Category Archives: DNA

June 2, 2017 by Hayley Dunning Proteins interacting with the DNA strand. Credit: Imperial College London

Scientists have watched a cell's genetic machinery in the first stages of 'reading' genes, giving a potential way to stop the process in bacteria.

By reading certain genes - a process known as transcription - cells can produce and regulate proteins, which perform almost all the functions necessary for life.

In the new study, researchers used an extremely powerful technique called cryo-electron microscopy to physically see how this process happens in detail, for the first time. The insights could help researchers target this stage of transcription in bacteria with new antibiotics.

DNA is composed of two strands, which are normally linked together in a twisted helical structure. The strands are pulled apart by several specialist molecules that 'melt' it preventing the strands from coming back together as they normally try to do. This step in transcription usually happens very quickly, with a lot of changes occurring over a short time span, meaning it has been impossible to track in detail before.

In the study published today in Molecular Cell, the research team led by scientists at Imperial College London viewed the DNA opening in action.

Since transcription of DNA is so fundamental to the functioning of a cell, the team believe that knowing how it operates in bacteria could provide avenues for blocking the process, potentially shutting down the actions of harmful infections.

New ways to stop bacteria

Lead researcher Professor Xiaodong Zhang, from the Department of medicine at Imperial, said: "Bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, so our insights into the first stage of transcription provide new ways of thinking about stopping bacteria.

"Understanding how the fundamental machinery works hopefully gives us additional tools for developing new kinds of antibiotics. As we investigate more steps in the process of transcription, we may find more stages during which we can intervene and attack harmful bacteria."

The process of transcription occurs in all living things and plays a crucial role in many cellular processes, including those related to diseases like cancer. The new insights might therefore apply across a whole range of organisms and disease processes.

Activating transcription

In particular, the team studied the action of a protein called sigma54, which controls a wide range of bacterial defences, holding them back until they need to be used. If drugs could be designed to interfere with this step, and preserve sigma54's power to hold back defences, they could make bacteria more vulnerable to attack.

Sigma54 unleashes the bacterial defences after being activated by a protein that changes sigma54's shape. The 'activator' protein, together with sigma54, then forms a protein wedge that drives the two DNA strands apart. The bacterial defence genes are then read and kicked into action.

The researchers were able to watch this transcription process in detail, giving them new insights into how they might use sigma54 to disable the bacteria's defences.

Study co-author Professor Martin Buck, from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial, said: "DNA contains genetic information, which is converted to proteins that carry out all cell functions. Transcription is the first stage in accessing that information.

"It underpins all environmental adaptation in organisms it's how cells deal with their changing environments or even become abnormal, such as in cancer cells. Our work could therefore have implications across a range of biological processes."

Explore further: Discovery of trigger for bugs' defenses could lead to new antibiotics

More information: Robert Glyde et al. Structures of RNA Polymerase Closed and Intermediate Complexes Reveal Mechanisms of DNA Opening and Transcription Initiation, Molecular Cell (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2017.05.010

It is unusual enough to see one of nature's biggest, rarestnot to mention smelliestflowers bloom. But it is extraordinary to see two bloom at once.

As the United Nations Oceans Conference convenes in New York, a new paper calls on marine scientists to focus on social issues such as human rights violations in the seafood industry.

Scientists are now confident animal life on solid ground started with a few short bursts of marine creatures making the leap from the oceans.

Scientists have watched a cell's genetic machinery in the first stages of 'reading' genes, giving a potential way to stop the process in bacteria.

Passing skills down through the generations, previously thought to be unique to humanity, has been discovered in chimpanzees.

Once we start coloring our hair, we may be surprised to learn that we begin to have a problem in common with plant biologists: finding the right dye for our roots. In the case of the biologists, just the right chemical is ...

Adjust slider to filter visible comments by rank

Display comments: newest first

Fact: The production and reproduction of life depends on the most complex, dense and miniaturized codes and coded information known to man.

Fact: the whole scientific community cannot understand the huge ammounts of DNA coded information.

Fact: codes and coded information are imaterial meanings ascribed to sequences of symbols (vg. A, T, G, C) and not matter or energy.

Fact: There is no natural law or physical process able to create meaningful codes and coded information.

Fact: There is no viable naturalistic explanation for the origin of life.

Fact: the molecular machines that transcribe, read and execute DNA coded information are thenselves coded in DNA.

Fact: random mutations are cumulative and degerative creating "noise", degrading information and causing disease, cancer, suffering and death.

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

Read the original post:
First-ever look at DNA opening reveals initial stage of reading the ... - Phys.Org

A 42-year-old man was ordered held on $750,000 bail Thursday after DNA testing showed he was the father of a young relative's child, officials said.

Frank Acevedo, of the West Lawn neighborhood, began touching the girl sexually not long after she turned 8, prosecutors said at a bond hearing Thursday.

As the girl grew older, the sexual assaults escalated, prosecutors said. The girl became pregnant at 15, giving birth in 2013. Months after giving birth she told another relative that Acevedo was the father, prosecutors said.

A search warrant was issued against him and required Acevedo to submit to a DNA swab in August 2016. The victim and her childalso were tested. Lab results dated in April came back with a 99.999 percent possibility of Acevedo being the father, prosecutors said.

Acevedo was arrested May 30, and charged with predatory criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal criminal sexual assault. In his hearing Thursday, he wasordered held in lieu of $750,000 bail.

Read more from the original source:
Man charged after DNA shows he fathered young relative's child: Prosecutors - Chicago Tribune

Moores Law will run out soon. This is the idea that computer processing power doubles every 18 months. Some scientists say they can even see our progress beginning to slow. The microchip can only get so small. At a certain point, the silicon will be too small and thin for the heat itll endure and itll fry itself. Thats troubling. A lack of progress on this front could bring the swift velocity at which technology is progressing to a screeching halt.

So what will replace the microchip? How about DNA? Researchers have already saved a movie, a computer virus, an Amazon gift card, and more, on the building blocks of life. Currently, China has the worlds fastest supercomputer, known as the 93 petaflop Sunway TaihuLight. It can make 93,000 trillion calculations per second. The TaihuLight has 64 kilobytes of memory (64,000 bytes). Meanwhile, the human brain, arguably the most advanced computer ever, is estimated at one terabyte (1 trillion bytes) of memory.

The TaihuLight contains 41,000 chips, each with 260 processor cores, for a total of 10.65 million cores. The design isnt practical for mass market use. What about DNA, how does it measure up? In 2012, researchers at Harvards Wyss Institute stuck 700 terabytes of data into one single gram (0.03 oz.) of DNA.

A Chinese supercomputer. Wikipedia Commons.

Scientists estimate that DNA could hold 455 exabytes of data in all. An exabyte equals a quintillion bytes or 1 billion gigabytes. Since DNA is so densely packed, you could fit all of the worlds information on four grams (0.14 oz.) of DNA, a mere teaspoon full.

DNA allows nature to jam-pack a lot of information into a tiny space. Its fortunate that the nucleotide bases that make up DNA can easily be converted into binary code. Here, A (adenine) and C (cytosine) represent 0, and G (guanine) and T (thymine) represent 1.

Just four nucleotides are mere atoms wide. So you get the sense of how much you can pack in at this scale. We should be able to get one zettabyte, or a trillion gigabytes of storage, out of DNA in all, a mind-boggling figure.

If fossils have proven anything its that, DNA is incredibly durable, lasting millennia. Kept at subzero temperatures, it could last millions of years. Say we wipe out the human race and an intelligent extraterrestrial race came along at some point in the future. They might be able to decipher all of the information left behind by our species, in a package theyd likely recognize.

If kept at subzero temperatures, data saved on DNA could last millions of years. Getty Images.

So how does DNA computing work? Researchers using advanced algorithms translate data from computer language into DNA. Then to read it, the computer sequences the DNA.

Last year, Swiss researchers found a way to preserve DNA in silicon, much like a fossil, in order to protect it. While scientists at the University of Manchester, led by Prof. Ross D. King, created self-replicating DNA computers which grow as they go, to allow for tons more processing power, while using far less electricity. Scientists can easily build redundancies into the system too, making it more stable.

Now, Microsoft Research has announced that it will usher in an operational DNA-based computer by 2020. The plan is, according to partner architect Doug Carmean, a proto-commercial system in three years storing some amount of data on DNA in one of our data centers, for at least a boutique application. So you may be storing your information in a DNA-based cloud in the beginning of the next decade.

The first model is expected to be the size of one of a 1970s Xerox machine. Carmean told MIT Technology Review, We hope to get it branded as Your Storage with DNA. At first, the system is expected to only store really important information, such as medical records or police body-cam videos. Microsoft set a record last July, when it saved 200 megabytes of data directly onto DNA, a record.

1970s Xerox Machine. Getty Images.

One problem the company will need to overcome is the speed at which the system processes data. In this last experiment, the rate of converting data into DNA was 400 bytes per second. To make it commercially viable, itll need to reach 100 bytes per second.

Another obstacle, its incredibly expensive. Microsofts experiment used 13,448,372 individual pieces of DNA, which on the open market would cost $800,000. But getting it isnt enough. Encoding just one megabyte of data costs another $12,500.

Thats to say nothing of retrieving information. Sequencing costs about the same as encoding. One thing is, the price has dropped dramatically in recent years, and is likely to continue. But its still not enough to make the process practical. Microsoft hasnt announced any progress on the price front, but it may have something up its sleeve.

Though DNA-based computers are on the horizon, experts agree that the ultimate development would be quantum computing. This system would operate by holding quantum particles in superposition, or in two states at once, allowing for them to represent both 0 and 1 simultaneously. This would increase the calculation speed of certain operations exponentially.

The drawback is one cannot save anything on a quantum computer, due to whats known as the no cloning theorem. A DNA-quantum hybrid may be the answer.

To learn more about DNA-based computers, click here:

Read more:
Microsoft Plans to Have a DNA-Based Computer by 2020 - Big Think

New York Daily News

Queens jogger's dad lauds LAPD for using controversial DNA test New York Daily News The father of slain Queens jogger Karina Vetrano is praising Los Angeles cops for using a controversial familial DNA analysis to arrest a man for the rape and murder of two young women. It's excellent news, Phil Vetrano told the Daily News Wednesday, ... DNA Leads to Arrest Six Years After 2 Women Were Raped, Killed and Dumped on FreewaysInside Edition How a rare DNA match cracked open a cold case of two young women dumped on LA freewaysLos Angeles Times Police: Family Member's DNA Led To Man Suspected In KillingsCBS Los Angeles New York's PIX11 / WPIX-TV -FOX 11 Los Angeles -Oxygen (blog) -Los Angeles Times all 68 news articles »

Link:
Queens jogger's dad lauds LAPD for using controversial DNA test - New York Daily News

The Ancient Egyptians were famously fantastic at preserving their dead. But while their mummification methods helped protect soft tissues like skin from the ravages of time, the dry, hot climes that kept the deceased so pristine didn't do their genetic material any favors. Heat might help desiccate a corpse before rot sets in, but it also speeds up the degradation of DNA. So while scientists have been able to stare into the faces of countless Ancient Egyptians, they've had a lot of trouble deciphering any of the secrets of their genetic legacyuntil now.

Researchers publishing in Nature Communications believe they've conducted the first comprehensive genetic study on Egyptian mummies to avoid contamination. Their results suggest that modern-day Egyptians don't have much in common, genetically, with those entombed in their homeland.

Archeologists looked at 151 mummified remains from all walks of life, from lavish priestly burials to simple interments, all found at the Abusir el-Maleq archaeological site some 70 miles south of Cairo. In particular, the researchers zeroed in on mitochondrial DNA of these mummies. The DNA we usually talk about lives in the nucleus of each of our cells, and it comes from each of our parents. Mitochondrial DNA lives in the mitochondria, often called the powerhouse of the cell, and we only get it from our mothers. While it can't tell your entire genetic story, mitochondrial DNA is great for showing genetic changes over timehow different related lineages moved and met around the globe throughout the ages. In this case, they were able to get a clear read on mitochondrial DNA from 90 mummies, while only 3 mummies yielded reliable nuclear DNA sequences.

According to their findings, Egyptian demographics didn't change very much during the time range in which the various mummies livedbetween 1400 BC and 400 AD.

"There was no detectable change for those 1,800 years of Egyptian history," lead study author Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany told Reuters. "The big change happened between then and now."

Back then, it seems that the mummified Egyptians were most closely related to folks from the Levant, a region of the Eastern Mediterranean including modern-day Turkey, Israel, and Palestine. Today, Egyptians have more sub-Saharan African DNAsome eight percent more of their ancestry comes from this region.

The homogeny throughout the mummies studied is a bit surprising, as Egypt served as quite a cultural crossroads during this time. The results suggest that foreign invaders and bustling trade routes did little to rock the genetic continuity of Ancient Egyptiansat least in Abusir el-Meleq. Other researchersand the study authors themselvespoint out that the results can't be applied wholesale to the entire Ancient Egyptian culture. It's possible that more genetic mixing, including the addition of more sub-Saharan African genes, might have occurred on other shores of the Nile. If sub-Saharan genes did flood in starting just 1,500 years ago, it's likely that the growing slave trade in the area had something to do with it. Hopefully, future studies will help confirm the findings on these fragile remnants of DNAand uncover more secrets wrapped up on other mummies across the region.

This is the first glimpse of the genetic history of Egypt, Krause told Nature. But its really just the start.

Read more:
Scientists try to unwrap the secrets of Egyptian mummy DNA - Popular Science

Louise Bernard has been named the first museum director for the Obama Presidential Center. View Full Caption

Obama Foundation, LinkedIn

HYDE PARK The Obama Foundation has picked Louise Bernard, the former director of exhibitions at the New York Public Library, to be the Obama Presidential Centers first museum director.

Bernard will be in charge of developing the museum into a place that tells the story of Barack Obamas life and presidency and also inspires civic engagement.

RELATED: OBAMA IS GOING DIGITAL FOR HIS PRESIDENTIAL CENTER

David Simas, CEO of the Obama Foundation, said the museum will need to inspire people to take on the worlds biggest challenges.

We are excited for Louise to join our team and help us develop a museum that is active and engaging, Simas said in an announcement Wednesday. Louises impeccable credentials and passion for her work will make her a valuable member of the Obama Foundation team.

Bernard will join some former colleagues on the project. She previously worked at Ralph Appelbaum Associates on the firms exhibition designs for the Smithsonians National Museum of African-American History and Culture. Appelbaum has been tapped by the Obama Foundation to also design the exhibitions for the presidential center in Jackson Park.

Im honored to work alongside such a talented team at the Obama Foundationand to have the opportunity to help guide and shape a museum that is a truly innovative social and cultural institution, Bernard said.

I look forward in bringing president and Mrs. Obamas remarkable story to the broadest possible audienceand to highlighting the crucial role of civic engagement in a way that is meaningful and inspiring to local South Side residentsand to people across the country and around the world, she said

Bernard is also a scholarly adviser to the International African American Museum in Charleston, S.C.

Read the rest here:
Obama Foundation Names Director For Presidential Center In Jackson Park - DNAinfo

"Now I sort of understand why I might need to go to the toilet a bit more or why I'm a little bit more gassier than a normal person when I drink milk," he says.

"It hasn't meant I've stopped dairy, but I've changed the way I consume it."

Habana, the Springboks' all-time leading try scorer, was also surprised to find he has greater potential for increasing the endurance side of his training than past experience indicated.

"I was like, anything more than 100 meters is not my game training program. Maybe I could've responded better in terms of mentally pushing myself a bit harder. My body would've benefited a little bit more from that."

Along with power/endurance response -- which indicates what type of training intensity suits you best -- the DNAFit fitness test also provides guidelines for V02 max aerobic potential, post-exercise recovery, recovery nutrition and injury risk.

Habana teamed up with the company last year, and aims to build a DNA database of 1,000 professional rugby players by 2019.

However, he believes the test results can be just as beneficial for non-athletes as those at the elite level.

"It was very exciting to be part of a pioneering process where we're collecting as much data as possible, to be able to lay bases, to be able to find out more about the science," Habana says.

"Hopefully it'll have a big impact in making a difference in the sport, whether it be 1% for those at the elite level or 50-60% for those who are starting out in their careers and wanting to get to know their bodies better.

"What we'd like is for people to not only compare themselves to the likes of myself and hopefully a lot of other leading players in world rugby, but also to the normal person in the streets."

Like the other tests, it requires a simple saliva swab, which you send back to the lab. Then you receive a detailed report breaking down the results and making recommendations.

Kits cost from 99-249 ($120-$310).

This is what makes your body unique 01:26

DNAFit says its Peak Performance Algorithm is based on "validated genetic variant scoring methods."

"There are genome-wide association studies," the company's special projects manager Sebastian Corpe told CNN.

"They look at elite performers in particular sports -- for example elite power athletes, elite sprinters -- and they look for gene variations that appear in them more than the average population.

"Everything about who we are is the result of an interaction between how we were born and the things that we do. Genetics just shines a light on the static part of that equation, your DNA, so you can tailor your nutrition and training strategies to what will work for you."

Corpe says DNAFit has a rugby training plan specific to players' positions on the field -- front-five forwards, back-row forwards, inside backs and outside backs.

However, the company started out testing athletes such as sprinter Craig Pickering, and employs his fellow British Olympian Tom Lancashire among its consultants.

"We want to roll out those sorts of improvements into as many sports as possible to drive research not just in sports science but also in exercise genomics," he says.

Bryan Habana: The excitement of sevens 01:35

Now aged 33, he admits he is reaching the twilight of his career -- though he has prolonged it for at least another season after signing a contract extension with French club Toulon, where he has played since 2013.

He hopes the knowledge he has gained from DNA testing will help him manage his body, in an era where players are getting bigger, faster and stronger.

"Now I might be a little bit smarter in terms of how I train, in terms of my recovery process," Habana says. "I'm not going to change my whole training regime. Adding those elements that could help me train better and smarter could definitely help me over the next year or so of rugby that I have left.

"Getting that knowledge is so more useful now in terms of how I manage my career going forward and making sure that I train smarter to be able to stay at that highest level for as long as possible."

Habana, who is friends with DNAFit's founder, South African entrepreneur Avi Lasarow, says he hopes the company's approach can help take rugby to another level.

"Rugby has given me a huge amount over my career. In a small way, this is me helping to give something back, making a difference and pioneering a way where the next generation can be better, and the next generation after them can keep continually improving," he says.

"Playing a 1-2% part in making the sport grow to levels that it's never seen, I'd really love to do that. It's exciting, it's truly unique and I can't wait for it to start happening."

CNN's World Rugby show co-host Christina Macfarlane had her DNA tested, and compared her results with Habana's.

Both have the genetic ability to quickly recover between training sessions, meaning they can potentially do hard workouts within 24 hours of the previous one.

They have a low/normal risk of soft-tissue injury -- based on genetic markers for resilience of ligaments, tendons and joints.

However, Macfarlane had a greater response to power training -- a 60/40 split -- meaning she gets more benefit from heavier weights and high intensity levels than volume-based endurance exercise, though both should be included in any program.

On the diet side, Macfarlane has a medium-high sensitivity to carbohydrates, meaning she is more efficient at absorbing calories from such food sources. If weight management was a problem, this would be a key area to address. Her fat sensitivity is low, so this may be a better source of calories.

Her antioxidant and omega-3 requirements are normal, but she needs to increase her vitamin D and calcium intake for bone health.

She is a fast metabolizer of alcohol, meaning it leaves the blood quicker, and can get an increased performance boost from a small caffeine intake prior to training -- but has a gene which means elevated consumption can deplete bone mineral density.

See the article here:
Bryan Habana: Rugby star's surprise DNA discovery - CNN

Creativity

Gru From 'Despicable Me' Explores His DNA in Ad for 23AndMe Creativity The spot, by agency Haymaker, features Gru, voiced by Steve Carell, finding his DNA relatives through 23andMe's DNA Relatives Tool, where his results reflect the existence of his long-lost twin brother, Dru (who features in the movie, opening June 30).

See the original post here:
Gru From 'Despicable Me' Explores His DNA in Ad for 23AndMe - Creativity

Scientists successfully sequenced DNA from mummies from the site of Abusir el-Meleq, one of which was buried in this sarcophagus.

bpk/Aegyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, SMB/Sandra Steiss

By Lizzie WadeMay. 30, 2017 , 11:00 AM

Ancient Egyptian mummies preserve many details of the deceased: facial features, signs of illness, even tattoos. But not, it seemed, DNA. After trying repeatedly to extract it, may scientists were convinced that the hot desert climate and, perhaps, the chemicals used in mummification destroyed any genetic material long ago. Now, a team of ancient DNA specialists has successfully sequenced genomes from 90 ancient Egyptian mummies. The game-changing results give scientists their first insight into the genetics of ordinary ancient Egyptianswhich changed surprisingly little through centuries of conquests.

The sequencing success, reported this week in Nature Communications, finally proves to everyone that theres DNA preserved in ancient Egyptian mummies, says Albert Zink, a biological anthropologist at the Institute for Mummy Studies in Bolzano, Italy. He participated in a 2010 study that identified DNA sequences from 16 ancient Egyptian royal mummies, including Tutankhamun. But that study used polymerase chain reaction, a method that efficiently finds and extracts targeted DNA fragments but cannot always reliably distinguish between ancient DNA and modern contamination.

The new study, led by Johannes Krause, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, used next-generation sequencing methods to read stretches of any DNA present in a sample and fish outthose that resembled human DNA. The complete reads allowed the team to spot tell-tale damage patterns associated only with ancient DNA. That makes the new analysis much more reliable, says Hannes Schroeder, an ancient DNA researcher at the University of Copenhagen. It succeeds where previous studies on Egyptian mummies have failed or fallen short.

Krause, who has studied the DNA of Neandertals, Denisovans, and prehistoric migrants to Europe, recently gravitated toward ancient Egyptian mummies because of the empires tumultuous political history. At various points, it was conquered by Assyrians from the Near East, Nubians from farther south along the Nile, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, among others. Our question was, did those foreign conquests have a genetic impact? Krause says.

Krause turned to a collection of 151 mummy heads from the ancient settlement of Abusir el-Meleq, about 100 kilometers south of Cairo along the Nile. The settlement was devoted to Osiris, the god of the dead, making it a popular burial spot for many centuries. The heads were excavated (and removed from their bodies) in the early 20th century and now reside in two collections in Germany, at the University of Tbingen and Berlins Museum of Prehistory and Early History. Radiocarbon dating shows that the mummies span 1300 years of ancient Egyptian history, during many of the foreign conquests and then Egypts incorporation into first the Greek and then the Roman empires.

Whereasthe mummies soft tissue contained almost no DNA, the bones and teeth were chock full of genetic material. Ninety of the mummies yielded DNA once housed in mitochondria, the power plants of cells. Mitochondria carry only a few genes, but they are so plentiful that its often easier to find their DNA than the single full human genome in a cells nucleus. Still, because mitochondrial DNA is passed down from mother to child, it leaves out the story of the fathers DNA. The nuclear genome, which contains DNA from both parents, is far more informative. Unfortunately, Krause says, only a few of the mummies nuclear genomes were well preserved, and even fewer passed his strict contamination tests. His team ended up with nuclear genome samples from only three mummies, each from a different time period.

Krauses team compared the mummies mitochondrial and nuclear DNA to ancient and modern populations in the Near East and Africa. They discovered that ancient Egyptians closely resembled ancient and modern Near Eastern populations, especially those in the Levant. Whats more, the genetics of the mummies remained remarkably consistent even as different powers conquered the empire. Its possible that the mitochondrial genomes simply dont record the genetic contributions of foreign fathers, says Yehia Gad, a molecular geneticist at the National Research Centre in Cairo and a founder of the Egyptian Museums ancient DNA lab who worked with Zink on past mummy studies. But the three mummies with nuclear genome data also show striking genetic continuity, Krause points out.

Later, however, something did alter the genomes of Egyptians. Although the mummies contain almost no DNA from sub-Saharan Africa, some 15% to 20%of modern Egyptians mitochondrial DNA reflects sub-Saharan ancestry. Its really unexpected that we see this very late shift, Krause says. He suspects increased trade along the Nileincluding the slave tradeor the spread of Islam in the Middle Ages may have intensified contact between Northern and sub-Saharan Africa.

Geneticist Iosif Lazaridis of Harvard Medical School in Boston, who studies how and when ancient populations mixed, calls the new results a big accomplishment. But he wonders how representative Abusir el-Meleq is of ancient Egypt as a whole. Egypt is a big place, he says. Other regions may have experienced its conquests in different ways, some perhaps with more genetic mixing. But Lazaridis hopes for more revelations to come. Now thatits been proven that its possible to sample from mummieswell, there are literally thousands of mummies.

See the rest here:
Scientists thought ancient Egyptian mummies didn't have any DNA left. They were wrong - Science Magazine

RICHMOND The Virginia State Crime Commission will consider expanding the state DNA database of convicted people by including more misdemeanors.

While a larger database of DNA profiles from offenders would help solve more crimes, further expansion of qualifying crimes raises cost and privacy concerns and is opposed by the ACLU of Virginia and others.

The commission staff will also review the adequacy of current safeguards against the unauthorized collection, retention or dissemination of DNA information collected by authorities and the money required for any additional collecting.

A bill that would have directed the crime commission to study expanding DNA collection did not pass in the General Assembly this year, but the commissions executive committee decided it wanted to do it anyway.

State Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle, the chairman of the commission, said, Im looking forward to the information our staff assembles as they review what has happened in Virginia and other states.

Among those in favor of the study are John and Susan Graham, parents of University of Virginia student Hannah Graham, who believe she would not have been murdered had her killers DNA been taken following a misdemeanor trespassing conviction in 2010.

Hannah Graham was abducted in Charlottesville and slain by Jesse Matthew Jr. in 2014. His DNA from the trespassing conviction would have generated a hit in 2010 linking Matthew to a 2005 sexual assault in Fairfax, and he would have presumably been in prison in 2014 instead of killing Graham.

As part ofa 2016 plea deal, Matthewpleaded guilty to killing Graham and 20-year-old Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington of Roanoke County, who was abducted in October 2009 in Charlottesville.

The Grahams and expansion proponents like Albemarle County Sheriff J.E. Chip Harding and Commonwealths Attorney Robert Tracci say they hope the commission will look at which class one misdemeanor convictions in Virginia those punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of $2,500 make the most sense for requiring samples.

According to the National Council of State Legislatures, two states, New York and Wisconsin, currently collect DNA samples from people convicted of all felonies and misdemeanors; two states collect for only some felonies and some misdemeanors; while 42 states, including Virginia, collect for all felonies and some misdemeanors.

The Virginia Department of Forensic Sciences website shows Virginias database, also called a databank, now holds more than 415,000 offender DNA profiles. DNA profiles recovered from crime scenes are compared looking for matches, or hits. The DNA profiles can also be compared to find matches between crimes and exonerate the innocent.

Virginia was the first state with its own database and had its first hit in 1993 when the assailant was identified in the vicious beating, rape and robbery of a 63-year-old Dale City woman. Virginias database profiles have now solved, or assisted in solving, more 10,000 crimes including 750 murders and more than 1,500 sexual assaults.

In Virginia most recently, nine misdemeanors were added in 2015. DNA is now currently collected from adults convicted of 14 primarily sex-related misdemeanors, but also for such misdemeanors as resisting arrest, stalking and the unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.

(DNA samples are also required in Virginia from: adults convicted of felonies and adults arrested for any violent felony and certain burglary crimes; juveniles, 14 or older at the time of the offense and convicted or adjudicated delinquent of any crime that would be a felony if committed by an adult; people registered with the Virginia Sex Offender and Crimes Against Minors Registry; and anyone ordered to provide a sample by a circuit court as part of a plea agreement. Profiles collected at the time of arrest are removed from the database if there is no conviction.)

Traci said he and Harding provided a host of topics they hope the commission staff will look at, among them the experience of New York and Wisconsin since those states expanded collection to include all misdemeanors and identify the serious misdemeanors that returned the most hits to unsolved crimes as a result of their expansions.

He also said they would like to see a review of current privacy protections to enhance transparency and confidence in the integrity of safekeeping and prevention of unauthorized dissemination of the collected DNA. That would also include possible stiffer penalties for the unlawful retention or dissemination of information.

Kristen Howard, executive director of the commission, indicated those areas will be examined. The commission will hear a report on the proposal at its Nov. 14 meeting.

Bill Farrar, a spokesman for the ACLU of Virginia, said, We would object to any expansion to the list of offenses for which DNA collection would be made mandatory.

Already, in our estimation, the list has grown beyond whats really appropriate. We dont think that this most personal and private of information should be collected from people who have only committed a misdemeanor, for example, Farrar said.

Read more:
Va. crime commission to study expansion of DNA databank to include more people convicted of misdemeanors - Roanoke Times