain to keep growing long after chimp brain development would have shut off.

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Planet of the Apes: What is that big hunk of 'junk' DNA up to ?

Could serial killer Russell Williams have been caught sooner, preventing the loss of a second womans life?

That was the question the Star had in mind when it asked the ministry that oversees police in Ontario to make public the dates when Williams DNA was submitted for testing.

But the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services refused, citing an unjustified invasion of personal privacy.

Apparently, Williams own.

The ministry is also refusing to release dates when the samples were uploaded to a national DNA data bank.

All the Star is asking for is dates.

DNA samples that matched Williams profile and could not rule him out were taken from a sexual assault scene and, months later, from the first of his two murder scenes.

With timely DNA testing, could the second victim have been saved? Or was everything possible done, and was the second murder largely unpreventable?

Releasing the dates when DNA samples were submitted, tests were completed, and the resulting DNA profiles were fed into a national database would help clear up those questions.

The Star sought access to the dates in a freedom of information request last October. The ministry, which oversees the Ontario Provincial Police and the Centre of Forensic Sciences, denied access in a letter last month.

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Releasing serial killer Russell Williams DNA testing dates unjustified invasion of privacy

In a milestone for the understanding of human genetics, scientists just announced the results of five years of work in unraveling the secrets of how the genome operates.

The ENCODE project, as it is known, dispensed with the idea that our DNA is largely "junk," repeating sequences with no function, finding instead that at least 80 percent of the genome is important.

The new findings are the latest in a series of increasingly deep looks at the human genome. Here are some of the major milestones scientists have passed along the way.

1. An understanding of heredity, 1866

The realization that traits and certain diseases can be passed from parent to offspring stretches back at least to the ancient Greeks, well before any genome was actually decoded. The Greek physician Hippocrates theorized that "seeds" from different parts of the body were transmitted to newly conceived embryos, a theory known as pangenesis. Charles Darwin would later espouse similar ideas.

What exactly these "seeds" might be was destined to remain a mystery for centuries. But the first person to put heredity to the test was Gregor Mendel, who systematically tracked dominant and recessive traits in his famous pea plants. Mendel published his work on the statistics of genetic dominance in 1866 to little notice. [Genetics by the Numbers: 10 Tantalizing Tales]

2. Chromosomes come to light, 1902

But the painstaking work of cross-breeding pea plants wouldn't languish for long. In 1869, Swiss physician Johannes Friedrich Miescher became the first scientist to isolate nucleic acids, the active ingredient of DNA. Over the next several decades, scientists peering deeper into the cell discovered mitosis and meiosis, the two types of cell division, and chromosomes, the long strands of DNA and protein in cell nuclei.

In 1903, early geneticist Walter Sutton put two and two together, discovering through his work on grasshopper chromosomes that these mysterious filaments occur in pairs and separate during meiosis, providing a vehicle for mom and dad to pass on their genetic material.

"I may finally call attention to the probability that the associations of paternal and maternal chromosomes in pairs and their subsequent separation may constitute the physical basis of the Mendelian law of heredity," Sutton wrote in the journal The Biological Bulletin in 1902. He followed up with a more comprehensive paper, "The Chromosomes in Heredity" in 1903. (German biologist Theodor Boveri came to similar conclusions about chromosomes at the same time Sutton was working on his chromosome discovery.)

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Decoding Human DNA

More than three decades ago, 15-year-old Stacy Knappenberger was found fatally beaten and stabbed multiple times inside her Oxnard home. Investigators also suspected she been sexually assaulted in July 1980 attack.

Time and technology finally caught up with the man Oxnard police detectives say killed the A-grade student in the 5300 block of South J Street.

Thursday afternoon, Oxnard police detectives and members of the Ventura County Cold Case Task Force arrested Thomas Young, 65, in Fairfield, Ala., for the murder of Knappenberger. Young was connected to the crime via DNA evidence collected at the time of the killing.

Young lived in the Oxnard area at the time.

We know this is a very emotional day for the family and we hope that this helps in the healing process. We know that they have thought about Stacy every single day since she was killed in 1980," said Oxnard Police Chief Jeri Williams. "Its also a very rewarding day for law enforcement and a tribute to the good work that was put into this case over the past 32 years.

Despite an extensive investigation in 1980, Oxnard detectives developed no suspect information, but in 2000, due to advances in technology, the evidence in this case was reexamined by Oxnard detectives and the DNA evidence was submitted for testing by the Ventura County Sheriffs crime lab.

Williams said in 2010, a DNA hit was made on a suspect through the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) that contains DNA profiles of arrested and convicted criminal offenders. That suspect was identified as Young.

Following the DNA hit, the case was assigned to the Ventura County Cold Case Task Force. Young was located with the assistance of the sheriffs office in Jefferson County, Ala., and arrested about 2:30 p.m. Thursday under the authority of a Ventura County murder warrant.

Young was booked into the Jefferson County Jail in Birmingham, Ala., for murder and is awaiting extradition to Ventura County.

-- Richard Winton

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DNA leads to arrest in 1980 murder of Oxnard girl

When 15-year-old Stacy Knappenberger was killed in 1980, Oxnard investigators were at a loss.

The body of the Hueneme High School student was found in her home. She had been beaten and stabbed multiple times, and authorities suspected she had been sexually assaulted.

But there were no arrests until this week, when, guided by a DNA match, officers in Fairfield, Ala., converged on the home of Thomas Young Jr., 65, a Vietnam veteran described by a next-door neighbor as mild-mannered and religious.

"I am totally taken aback," said Eleanor Rogers, his neighbor in Fairfield. "He always appeared to be so very nice and respectful. We would plant flowers together."

Paul Knappenberger, Stacy's father, said Friday that he didn't know Young and doubted that his daughter had either.

"I believe he stalked her," he said.

Knappenberger, who has been in touch with detectives over the years, said he planned to be at Young's arraignment, which had not been scheduled as of Friday.

"I'm relieved that, after 32 years, this is finally coming to a conclusion," he said.

In a statement thanking Oxnard police and Ventura County prosecutors, the family said it was "hoping to have closure in the death of Stacy, and possibly give hope to others still waiting for justice for their loved ones."

Oxnard Police Chief Jeri Williams called the arrest "a very rewarding day for law enforcement and a tribute to the good work that was put into this case over the past 32 years."

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DNA match leads to arrest in 1980 Oxnard slaying

Don Bishop / Getty Images

Junk. Barren. Non-functioning. Dark matter. Thats how scientists had described the 98% of human genome that lies between our 21,000 genes, ever since our DNA was first sequenced about a decade ago. The disappointment in those descriptors was intentional and palpable.

It had been believed that the human genome the underpinnings of the blueprint for the talking, empire-building, socially evolved species that we are would be stuffed with sophisticated genes, coding for critical proteins of unparalleled complexity. But when all was said and done, and the Human Genome Project finally determined the entire sequence of our DNA in 2001, researchers found that the 3 billion base pairs that comprised our mere 21,000 genes made up a paltry 2% of the entire genome. The rest, geneticists acknowledged with unconcealed embarrassment, was an apparent biological wasteland.

But it turns out they were wrong. In an impressive series of more than 30 papers published in several journals, including Nature, Genome Research, Genome Biology, Science and Cell, scientists now report that these vast stretches of seeming junk DNA are actually the seat of crucial gene-controlling activity changes that contribute to hundreds of common diseases. The new data come from the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements project, or ENCODE, a $123 million endeavor begun by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) in 2003, which includes 442 scientists in 32 labs around the world.

(MORE: Decoding Cancer: Scientists Release 520 Tumor Genomes from Pediatric Patients)

ENCODE has revealed that some 80% of the human genome is biochemically active. What is remarkable is how much of [the genome] is doing at least something. It has changed my perception of the genome, says Ewan Birney, ENCODEs lead analysis coordinator from the European Bioinformatics Institute.

Rather than being inert, the portions of DNA that do not code for genes contain about 4 million so-called gene switches, transcription factors that control when our genes turn on and off and how much protein they make, not only affecting all the cells and organs in our body, but doing so at different points in our lifetime. Somewhere amidst that 80% of DNA, for example, lie the instructions that coax an uncommitted cell in a growing embryo to form a brain neuron, or direct a cell in the pancreas to churn out insulin after a meal, or guide a skin cell to bud off and replace a predecessor that has sloughed off.

What we learned from ENCODE is how complicated the human genome is, and the incredible choreography that is going on with the immense number of switches that are choreographing how genes are used, Eric Green, director of NHGRI, told reporters during a teleconference discussing the findings. We are starting to answer fundamental questions like what are the working parts of the human genome, the parts list of the human genome and what those parts do.

(MORE: Why Genetic Tests Dont Help Doctors Predict Your Risk of Disease)

If the Human Genome Project established the letters of the human genome, ENCODE is providing the narrative of the genetic novel by fashioning strings of DNA into meaningful molecular words that together tell the story not just of how we become who we are, but how we get sick as well.

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'Junk' DNA: Not So Useless After All

05-09-2012 13:49 Scientists have completely reanalysed the human genome, and found that the code of life is far more complex than they every imagined. .

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Scientists go deeper into DNA - Video

The 46 human chromosomes is where DNA resides. On Wednesday, scientists from around the world reported their findings on a nine-year project to study the 97 percent of the genome that's not, strictly speaking, made up of genes. (National Cancer Institute)

A colossal international effort has yielded the first comprehensive look at how our DNA works, an encyclopedia of information that will rewrite the textbooks and offer new insights into the biology of disease.

For one thing, the effort might help explain why complex diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and psychiatric disorders are so difficult to predict and, often, to treat.

The findings, reported Wednesday, reveal that the human genome is packed with at least 4 million on-off switches that tell our genes what to do and when. The switches reside in bits of DNA that once were dismissed as "junk" but turn out to play critical roles in controlling how cells, organs and other tissues behave.

The discovery, considered a major medical and scientific breakthrough, has enormous implications for human health because many complex diseases appear to be caused by tiny changes in hundreds of gene switches.

The findings are the fruit of an immense federal project, involving 440 scientists from 32 labs around the world. As they delved into the "junk" parts of the DNA that are not actual genes containing instructions for proteins they discovered it is not junk. At least 80 percent of it is active and needed.

The result is an annotated road map of much of this DNA, noting what it is doing and how. It includes the system of switches that, acting like dimmer switches for lights, control which genes are used in a cell and when they are used, and determine, for instance, whether a cell becomes a liver cell or a neuron.

The findings have applications for understanding how alterations in the non-gene parts of DNA contribute to disease, which might lead to new drugs.

They can also help explain how the environment can affect disease risk. In the case of identical twins, small changes in environmental exposure can slightly alter gene switches, with the result that one twin gets a disease and the other does not.

"It's Google maps," said Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Scientists decode "junk" DNA to show complex inner workings of genes

A massive DNA database has generated a map of the genetic switches which impact everything from hair loss to cancer and opened the door to revolutionary treatments for a host of deadly diseases, researchers say.

'This is a major step toward understanding the wiring diagram of a human being,' said lead researcher Michael Snyder of Stanford University.

The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements - or ENCODE - has enabled scientists to assign specific biological functions for 80 per cent of the human genome and has helped explain how genetic variants affect a person's susceptibility to disease.

It also exposed previously hidden connections between seemingly unrelated diseases such as asthma, lupus and multiple sclerosis which were found to be linked to specific genetic regulatory codes for proteins that regulate the immune system.

A key insight revealed in a host of papers published in the journals Nature, Science and Cell is that many diseases result from changes in when, where and how a gene switches on or off rather than a change to the gene itself.

'Genes occupy only a tiny fraction of the genome, and most efforts to map the genetic causes of disease were frustrated by signals that pointed away from genes,' said co-author John Stamatoyannoupoulos, a researcher at the University of Washington.

'Now we know that these efforts were not in vain, and that the signals were in fact pointing to the genome's 'operating system.''

Another significant finding is that this blueprint of genetic switches can be used to pinpoint cell types that play a role in specific diseases without needing to understand how the disease actually works.

For instance, it took researchers decades to link a set of immune cells with the inflammatory bowel disease Crohn's. The ENCODE data was able to swiftly identify that the genetic variants associated with Crohn's were concentrated in that subset of cells.

This in-depth map of the human genetic code has also altered scientific understanding of how DNA works.

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DNA data unlocks map to genetic disease

When the human genome was sequenced a decade ago, scientists hailed the feat as a technical tour de force but they also knew it was just a start. The "HHA000078">DNA blueprint was finally laid bare, but no one knew what it all meant.

Now an international team has taken the crucial next step by delivering the first in-depth report on what the endless loops and lengths of DNA inside our cells are up to.

The findings, detailed Wednesday in more than two dozen reports in the journals Nature and Science and other publications, do much more than provide a straightforward list of genes. By creating a complicated catalog of all the places along our DNA strands that are biochemically active, they offer new insight into how genes work and influence common diseases. They also upend the conventional wisdom that most of our DNA serves no useful purpose.

Defining this hive of activity is essential, scientists said, because it transforms our picture of the human blueprint from a static list of 3 billion DNA building blocks into the dynamic master-regulator that it is. The revelations will be key to understanding how genes are controlled so that they leap into action at precisely the right time and place in our bodies, allowing a whole human being to develop from a single fertilized egg. In addition, they will help explain how the carefully choreographed process can go awry, triggering birth defects, diseases and aging.

"The human genome was a bit like getting 'War and Peace' in Russian: It's a great book containing all of human experience, but [if] I don't know any Russian it's very hard to read," said Ewan Birney, a computational biologist at the European Bioinformatics Institute in England who coordinated the analysis for the project. Now scientists are on their way to having the translation, he said.

More than 400 scientists have conducted upward of 1,600 experiments over five years to produce the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, which goes by the nickname ENCODE. If graphically presented, the data it has generated so far would cover a poster 30 kilometers long and 16 meters high, Birney estimated.

Already, it is revealing surprises.

The results overturn old ideas that the bulk of DNA in our cells is useless albeit inoffensive junk just carried along for the evolutionary ride. Back in 2003, when the human genome was finished, scientists estimated that less than 2% carries instructions for making proteins, which become physical structures in our bodies and do the myriad jobs inside cells. The conventional wisdom was that the rest of the genetic code didn't do very much.

But the new analysis shows that more than 80% of the human genome is active in at least one biological process that the ENCODE team measured. Nearly all of it could turn out to be active when the data are more complete.

A huge chunk of that activity is wrapped up with gene regulation dictating whether the instructions each gene carries for making a unique protein will be executed or not. Such regulation is key, because pretty much every cell in the human body carries the entire set of 21,000 protein-making genes. To adopt its unique identity, each cell be it one in the pancreas that makes insulin or one in the skin making pigment or hair must activate only a subset of them.

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ENCODE project sheds light on human DNA and disease

STONY BROOK, NY--(Marketwire -09/05/12)- Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. (APDN), (Twitter: @APDN), a provider of DNA-based anti-counterfeiting technology and product authentication solutions, announced today an agreement with SMT Corporation of Sandy Hook, Connecticut (SMT). SMT, the well known electronics parts distributor, will begin SigNature DNA marking components that leave its facility. The botanical SigNature DNA mark is designed to provide customers with the assurance that its parts were sourced at a known and respected distributor.

The agreement between APDN and SMT follows closely on the heels of the mandate by the Defense Logistics Agency that microcircuits supplied to DLA be SigNature DNA-marked. The mandate appeared at an announcement on the DLA Internet Bulletin Board System on August 7.

Tom Sharpe, Vice President of SMT, is a recognized thought-leader of the anti-counterfeiting efforts launched by government and industry. He testified this past November before the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding counterfeit electronic parts in the U.S. military supply chain. He has focused on mitigating the counterfeit threat in high reliability electronics, and established a leading inspection resource to restrict entry of counterfeit obsolete chips.

Mr. Sharpe pointed out that the agreement includes, but goes beyond, the parts supplied by SMT to the military. "Our defense and aerospace customers can now engage with assured provenance back to SMT at any points further downstream in the supply chain. The SigNature DNA mark will also assure customers and users downstream that the chips have undergone the rigorous testing and inspection applied by SMT on components before they leave our facility."

The agreement comes just as the new federal electronics anti-counterfeiting laws are due to come into effect. In Section 818 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, the Department of Defense must require suppliers of electronics parts to "monitor and eliminate" counterfeits from the military supply chain. A key milestone is due at the end of this month, when the DoD is instructed to write the new anti-counterfeiting wording into the DFARS (Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement, the main military procurement document). The APDN-SMT agreement is an effort toward early compliance with that law by an important player in the industry.

Sharpe stated: "We take great pride in stepping forward at the beginning of what promises to be a milestone in reducing counterfeit risk to the military and to private industry. We are determined to protect our warfighters by providing the highest reliability in materiel."

"I commend the unwavering diligence of the SMT Corporation in their systematic testing, and their first-to-market application of the SigNature DNA Provenance Mark," stated Janice Meraglia, Vice President, Government and Military Programs at APDN. "Tom Sharpe's willingness to take a proactive stand is in line with the integrity he and his team demonstrate on a daily basis."

President and CEO of Applied DNA Sciences, Dr. James A Hayward, called the agreement with SMT "a landmark step, and a model for the industry." Dr. Hayward pointed out that "Provenance Marking," as the company calls its program for SMT, combines with "Authentication Marking," as applied at electronic manufacturers to provide 360 degree, all-around coverage for the industry. Dr. Hayward added: "Together, they form an umbrella protection, which can provide assurance of originality from manufacturers when available, and assurance of provenance in other cases."

About Applied DNA Sciences

APDN is a provider of botanical-DNA based security and authentication solutions that can help protect products, brands and intellectual property of companies, governments and consumers from theft, counterfeiting, fraud and diversion. SigNature DNA and smartDNA, our principal anti-counterfeiting and product authentication solutions that essentially cannot be copied, provide a forensic chain of evidence and can be used to prosecute perpetrators.

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Applied DNA Sciences Contracts With SMT for SigNature(R) DNA on Electronics

Public release date: 5-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Dr. Henrik Nilsson henrik.nilsson@bioenv.gu.se 46-317-862-623 Pensoft Publishers

Like all sources of information, DNA sequences come in various degrees of quality and reliability. To identify, proof, and discard compromised molecular data has thus become a critical component of the scientific endeavor - one that everyone generating sequence data is assumed to carry out before using the sequences for research purposes.

"Many researchers find sequence quality control difficult, though", says Dr. Henrik Nilsson of the University of Gothenburg and the lead author of a new article on sequence reliability, published in the Open Access journal MycoKeys. "There just isn't any straightforward document to put in their hands to give them a flying start. As a result, scientists differ in the degree to which they are aware of the need to exercise sequence quality control and in what measures they take." Previous studies have highlighted several shortcomings of publicly available DNA sequences - more than ten percent of the fungal DNA sequences may be misidentified at the species level, for example.

"A second complication", adds co-author Prof. Urmas Koljalg of the University of Tartu, "is that the software available for sequence quality management tend to be very complex and resource intensive. It borders on the unfair to expect everyone to have access to, and to master, such computer environments. Fortunately, a whole lot can be done towards quality control of DNA sequences using just manual means and a web browser. The current MycoKeys paper describes these means to help those biologists who do not have a strong background in computer science."

The article - "Five simple guidelines for establishing basic authenticity and reliability of newly generated fungal ITS sequences" - compiles principles and observations to assist the reader in the quality management of sequence data. Although focusing on fungi, the guidelines are general and apply to most groups of organisms and genes. The guidelines target traditional DNA sequencing and are broadly applicable to datasets used in systematics, taxonomy, and ecology.

Co-author Dr. Martin Hartmann of the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL concludes, "We hope that our guidelines will assist the readers in sharpening their datasets so that, eventually, the trend of increasing noise in the public sequence databases can be arrested. Molecular data offer so much promise that we simply cannot afford to lose accuracy to bias and artifacts."

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Original source:

Nilsson RH, Tedersoo L, Abarenkov K, Ryberg M, Kristiansson E, Hartmann M, Schoch CL, Nylander JAA, Bergsten J, Porter TM, Jumpponen A, Vaishampayan P, Ovaskainen O, Hallenberg N, Bengtsson-Palme J, Eriksson KM, Larsson K-H, Larsson E, Kljalg U (2012) Five simple guidelines for establishing basic authenticity and reliability of newly generated fungal ITS sequences. MycoKeys 4: 37-62. doi: 10.3897/mycokeys.4.3606

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DNA sequences need quality time too - guidelines for quality control published

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

GnuBIO, Inc. (www.gnubio.com) is expanding its operations and relocating to a newly constructed facility dedicated to the research and development, as well as the near term commercial activities of the growing company. The new 11,000 sq. ft. facility, located at One Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will have enhanced office and laboratory space to provide additional infrastructure that will enable the companys continued growth and transition from R&D to commercialization of its desktop DNA sequencing technology. The building will be equipped with manufacturing and fabrication facilities in addition to general laboratory and office space to house the growing team. Additional hires in product development, software, development,sales and marketing staff will be housed in the new space as GnuBIO prepares for the launch of its first commercial product.

This move to a larger and more sophisticated facility marks an important milestone for GnuBIO, as it will afford us the space to transition into the commercial phase of the company, said John Boyce, President and CEO of GnuBIO, http://www.gnubio.com. The additional space will allow us to bring all initial manufacturing capabilities, from the consumables to the instrumentation, in house. The new facility will also provide the necessary space for the first critical hires for our commercial team.

GnuBIOs platform technology is a fully integrated next-generation desktop DNA sequencing platform, based on established microfluidics and emulsion technology licensed from the laboratory of Professor David Weitz at Harvard University. The emulsion and microfluidic technology, combined with novel molecular biology assays, has led to the development of a scalable, accurate DNA sequencing platform that encompasses all of the steps required for DNA sequencing into a single platform. It is designed to run complete and customized sequencing workflow more efficiently and at a lower cost than currently available systems, with a list price of only $50,000 per system with no extra equipment or servers needed. The company is currently working with leading institutions and molecular diagnostic companies, both in the US and abroad, to develop customized and standard panels that will be run on the GnuBIO system http://www.gnubio.com.

About GnuBIO: GnuBIO, http://www.gnubio.com, is a privately-held company developing next-generation desktop DNA sequencing technology that will compartmentalize the entire DNA sequencing process, combining all of the steps required for sequencing in a single system, and providing the only fully integrated next-generation sequencing workflow.The GnuBIO sequencingtechnology is based on an emulsion based microfluidic technology which also provides a scalable sequencing solution that allows for interrogation of single genes, gene panels or whole genomes. The user of his GnuBIO system simply injects the patient sample into the GnuBIO cartridge, the appropriate panel is run inclusive of gene capture, PCR, sequencing, and informatics analysis and the results are ready within hours. Unlike any other DNA sequencing system, the entire process is all on the chip the user simply injects genomic DNA, simplifying the complex sample preparation process and breaking the barrier of a an obstacle that has prevented the widespread adoption of DNA sequencing.

New address: One Kendall Square, Building 1400, 2nd Floor, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

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Moving Towards Commercialization, Desktop DNA Sequencing Company GnuBIO Announces Relocation To Expanded Facilities

DNA enters pilot for Conax Xtend Multiscreen(TM) pre-integrated partner solution

IBC Expo, Amsterdam, September 5th:Conax,a leading provider of solutions for protecting multi-device content distribution, announced today that Finnish Cable and Terrestrial operator,DNA, has entered a multiscreen pilot with partners Conax,Cubiware,MPS BroadbandandEnvivio. The pilot will include end-user testing with various multiscreen services and devices. It will also address the operational processes and procedures required for DNA to support advanced multiscreen services, and to prepare DNA on the path to the emerging over-the-top market. Together with DNA, the partners will explore the features and functionality of the Conax Xtend Multiscreen(TM) solution.

-"Conax is very excited to be chosen by long-time customer DNA to participate in this very exciting multiscreen pilot project, says Tom Jahr, EVP Products and Partners, Conax. Conax is already providing DNA with best-in-class security and is looking forward to working closely with DNA, and partners Cubiware, MPS Broadband and Envivio to assess feasibility, functionality and price/performance for positioning DNA in the evolving market within OTT content distribution."

Multiscreen background The Conax partnering strategy includes combining complementary technologies in a pre-integrated solution to remove operator risk of untested product combinations for reduced cost, time-to-market and smooth transition to new advanced services for connected devices. Conax Xtend Multiscreen(TM) combinesCubiware's flexible middleware for advanced user interface technologies,MPS Broadband'sMPS Publishing Platform(TM) for publishing and managing video content and Peer2View for distribution acceleration,Envivio's encoder technology and Conax' proven record within security.

- Mikko Saarentaus, Business Director (TV&VAS), DNA, "DNA sees the future of TV to be about multiscreen service. This pilot gives us a great opportunity to learn about the end users' impression on multiscreen services and to better understand the customers' needs and how they like to use the services. The DNA team will work closely with the pilot partners to address the operational processes and procedures required for DNA to offer integrated support for delivering advanced services to connected devices such as hybrid client devices, tablets and smart phones and position our operations for growth within over-the-top content distribution."

Conax' benchmark pre-integrated Conax Xtend Multiscreen(TM) partner solution has the potential to set a new standard in terms of price/performance for multiscreen solutions in the industry - dramatically reducing operational complexity and cost and time-to-market for the delivery of content through advanced services to connected devices, compared to costly competitor solutions with lengthy conformity testing and implementation times.

About DNA (www.dna.fi) DNA Ltd is a Finnish telecommunications company offering high-quality voice, data and digital television services using the latest technology. DNA's customers include private customers, corporations and other organizations. In 2011, DNA recorded a turnover of EUR 728 million and an operating profit of EUR 51 million. DNA has more than 3 million mobile and fixed-line network customers.

About Conax (www.conax.com)

Conax provides future-oriented security solutions that empower multi-screen digital TV content providers around the globe to deliver premium content over the combined Over-The-Top scenario of broadcast, broadband and connected devices, securely and eliminating potential revenue threats. Conax technology secures content for operators representing 125 million pay TV consumers in over 80 countries around the globe.

ISO 9001 & 27001 certified, Conax is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, and represented in Russia, Germany, Brazil, USA, Canada, Mexico, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, China, Singapore, with 24/7 Global Support operations in India. Follow Conax onTwitter

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DNA in Finland embarks on the journey to multiscreen with Conax and partners

Paul Smith Content Manager

11:35 a.m. EDT, September 4, 2012

YORK TOWNSHIP

July 27th 2011 robbery of Sovereign Bank 880 West Broadway Street, York Township. September 8th 2011 robbery of Sovereign Bank 880 West Broadway Street, York Township. January 3rd 2012 robbery of Peoples Bank 2587 Cape Horn Road, Windsor Township. June 14th 2012 attempted robbery of Sovereign Bank 880 West Broadway Street, York Township.

When the robber hit the Sovereign Bank in July and September of last year, he entered the bank with his face covered and wearing a sweat shirt turned inside out. He dropped the sweatshirt in a wooded area near the bank after the September robbery. That sweatshirt was recovered by police and sent to the Pennsylvania State Police Laboratory for DNA testing. On January 3rd, 2012, the same suspect robbed the Peoples Bank on Cape Horn Road in Windsor Township. The robber again had his face covered and wore a sweatshirt. The actor demanded money and fled the bank in a maroon Kia. A York Area Regional Police officer observed a car matching the suspect vehicle in Yoe Borough and pulled it over. The car was driven by Benjamin Pohl. When the officer did not find any evidence that linked Pohl to the bank robbery he was released. In the coming months, investigators focused on Pohl. The Sovereign Bank was robbed for the third time on June 14th, 2012. It was the same robber, same modus operandi- he again covered his face and wore a sweatshirt turned inside out. This time he jumped over the teller counter, but fled the bank before obtaining any cash. The suspect was seen entering a gold Honda sedan. Investigators knew Pohl owned a gold Honda sedan and responded to his Red Lion Borough address. This time, investigators obtained a search warrant for the residence and interviewed Pohl. They took a DNA sample and sent it to the Pennsylvania State Police DNA laboratory for comparison with the DNA collected from the gray sweatshirt. The DNA proved to be a match. Pohl subsequently admitted to committing five bank robberies.

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DNA evidence leads to arrest of Red Lion bank robber

Rally May Stall For Thai Stock Market

RTT News - Tuesday 4th September, 2012

9/4/2012 10:15 PM ET (RTTNews) - The Thai stock market has closed higher now in three straight sessions, collecting more than 20 points or 1.6 percent in that span. The Stock Exchange of Thailand ...

Asia News Network - Tuesday 4th September, 2012

The Bank of Thailand's Monetary Policy Committee is today expected to keep the policy rate at 3 per cent, where it has been since January, despite strong domestic demand and higher oil ...

Leader-Post - Tuesday 4th September, 2012

Vorayuth Yoovidhya, a grandson of late Red Bull founder Chaleo Yoovidhaya, is taken by a plain-clothes police officer for investigation Monday, Sept. 3, 2012 in Bangkok, Thailand. Vorayuth, believed ...

Wired News - Tuesday 4th September, 2012

Phi Phi Islands sit off the western coast of Thailand, floating like jewels in a turquoise sea, a picture-perfect image of a tropical getaway. Director Danny Boyle filmed his 2000 ...

The Globe and Mail - Tuesday 4th September, 2012

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DNA tests confirm French tourist as Tiger Disco fire victim