Category Archives: DNA

In the majority of cases, people who know they carry a heritable disease can go through IVF and have their embryos screened for harmful mutations. Photograph: Alamy

It is hard to overstate the importance of the moment. For billions of years, life on Earth has been shaped, slowly and incrementally, by dumb evolution. But in research this week, scientists showed how that might change. With advanced genetic engineering tools, a US-Korean team mended dangerous heart disease mutations in human embryos for the first time. The feat paves the way for radical new treatments and for humans to take control of their genetic destiny.

The ability to edit human genomes may one day transform peoples lives, but in breaking new ground, it would cross a line that has long been controversial. Today, many countries prohibit the creation of genetically altered people, even if the procedure would spare them a devastating and life-shortening disease. The caution comes from the fact that changes to an embryos DNA affect not only the child in question, but their sperm or eggs. When the time came, they would pass on the modifications and any harmful side-effects the procedure may cause to their children and future generations.

The risk of causing unintended harm to unknown numbers of people is only one concern. Inevitably, the ability to tweak the DNA of unborn children raises the prospect of designer babies. There are broader fears too: that eradicating certain mutations could threaten peoples identities, and even the sense of what it means to be human. If we change our DNA forever, are we still human? I think we are a lot more than our DNA, but people have different answers to that question, said Christine Watson, professor of cell and cancer biology at Cambridge.

The work by the US and Korean team is a milestone. Around the world, a handful of groups are exploring how to correct faulty genes in human embryos in the hope of preventing terrible diseases from being passed on. Until now, all have come up against the same brick walls. Having treated embryos for harmful mutations, tests reveal that some still linger, leading to what are called mosaic embryos. Another common glitch is that the very procedure meant to fix bad mutations causes fresh ones elsewhere, producing so-called off-target effects and posing a cancer risk. The researchers overcame both these hurdles by performing the editing procedure when the sperm and egg first met.

The big step forward is that they managed to correct the mutation, have a very low level of mosaic embryos, and seemingly no off-target effects, said Watson. That for me is the big safety concern: that by correcting one mutation you introduce another and who knows what that might do.

At face value, the research has enormous potential. More than 10,000 inherited diseases might be prevented by correcting harmful mutations. Many of them are serious, such as Tay-Sachs, cystic fibrosis, Huntingtons disease, and breast cancer linked to mutations in the BRCA gene. But in reality, very few people would benefit if existing bans on genetically altered embryos were suddenly lifted. In the majority of cases, people who know they carry a heritable disease, and who want genetically-related children, can go through IVF and have their embryos screened for harmful mutations. Fertility doctors do this every day and select only the healthiest embryos to implant in prospective mothers.

In their study, the US-Korean team showed that genome editing could boost the number of embryos free from heart disease mutations from 50% to 72%. In the clinic, that would give doctors more healthy embryos to choose from. But as Tom Shakespeare, professor of disability research at Norwich Medical School, points out, it doesnt help parents dramatically. As of now, whats been achieved is no better than what we already have. If I have a 50% chance of passing on my condition, and then I have a complex procedure that lowers that to 28%, it hasnt solved the problem, he said.

There are situations where embryo screening cannot work, and where genome editing could help. The classic example is a person who carries two copies of the mutation that causes Huntingtons disease. Every embryo created from their sperm or eggs would carry at least one disease gene, enough for the condition to take hold. In this case, genome editing could help by overwriting the Huntingtons mutation with a functional copy of the gene. But the number of people who carry two Huntingtons genes is vanishingly rare, measured in the dozens worldwide.

We are really talking about a very, very small set of people and its easy to forget that because the science is so exciting, said Karen Yeung, director of the Centre for Technology, Ethics and Law in Society at Kings College London and chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics Working Group on Genome Editing and Human Reproduction. One of the issues ethicists still grapple with is how to weigh up the common desire for people to have genetically-related children rather than adopt or simply have no children.

A more effective way to reduce genetic disease could be a national genetic testing program that identifies people who are carriers of harmful genes and at risk of passing them on. I think the only way well make progress with genome editing is when sequencing is cheap enough that every baby will have their genome sequenced at birth, said Watson. Its going to be cheap enough to do that soon, but will people think its acceptable?

Crispr, or to give it its full name, Crispr-Cas9, allows scientists to precisely target and edit pieces of the genome. Crispr is a guide molecule made of RNA, that allows a specific site of interest on the DNA double helix to be targeted. The RNA molecule is attached to Cas9, a bacterial enzyme that works as a pair of "molecular scissors" to cut the DNA at the exact point required. This allows scientists to cut, paste and delete single letters of genetic code.

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In the UK it is illegal to implant a genetically altered embryo in a woman, and regulators in the US and other countries disallow the procedure. The situation is unlikely to change soon, according to Chris Gyngell, a bioethicist at Oxford. I dont think theres going to be strong political will to change the law in the next few years, and probably not until babies are born elsewhere in the world that turn out to be fit and healthy.

One of the barriers to lifting the ban is that genes, and therefore the risks of altering them, are so poorly understood. Genes rarely have only one job in the body, so a change here can cause an unexpected effect elsewhere. One dual role that is known about comes from HIV research, where people with mutations in the CCR5 gene are resistant to HIV, but more susceptible to West Nile virus. But plenty of other genes are not so well understood.

With all the risks inherent in genome editing, Shakespeare is not convinced that there will be a huge demand for designer babies, even if the many genes that influence traits like intelligence and a sparkling personality are ever found. Behavioural genetics is so complicated, he said. Id say environment will be far more important than genetics for the foreseeable future. You can see from the current cabinet that it doesnt matter how intelligent you are, it matters what school you went to.

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Editing embryo DNA is an exciting landmark, but in reality will benefit few - The Guardian

AUSTIN (KXAN) Detectives with the Austin Police Departments homicide cold case unit hope to use DNA evidence to help solve a murder that happened more than 38 years ago.

In a search warrant filed this week, the cold case detective writes that investigators in 1979 identified a man as a person of interest in the murder of 18-year-old Debra Reiding. Now, after reopening the case in 2013, detectives are testing that mans DNA against semen stains found on a robe Reiding was wearing at the time of her death.

KXAN has decided not to identify the man because he has not been named a suspect by Austin police.

Reidingand her husband, Robert, were newlyweds living in a south Austin apartment on Algarita Avenue in January 1979. The couple, originally from Montana, had married a couple months earlier and moved to Austin during the frigid winter up north.

The two were going to work in Austin for a little while and head back to their home state in April, the cold case detective said. That was the plan.

Robert found his wifes body still in their bed when he came home from work the evening of Jan. 22. Investigators found evidence shed been sexually assaulted and strangled.

She was always outgoing, Rodney Wilt, Reidings younger brother, said in a phone interview from Montana Thursday, very popular.

Our lives were shattered, Wilt said. Wilt has kept up with the still-open murder case for close to four decades. Like anybody else I wanted to find out who did it.

More than 38 years later, he might.

Looking through the original case files, Detective Jeff Gabler realized one person of interest was never ruled out as a possible suspect. The file noted the man worked at the same restaurant, the Montana Mining Company, as Reiding and would give her rides home.The day after the murder, Reidings co-worker denied knowing the victim and ever being in her apartment, but detectives learned he had been there at least twice, the affidavit for the search warrant says.

There was evidence to show that the victim may have known her attacker, Gabler said, such as the fact there didnt appear to be forced entry into the couples apartment.

The detective, who was 10 years old when the murder happened, pored over police reports, lab tests, and other documents from 1979 when he reopened the case in 2013. He came up with the co-worker as a person of interest for the second time in the cases history.

On April 28, 2013, detectives sent toothpicks the man used to the DPS Crime Lab, where they were determined to be a match to the stains on the victims robe. The cold case unit used that information to get a search warrant for the mans DNA, which was executed this week.

It will probably take weeks to get results, but Gabler calls it a very promising development.

Its basically wait and see, he said. Its a familiar feeling for those following the case, including Wilt. But hes not bitter; instead, hes thankful APD has remembered the case for this long.

To know that theyre working on the case gives us faith that there may still be justice out there, he said.

Thats our purpose in the cold case unit is to never forget, Gabler said.Wilt hopes the cold case unit will find answersso he and their mother, who is now in her 80s, can find justice for Reiding.

It looks good and promising, Wilt said, but, I mean, nothings over until its over.

Continued here:
Newly-retrieved DNA could give detectives break in 1979 cold case murder - KXAN.com

August 4, 2017 Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A chance discovery has opened up a new method of finding unknown viruses.

In research published in the journal Virus Evolution, scientists from Oxford University's Department of Zoology have revealed that Next-Generation Sequencing and its associated online DNA databases could be used in the field of viral discovery. They have developed algorithms that detect DNA from viruses that happen to be in fish blood or tissue samples, and could be used to identify viruses in a range of different species.

Next-Generation Sequencing has revolutionised genomics research and is currently used to study and understand genetic material. It allows scientists to gather vast amounts of data, from a single piece of DNA, which is then collated into huge, online, genome databases that are publicly accessible.

Dr Aris Katzourakis and Dr Amr Aswad, Research Associates at Oxford's Department of Zoology, initially discovered the new use for the database, by chance. While looking for an ancient herpes virus in primates, they found evidence of two new undocumented viruses.

Spurred by their accidental discovery, they set out to see if they could intentionally achieve the same result. In a separate project to find new fish-infecting herpes viruses, they used the technique to examine more than 50 fish genomes for recognisable viral DNA. Sure enough, in addition to the herpes viruses they were expecting to find, the researchers identified a distant lineage of unusual viruses - that may even be a new viral family. The traits were found scattered in fragments of 15 different species of fish, including the Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout.

To confirm that the viral evidence was not simply a fluke, or a data processing error, they tested additional samples from a local supermarket and sushi restaurant. The same viral fragments were found in the bought samples.

Study author Dr Aris Katzourakis, from Oxford University's Department of Zoology, said: "In the salmon genome we found what seems to be a complete and independent viral genome, as well as dozens of fragments of viral DNA that had integrated into the fish DNA. We know from recent studies that viruses are able to integrate into the genome of their host, sometimes remaining there for millions of years. In this case, it looks like the virus may have acquired the ability to integrate by stealing a gene from the salmon itself, which explains how it has become so widespread in the salmon genome."

The key to the success of this research is in its inter-disciplinary approach, combining techniques from two fields: evolutionary biology and genomics. Together, these are at the core of the new field of paleovirology - the study of ancient viruses that have integrated their DNA into that of their hosts, sometimes millions of years ago. Each technique used has been developed to analyse huge quantities of DNA sequence data.

Co-author and Research Associate at Oxford's Department of Zoology and St. Hilda's College, Dr Amr Aswad, said: "Discovering new viruses has historically been biased towards people and animals that exhibit symptoms of disease. But, our research shows how useful next generation DNA sequencing can be in viral identification. To many, viral DNA in say, chimp or falcon data is a nuisance, and a rogue contaminant that needs to be filtered from results. But we consider these an opportunity waiting to be exploited, as they could include novel viruses that are worth studying - as we have found in our research. We could be throwing away very valuable data."

Finding new viruses has historically not been an easy process. Cells do not grow on their own, so must be cultured in a laboratory before they can be analysed, which involves months of work. But the Oxford research represents a massive opportunity for the future.

Beyond this study, the approach could be used to identify viruses in a range of different species, particularly those known to harbour transmissible disease. Bats and rodents, for example, are notorious carriers of infectious disease that they are seemingly immune to. Insects such as mosquitoes are also carriers of viral diseases that harm humans, such as Zika. If applied effectively the method could uncover other viruses before an outbreak even happens.

Dr Katzourakis added: "One of the real strengths of this technique, as compared to more traditional virology approaches, is the speed of discovery, and the lack of reliance on identifying a diseased individual. The viral data collected, that may otherwise be discarded as a nuisance, is a unique resource for looking for both pathogenic and benign viruses that would otherwise have remained undiscovered."

The team will next begin to identify the impact of the viruses and whether they have any long term implications for disease, or commercial fish-farming. While an infectious virus may not cause disease in its natural host - in this case, fish. there is a risk of cross-species transmission to either farmed fish or wild populations.

However, the risk to humans is minimal. Dr Aris Katzourakis said: "Put it this way, I'm not going to stop eating sashimi."

Explore further: DNA sequencing and big data open a new frontier in the hunt for new viruses

More information: Amr Aswad et al. A novel viral lineage distantly related to herpesviruses discovered within fish genome sequence data, Virus Evolution (2017). DOI: 10.1093/ve/vex016

Discovering new viruses has historically been biased towards people and animals that exhibit symptoms of disease like a cough, fever or skin blister.

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(Phys.org)An international team of researchers has found evidence showing that maize evolved to survive in the U.S. southwest highlands thousands of years ago. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group ...

A chance discovery has opened up a new method of finding unknown viruses.

When trouble looms, the fish-scale geckos of Madagascar resort to what might seem like an extreme form of self-defensetearing out of their own skin.

Scientists have developed a computational method to detect chemical changes in DNA that highlight cell diversity and may lead to a better understanding of cancer.

A new study led by the Australian National University (ANU) has found that plants are able to forget stressful weather events to rapidly recover.

In the last 20 years, the field of animal coloration research has experienced explosive growth thanks to numerous technological advances, and it now stands on the threshold of a new era.

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Scientists discover unknown virus in 'throwaway' DNA - Phys.Org

It was made public by the Army in 2013 and remained the only photo portraying her as a woman until her release from prison in 2017 -- other photos were prohibited while she was in custody.

It's strangely fitting, then, that 30 lifelike 3D portraits of her face now hang from a ceiling in the Fridman Gallery in Manhattan.

"This is a sampling of thirty possible faces that could be produced algorithmically reading Chelsea's DNA data," said Dewey-Hagborg during the exhibition's private view.

"They represent a wide range of the diversity that exists within Chelsea's genome, a diversity in which that same DNA data can be read."

The DNA samples were recovered from cheek swabs and hair clippings that were part of a correspondence between Manning and Dewey-Hagborg.

It's a similar process to Dewey-Hagborg's groundbreaking 2012 project "Stranger Visions," which used random bits of DNA found on cigarette butts and other litter to create portraits of strangers.

"In 2015 I received an email more or less out of the blue from Paper magazine. She couldn't be visited and photographed at that time and so they reached out to Chelsea and asked if she'd be interested in having a DNA portrait made."

A handful of letters were exchanged over the next two years through an intermediary.

"Chelsea was excited about the idea, but also concerned the she might appear too male in a portrait generated just based on her DNA," said Dewey-Hagborg.

"I'm hoping that people will take away the idea that genetics is not destiny and a kind of push for self-determined identity and a push against efforts to inscribe identities into us, or for external forces to tell us who we are rather than listening to us say this is who I am."

Ruddy Shrock, the curator of the exhibition, defined it as a "a poetic investigation Heather took into issues of identity and ownership of oneself."

Around 250 people were in attendance at the opening. Manning arrived accompanied by friends and her agent, but declined to speak with the media.

She was followed around by the documentary team for "Chelsea XY," which will be released at Sundance Film Festival in January 2018.

She did engage with fans and supporters and took photos with them.

"To have Chelsea out, in a dress, creating art, on this wonderful journey with other activists and people in the media, it's really moving," said Suzie Glbert, one of the attendees.

Jeff Seelbach, a fan of Chelsea and producer at the company funding her documentary, said: "The thing that fascinates me about it is the very unique and terrible situation she was in, that her identity and her ability to have an image and a representation was completely suppressed by the government and by our legal system."

Artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg also got to meet Chelsea in person for the first time after their mail exchange.

"It was both totally amazing and then completely normal. I mean we had brunch, avocado toast, you know, your typical New York thing. But then it was also just completely stunning to see someone you've pictured in your head," she noted.

"She's [Chelsea] really excited about it, this is her kind of art debut."

Read more here:
Chelsea Manning sent her DNA to an artist while in prison and the results are spectacular - CNN

August 4, 2017 Credit: Newcastle University

Scientists have developed a computational method to detect chemical changes in DNA that highlight cell diversity and may lead to a better understanding of cancer.

In the European study, published in Nucleic Acids Research and involving Newcastle University, experts have established a bioinformatics method that can be applied in hematopoiesis, the process of blood formation from stem cells.

The information of how to form the different cells in our body is encoded in our genome, which is composed by the four letters of DNA.

Each cell type is characterised by its distinct epigenome, a makeup of the genome composed of many different proteins that leave "open" or "closed" different parts of the genome.

Using different makeups, the same genome in one person can encode the necessary information to develop all the different tissues and organs.

The new method developed allows the automatic analysis of multiple epigenomes to identify the genomic locations where the necessary makeup changes to form both healthy and diseased cell types.

Disease biomarkers

Dr Daniel Rico, Research Fellow at Newcastle University's Institute of Cellular Medicine, said: "We have the technology to reveal the different epigenomic makeups and this is generating a significant amount of data.

"We can seriously talk about "big data" in epigenomics research. However, the main bottleneck is to translate all this data into useful information to get insight into biological mechanisms.

"The new method that we have developed will allow researchers to identify the key regions in the genome that show differential makeups depending of the cell types.

"As many diseases are associated to disease-specific epigenomic makeups, this method will be particularly useful to identify the key regions in the genome where the makeup deviates from the healthy state.

"This will allow the development of new disease biomarkers and, hopefully, open a new path for developing therapies targeting the epigenomes."

The method allows the integration of a variety of epigenomic datasets to classify different samples and automatically identify genomic regions in which changes affect the definition of cell type.

Genome makeup

The human genome is a dull sequence of letters but it becomes alive thanks to the help of the epigenome.

The genome is like a book in which letters follow each other without empty spaces, full stops or commas. It would be very hard to read this book, utterly impossible to understand it.

However, with the simple addition of punctuation marks we can read and understand the meaning of that apparently dull sequence of letters.

This is the great task accomplished by the epigenome, which is composed of chemical changes on the DNA that allow us and the cell to understand how to read and interpret the genome.

For this reason, studying the epigenome is important to understanding how development can give rise to the large variety of cell types forming tissues and organs, all starting from a single cell and a single genome.

The epigenome is also often involved in explaining how a healthy cell gives rise to a tumour after a malignant transformation. But, despite the collections of data available until now, locating those regions of the genome with chemical changes and type of changes remains a challenge.

These chemical changes are produced during development and throughout life as an effect of external factors, such as lifestyle, and they can be triggers for diseases like cancer. Identifying epigenetic biomarkers is fundamental to enable new diagnostic and treatment options.

Molecular classifications have been widely used taking into account gene expression levels as biomarkers, using their on/off state.

This method lets researchers identify those regions that are involved in regulating the on/off gene state like biological switches. These regions could be used as epigenetic biomarkers that complement the actual molecular classifications.

Important development

Enrique Carrillo-de-Santa-Pau, co-first author of the study, from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre, said: "The development of this type of methods is very important.

"Up to now differences between cell types had mostly been characterised at the levels of genes that are either switched on or off, that is the final product of the epigenomic regulation, but we did not know where the switches for these genes were (encoded in the epigenome).

"This acquired knowledge is fundamental to enable new therapies based on acting on the correct switches in cases where the cell loses control in diseases such as cancer.

"Understanding this level of regulation will take us one step further in the personalised medicine agenda."

It is hoped that this method will allow scientists to identify new epigenetic biomarkers, which may be used in personalised medicine diagnosis and treatment.

Explore further: First roadmap of stomach cancer super-enhancers paves the way for new treatments

More information: Automatic identification of informative regions with epigenomic changes associated to hematopoiesis, Nucleic Acids Research, doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkx618

A*STAR researchers have homed in on a potential new way to diagnose and treat stomach cancer, through the mapping of an unprecedented catalog of almost 3,800 super-enhancers from stomach cancer tumor cells.

A team from the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project (PCGP) has mapped the intricate changes in the "epigenetic" organization of the nucleus to determine how retinal ...

Scientists at A*STAR's Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) have successfully developed a method to map the epigenome using 100 times fewer cells than was previously possible. The discovery, published in the journal Developmental ...

An international research collaboration led by University College Dublin (UCD), involving the UCD spin-out company OncoMark and Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute in Barcelona, has identified a set of biomarkers strongly ...

In a guest blog, Professor David Roberts from the Nuffield Division of Clinical Laboratory Sciences at Oxford University explains the role of non-DNA genetic information in disease and development.

The sequencing of the human genome laid the foundation for the study of genetic variation and its links to a wide range of diseases. But the genome itself is only part of the story, as genes can be switched on and off by ...

(Phys.org)An international team of researchers has found evidence showing that maize evolved to survive in the U.S. southwest highlands thousands of years ago. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group ...

A chance discovery has opened up a new method of finding unknown viruses.

When trouble looms, the fish-scale geckos of Madagascar resort to what might seem like an extreme form of self-defensetearing out of their own skin.

Scientists have developed a computational method to detect chemical changes in DNA that highlight cell diversity and may lead to a better understanding of cancer.

A new study led by the Australian National University (ANU) has found that plants are able to forget stressful weather events to rapidly recover.

In the last 20 years, the field of animal coloration research has experienced explosive growth thanks to numerous technological advances, and it now stands on the threshold of a new era.

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

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New digital method enhances understanding of changes in DNA's makeup - Phys.Org

Many sunscreens wear off over the course of a day, but a DNA material developed by US scientists gets better at absorbing ultraviolet (UV) light the longer it is exposed to it.1The transparent coating could protect skin particularly damaged areas from sunburn over long periods of time.

UV light is particularly bad for wounds because the skin is already weakened, explainsClara Piccirilloa materials chemist from the Portuguese Catholic University, whopreviously developed a fishbone-derived sunscreenbut wasnt involved in this study. There is a lot of research to try and find multifunctional materials for dressings, for instance something antibacterial that at the same time protects from UV light.

To do this,Guy Germanfrom Binghamton University and his colleagues looked to one of the most common polymers on the planet: DNA. The team had already established that self-assembled DNA films could absorb UV light. But what was really interesting is that the more UV we dosed the films with, the better they got at attenuating the light, German says.

This unexpected behaviour is likely to be the result of hyperchromicity: when exposed to UV light, the DNAs strands separate and unravel. New bonds between the DNA chains and changes in the materials crystal structure then increase its ability to absorb and scatter light.

The coating is transparent to visible light, which would make it particularly suitable as a wound covering. You wouldnt need to lift up a wound covering as this might not be a good idea in hostile or contaminated environments, explains German. Moreover, the DNA film keeps the skin hydrated, which has been shown to promote faster healing.2Another advantage is that its made out of DNA, something that we already have in our bodies, so its likely that its not toxic, says Piccirillo. The material is currently undergoing biological testing, German adds.

As to whether the material could also work as an everyday sunscreen, German hopes so. A DNA-based cream could curbworries about the safety of common UV protectantsand decrease the amount ofcoral-harming chemicals released into coastal watersby sunscreen wearers.

However, in its current film-like form the material cant be made introduced into a cream, which requires compounds to be soluble or finely dispersed. It is the formation of the film that offers UV protection, says Piccirillo. I cant see this applied in an emulsion in its current form though that doesnt mean that in the future theyll find a way to formulate it that way.

We have lots of testing and work to do to push it forward to commercialisation status, acknowledges German, but thats another pathway that we are exploring.

This article is reproduced with permission fromChemistry World. The article wasfirst publishedon August 2, 2017.

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DNA Sunscreen Gets Better, Not Weaker, Over Time - Scientific American

COLUMBIA DNA evidence has led to an arrest in a 15-year rape case.

Jackie Lee Jennings of Columbia was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of rape in the first degree and burglary in the first degree in connection with a case that occurred on the night of April 29, 2002.

A Missouri State Highway Patrol lab report from March 27 had compared the DNA profile from the 2002 case to an offender DNA profile belonging to Jennings. Jennings also matched the description given by the victim.

On April 29, 2002, the victim said she was on her way home from T.P.s bar after leaving at approximately 12:30 a.m., when she was approached by a man offering her a ride or to follow her to make sure she got home safely.

The victim said she declined, and on arriving home, locked her door. She said she became ill and vomited, which was odd because she had only had two mixed drinks and was an experienced drinker.

After lying down in her bed for a moment, the victim looked up and saw the man, who attacked her and raped her, she said. She then passed out.

The DNA used by the highway patrol lab came from a fingerprint on an unscrewed light bulb, hair from the vacuum bag used after the victims room was vacuumed and semen left on the victims pants, which provided a DNA profile.

The victim has been contacted and informed of the developments.

Jennings was booked into the Boone County Jail. Bond has been set at $200,000.

Supervising editor is Mike Jenner.

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DNA evidence leads to arrest in 2002 rape case - Columbia Missourian

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In the Bronze Age, between 4,000 and 3,000 years ago, a diverse group of people called the Canaanites lived in the Middle East. Despite their culture and influence one of the only golden calf idols discovered was found in the Canaan seaport of Ashqelon they left behind little information about themselves. Other civilizations made records of them, such as the Greeks, Egyptians and the authors of the Hebrew Bible. But, without Canaanite texts to cite, scholars view the ancient people as a bit of an enigma.

We havent found any of their writings, said Chris Tyler-Smith, a geneticist who studies human evolution at the Sanger Institute in Britain. Perhaps they wrote on papyrus but not longer-lasting clay. We dont have direct information from them, he said. In that sense, they are a mystery.

Their final fate, too, was a puzzle. The Hebrew text offers one explanation for the destiny of the Canaanites: annihilation. The Israelites, per Deuteronomy 20:16-18, were commanded to utterly destroy the cities of various tribes including the Canaanites. Those who survived fled or became servants.

But historians are skeptical that either exodus or annihilation occurred. University of North Carolina religious studies professor Bart Ehrman noted in a 2013 blog post that, beyond the Hebrew Bible, there are no references in any other ancient source to a massive destruction of the cities of Canaan.

Now a study of Canaanite DNA, published recently in the American Journal of Human Genetics, rules out the biblical idea that an ancient war wiped out the group. The DNA, when compared to that of modern-day people, shows that the Canaanites managed to leave a long line of descendants. Even if they suffered some defeats, enough people survived that they contributed to the present-day population, Tyler-Smith said.

Tyler-Smith and his colleagues sampled ancient DNA from five Canaanite people who lived 3,750 and 3,650 years ago. Though the skeletal remains were buried in a hot and humid region along the Mediterranean, the scientists were still able to extract genetic material. They mined the petrous bone, a region of skull behind the ear thats also the densest bone in the body.

The geneticists sequenced the Canaanite genome and compared it to genomes of modern people, including Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and others from around the world. The comparison revealed that 90 percent of the genetic ancestry of people in Lebanon came from the Canaanites. (The other 10 percent was of a Eurasian steppe population.)

We can say that Lebanese mostly descend from an ancestry that is found in those five individuals, said Marc Haber, a Sanger Institute geneticist and an author of the new study. What we find is that the ancestry has changed, but it has changed very little.

The unbroken genetic heritage was a surprise. From the Bronze Age onward, that coastal Mediterranean region has been the site of repeated conquering and reshuffling of populations. There was more genetic continuity in Lebanon than in a place like England, Tyler-Smith said.

Its an exciting time to be investigating ancient DNA, the geneticists said. The Canaanites were an ideal case study ancient genomes can provide information not available through historical records or archaeology. But the corridor from Egypt to Asia was a path well-worn by many groups moving in and out of Africa.

Read more:
Ancient DNA solves mystery of fate of Bible's Canaanites - The Columbian

August 3, 2017 11:12 PM

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) Police believe a man busted for burglary on Long Island may be the same person who attacked a number of joggers in Queens.

The suspect is 45-year-old Mark Andrade, 1010 WINS Carol DAuria reported. He was arrested in Nassau County in connection with an attempted burglary.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said his DNA was put in a data bank and has been linked to a sexual assault in Forest Park.

He might be linked to as many as six cases altogether.

Boyce said preliminarily hes been charged with a sexual assault on March 29, 2013 on the Bridal Path in Forest Park, where he was armed with a stun gun.

This one young lady struggled with him and actually pulled a beer can out of his back pocket, a beer bottle I should say, and then threw it. We retrieved that beer bottle as part of the crime scene, and thats where we got the DNA, Boyce said.

All of the victims were attacked on the same path between 2011 and 2013, and range in age from 13 to 69.

Glendale resident Desiree Mendez told CBS2s Andrea Grymes she never forgot that shattered feeling of being terrified to walk through Forest Park and worried she might be the next woman sexually assaulted inside.

I do remember being very, very scared, she said. Im relieved. I wish they would have caught him a little bit earlier, but I mean hey better late than never.

Technology nowadays, you cant get away with any that, another resident added. Its not what it used to be, which is a good thing.

I have two daughters, so Im glad that happened, a man said.

The NYPD says it hopes to chargeAndrade in more of the cases.

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DNA Ties Burglary Suspect To Queens Sex Assault, Cops Say - CBS New York

In a major scientific breakthrough, researchers have harnessed a gene-editing tool to correct a disease-causing gene mutation in human embryos, preventing the mutation from passing to future generations.

In the stunning discovery, a research team led by Oregon Health and Science University reported that embryos can fix themselves if scientists jump-start the process early enough.

There was no indication how soon ordinary patients could take advantage of this technique.

The new technique, which was tested on clinical-quality human eggs, uses the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool to target a mutation in nuclear DNA that causes hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, according to the researchers. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a common genetic heart disease that can cause heart failure and sudden cardiac death. The disease affects approximately 1 in 500 people and is a common cause of sudden heart failure in young people, particularly young athletes.

The research was published Aug. 2 in the journal Nature.

SCIENTISTS EDIT GENES OF HUMAN EMBRYOS IN U.S. FOR FIRST TIME

While the procedure is nowhere near ready to be tried in a pregnancy, the research suggests that scientists might alter DNA in a way that protects not just one baby from a disease that runs in the family, but his or her offspring as well.

Every generation on would carry this repair because weve removed the disease-causing gene variant from that familys lineage, said the reports senior author, Dr. Shoukhrat Mitalipov, director of OHSUs Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy, in a statement. By using this technique, its possible to reduce the burden of this heritable disease on the family and eventually the human population.

The research offers fresh insight into a technique that could apply to thousands of inherited genetic disorders affecting millions of people worldwide, according to the experts.

The team programmed the CRISPR-Cas9, which acts like a pair of molecular scissors, to find that mutation a missing piece of genetic material. Researchers injected sperm from a patient with the heart condition along with those "molecular" scissors into healthy donated eggs at the same time. The scissors cut the defective DNA in the sperm.

BABY SAVED BY FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND IN UTERO SURGERY

Shoukhrat Mitalipov, Ph.D., prinicipal investigator for the Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy. (OHSU/Kristyna Wentz-Graff)

Normally, cells will repair a CRISPR-induced cut in DNA by essentially gluing the ends back together. Or scientists can try delivering the missing DNA in a repair package, like a computer's cut-and-paste program.

Instead, the newly forming embryos made their own perfect fix without that outside help, reported Mitalipov.

We all inherit two copies of each gene, one from dad and one from mom and those embryos just copied the healthy one from the donated egg.

"The embryos are really looking for the blueprint," Mitalipov said in an interview with the Associated Press. "We're finding embryos will repair themselves if you have another healthy copy."

DNA DISCOVERY IDENTIFIES LIVING DESCENDANTS OF BIBLICAL CANAANITES

It worked 72 percent of the time, in 42 out of 58 embryos. Normally a sick parent has a 50-50 chance of passing on the mutation.

Previous embryo-editing attempts in China found not every cell was repaired, a safety concern called mosaicism.

Experts have lauded the study as a major leap forward in genetic research.

This is incredibly important work, CRISPR expert and professor at Harvard and MIT George Church told Fox News, via email. Few people realize how common are genetic diseases.

SCIENTISTS FIND POSSIBLE CLUE TO ANCIENT 'GHOST SPECIES' OF HUMANS

Church, who is not affiliated with the research, noted that genetic diseases affect about five percent of births, causing great suffering. The mainstream medical approaches today kill embryos and this offers a route to avoid that be (a process of) engineering the eggs, he explained. Shoukhrat Mitalipov's team has made two huge breakthroughs in efficiency and precision.

The researchers behind the study say that the gene-editing technique, which was done in concert with in vitro fertilization, could also increase the success of IVF by increasing the number of healthy embryos.

If proven safe, this technique could potentially decrease the number of cycles needed for people trying to have children free of genetic disease, said report co-author Dr. Paula Amato, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the OHSU School of Medicine, in a statement.

While gene editing holds great potential for the battle against genetic diseases, it has, however, prompted fears that it could be harnessed for designer babies.

NEW DNA TECHNOLOGY CREATES DIGITAL 'SKETCH' OF TERRORISTS' FACES

The scientists behind the breakthrough study noted that their research is consistent with recommendations issued earlier this year by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine joint panel on human genome editing.

The recommendations laid out three major settings where gene editing can be used in biomedicine: basic research on human disease and its treatment, clinical applications to prevent disease or disability in non-productive cells and clinical applications to prevent disease or disability in productive cells.

The Associated Press contributed to this article. Additional reporting by Chris Ciaccia.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers

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DNA breakthrough: Scientists repair genes in human embryos to prevent inherited diseases - Fox News