Daily Archives: August 6, 2021

A study of more than 45,000 people with COVID-19 has uncovered 13 genetic variants linked to an increased risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2 or a higher chance of developing severe illness, researchers report July 8 in Nature. The team includes more than 3,300 researchers in 25 countries.

Some of the variants had been uncovered in previous studies. For instance, researchers again confirmed a genetic link between blood type and the likelihood of getting infected, but dont know why people with type O blood may be slightly protected. The study also verified that a variant that disables the TYK2 gene raises the risk of critical illness and hospitalization. That variant is known to protect against autoimmune disease, but leaves people more vulnerable to tuberculosis.

But at least one association was unknown: A variant in a gene called FOXP4 is associated with more severe COVID-19, the team found. That variant boosts the genes activity and has been previously linked to lung cancer and interstitial lung disease, a group of diseases that cause scarring and stiffness of the lungs. Yet-to-be-developed drugs that inhibit activity of FOXP4s protein might help people recover from COVID-19 or prevent them from becoming very ill.

The disease-associated version of the gene is more common among Asians and Latino populations in the Americas, geneticist Mark Daly said July 7 during a news briefing. This link might never have been discovered if people of diverse ancestries from around the world hadnt been included in the study, said Daly, of the Institute of Molecular Medicine Finland in Helsinki (SN: 3/4/21). Only 2 percent to 3 percent of people with European ancestry carry the variant, compared with 7 percent of people in the Middle East, 20 percent of Latinos in the Americas and 32 percent of East Asians.

Originally published by Science News, a nonprofit newsroom. Republished here with permission.

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How Your DNA May Affect Whether You Get COVID-19 or Become Gravely Ill - Cleveland Scene

TLDR: The DNA My Dog Breed Identification Test can give you all the inside scoop on your dogs insides, the genetics and health tips that can keep them happy and healthy for years.

You may be married. You may have a significant other. You may have a child. You may have several children. Your life may be packed to the rafters with family, friends, co-workers, and others to help fill your days.

But admit it there are times when your favorite living thing on the planet isnt a human. Its that buoyant, energetic bundle of fur and enthusiasm who hates when you leave, cant wait for you to get home, and would gladly spend every minute of the day with you if youd let them.

But considering a quarter of the dogs living in U.S. households today were shelter adoptions, theres a good chance you know precious little about whats inside the creature who cares so much about you. With a DNA My Dog Breed Identification Test ($50, 36 percent off, from TNW Deals), you can correct that error.

If youve ever taken a DNA test yourself, then you know the procedure. Just swab the DNA My Dog applicator inside your dogs cheek, bag it, and send it in for your results. About two weeks later, youll get back a detailed breakdown on your dog, a canine biography that uncovers everything you didnt know about the exact genetic makeup of your pooch.

And this isnt just for idle curiosity either. Knowing about your dogs background can offer all kinds of vital information about your pals potential genetic health concerns, the diseases the breed could be susceptible to, and all the personality and behavioral traits that breed is known for.

Armed with your dogs DNA, youll have an inside track on doing what you could never do before: help combat health problems before they become problems. You can tailor your dogs diet to help supplement deficiencies or be on the lookout for illnesses or medical conditions that could lead to long-term issues.

A winner of 2020 DogWellNet.com and GHP Biotechnology awards, the DNA My Dog Breed Identification Test is now available at over 35 percent off the regular price, offering a roadmap to your dogs future health and happiness for just $50.

Prices are subject to change

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DNA My Dog gives you the full 411 on your canines genetic makeup - The Next Web

The 2,600-year-old rock-cut tombs of Al-Khuraiba, in Saudi Arabia.Image: FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP (Getty Images)

A team of geneticists has sequenced 137 modern human genomes from the Middle East, shedding new light on how humans arrived in the region and how those populations changed as areas dried up.

The research goes a long way in a region where precious little is left of a fossil record. The recent aridification of the Arabian peninsula, especially, means that bones can get so brittle they can simply disintegrate when archaeologists pick them up, as Mathew Stewart, a zooarchaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Human History, recently told Gizmodo. Genetic evidence is easily lost to time. The teams results draw on modern samples from eight different groups in the Levant, Iraq, and Arabia. Ancient genomes that had previously been constructed were also included in their analysis, which is published this week in the journal Cell.

The Middle East is an important region to understand human history, migrations, and evolution: it is where modern humans first expanded out of Africa, where hunter-gatherers first settled and transitioned into farmers, where the first writing systems developed, and where the first major known civilizations emerged, said Mohamed Almarri, a geneticist at the Sanger Institute in England and lead author of the study, in a Cell press release. However, despite this importance, the region has been historically understudied in genomic studies.

Expansions out of Africa, agricultural developments, and even climatological events can be interpreted from the genomic data, Almarris team said. Looking at ancient genomes from past Middle Eastern populations, the team determined that populations were able to grow as people began to settle down and started farming.

A Palestinian farmer on the West Bank in June 2020.Photo: HAZEM BADER/AFP (Getty Images)

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The researchers used a relatively new sequencing approach, called linked-read sequencing, that allowed them to reconstruct population histories as far back as 100,000 years ago. Geneticists can use the approach to analyze more of the genome, in this case identifying millions of genetic variants unique to Middle Eastern populations.

The researchers found that Middle Easterners descend from a population that left Africa between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. That makes a mini-mystery of the 88,000-year-old human finger bone found at a prehistoric lake site in Saudi Arabia; it may be that bone belonged to a human group that dispersed early and did not contribute to the modern gene pool in the region. Many anatomically modern humans left Africa earlier, but these genetics suggest that modern Middle Eastern populations descended from the group that left Africa around 50,000 years ago.

Our study fills a major gap in international genomic projects by cataloguing genetic variation in the Middle East, said co-author Chris Tyler-Smith, also a geneticist at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, in the Cell release. The millions of new variants we found in our study will improve future medical association studies in the region. Our results explain how the genetics of Middle Easterners formed over time, providing new insights, which complement knowledge from archaeology, anthropology, and linguistics.

A satellite image of Saudi Arabia and environs in June 2007.Photo: NOAA (Getty Images)

Almarri and his co-author Marc Haber, a geneticist at the University of Birmingham in England, said in an email that a benefit of the research is being able to connect archaeological and ancient climate data with shifts in local population genetics. Population bottlenecks in Arabia 6,000 years ago and in the Levant 4,200 years ago point to moments when the verdant east began to dry up, the study authors said, with rapid aridification causing decreases in population sizes.

Based on when different groups mixed thousands of years ago, the team also evaluated how Semitic languages might have spread beyond the Levant, specifically pointing to the Bronze Age as a major point of intermixing, based on coincident timing between some of the genetic variations and previously determined dates for language divergence and evolution. The researchers also noted that Arabian populations have a much lower amount of Neanderthal ancestry than other Eurasians, indicating there was less admixture between our extinct close relatives and Arabian humans.

It is exciting to see so much new genomic data from a crucial part of the world. It is interesting to see the genetic coherence of recent social groups, and, as the authors say, for things like understanding modern health, it is important to have good sampling of people around the world, Huw Groucutt, a paleoanthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History who wasnt involved with the recent study, said in an email. He added, however,that there are limitations to genomic studies and that the recent teams interpretations should be considered just that.

The team intends to follow up the research with a look at adaptation signals in the dataset, which could indicate how populations in the Middle East learned to survive in their environments when the region dried up. The recent discovery of a trove of animal bones, including human remains, in a Saudi lava tube will likely help in efforts flesh out this genetic portrait of the Middle East.

More: Hyenas Left a Massive Pile of Bones in a Saudi Arabian Lava Tube

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Study of Middle East DNA Reveals Complex Human History in the Region - Gizmodo

STONY BROOK, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: APDN) (Applied DNA or the Company), a leader in Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)- based DNA manufacturing and nucleic acid-based technologies, today announced that it will report fiscal 2021 third quarter financial results after market close on Thursday, August 12, 2021. The Companys management will discuss the results during a conference call and simultaneous webcast at 4:30 p.m. EDT that same day. Presentation slides will also be posted to the IR Calendar and Corporate Presentations sub-page of the Companys corporate website and embedded into the live webcast.

Conference Call and Webcast Information - Live

Conference Call and Webcast Information - Replay

A telephonic replay of the conference call will be available for one week beginning one hour after the end of the live conference call.

The webcast and accompanying PowerPoint presentation will also be archived on the IR Calendar and Corporate Presentations page listed under the Investor Relations drop-down menu on the Companys website.

About Applied DNA Sciences

Applied DNA is commercializing LinearDNA, its proprietary, large-scale polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based manufacturing platform that allows for the large-scale production of specific DNA sequences.

The LinearDNA platform has utility in the nucleic acid-based in vitro diagnostics and preclinical nucleic acid-based drug development and manufacturing market. The platform is used to manufacture DNA for customers as components of in vitro diagnostic tests and for preclinical nucleic acid-based drug development in the fields of adoptive cell therapies (CAR T and TCR therapies), DNA vaccines (anti-viral and cancer), RNA therapies, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) based therapies, and gene therapies. Applied DNA is also the manufacturer of the EUA-authorized Linea COVID-19 Assay Kit.

The LinearDNA platform also has non-biologic applications, such as supply chain security, anti-counterfeiting and anti-theft technology. Key end-markets include Gov/Mil, textiles, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals, and cannabis, among others.

Visit adnas.com for more information. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. Join our mailing list.

The Companys common stock is listed on NASDAQ under ticker symbol APDN, and its publicly traded warrants are listed on OTC under ticker symbol APPDW.

Applied DNA is a member of the Russell Microcap Index.

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Applied DNA Schedules Fiscal 2021 Third Quarter Financial Results Conference Call and Webcast for Thursday, August 12, 2021 - Business Wire

SANTEE, Calif. A DNA match has identified a suspect in the decades-old sexual assault and strangulation murder of a 20-year-old Santee woman, whose case went cold through the years after leads were exhausted, San Diego County sheriffs deputies said Wednesday.

Investigators say theyve found substantial and convincing evidence that ties John Patrick Pat Hogan to the assault and murder of Michelle Louise Wyatt, who was found dead Oct. 9, 1980 by a roommate at her condominium complex at 10586 Kerrigan Court in Santee. The case was reviewed several times in the past 40 years and though seminal fluid and the telephone cord used to kill Wyatt were recovered, a clear suspect in the case never emerged, sheriffs Lt.Thomas Seiver said in a department news release.

She was a very outgoing young lady, Wyatts 81-year-old mother Margaret Wyatt told FOX 5. She was not street smart and I often told her, you know, Michelle, youve got to be very, very careful. Theres a lot of bad people out there, honey.

An autopsy conducted by the Medical Examiners Office found that Wyatts cause of death was asphyxiation due to strangulation and the manner of death was determined to be a homicide.

Hogan, a U.S. Air Force veteran, died in 2004 at age 42 without ever being publicly identified as a suspect in Wyatts murder. A native of Arizona, he moved to Santee in the 1970s, attending Santana High School, and may have lived in the same complex as Wyatt at one point, Seiver said.

Investigators say Hogan was living about a mile from the complex at the time of the murder and was said to frequently visit friends who were living there.

Hogan was identified by authorities using investigative genetic genealogy in a process that began in September 2020. Seiver said the technique typically done when other avenues have been exhausted involved uploading the unknown DNA profile to commercial genealogy sites and developing family histories in trees, leading detectives to potential relatives.

This process eventually led investigators to closer relatives and ended with contacting Johns direct relatives who provided DNA samples, which confirmed the identification, Seiver said.

Margaret Wyatt said shes thankful to investigators, but that she doesnt have closure after learning that Hogan had died. She says there isnt a Sunday that goes by where she doesnt visit her daughter at Mt. Hope Cemetery.

I was glad that he wasnt around to hurt somebody else, but Im still lost, she said.

Through the years, detectives attempted several ways of identifying potentials suspects. In 1996, some 90 potential suspects were contacted and interviewed, according to Seiver, with many of them providing biological samples for examination, but a suspect was not identified. Four years later, items in evidence was reexamined with tests identifying that two separate DNA profiles were present at the scene.

Seiver said one of those profiles was Wyatts boyfriend, whod left the condominium and locked the front door on the day she was killed. He soon was eliminated as a suspect.

The other DNA profile was from an unidentified male subject, but it didnt lead to an arrest in the case. The following year, the profile was entered into the Combined DNA Index System, Seiver said.

Michelles murder would likely have gone unsolved if not for the use of investigative genetic genealogy, Seiver said.

Upon identifying Hogan, the department thanked members of the public who were contacted during the course of the investigation for their cooperation. The investigation is ongoing with the departments Cold Case team now looking to speak to anyone with information on the murder or who knew Hogan in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Homicide Unit at 858-285-6330 or after hours at 858-565-5200. Tips also can be submitted anonymously through Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.

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Suspect identified in cold case murder, sex assault of 20-year-old Santee woman - fox5sandiego.com

How to communicate with new relatives

When Mary Hanson, 50, of Minneapolis, found a match to a half brother on 23andMe in January 2020, she was not surprised. Hansons parents divorced when she was young, and her father was not a part of her life. Before the advent of DNA testing, Hansons mother had received calls from people trying to track down her ex-husband because they thought he was their father.

Shortly after Hanson received her own DNA results, a half sister reached out. They exchanged messages, and soon the half sister started to ask for money. Hanson decided to cut off contact.

When 23andMe linked Hansons DNA to her half brother, they started a dialogue on the companys messaging application.

Matt didnt seem to want anything, Hanson, 50, said. He was just looking for his genealogy. I got the gut feeling that he was a nice person.

They met in June when Matt visited family in Minneapolis for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

So what to do when you find, or are contacted by, these previously unknown relatives?

Mireles-Taylor, Hanson and genealogists recommend that searchers set reasonable expectations when connecting with newly discovered family members. Understand that their sudden appearance can disrupt a family and cause conflict. They should not expect anything more than information to inform their medical history and the story behind their birth, says Richard Hill, who tracked down his birth parents via DNA evidence and now helps adopted people reconnect with birth parents.

Probably 90 percent of cases, the birth parent is at least willing to give information and answer the adoptees questions, Hill says. They are willing to help that person get some kind of closure.

Mireles-Taylor and Hanson have other recommendations, too:

Even in cases that are not emotionally challenging, sometimes newfound family members do not accept invitations to connect.

Crista Cowan, the corporate genealogist for Ancestry, had a DNA match to a fourth cousin in England. She reached out to the person but never heard back. Cowan has had a better experience with the second cousins she knew as a child. When she grew up in California, Cowans family had large reunions near her grandparents home in Los Angeles. After she moved to Oregon and later to Washington, she and her family did not make the trip for the annual reunions. Over time, she lost touch with second cousins. DNA testing helped her reconnect with several of them.

Mireles-Taylor approached forming a relationship with her newfound relatives with caution. After learning the news, she waited a while before sending a letter to her biological father. Then, she sent a Facebook message to the biological brother that 23andMe had matched her with. The family relationship grew deeper when the five siblings scheduled separate phone calls with her to introduce themselves over the course of five nights. After that, she talked to her biological father.

They were all very kind, very inclusive, and they understood it was a big shock to me, Mireles-Taylor says. There are so many wonderful things that have come from it.

Pre-pandemic, Mireles-Taylor saw this new part of her family about once a year. During one of the visits, her brothers and sisters asked her to recreate a photo from their childhood this time with their newfound sister added in.

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Youve Taken a DNA Test and Uncovered a Family Secret. Now What? - AARP

This week we're celebrating 50 years since the release of The Omega Man, the 1971 film based on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend. In the film, and the novel on which it's based, a virus sweeps the globe wiping out most of humanity. The story follows Robert Neville, a scientist immune to the disease who believes himself to be the last living human on earth. Except, of course, for the mutants (or vampires, as the case may be) who are still alive but perhaps not quite human, as the virus changed them.

Whether it's zombies, vampires, or nocturnal albino mutants, the rapid mutation of the human genome by a virus has become a well-worn story trope. It's unlikely that a virus could so crucially alter humanity's collective DNA essentially overnight (it hasn't happened yet, but never say never) but viruses do alter our DNA. They've been doing so for millions of years, and we wouldn't be who we are today without them.

HOW IT HAPPENS

You might remember from high school biology how viruses work. Cells both bacteria and the cells in your body seem like simple organisms but they're actually pretty complex. There's a lot of machinery required to make a thing self-sufficient and self-replicating. Viruses, on the other hand, are comparatively simple. They require only two parts: genetic material either DNA or RNA and a protein coating. Some viruses have an additional lipid envelope which they derive from host cells.

The viral particle, or virion, has one purpose, to infiltrate a host cell and hijack its machinery to make more copies of itself. It does this by inserting its genetic material into the cell with instructions to replicate. In most cases, this goes on for a while, until the immune system beats the virus back. Meanwhile, the virus does everything it can to spread to another host and continue the cycle.

The way in which a virus passes itself from one host to the next depends on what sorts of cells it's specialized to infiltrate. Respiratory viruses get into the airway and spread via coughing, sneezing, or breathing. Different viruses do their best (or worst) work in specific cell types, and mostly they stay more or less where they're expected to be.

Sometimes, however, a virus will infect a germ cell, delivering its genetic material to a sperm or egg. When that happens, it's possible for the virus's genetic material to pass onto the offspring. Over generations, that material can become part of the host species' genome.

Today, roughly 8 percent of the human genome is comprised of human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs), inherited from stowaway viruses. Most of that genetic material is little more than junk DNA, broken down under the weight of millions of years of mutation. Some of it, though, is still active and, in spite of the bad rep viruses typically get, not all of it is bad. In fact, they may have played a part in one crucial development of human evolution.

FETAL DEVELOPMENT

Mammals first appear on the scene about 178 million years ago, give or take, and the first placental mammals appeared about 65 million years ago. In the interim, about 100 million years ago, mammalian DNA was changed by a virus or viruses.

In the mid-90s, scientists discovered a protein called syncytin which is produced by placental tissue. It plays a role in defining the boundary between the placental and maternal tissues, creating a critical barrier between mother and fetus which both allows for the exchange of nutrients and protects from disease and rejection.

When researchers looked closely at the sequence of syncytin, they discovered it was strikingly similar to a known viral protein called env. That protein is part of the envelope, discussed above, which allows a virus to fuse with a host cell and exchange material.

It would be wrong to say that a fetus is the same as a virus but in some ways, it does behave similarly. The researcher's findings, published in the journal Nature in 2000, suggest this endogenous retrovirus made its way into our DNA and some of its function was co-opted to our benefit. Mammals learned to create the same sort of connection viruses use to latch onto cells as a way to create a connection with their offspring. That this viral DNA is so old and still active further suggests it's playing a key role in our genome. Certainly, mammals existed before syncytin, but the trajectory of their our evolutionary branch would look very different without it.

In addition to allowing for the emergence of the placenta, HERVs play a role in early fetal development as well. In our earliest stages, we are a bundle of pluripotent stem cells, cells capable of becoming any number of different cell types. Later, those cells differentiate, becoming muscle or bone or brain tissue.

In those early stages, viral proteins prevent the cells from differentiating, at least for a while. It's possible that viruses do this as a way of maximizing their potential to spread to as many cells as possible. Over the generations, however, it's become an ordinary part of developmental timing.

Early embryos create viral proteins, delaying the differentiation, allowing the fetus to create a variety of tissues. What began as a strategy for passing on viral genetic material has been co-opted for our benefit. In short, we've hi-jacked the viruses processes in order to make more of ourselves.

Turnabout is fair play.

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Can viruses alter human DNA? The science behind 'The Omega Man' - SYFY WIRE

One evening last fall, after his three young children went to bed, Joseph Arriaga sat at his laptop and sent a Facebook message to a stranger.

Hello Robert. My name is Joseph, it began. I was born in 1992.

So many of Arriagas defining memories had built toward this message. There was the time, around third grade, when a cousin blurted that Arriaga wasnt truly part of their family. The strained follow-up conversations with his mother. His recent gamble in mailing a sample of saliva to Ancestry.com.

In launching his search, Arriaga, 29, was trying to sort out truth from family folklore, attempting to verify or disprove a story about his paternity a story that had filled him with anger and shame for years. Would a DNA match lead him to a dead man or a felon, or perhaps to a friendly face whose features hed recognize as his own? Or would he find anyone at all?

But now, in the evening stillness of his Riverside home, Arriaga stared down at a mans profile picture on Facebook and worried that the message he was about to send would blow up his life.

Ive done a great deal of research, he wrote, and I think you might be my biological father.

Arriagas high-stakes quest offered the potential to enrich or devastate and certainly alter the lives of several people involved.

His inspiration grew out of a clarifying conversation with his English-professor-turned-mentor, in whom hed confided the complicated story of his birth a tale he had begun to question. The two often dissected the work of American philosopher William James, discussing how the narrative surrounding something shapes the way we see it, how revising a story can change how it affects us.

There was a key narrative Arriaga needed to sort out his own so with encouragement and investigative help from his wife, he launched the months-long process that would shift the dynamics of two families and ultimately free him from a heaviness that had shaped his life.

::

It was 10:44 p.m. in Gainesville, Fla., and Robert Bobby Parker, 52, had just set down his book for the night. His wife was already asleep and he decided to make one final scroll through Facebook. He read the message from Joseph Arriaga. It gave him chills.

The next morning, Parker asked his wife, Lee Kirby, to sit down.

I need to talk to you.

Three decades ago, he told her, a woman hed dated in graduate school had gotten pregnant and eventually told him the baby was his. Hed met the baby boy, but lost touch after the boys mother moved away.

Joseph Arriaga as a newborn.

(Joseph Arriaga)

Hed tried unsuccessfully to track them down, he told his wife, even visiting the home of the mothers relatives several years later. They asked why he was still coming around. The baby wasnt his, he recalls them saying. Still, he told his wife, in the back of his mind hed often wondered about the little boy named Joey.

Last night, hed gotten a message from him.

I was over the moon.

Lee Kirby studied the expression of stunned elation on her husbands face. She wasnt angry at the delayed revelation, she said, because she could see it hadnt been in the forefront of his mind in recent years. More than anything, she felt overjoyed for him yet another example of a blessing entering his life since he got sober.

Good morning! Parker wrote back. Do you go by Joseph, Joe, or Joey? You were Joey as a baby.

Back in California, Arriagas wife saw hed received a Facebook message and shook him out of bed.

He knows about you! she told him.

Stunned, Arriaga read the message, quickly responding to several of Parkers questions. Where do you live? (My wife and I live in Southern California, Arriaga answered.) Is that your little girl in your picture? (That is my daughter! Shes 5 now, and has a 3-year-old brother and 1-year-old sister.)

Then, he sent another, shorter message:

This was a lot to wake up to. You knew about me? Enough to know I went by Joey?

In conversations over email, phone calls and two visits since then, Bobby and Joey, as they call one another, began to build a relationship.

Joseph Arriaga and Bobby Parker found they had many things in common, from looks to a shared love of reading.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Theyve learned that their left eyes squint in the same way when they smile and that theyre both voracious readers. Parker, who now has a job in human resources, worked as a librarian for years; Arriaga, who has a bachelors in English and is now studying to get a teaching credential, read 42 books last year. In the past, they learned, they had both used substances to numb pain.

Bit by bit, they told each other about their lives.

Joseph Arriaga as a young boy.

(Joseph Arriaga)

Arriaga grew up with a brother and sister, he explained, and spent his boyhood in Monterey and later Temecula an easy early life, he said, filled with lots of reading and video games.

Parker told Arriaga that he met his mother in 1991, while they were students at the University of South Alabama. They dated for a while and she got pregnant, initially telling him the baby wasnt his, Parker recalled. In the summer of 1992, soon after Parkers father died, he said, Arriagas mother visited with a newborn baby Joseph and she said the baby was his. They kept in touch, exchanging letters when she moved to Florida.

I was ecstatic, he recalled. I had this feeling of, Wow Im losing my father, but I gained a child.

He offered to marry her, Parker said, and although that didnt happen, they continued to write and visited a few times. In May of 1993, Parker received a note which he still has saying she and Joey were moving to California.

Then the letters stopped.

::

Of everything Arriaga learned during his first in-person meeting with Parker, it was the old letters Parker still had from Arriagas mother that floored him.

Arriaga immediately recognized his mothers looping handwriting, but the content was impossible to reconcile with the origin story he had been told.

When he was around 8, not long after his cousin let slip he wasnt really part of the family, Arriaga confronted the man who had married his mother and raised Arriaga from infancy, the man he had believed was his father and refers to as Dad to this day. Youre not even my real dad, Arriaga recalls saying.

His mother then pulled him aside, Arriaga said, and told him that hed been conceived by rape, a concept he didnt fully understand until a few years later.

But the more he understood, the more the story weighed him down. He felt associated with something evil and began to avoid looking at himself in the mirror. When he excelled in martial arts, it felt like a double-edged sword Im biologically predisposed to violence, he worried.

As a preteen, when he worked up the nerve to ask his mother if shed gotten a good look at the man whod attacked her, he recalls her saying that she had not. When he wrote to her asking more questions about his origin story years later, he said, his mother emailed back, saying that shed been attacked on the night of a memorable baseball game by a friend of a friend of her cousin. When shed later asked her cousin who the man was, he told her he didnt know.

She remembered nothing about the man but his eyes, she wrote, which looked nothing like Josephs.

But now, Parker was telling him the two had dated and seen each other even after Joeys birth and he had letters to confirm that.

From what he read in them, not only had she stayed in touch with Parker, she had sent him pictures of Joey, including a photo he had grown up seeing in a frame at home. She wrote letters about her life, signing them love, and described Joey as taking after his father. She said she missed Parker and wanted to get together kind of like a family.

How did any of this fit together with the conception story his mother had told him?

Column One

A showcase for compelling storytelling from the Los Angeles Times.

Arriagas story is not unique, said Anita Foeman, a professor of communication and media at West Chester University, who has written extensively about at-home DNA testing. And separating fact from fiction can often be difficult.

She has heard of many situations where what people learn from their DNA results turns out to be quite different from what they were told as children, including some with striking similarities to Arriagas, she said. And parents sometimes stick to their stories even when confronted with evidence. Many people still have secrets from a different era a time when women were more fiercely shamed for having children out of wedlock but theyre now running up against a once-unforeseeable reality: Anyone with $99 can get their DNA tested.

Secrets that people used to just categorically keep, you cant keep anymore, said Foeman, who coauthored Who Am I: Identity in the Age of Consumer DNA Testing.

Arriaga says that when he first mentioned the name Robert Parker in a phone call to his mother, she reacted as if she didnt recognize the name. He later sent her an email, including pictures of the old letters, saying he knew what it was like to tell a small lie and watch it spiral out of control. He understood, but he needed the full truth and until then, he couldnt talk to her.

Theres been no movement in that direction so far, and they havent been in contact in recent months, Arriaga said, but he loves his mother deeply and hopes to eventually be back in touch with her.

She did not respond to telephone, email or mail requests for an interview for this story.

::

Parker told Arriaga he had no way of reaching Arriagas mother after she left for California. He didnt have a phone number for her, and internet searching was in its infancy. When he searched her maiden name online in the years to come, he always hit dead ends. His siblings and mother had known about Joey as a baby, and when Parker got married in 1994, he told his now ex-wife about him, hopeful that he and his son would eventually reunite.

But he didnt tell his children, his daughter, now 31, nor the two boys, now teenagers. He also didnt tell his current wife, whom he married in 2016, or her daughter, Parkers stepdaughter. By that point, he said, it felt impossible theyd ever reunite. In more recent years, as DNA testing grew more available, Parker didnt give much thought to submitting a sample of his saliva.

If Joey was, indeed, his son, he was now an adult, and if he hadnt contacted him, Parker resolved that he wouldnt be the one to disrupt the status quo.

I just assumed he didnt want to find me.

::

Arriaga met his mentor, Tae Sung, while getting his degree in English from California Baptist University, where Sung teaches literature and runs the universitys Writing Center. Blown away by the clarity and persuasiveness of Arriagas writing, Sung recruited him to tutor other students.

When he had downtime, Arriaga often swung by Sungs class to chat. Their conversations sometimes looped back to James pragmatist philosophy, and Sung shared his view that, although we cant change the facts of our past, we can change the meaning we ascribe to them.

So many people want to bury their story, Sung said. We need to do the opposite. We need to add to it so it takes the sting away.

Arriaga was raised Catholic but abandoned his faith at 16 and eventually got into drugs as his identity crisis deepened. He thought of himself as a mistake human trash, he recalled and dropped out of community college after a semester and a half before moving in with friends in Riverside. Then, he brokered a deal with God: I need you to get me a job, then well talk. The next day, he landed a gig at Carls Jr.

A few weeks later, he met his future wife, Anne, who invited him to church. Over time, he said, small things started to click, and he returned to faith.

He and Anne married when he was 21, and four months later found out she was pregnant with their first daughter. Arriaga went back to school, earning straight As and got a job at Ralphs, where he still works full time as a supervisor in the dairy department, often using his breaks to catch up on reading for his teaching program. (He plans eventually to teach high school English.)

During his senior year as an undergraduate, Arriaga took a Christian ethics class, and when the topic of abortion in cases of rape came up, all the emotions of his childhood raced back. Soon after, early in 2020, he confided to Sung.

Ive never told you this, but ... he said, almost immediately breaking into sobs.

Sung watched Arriagas body tense up as he spoke.

It was clear to me that he hadnt fully worked out the meaning of that story, Sung recalled thinking. Were there avenues he hadnt yet explored? he asked. Questions that remained unanswered?

A single thought popped into Arriagas mind: I need to find out what he looks like.

He mailed in his DNA a few months later and eventually learned he had a close relative, likely an uncle, named Sandford Parker.

Arriaga had to go to work, but Anne, whose unyielding support and internet sleuthing he credits with the eventual reunion, narrowed in on the right Sandford Parker the unusual spelling with two Ds helped and then clicked on his Facebook friend, Bobby, whose profile pictures show him smiling in front of bookshelves.

The first thing we found out is hes a librarian, Arriaga said, laughing. I was like, You must be kidding me.

Since September, the two have emailed back and forth and set up standing Monday-night phone calls. In December, Arriaga flew to Florida for a short visit. Parker and his two teenage sons picked him up at the airport, and Arriaga remembers doing a double-take when he heard his half-brother Robbys voice. It sounded just like his own.

Two months earlier, Robby, now 19, recalls his father sitting him and his younger brother down for a talk the same one hed just had with Lee Kirby.

When he told me, it was... Robby said, trailing off and taking a deep breath. It was a shock, definitely.

Now, Robby said, he views the situation as a happy surprise and understands the reasoning behind his fathers long silence.

When the brothers met in December, they bonded over reading Robby works at a bookstore and Halo, a favorite video game. When Arriaga stood in between Robby and their father, the resemblance was uncanny.

It looks like an evolution chain almost, Robby said. He looks like the missing link between us.

Throughout the trip, Arriaga and Parker picked up on conversations theyd started over email and on the phone. Parker sometimes thought about the violent origin story that Arriaga had grown up believing a story that bothers him deeply, Parker said, and infuriates him when he thinks about the psychological toll it took on Arriaga.

::

Two weeks after getting his second Pfizer shot, Parker flew to California to meet Arriagas wife and children, who call him Grandpa Bobo.

They went to lunch at Red Robin and stopped at Barnes and Noble, where Parker bought Arriaga a copy of Soul of an Octopus, which explores the creatures intelligence and complexity.

A couple of days later, standing in the kitchen of an Airbnb they shared for the visit, Arriaga talked about how much he loved going to the aquarium in Monterey growing up. Parker smiled, saying hed often visited a marine research station in Biloxi as a boy.

Both Arriaga and Parker had used substances to numb pain in the past, but their meeting came after they had each moved past that. The timing felt predestined, they said.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Theyd stayed up late most nights, talking for hours, and Arriaga noticed Parker eyeing the Keurig coffee machine.

Do it!

You think I should?

Arriaga smiled mischievously.

Parker smirked back, popping a K-cup into the machine. As he poured a bit of Hazelnut creamer into his cup, Arriaga, who drinks his coffee black, feigned an expression of disgust, joking that hed been stunned the first time he saw him use creamer.

I wondered if Ancestry made a mistake.

Both men agree that the timing of their meeting felt predestined.

Arriaga is grateful it happened now, during a happier, more settled phase of his life, and Parker feels the same way hes active in the recovery community, after getting sober two and a half years ago.

For years, even as his mental health declined and his first marriage started to fall apart, Parker drank daily. He binged on beer or Jack Daniels and sometimes tried to stop, but couldnt. If hed reunited with Arriaga back then, he said, he knows he wouldve been happy, but also a deeply overwhelmed, lousy role model.

I wouldve been a mess.

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After a DNA test, he told a stranger: 'I think you might be my father' - Los Angeles Times

SANFRANCISCO, Aug. 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Nathan Sassover, CEO of World Cancer Institute Inc. today stated: We are presenting further clinical guidance on the progression of the multivalent CancerVX / OncoVacx combinatorial therapeutic platform:

"Our first 2017 reported favorable Breast Cancer patient outcome in a Stage 3b ductal infiltrating carcinoma was followed by several years of additional refinement in creating an enlarged optimal platform of compound protocols which conjoin molecular cancer genetics with epigenetic DNA reversible pharmaceutics and epigenomic targeting of a spectrum of solid tumor and hematologic cancers often resistant to chemotherapy and radiation.

"It is our continued belief that this primary focus on the causal point of aberrant cell formation / replication at the nexus of the mitotic spindle and microtubule chromosomal interface is the dynamic and formative inflection point and catalyst within the tumor microenvironment." The integration of DNA demethylation and HDAC -Histone Regulation via Histone Deacetylase Methyltransferase Inhibitors remains the clinical focal point of our therapeutic framework."

World Cancer Institute Protocols conjoining CancerVX / OncoVacx have been designed as a monotherapy or combination therapy comprising multivalent compound conjugates within a clinical framework addressing the majority of prevalent cancers.

Sassover added:

"The spectrum of our most recent 2018 / 2019 reported Case Studies and additional planned Case Studies are intended to add more clinical credence to the targeted safety / efficacy outcomes and targeted patient treatment endpoints. We feel it further affirms World Cancer Institute's view that OncoEpigenomics defines the future ofcancer immunotherapies as more likely to be systemically safe in contrast to CRISPR and other gene editing protocols requiring extraction and re-infusion of modified DNA to initialize any interventional treatment.

To date the benefits derived from these gene modification/editing procedures have been limited to small subsets of patients, while notable immediate and delayed side effects, coupled with other adverse events have been reported by medical institutions and medical journal published outcomes have revealed patient responses with notable increase in levels of post-treatment complications. There have been continuing clinical reports of diminished efficacy of various 'in laboratory' gene editing therapies over time,

Sassover further commented: "Oncologists and scientists would concur that the endpoints of cancer treatment should be defined by rapid onset effective treatment as well as more probable bioactive prevention of adverse events, relapse and disease recurrence."

CASE STUDY OVERVIEW: PATIENT PROFILE

A relatively rare and aggressive cancer type -Metastatic Testicular Carcinoma is currently in review by World Cancer Institute for administration of the OncoEpigenomic IECT [ IntraTherapies Epigenetic Cancer Therapies] CancerVX / OncoVacx compound as a next phase adjuvant protocol as described in this article and more definitively in the attached Medical Guide in reference to the specific43yearoldmale Testicular Carcinoma-Metastatic case.

Proposed Treatment Protocol

The proliferating and rapidly replicating characteristics of this initial testicular Carcinoma was diagnosed followed by immediate surgical procedure at Eisenhower Medical Center Rancho Mirage CA. The patient initiated contact with World Cancer Institute in March 2018 and after describing the condition was immediately directed to proceed to Eisenhower for emergency evaluation.

Following surgery and extended chemotherapy the case continues to be evaluated as a clinical setting for initiating a multivalent treatment protocol comprising CancerVX / OncoVacx 4Q Quadravalant Protocol to mediate the manifold issues which are shown to be a challenge to all noted chemotherapy combinations utilized to date in this patient following original surgery and subsequent discovery of an abdominal mass altering the sequence and modality of treatment preceding Onco DNA ImmunoTherapeutics based on original diagnosis of testicular cancer originating in March 2018.

Additionally, following left orchiectomy further diagnostics revealed a hyper metabolic malignant abdominal mass requiring surgery and continued extended chemotherapy treatment.

OncoEpigenomic Drug Combinatorial Treatment Protocol may create multipoint MOA-Mechanisms of Action and extended efficacy in treatment resistant cancer types when conjoined with a PARP Inhibitor Treatment for certain advanced Breast Cancers [Stage 3 /3b/Stage 4] and further extending to hematologic malignancies including CML- advanced Leukemia, and MDS-Myelodysplastic Syndrome now under clinical consideration in other treatment resistant cancers.

HYBRID EPIGENOMIC GENE EXPRESSION / SUPPRESSION DYNAMICS FURTHERAUGMENT AND EXTEND ENHANCED ALTERABLE DNA ATTRIBUTES OF CANCERVX / ONCOVACX IN AGGRESSIVELY INDUCING RAPID CELL DEATH IN ABERRANT CELL STRUCTURES IMPLICATED IN INCIPIENT STAGES OF CANCER DEVELOPMENT.

Microscopic images of a breast cancer cell with DNA damage. Left, six hours after treatmentwith either the epigenetic agent alone or the PARP inhibitor alone. Right, six hours after treatmentwith both a CancerVX/OncoVacx type DNA Demethylation/Histone Regulation conjoinedEpigenetic drug and in parallel with a specific PARP inhibitor. [Yellow staining indicates trapping of thePARP enzyme at site of the DNA damage.]

Drugs defined as PARP inhibitors, which functionally sabotage cancer cells' ability to repairdamage to their DNA have shown some instances of clinical promise in treating human breast cancers that contain BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations. A referenced new study suggests thatsignificantly enhanced efficacy with extended effect over time is achievable in other forms of breast cancer and not linked to BRCA mutations. Research further reveals benefits extendingto advanced Leukemia by adding DNA Demethylation / Histone Regulation via HistoneDeacetylase Methyltransferase Inhibitors as the specific epigenetic drug intervention conjoined witha PARP Inhibitor resulted in a strong antitumor response against breast cancer cells without BRCA mutations as well as clinicallydemonstrated efficacy in achieving a halt to the growth of acute myeloid leukemiacells 8 days after the start of the combination therapy.

Thesurprise that leukemia cells were this sensitive to the combination treatment and furtherresearch confirms initial findings with some probable benefit for breast cancer and ovarian cancersfor which PARP inhibitors work by blocking the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase enzyme or PARP, which helps repair naturally occurring breaks in strands of DNA. Notably, some cancers exhibit more frequent reliance on PARP than others.

For tumors sensitive in that way, the inhibitors are one clinical weapon in sabotaging the cancercells' ability to repair their own DNA. Continuing PARP research further demonstratesthat PARP inhibitors also vary in functional value according to how intensely and durably thePARP enzyme is trapped at certain DNA damage sites. This suggests a possible ramp up in theduration and intensity of this trapping, could potentially increase the efficacy of the drug.

The research team found that the combination PARP / Epigenetic treatment increased the time that PARP was trapped at sites of DNA damage in cancer cells, extending the time from 30 minutes to three to six hours following treatment. Epigenetic drugs specifically of the CancerVX / OncoVacx type demonstrate a MOA-Mechanismof Action which initializes molecular alteration of the specific property of DNA and the process bywhich it is coiled and processed. Specifically, epigenetic PK- pharmacokinetics- block proteins that attach gene-regulating methyl groups to DNA and traps those proteins on DNA.

The proteins blocked by the CancerVX / OncoVacx type construct also exhibit dynamically interact withPARP enzymes at DNA damage sites,

World Cancer Institute debuted its first targeted epigenetic DNA ImmunoTherapeutics in 2008-2010 and further enlarged its spectrum of protocols as more specifically targeted OncoEpigenomic platforms which emerged as the result of clinical guidance provided by Dr. Brent Treiger during 2008-2010. Dr Treiger, a Northern California based Oncologist who died in 2011 was highly regarded worldwide as the scientist of Doxil, the preeminent therapeutic drug for ovarian cancer and also prescribed for breast cancer.

Dr. Treiger worked closely with World Cancer Institute and Nathan Sassover, Founder/CEO of World Cancer Institute commencing in 2008 in guiding criteria for both monotherapy based treatment as well as combination protocols, optimal drug delivery for CancerVX as well as guidelines for dosage range of the monotherapy and combination protocols and compound conjugates comprising the epigenomic Cancer DNA therapeutics developed by World Cancer Institute.

Contacts: Karen Howard :News@WorldCancerInstitute.com Source: World Cancer Institute

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Clinical Protocols based on Molecular Cancer genetics and DNA OncoPharmaceutics to detect aberrant cellular malformations induced by DNA methylation...

New study identifies DNA signatures associated with risk for cardiovascular disease, a discovery that could lead to opportunities for clinical intervention years before symptoms manifest. Based on analyses of data from five large heart cohort studies of diverse populations, the findings are published in the journalJAMA Cardiology.

The science is rapidly advancing in the area of epigeneticsmodifications to our DNA that are often environmentally driven and have the potential to serve as early warning sign for disease, saysAna Navas-Acien, MD, PhD, the studys first author and professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. In this study, we harness the countrys best clinical data on heart disease from diverse populations to begin to unlock the specific epigenetic changes involved in the complex biology that leads to disease. Ultimately, we hope the research will allow us to identify and prevent disease before the worst damage takes place, although developing appropriate DNA methylation tests is still years away.

The researchers began their analysis with data from the Strong Heart Study, the largest study of cardiovascular disease in American Indians, conducted in partnership with communities across the Great Plains and the Southwest since 1988. They analyzed blood samples to identify specific locations on DNA where methylation activity was associated with incidents of coronary heart disease, including heart attack and coronary deaths (methylation can change the activity of a DNA segment without changing the genetic sequence).

The use of high-dimensional statistical methods allowed us to study methylation in hundreds of thousands of specific locations in the DNA at the same time says Arce Domingo-Relloso, MSc, a data scientist at the Columbia Mailman School and the study co-author leading the statistical analyses for the project.

The researchers then took the same approach with four other major heart disease cohorts: Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (divided into Black and white cohorts due to differences in timing and laboratory methods), Framingham Heart Study, and Womens Health Initiative. In all, they examined more than 400,000 DNA locations and 1,894 coronary heart disease events.

In the initial analysis of Strong Heart data, they identified 506 epigenetic marks linked to cardiovascular risk. Of these, 33 were also linked to cardiovascular risk in three or more of the other cohorts, although some of these sites were associated with higher risk of disease in one cohort but with lower risk of disease in other cohorts. Among the 33 methylation sites are those previously linked to cardiovascular risk and smoking, as well as novel sites that the researchers say are worthy of future investigation. Further analysis of the commonalities between the 33 marks found that many of them are connected with the EGFRgene, which is involved in cell growth and cell survival.

The overlap of these methylation sites across diverse cohorts supports the idea of interconnected biological pathways for cardiovascular risk, says Yuling Hong, MD, PhD, chief of the epidemiology branch within the Division of Cardiovascular Sciences at theNational Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The more we understand about early risk for cardiovascular disease the better we may be able to prevent illness, particularly in populations such as American Indians with relatively high risk for heart disease.

Reference: Navas-Acien A, Domingo-Relloso A, Subedi P, et al. Blood DNA methylation and incident coronary heart disease: evidence from the strong heart study. JAMA Cardiology.2021. doi: 10.1001/jamacardio.2021.2704.

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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DNA Signatures Linked to Heart Disease - Technology Networks