Daily Archives: October 3, 2021

The fossilized skeleton of a dinosaur outside a Brazilian research center.Photo: CARL DE SOUZA/AFP (Getty Images)

Dinosaur researchers working on extremely well-preserved remains from the Jehol Biota in northeastern China recently reported that they had detected fossilized biomolecules in a feathered dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous.

The intriguing microscopic material was found in the femur of a Caudipteryx, a feathered, turkey-looking dino that lived between about 125 million and 113 million years ago. The team put cartilage from the femur under a microscope and stained it with chemicals called hematoxylin and eosin, which are used to highlight cell nuclei and cytoplasm in modern cells.

They also stained the cartilage of a chicken and found that the dinosaur and chicken cartilage lit up in the same way. The researchers say that nuclei and chromatin, the material our chromosomes are made of, were visible. The teams research was published last week in the Nature journal Communications Biology.

Geological data has accumulated over the years and shown that fossil preservation in the Jehol Biota was exceptional due to fine volcanic ashes that entombed the carcasses and preserved them down to the cellular level, said study co-author Li Zhiheng, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in an academy press release.

Members of this research team also described finding genetic material in another specimen last year; as Gizmodo reported at the time, some scientists were similarly skeptical of their claims that traces of genetic material were preserved in the fossilized Hypacrosaurus skull. The Caudipteryx fossil in the new work is about 50 million years older that the Hypacrosaurus.

G/O Media may get a commission

They were identified using completely different methods than in the Hypacrosaurus, wrote Alida Bailleul, lead author of the new paper, in an email to Gizmodo. But what was striking was the hematoxylin staining of the cell nucleus in Caudipteryxit was comparable to the staining seen in a chicken cell nucleus, said Bailleul, a paleobiologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing.

If this fossil did reveal the same structures that were highlighted in the modern chicken, itd be a remarkable demonstration of how well biological material can preserve and how mercifully the cartilage was treated by Earths often-destructive processes. But not everyone is so convinced about what exactly was showing up in the stains.

I dont really see how much has changed here, said Evan Saitta, a researcher from the Integrative Research Center at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The change in time were interested in here is not between the hypacrosaur and this new specimen; the difference is the amount of time between well-supported DNA preservation and any of these fossils.

The oldest-yet sequenced DNA was described in a paper this February and came out of the teeth of a roughly 1-million-year-old woolly mammoth. All dinosaurs (besides birds) went extinct some 65 million years ago. That makes the dinosaur materials absurdly older than the spectacular results from the woolly mammoth remains, Saitta said.

So what exactly was reacting to the dyes and stains the recent team applied to the dinosaur cartilage? According to Saitta, it could be microbes that set up shop in the dinosaur remains or mineral infill of the space vacated by deteriorated genetic material. The latter is the opinion of Nic Rawlence, the director of the paleogenetics laboratory at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

The current limit of ancient DNA is 1.2 million years ago, and we dont expect to be able to go much further back in time, certainly not to the Age of Dinosaurs, Rawlence said in an email to Gizmodo. While these fossilised cells and DNA in this new dinosaur may look like those from a modern chicken, they are a stone copy, where the cells and DNA have been replaced by minerals, in the same way a dinosaur bone is a mineralised version of modern bone.

When bones fossilize, they do so from the obvious macroscopic features to the smallest elements of their structure. That allows paleontologists to do things like learn about the growth rates of T. rex, for example, as holes appear in the bone where blood vessels used to be. But genetic material is quick to deteriorateone team estimated that DNA would cease to be readable after 1.5 million years, making the mammoth tooth find trepidatiously close to the materials upper limit. And the mammoth remains were only so well-preserved thanks to their encasement in permafrost.

Chemically speaking, you deal with a completely different set-up of compounds here, compared to when you look at permafrost material thats pretty much comparable to frozen turkey in your freezer, to some extent, said Jasmina Wiemann, a molecular paleobiologist at Yale University, in a video call.

That makes the situation of that million-year-old mammoth fundamentally different from that of the 125-million-year-old Caudipteryx. Though the mammoth teeth did undergo diagenesisthe process by which organic compounds are gradually replaced by inorganic things like mineralsthey were cooled by the Siberian climate, preserving the biomolecules to the modern day. (This is also the reason you occasionally read about Ice Age researchers being able to eat what they studied, like steppe bison.)

A woolly mammoth skeleton. The oldest sequenced DNA is from the teeth of a 1.2-million-year-old mammoth.Photo: PHILIP FONG/AFP (Getty Images)

When it comes to actual DNA molecules, I think it is pretty much impossible that such molecules remain in dinosaur material, wrote Love Daln, a paleogeneticist at the Centre for Palaeogenetics who was on the mammoth tooth team, in an email to Gizmodo. We know from both massive empirical studies and theoretical models that even under completely frozen conditions, DNA molecules will not survive more than ca 3 million years.

Just because different dyes or stains react with parts of a fossilised remain does not mean that any actual DNA molecules remain in the fossil, Daln added.

Whats more, just because a bone fossilizes doesnt mean that every component of the once-living creature is exchanged, tit-for-tat, for any specific mineral or metal compound. Every dead dinosaur in every deposit around the world means a unique set of conditions are brought together, so no two fossils are really the same chemically. That means that a Hypacrosaur bone from Montana will have undergone a different sort of fossilization than a Caudipteryx in China, making the work of molecular biologists, geochemists, and paleontologists that much more complicated.

It goes through, like, a grinder, but what comes out ends up looking very similar, Wiemann said. Were missing a foundational understanding of how fossilization works. I think thats the whole challenge here.

The mammoth DNA could be sequenced because it was more deep-frozen than it was fossilized. That is, the DNA wasnt given an opportunity to interact with the molecular environment around it, and particularly with water, which causes the DNA to break down, as one co-author of the mammoth paper told Gizmodo.

So besides the question of what exactly was preserved in the Caudipteryx, its important to recognize that dinosaur DNA cant be sequenced, at least not yet. The molecules have simply undergone so much change that they do not resemble the animals they were a part of. But ancient biomolecules can persist: dinosaur proteins were seemingly found on 200-million-year-old bone, though as a research team including Saitta pointed out in one paper, decaying dinosaur bones are a happy home for microbes, which can cosplay as dinosaur genetic material.

Part of the problem with the recent paper, several scientists said, was the staining method used to compare the Caudipteryx and chicken nuclei. Hematoxylin and eosin can bind to all sorts of things, not just genetic material, the researchers said, making the results pretty general. I think it is tricky to apply a staining protocol that is not very specific at all to something like fossil materials that we dont even understand what they actually represent, Wiemann said.

A helpful step to address such ambiguity would be to cross-reference the staining results with additional, independent methods of looking at the cartilage. Such triangulation would help put the tissue issue to rest, Saitta said. Wiemann suggested using mass spectroscopy to look at the entire bone, and seeing if the material that was stained could be mapped to any nucleobases or DNAs sugar-phosphate backbone. Its an incredibly exciting avenue of research, Wiemann added, saying these additional methods would help home in on exactly whats preserved in the fossil.

I am a firm believer that if you dabble in deep time molecular bio, you MUST incorporate as many methods as you possibly can, AND you must consider and rule out, with data, any alternatives, such as invasion by microbes, either ancient or modern, Mary Schweitzer, a molecular paleontologist at North Carolina State University and the Museum of the Rockies in Montana, told Gizmodo in an email. Schweitzer co-authored the hypacrosaur paper alongside Bailleul, who worked in Schweitzers lab. For me, the ultimate goal is to obtain sequence information, so anything we can learn about diagenetic alterations to these recovered molecules becomes critical.

Two fossils, 50 million years apart, turn up a biomolecular quandary in the span of two years. If that timeline is anything to go on, more data could come soon, hopefully bringing more clarity to this exciting new area of paleontology.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to the recent fossil as duck-billed (actually, it was the earlier find, the hypacrosaur, that had a duckbill). Thanks to commenter artiofab for pointing out the error.

More: How Do We Know Birds Are Dinosaurs?

Read more from the original source:
Some Paleontologists Think They've Found Fossilized Dinosaur DNA. Others Arent So Sure - Gizmodo

And data leaks are always a possibility.

Your DNA, a long, slender molecule that contains your unique genetic code, belongs solely to you. But it's also most likely in a database somewhere, without your knowledge or consent.

Countries around the world are collecting genetic material from millions of citizens in the name of fighting crime and terrorism. This is crucial since, if you were to get robbed, you would like the government to have some type of system that's able to identify the thief. In today's world, the thief leaving a bit of their DNA could easily solve the problem since law enforcement could search it in their database to identify them.

However, with the possibility of leaks in surveillance programs, some critics say this goes into an uncharted ethical territory with data collection going possibly too far. In this video, Derek Muller of the YouTube channel Veritasium goes into greater detail about it, and while you may want to skip it if you don't want to hear serious crimes discussed, it's definitely worth a watch if you don't mind.

See original here:
Your DNA Is Probably In a Database Without Your Consent - Interesting Engineering

How does our DNA relate to our personality and appearance? Emma, age 9, Sydney

Hi Emma. Thank you for this great question!

Our body is made up of trillions of cells, each of which has a nucleus that holds our DNA.

Our DNA is made up of more than 20,000 genes. You can think of genes as the the instructions which help decide what we look like, how our bodies work and even our personalities.

We get half our genes from our biological mother and the other half from our father. Thats why we dont look exactly like our parents, but we may look a bit like them and may also think and act similarly to them.

That said, each of us still has a unique collection of genes overall. That means no two people carry exactly the same genes, not even brothers and sisters. And thats why each of us has a unique appearance and personality.

Our genes help explain many parts of our appearance, like how tall we are and the colour of our eyes.

They also have a hand in our other skills, such as how fast we can run, how good we are at solving problems, and whether we enjoy talking to new people (rather than if we feel shy).

By studying a persons genes, scientists can tell whether that person is more likely to have blue or brown eyes, without even seeing them.

They may also be able to tell that person how likely they are to develop certain medical conditions later in life, such as cancer or myopia (when you cant see far-off objects as clearly).

Read more: Curious Kids: Why do people get cancer?

Although genes are important, theyre not the only reason for why we look, think, feel and act as we do or why were more likely to have certain diseases. While some traits such as eye colour are mainly determined by our genes, an eye injury can change someones eye colour.

Our habits, such as how much we eat and exercise, also have a big impact on who we are and what we look like. If you eat too much junk, youll probably get chubby and start running slower, regardless of the genes your parents gave you.

Our environment at home, school and/or work play a key role in shaping us, too. Take myopia. Before the discovery of the more than 400 genes for myopia, scientists noticed children are at least three times more likely to be myopic if either one or both parents are. They realised if someone has trouble seeing far-off objects, theres a decent chance this is related to genetics.

At the same time, however, there is currently a surge in myopia happening around the world, with more people becoming myopic even though their parents are not!

Researchers discovered our environments and habits play a huge role in myopia development. For instance, they found myopia (and the need to wear glasses) is more likely to happen among people living in cities rather than the country, and those who spend less time outdoors.

The way we perceive colour is also influenced by both our genes and environment. You might remember the social media trend of #thedress that went viral back in 2015.

The world was torn over whether the dress (below) is actually blue and black, or white and gold. Researchers later found the way we see colour in this dress is 34% related to our genes and 66% linked to environmental factors.

Read more: Curious Kids: why are people colour blind?

Personality describes the relatively stable ways in which people think, feel and act. And again, genes do a pretty good job of explaining why some people are more outgoing and energetic, while others tend to be more moody and anxious.

Our genes also help explain how smart we are. But one surprising finding is our genes have more of an effect on us as we age. Among children, about 40% of the differences in intelligence scores are explained by genes. In young adults, this increases to about 60%, even though its the same genes that continue to affect intelligence.

This is most likely because our genes can impact which environments we prefer, and adults often act on their preferences.

For example, most adults do not get told when to go to bed at night! And adults who enjoy learning new things can choose to spend their time in libraries and art museums, or taking classes. In other words, adults can choose the environments and activities that best express their genes.

You can think of your genes as a way to understand yourself but not as a way to make decisions. For example, just because someones parents may not have been able to go to university, they themselves can if they study hard.

Or, a persons parents may be overweight, but that doesnt mean they have to be. They can still join a sprint team if theyre willing to put in the effort.

Even though your DNA and genes shape a lot of your personality and appearance, remember: they do not determine your life story.

Here is the original post:
Curious Kids: how does our DNA relate to our personality and appearance? - The Conversation AU

India last month began boasting that it has created and its regulatory body approved the worlds first DNA vaccine, ZyCoV-D.

The vaccine, developed by a company called Zydus Cadila, expects to have it available for use as early as next month, giving hope to a country that has suffered more than 447,000 deaths at the hand of the virus.

What is a DNA vaccine and could this new class of vaccination become the next tool in the worlds fight against COVID-19?

cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });

A DNA vaccine is a form of a software vaccine, explained Tel Aviv Universitys Prof. Jonathan Gershoni.

A software vaccine is one in which scientists vaccinate with the blueprint of the virus just the DNA or the RNA corresponding to the genes that code for the spike protein injecting it in a palatable and effective way into the body. The cells then synthesize the viral protein, which leads to the production of antibodies against the viral spike.

This is as opposed to a hardware vaccine, which actually contains hardware, that is physical bits and pieces of the virus protein.

You can have a hardware vaccine that consists of a killed virus, for example, or an attenuated virus, Gershoni explained. Or you can have a subunit vaccine as well, such as the vaccine for Hepatitis B, which is just purified spike protein.

The immune system identifies the presence of the viral protein and that stimulates the immune system to respond and make highly specific targeted antibodies that inactivate the virus.

All of the traditional childhood vaccines that exist today are hardware vaccines.

However, since the late 1980s, scientists began playing with the idea that there could be applications for injecting DNA or RNA directly first, in trying to develop gene therapy, and more recently, in the development of what Gershoni calls software vaccines.

We know that the information flow in biology goes like this: the genetic material is stored in a very stable molecule, double-stranded DNA, Gershoni said. However, the information that flows from the gene needs to be transcribed to create a disposable and intermediate genetic material in the form of RNA. So, RNA in the traditional sense, is simply a disposable copy of the DNA gene.

However, it is the RNA and not the DNA that is able to interact with the protein manufacturing machinery, known as ribosomes. The ribosomes are what recognize the RNA and systematically translate the genetic material, which is written in the language of RNA, into the hardware that is to say, the protein.

The hardware is the protein and the instruction manuals, the recipes that tell us how to make these proteins, can be either in DNA or RNA, he said. DNA or RNA, therefore, fall under the category of software vaccines.

Injecting RNA in some respects is more efficient, Gershoni said.

Both the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines, for example, are RNA vaccines.

Despite the claims coming from India, there are other DNA vaccines already on the market. They are just packaged differently.

The AstraZeneca, Sputnik V and Johnson & Johnson vaccines all contain DNA of the spike protein as their active ingredient. These vaccines, Gershoni explained, take the DNA of the coronavirus spike protein and package it inside the DNA of a safe virus called Adenovirus.

These vaccines deliver the gene for the spike protein via the Adenovirus that infects human cells but does not cause any noticeable or harmful disease.

If we take a virus like that and manipulate its genes and swap some of the genes of the viral vector with the gene for the coronavirus spike, when such viral vectors infect our cells they are manipulated and produce the coronavirus spike protein, which then stimulates the production of antibodies against coronavirus, Gershoni further explained.

So what is the difference, given that the India vaccine also contains DNA and is a DNA virus?

What differentiates the Indian vaccine is that it contains much less DNA and is not packaged in a viral vector. The Indian DNA stands alone.

What they have done is taken a small, circular piece of DNA called a plasmid and incorporated into this plasmid a piece of DNA that corresponds to the 1,200 amino acids of the coronavirus spike protein, Gershoni said.

The plasmid that they are using in ZyCoV-D is a plasmid from the 1990s called pVAX1 a commercially available plasmid DNA whose total size is only about 3,000 letters (nucleotide base pairs).

In this case, the DNA is not wrapped or packaged in anything but directly injected into the arm, something referred to as naked DNA.

This is the first plasmid DNA vaccine that has been authorized for human use. Gershoni said that there have been veterinary applications of plasmid DNA used in the past.

It is also different from the other vaccines because it is delivered intradermally, meaning it is injected without a needle via a high-pressure stream of liquid containing the DNA.

The ZyCoV-D regimen is three shots, each 28 days apart. The phase III trial found the vaccines efficacy to be less than 70%.

Gershoni said that although some people have expressed concern with DNA vaccines, which must enter the nucleus of the cell to be transcribed and generate the RNA and therefore could theoretically impact a persons chromosomes, there is no obvious mechanistic reason why this should occur.

He said that an effort was made to streamline the DNA, make it as compact, clean and mean and with as little extra DNA as possible.

Whereas people around the world may be concerned and debating whether this DNA vaccine is a good idea, Gershoni continued, we have been blessed in Israel with RNA vaccines. So under no circumstances should theoretical arguments about DNA safety be used in Israel. They are simply not relevant.

Read more here:
Could DNA vaccines be the next tool in the worlds battle against COVID? - The Jerusalem Post

DNA evidence has finally ended the debate about where the ancient Etruscans an ancient civilization whose remains are found in Italy came from.

According to almost 2,000 years worth of genomic data, collected from 12 sites across Italy, these enigmatic people did not emigrate from Anatolia (a region that's now part of Turkey), but shared genetic heritage with people who lived nearby in ancient Rome.

All were descended from pastoralists who moved into the region from the steppes during the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age. Given that the steppes are thought to be where Indo-European languages originated, the finding underscores another Etruscan mystery that of their (now extinct) non-Indo-European language, which managed to persist for centuries.

"This linguistic persistence, combined with a genetic turnover, challenges simple assumptions that genes equal languages," said anthropologist David Caramelli of the University of Florence in Italy, "and suggests a more complex scenario that may have involved the assimilation of early Italic speakers by the Etruscan speech community, possibly during a prolonged period of admixture over the second millennium BCE."

There's a lot we don't know about the Etruscans. Some evidence of their presence remains, obviously. We know they were remarkable craftspeople, skilled metalworkers, and politically sophisticated. But we only partially understand their extinct language, which has made teasing out their origins complicated, particularly in the absence of solid genetic evidence.

One school of thought, championed by Greek historian Herodotus, was that the Etruscans migrated into Italy from Anatolia or the Aegean, and that their culture was descended from Greek origins. This interpretation is not favored by modern scholars; archeologists have uncovered very little evidence in support of migration.

The other option is that the Etruscan civilization emerged from an indigenous population that had already been settled in the region what is known as an autochthonous civilization.

Led by anthropologist Cosimo Posth of the University of Tbingen in Germany, a large international team of researchers sought to get to the bottom of the mystery by studying ancient DNA. They collected genetic samples from 82 individuals spanning a timeframe from 800 BCE to 1000 CE across Etruria and southern Italy, and compared them to DNA from other ancient and modern populations.

They found that the Etruscans shared a genetic profile with neighboring populations, such as the Latins that inhabited Rome at the same time, even though the two groups had significant linguistic and cultural differences.

As with most other European populations, a large proportion of this genetic profile can be attributed to steppe-related ancestry. It's unclear, then, how such significant differences arose between the Etruscans and their neighbors.

The Etruscan language is not, however, completely unique. It belongs to a proposed group called the Tyrsenian languages, all of which are extinct. This group includes Rhaetic, once spoken in the Alps, and Lemnian, from Lemnos in the Aegean sea.

This could suggest that these languages may have spread via a sea-borne expansion from the Mediterranean, but the genetic profile of the Etruscans shows no evidence of this origin. Instead, the researchers suggest, perhaps the Tyrsenian languages spread from Etruria as a point of origin. Further investigation is definitely warranted.

The team's analysis also revealed the results of major changes in Italy. When the Roman Empire rose, the ancient DNA revealed, the Etruscan population experienced a significant genetic shift as people from the eastern Mediterranean mixed with the Italian population, likely as the result of the Roman importation of slaves and soldiers.

"This genetic shift clearly depicts the role of the Roman Empire in the large-scale displacement of people in a time of enhanced upward or downward socioeconomic and geographic mobility," said anthropologist Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany.

In the Middle Ages, following the collapse of the Roman Empire, genetic profiles changed again, with northern European ancestries spreading across the Italian peninsula. This was probably the result of the invasion of the Lombards, from Germany and Sweden, who conquered and then ruled most of Italy from 568 to 774 CE.

From about 1,000 CE, however, the genetic profiles of people in Tuscany, Lazio, and Basilicata have remained more or less unchanged. This is consistent with the genetic profile of people in Rome, the researchers said. Future studies including additional datasets from other regions of the Roman Empire will help substantiate these findings.

"The Roman Empire appears to have left a long-lasting contribution to the genetic profile of southern Europeans, bridging the gap between European and eastern Mediterranean populations on the genetic map of western Eurasia," Posth said.

The research has been published in Science Advances.

Read more here:
DNA Has Finally Revealed The Mysterious Origins of The Ancient Etruscans - ScienceAlert

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Viral Vectors And Plasmid DNA Manufacturing Market Size By Product Type, By Application, By End Product, By Geographic Scope And Forecast" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Global Viral Vectors and Plasmid DNA Manufacturing Market was valued at USD 583.71 Million in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 1,866.90 Million by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 15.40% from 2021 to 2028.

A growing number of patients opting for gene therapy is a major factor propelling the growth of the Viral Vectors and Plasmid DNA Manufacturing market. Gene therapy is a leading field in medical science, which promises new treatment development for patients suffering from various disease. Genetically modified therapies have emerged as a promising treatment approach for various diseases (primarily ones that currently have no cure), including inherited disorders and certain viral infections. Demand for plasmid DNA is rising steeply because of a boom in gene therapy development.

This report provides an all-inclusive environment of the analysis for the Viral Vectors And Plasmid DNA Manufacturing Market. The market estimates provided in the report are the result of in-depth secondary research, primary interviews and in-house expert reviews. These market estimates have been considered by studying the impact of various social, political and economic factors along with the current market dynamics affecting the Viral Vectors And Plasmid DNA Manufacturing Market growth.

Along with the market overview, which comprises of the market dynamics the chapter includes a Porter's Five Forces analysis which explains the five forces: namely buyers bargaining power, suppliers bargaining power, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, and degree of competition in the Viral Vectors And Plasmid DNA Manufacturing Market. It explains the various participants, such as system integrators, intermediaries and end-users within the ecosystem of the market. The report also focuses on the competitive landscape of the Viral Vectors And Plasmid DNA Manufacturing Market.

The report will provide a valuable insight with an emphasis on the global market including some of the major players such as Merck KGaA, Lonza, FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies U.S.A., Inc., Cobra Biologics Ltd., Brammer Bio, Waisman Biomanufacturing, Genezen, YPOSKESI, Advanced BioScience, Laboratories, Inc. (ABL, Inc.), Novasep Holding S.A.S, ATVIO Biotech Ltd, and Others.

Key Topics Covered:

1 Introduction

2 Research Methodology

3 Executive Summary

3.1 Market Overview

3.2 Global Viral Vectors and Plasmid DNA Manufacturing Market Regional Insights

3.3 Global Viral Vectors and Plasmid DNA Manufacturing Market Geographical Analysis

3.4 Global Viral Vectors and Plasmid DNA Manufacturing Market, by Product Type

3.5 Global Viral Vectors and Plasmid DNA Manufacturing Market, by Application

3.6 Global Viral Vectors and Plasmid DNA Manufacturing Market, by End Product

3.7 Future Market Opportunities

3.8 Global Market Split

4 Market Outlook

4.1 Global Viral Vectors and Plasmid DNA Manufacturing Market Outlook

4.2 Market Drivers

4.2.1 Increasing Number of Patients Opting for Gene Therapy

4.2.2 Rising Prevalence of HIV/Aids and Growing R&D Funding from Several Organizations

4.3 Restraints

4.3.1 Manufacturing Challenges Pertaining to Large Scale Production of Vectors

4.4 Opportunities

4.4.1 Growing Healthcare Infrastructure and Government Support

4.4.2 Growing Number of Gene Therapy Candidates, Coupled With Their Rapid Progression Through Various Phases of Clinical Development

4.5 The Impact of Covid-19

4.6 Porters Five Force Model

4.7 Product Life Line

5 Market, by Product Type

5.1 Overview

5.2 Viral Vector

5.3 Plasma DNA

5.4 Non-Viral DNA Vectors

6 Market, by Application

6.1 Overview

6.2 Cancer

6.3 Inherited Disorder

6.4 Infectious Diseases

6.5 Others

7 Market, by End Product

7.1 Overview

7.2 DNA Vaccines

7.3 Gene Therapy

7.4 Immunotherapy

7.5 Others

8 Market, by Geography

8.1 Overview

8.2 North America

8.3 Europe

8.4 Asia-Pacific

8.5 Row

9 Competitive Landscape

10 Company Profiles

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/cnmete

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Read more:
Viral Vectors and Plasmid DNA Manufacturing Market 2021; Growing Number of Gene Therapy Candidates, Coupled with their Rapid Progression through...

A Massachusetts cold case unit cracked the unsolved murder of a teen girl using old-fashioned investigative work not advances in DNA technology and arrested a suspect in Georgia after more than three decades, authorities said Wednesday.

Rodney Daniels, 48, was arrested without incident in Georgia on Monday in connection to the 1991 fatal shooting of Patricia Moreno at an apartment in Malden, Massachusetts, where she lived with her foster family, law enforcement officials announced.

BODY OF MISSING MICHIGAN WOMAN, 18, BELIEVED FOUND BURIED IN FRESH DIRT OUTSIDE HOME: POLICE

"This is a case that was solved not by a new development in forensic science, but as a result of relentless investigative work and a change in circumstances for some parties involved," said Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan.

Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan and Malden Chief of Police Kevin Molis announced that Rodney Daniels has been charged with the murder of 17-year-old Patricia Moreno that occurred on July 20, 1991, in Malden, Massachusetts. (Middlesex District Attorney)

On July 20, 1991, police responded just after 3 a.m. to the third-floor apartment in Malden, where officers found Moreno laying on the fire escape landing with a single gunshot wound to the head.

Moreno was still breathing when she was rushed to the hospital, where doctors determined she suffered an irreversible brain injury. Moreno died later that day.

Daniels, who was in a relationship with one of the teenage daughters of Morenos foster mother, was present in the apartment at the time of the shooting, Ryan said.

LAS VEGAS MAN ARRESTED 47 YEARS AFTER COLD CASE KILLING IF 7-ELEVEN CLERK

Daniels had told police at the time that he was asleep in an armchair in the living room when the sound of two gunshots woke him up. He then found Morenos body on the fire escape and alerted the foster mother, who called 911.

During the investigation, police had found no signs of forced entry into the apartment and did not recover a weapon or bullet casings from the scene.

Investigators learned that Daniels possessed multiple handguns around the same time of the murder and that he had threatened Moreno in the weeks before her death, but no arrests were made.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

In 2020, the district attorneys offices cold case unit reviewed the murder and through reconstructing the crime scene, determined that the position of the entry wound and the bullets downward trajectory were consistent with the shooter firing the gun from the doorway of the apartment.

Investigators also located a witness who had lived on the second floor at the time of the shooting and recently returned from outside the country. The witness said he heard the noise from the gunshot and immediately looked to the fire escape, where he saw a person go back into the apartment and close the door.

The witnesss description of the person on the fire escape matched the appearance of Daniels, investigators said.

Daniels faces a charge of murder and was due to arrive back in Massachusetts on Thursday for his arraignment.

Excerpt from:
Cold case murder of Massachusetts teen solved without DNA technology, suspect arrested in Georgia - Fox News

As a child, Kim Wederfoort was fixated on the mystery of her familys origins. I thought about it probably more often than a person should, said Wederfoort, 24.

As a mixed-race person, she regularly fielded questions from classmates about where she got her complexion or curly hair. Her initial answer, Im from New Jersey, was rarely satisfactory, forcing her to map out her familys origins: a mother who was Dutch and Indonesian by way of Suriname, a father from Curacao whose blend of Spanish, Dutch, and Indian ancestries reflected the colonial history of the Caribbean.

It was no surprise, then, that during freshman orientation at West Chester University in 2015, one presentation in particular grabbed her attention: a call for volunteers for the DNA Discussion Project. The initiative, run by Anita Foeman and Bessie Lawton, professors of communication and media at West Chester University, studies students responses to the results of DNA-based ancestry tests and how those results can shift personal narratives and shape their relationships to others.

Since the projects inception in 2006, more than 3,000 students have participated, and their experiences form the backbone of Foeman and Lawtons recent book, Who am I?: Identity in the Age of Consumer DNA Testing.

For many, DNA test results change what is believable and whats not believable, Foeman said. You have a different data point, and it changes the conversation.

They hope their research will make it easier to have conversations about race, especially at a time when many companies are devoting more resources to diversity training.

Lawton, whose interest lies in intercultural communication, said DNA tests offer a way to level the playing field in conversations about diversity. Everybodys DNA has gone through the same process of analysis, Lawton said.

Foeman said that the emotional experience of learning where you came from or discovering family secrets could create bonds between people.

DNA also offers a framework to talk about multiracial identities, which Lawton noticed was missing from the way race was traditionally handled on forms where people have to choose a single option.

Ancestry DNA tests break down the fraction of a persons DNA that resembles genomes from different parts of the world. Although more than 99% of the human genome is shared between people, the remaining pieces can be traced back through generations to ancestors hailing from a particular region. Ancestors from different places lead to a combination of genetic markers.

Direct-to-consumer genetic tests dont sequence the entire genome, but instead skim it, like a person tasked with reading a long text quickly. By reading less than 0.05% of the three billion pieces of the genome, the test can focus on parts that differ between ancestries and quickly compare each persons genetic sequence to a database of people from around the world.

As this database grows over the years, and technology improves, the test gets more precise: For example, early tests used to tell Lawton that she was from Asia. Now, they can discern that she is Filipino and Chinese, even pinpoint the specific part of China.

For the DNA Discussion Project, volunteers fill out a survey about their self-perceived race and attitudes about it before taking a test from AncestryDNA. The survey includes open-ended questions about how people identify racially, how peers identify them, gaps in personal narratives, and how they felt about learning new information from their DNA.

Although there are more than 14,000 students at West Chester University, more than three-quarters are white, motivating the researchers to actively recruit a more diverse cohort.

Student volunteers then spit into a tube and send off their sample. Six weeks later, they receive an annotated map alongside a pie chart breaking down how much of their ancestry is attributed to each region.

When Foeman first started the project 15 years ago, it was hard to find labs that could run DNA tests that werent forensic. The tests were slow and expensive. Foemans first grant of $1,500 bought just four DNA tests; now, direct-to-consumer tests are less than $100.

After getting their results, students then take another survey and participate in a series of workshops and discussions.

The researchers have seen only a handful of people who had a single ancestry composing 100% of their pie chart, although many students assume that could happen before taking the test. In a study of 45 participants, more than three-quarters were surprised by their results. But still, more than half were positive about what they had learned.

When Wederfoort received her DNA test results, she was absolutely blown away.

I didnt expect the map to be so diverse and so colorful, she said. Her big surprise? The test revealed that she had African ancestry. None of her relatives could explain it.

Lawton thought that adding scientific data to family narratives would change peoples perceptions. But survey results showed that often wasnt the case. Identity negotiation is a product of so many different things. Its not just DNA samples, Lawton said.

One student was East Asian but adopted into a German family. Even after the DNA test placed her ancestry in East Asia, she continued to identify as German. Her lived experience was a stronger factor in identification than this paper, Lawton said.

Every family has a narrative, Foeman said, and it often implicitly carries a genetic story with it. DNA tests dont always make these narratives more stable.

Foeman found that people of color were more moved by DNA tests to reshape their stories, but white people were not. In fact, white participants were more likely to try to explain away DNA test results that suggested non-white ancestry. The reality is they dont have anything to gain by being multiracial, Foeman said. People are going to try to stick to the best narratives they can get.

Wederfoort doesnt see herself any differently now that she knows more about her ancestry, but she does feel empowered to make different choices. For example, she now feels more comfortable wearing a scarf to bed to protect her natural hair, a common practice among people with African ancestry.

She also believes that she can bond with other multiracial people more easily now that she has a clearer picture of her own heritage. Foeman saw this kind of camaraderie forming as soon as results were shared in the discussion sessions, with high fives exchanged between students who shared unexpected ancestries.

Thats why they see a role for DNA tests in diversity training. DNA tests that look for markers of health conditions, distinct from the ancestry tests that the DNA Discussion Project uses, have already begun to appear in the workplace as part of the benefits offered by Philadelphia-area employers such as Jefferson Health and the Teamsters.

In Lawtons research, she noticed that diversity training often seems to deepen divisions between people by enforcing roles of minority or majority. But psychologists suggested that the more effective approach to reduce prejudice was to increase contact between groups and emphasize commonalities. A forum such as the one created in the DNA Discussion Project, which has people from different backgrounds coming together to discuss the results of a test that they all took, could be a more effective strategy, she said.

Lets start our conversation by emphasizing how similar we are, and then were 1% different? Lets deal with that, Lawton said. But first, lets understand that we are all important parts of this institution.

As Foeman enters her final year at West Chester, she and Lawton plan to recruit 300 incoming freshmen to take DNA tests and participate in the last iteration of the project that she will lead.

The goal is really to normalize a conversation about race and for West Chester to be a place where we talk about race in a functional, positive way whenever and wherever it comes up, Foeman said.

Foeman remembers the very first round of surveys she administered solicited such responses as I dont know what Ill do if I find that I have African ancestry. But learning about the diversity in their background can make them realize they arent as different from others, she said.

Now, when people ask Wederfoort where shes from, she has a clear answer: Shes African American and Asian, the two largest pieces of her ancestry pie. She hasnt always been in close contact with her father, but they met up recently and she learned that he, too, had taken a DNA test and found a large proportion of African ancestry.

Foeman and Lawton have also taken direct-to-consumer DNA tests. In Foemans results 23% European ancestry, a tiny piece of Asian ancestry, and the rest from the Gold Coast of Africa she sees her story as one shared by millions of Black Americans: people abducted from the Gold Coast, enslaved on plantations in the South, and the eventual Great Migration of freedmen to the North.

When she first saw these results, she had an instant flashback to a trip she took to Ghana, where she visited the Door of No Return, a gate that enslaved Africans were forced through to board ships to the Americas.

Some of my relatives probably walked through that door, and thats pretty stunning, Foeman said. Were looking at DNA but it just splays out into every aspect of human experience.

The Future of Work is produced with support from the William Penn Foundation and the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the projects donors.

Read the original here:
Talking about race is hard. West Chester University researchers think DNA tests can make it easier. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

In recent years, Tim Dunn, chief executive officer of CrownQuest Operating, has seen public companies come under tremendous pressure to show capital discipline and return capital to investors.

Its a philosophy private companies, such as his, impose on themselves because theyre using their own capital, he said during a panel discussion to wrap up the Permian Basin Petroleum Associations Annual Meeting.

He said its not fair public companies get all the blame for not making money earlier as they spent huge sums drilling new wells in the developing unconventional resource plays like the Permian Basin.

No one held a gun to investors heads and made them put $30 billion into the Marcellus, he said. It costs $20 million to drill a well, double production, the price falls and theyre shocked! And dismayed!

Of course, he admitted, it is a two-person dance, and the operators took that money and drilled all those new wells.

Dunn said when he recently spoke with investors, we told them they need to stop asking about individual well economics and start asking about last well economics.

Agreed Ken Beattie, CrownQuest senior vice president and chief operating officer, You want that last well added to a development project to deliver strong economics.

Asked by moderator Scott Kidwell, PBPA chairman, about the challenges currently facing the industry, Dunn said the industry has brought many of those challenges upon itself.

Our product is so valuable and so transformative and has lifted so many people out of poverty, he said. It is such an integral part of life that people line up to buy it. We dont have to sell anything, we dont have to market it. As a result, the industry has allowed others to frame its work and products.

The biggest direct risk for the industry on the horizon, he said, is if the oil business doesnt fight back.

Asked about ESG, Dunn noted that his family bought and renovated the Green Acres miniature golf and entertainment complex. You cant get more social than that. As for governance, he estimated that almost all of CrownQuests 250 employees are substantial owners of the company.

Rather than focusing on how profitable an investment might be, he advised first considering if that investment will make the community better. He pointed to the Ally Village development and the development currently being planned by the Johnson family of Summit Petroleum and the Faskens as falling into that category.

Continued here:
Private companies have capital discipline in their DNA - Midland Reporter-Telegram