Category Archives: DNA

by Elizabeth Tyree, The Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- Virginia officials are studying a DNA database expansion to include more people convicted of misdemeanors.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that supporters expect a larger database to help solve more crimes, but opponents say an expansion raises cost and privacy concerns. The Department of Forensic Science's website shows Virginia's database now holds more than 415,000 offender DNA profiles.

A bill that would have directed the Virginia State Crime Commission to study an expansion didn't pass in the General Assembly this year, but the commission's executive committee decided to do it anyway. Staff will also review safeguards and the cost of any additional collections.

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, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Hannah Graham was abducted in Charlottesville and killed by Jesse Matthew in 2014.

Another supporter of the DNA database expansion is Gil Harrington, mother of Morgan Harrington who was also killed by Matthew.

Officials believe that Matthew's DNA would have generated a "hit" in the data bank after a sexual assault in Fairfax back in 2005 and, if convicted, Matthew would most likely have been in a jail cell instead of abducting Hannah Graham.

ACLU of Virginia spokesman Bill Farrar says and his group opposes collections from people who have only committed a misdemeanor.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Virginia studies DNA database expansion - WSET

WASHINGTON, Pa. (AP) Alexandra Berumen thought she was European and Mexican. Wrong.

Serena Pierce thought she was Italian and German. Wrong.

Deitrick Stogner thought he was African-American. Partly wrong.

They and two other after-school program participants at LeMoyne Community Center - Kaprice Johnson and Daisean Lacks - submitted to DNA testing to determine their true ethnic makeup. They tested through ancestry.com and africanancestry.com in January, and four youngsters were surprised by the DNA results. One remains puzzled.

"No one is one thing. We're all a hodgepodge of many things," Joyce Ellis, executive director of the center, told a group of about 30 youngsters Thursday. They gathered in a room inside the East Washington center to watch a video related to the quintet's quest to find out - as Ellis put it - "Who do you think you are?"

Videographer Allen Bankz posed that question in January, after the five test subjects submitted saliva samples as DNA evidence. One by one, from behind his camera, he asked them what they believed their genealogies to be and recorded their responses. The interesting part would come later, when the results arrived and the kids would read them - for the first time - for a second filming.

The comparison of perception and reality promised to be interesting.

The results, though, came back later than Ellis expected. She was hoping to have them in time for the center's annual Black History Month celebration at the end of February, but the only ones to arrive by then were for Kaprice and for Ellis, who likewise wanted to be tested. The other results came in only recently.

Thursday afternoon, Alexandra and Serena were the only kids who did not know their true ancestries. Bankz was poised to film them a second time. The girls certainly weren't prepared for the results.

Alexandra, whose father owns Las Palmas, a Hispanic grocery in Washington, found out she is 57 percent American Indian and 36 percent European.

"Surprised?" Ellis asked, smiling.

"Mostly," said Alexandra, who looked mostly astonished.

Serena knew one great-grandmother was from Italy and that she had relatives from Germany and Ireland, but was semi-stunned to see she was 52 percent Irish, 15 percent Scandinavian and only 8 percent Italian.

Deitrick considers himself to be an African-American teen with a heavy concentration of relatives in the Chicago area. He also has a grandmother who is partly American Indian. But he is more European (52 percent) than African (43 percent), with a mix of many nations.

"I had no idea I was that much of a mix," he said.

Daisean has an interesting ancestral link. He is a descendant of Henrietta Lacks, who has gained renown as an unwitting contributor to amazing medical advances. Before she died of cervical cancer in 1951, at age 31, doctors removed two cervical samples without telling her. Henrietta's HeLa cells have been multiplied and used in a number of biomedical research procedures, and were instrumental in Jonas Salk's development of the polio vaccine.

In January, Daisean said his father is African-American, his mother is white and his family is mostly from Pittsburgh. He eventually discovered he is 33 percent Ivory Coast of Ghana, 21 percent Nigerian and 13 percent European. He was the only test subject who was not on hand for the DNA program Thursday.

Kaprice received her report more than two months ago and still considers it to be vague. She was told she has a gene that traces back about 15,000 years, and has a European background - without a breakdown of that background. Kaprice said a number of family members have hailed from around Carnegie and Pittsburgh, and that her mother is Irish with red hair.

Ellis also was surprised at her results, She said she is 36 percent European, with elements of France, Germany, England, Italy and Ireland - nations she, coincidentally, has visited. Ellis said she also is 24 percent West African descent.

"I'm zero percent native American Indian, which I thought might be the highest (percentage)," Ellis added.

Yet she wasn't totally surprised. When it comes to ancestry, the LeMoyne Center director realizes anything is possible.

"Skin tone is no matter," she told her young audience Thursday. "It's what the DNA says."

___

Information from: Observer-Reporter, http://www.observer-reporter.com

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DNA tests tell LeMoyne Center youth who they are - Timesonline.com

DNA asked Simon Cowell to turn to a page in a dictionary they'd provided page 1,414 if you're interested to find the word, but he had a bit of an issue.

Simon wasn't wearing his glasses and couldn't find the page, so Amanda Holden had to help him out, which was quite entertaining as a separate performance.

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Still, the word "probably" was indeed on the page and it was safe to say the act went down a treat with the judges, with Ant making fun of Simon's issue with the dictionary.

"Without glasses Ant, these are the smallest numbers I've ever in my life," he explained, before turning to the DNA chaps, gobsmacked.

"How the bloody hell did you do THAT? No seriously, I have no idea what just happened there, but that was honestly incredible."

David cheekily added: "What was truly magical, was that you got Simon Cowell to read a book for the first time in his life. That was incredible. I mean he didn't find it easy."

DNA battled it out in the first semi-final of the week alongside St Patrick's Junior Choir Drumgreenagh, PC Dan, Niels Harder, Kyle Tomlinson, Empire Dance Crew, Tyrone & Mina and Miss Treat Vibe.

Britain's Got Talent airs the show's live semi-finals all week on ITV.

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Britain's Got Talent's Simon Cowell almost ruins DNA's semi-final mind-reading act - DigitalSpy.com

New, license-free DNA ladders offer a much cheaper way to estimate the size of DNA fragments.

Researchers developed two plasmidsa circular form of DNAthat DNA scissors known as restriction enzymes can cut to create the DNA ladders. The ladders can be used to estimate the size of DNA fragments between about 50 and 5,000 base pairs in length.

DNA ladders, also known as DNA molecular weight markers, are among the most commonly used reagents in molecular biology research, says Song Tan, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State. They are used in any application that requires gel electrophoresisa technique that separates fragments of DNA by their size.

We would like to offer these plasmids to the research community as a means to produce high quality DNA molecular weight markers at a low cost.

The research team created two plasmids, pPSU1 and pPSU2, that together produce DNA ladders in increments of either 100 or 1,000 base pairs, depending on which restriction enzyme is used. Researchers can easily produce in their own laboratories enough of the two ladders for 1,000 uses for under $10. In contrast, commercially available DNA ladders cost between $250 and $500 for the same amount.

Additionally, unlike many currently available DNA ladders, the 100-base-pair ladders work appropriately on both agarose and polyacrylamide gels, two types commonly used in molecular biology.

We are also excited about the possibility that the pPSU plasmids may be used around the world to further research and enhance science education in classroom laboratories, says former undergraduate student Ryan C. Henrici. This technology produces DNA ladders at less than a penny per use, a fraction of the cost of using commercially available DNA ladders.

The pPSU1 and pPSU2 plasmids used to produce the Penn State DNA ladders will be available without licensing restrictions to nonprofit academic users through the Addgene and DNASU plasmid repositories.

The US National Institutes of Health National Institute of General Medical and the Penn State Eberly College of Science supported the work.A paper describing the research appears in Scientific Reports.

Source: Sam Sholtis forPenn State

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'Ladders' let scientists measure lots of DNA for $10 - Futurity: Research News

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Convicts who believe they were wrongfully convicted of murder or forcible rape may benefit from a $630,000 federal grant to test DNA.

But none of the money can be used in Idaho cases.

Why? Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden will not sign a federally required form certifying that the states DNA testing and collection practices comply with federal requirements. He told Boise State University that those requirements and Idaho law do not mesh, and that he has no jurisdiction over Idaho law enforcement agencies.

The grant was originally intended for the nonprofit Idaho Innocence Project, which sought it. The project, which focuses on Idaho convictions, is led by criminal justice and biology professor Greg Hampikian.

Since Wasden will not sign the letter, the U.S. Department of Justice agreed to award the grant to Hampikian and Boise State, not to the project. That allows grant money to be used in other states.

Hampikian said he plans to use the grant to work on cases with similar innocence projects in Montana, Georgia, Illinois and other states whose officials agree to sign the form.

NO STATE LAW, NO JURISDICTION

The Idaho Innocence Project was one of just seven organizations in 2016 to receive federal grants under the Justice for All Act enacted in 2004. The grant program, the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program, is named for the first death-row inmate in the U.S. exonerated by DNA evidence.

For the money to be used for DNA testing in any state, the states chief legal officer must sign a one-page form certifying that the state provides post-conviction DNA testing in murder and forcible rape cases and that it preserves biological evidence in those cases.

Wasden said limitations in Idaho law prevent it from meeting the requirements. For example, Idaho law requires preservation of DNA evidence only in sexual assault cases.

There is no similar Idaho statute that applies to testing and preservation of biological cases in the cases of murder, Wasden wrote in an Oct. 13, 2016, letter to Boise State explaining why he would not sign the form.

Furthermore, the form Wasden is asked to sign states, I am aware that a false statement in this certification may be the subject of criminal prosecution. But Wasden said he lacks jurisdiction over any police agencies in Idaho, including the Idaho State Police, and over the state crime lab. He said he cannot certify that all jurisdictions in Idaho take reasonable measures to collect and preserve biological evidence in murder and forcible rape cases.

Some states do have post-conviction DNA collection and preservation laws, and their attorneys general have jurisdiction over state crime labs. For example, in Montana, the attorney general heads the Department of Justice, which includes the state patrol and state crime lab.

Also, Montana has a post-conviction DNA preservation statute, said Toby Cook, an attorney with Montana Innocence Project.

Montana has already sent two DNA cases to Hampikian, one involving sex abuse and one involving the slaying of a bartender.

There was no physical evidence connecting our clients to any of the crimes in either case, Cook said. Instead, their convictions were based on shaky eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence.

40 IN THE U.S. EXONERATED

Kirk Bloodsworth was convicted and sentenced to death in 1985 in the rape and killing of a 9-year-old girl in Maryland.

In 1992, Bloodworth learned about new DNA testing. Prosecutors agreed to DNA testing of the victims clothing and other evidence. The DNA did not match Bloodsworths. He was exonerated and released from prison in 1993. After his release, he became an advocate for DNA testing and for abolishing the death penalty.

Idaho filmmaker Gregory Bayne released a documentary in 2015 about the case, Bloodsworth: An Innocent Man.

Forty men and women have been exonerated since the Bloodsworth program started in 2004.

IDAHO PROJECT STILL OPEN

The Idaho Innocence Project is funded by grants and donations. Even though the new grant cannot be used on Idaho cases, Hampikians team will keep working on them.

We are still open for business, Hampikian said. We are not turning away cases.

The project typically handles about a half-dozen Idaho cases at a time.

An earlier grant that can be used on Idaho cases runs out in September. Hampikian thinks additional help may be on the way.

The university is considering earmarking some discretionary funds for support of the Idaho Innocence Project for the next two years, he said.

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Information from: Idaho Statesman, http://www.idahostatesman.com

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Idaho university gets grant to test DNA in convictions - Washington ... - Washington Times

If we used DNA like we use magnetic tape to store data today, it's theoretically possible to store all of the information humans have ever recorded in a space roughlythe size of a double garage.

Sharing their goals with MIT Technology Reviewthis week, Microsoft Research computer architects say they want to start storing their data on strands of DNA within the next few years, and expect to have an operational storage system using DNA within a data centre by the end of the decade.

As antiquated as it seems, one of the best ways to store a lot of information in a small space right now is good, old-fashioned magnetic tape- not only is it cheap, it's rugged enough to hold information for up to 30 years, and can hold as much as a terabyte of data per roll.

But when we consider more data has been generated in just the past two years than in all of human history, it seems even magnetic tape might not cut it in the next few decades.

A biological material such as DNA might appear to be an odd choice for backing up large amounts of digital information, yet its ability to pack enormous amounts of data in a tiny space has been clear for more than 70 years.

Back in the 1940s, physicist Erwin "cat in a box" Schrdinger proposed a hereditary "code-script" could be packed into a non-repeating structure he described as an aperiodic crystal.

His suggestion famously inspired James Watson and Francis Crick to determine DNA's helical structure based on the research of Rosalind Franklin, sparking a revolution in understanding the mechanics of life.

While strings of nucleic acid have been used to cram information into living cells for billions of years, its role in IT data storage was demonstrated for the first time just five years ago, when a Harvard University geneticist encoded his book including jpg data for illustrations in just under 55,000 thousand strands of DNA.

Since then, the technology has progressed to the point where scientists have been able to record a whopping 215 petabytes (215 million gigabytes) of information on a single gram of DNA.

It might be compact, but recording data in the form of a nucleic acid sequence isn't fast. Or cheap.

Last year, Microsoft demonstrated its DNA data storage technology by encoding roughly 200 megabytes of data in the form of 100 literary classics in DNA's four bases in a single process.

According to MIT Review, this process would have cost around US$800,000 using materials on the open market, meaning it would need to be thousands of times cheaper to make it a competitive option.

It was also incredibly slow, with data stored at a rate of about 400 bytes per second. Microsoft says it needs to get to around 100 megabytes per second to be feasible.

It's not clear what efficiencies Microsoft may have found to lower the costs of the process and speed it up, but new technologies have been seeing the cost of gene sequencing drop in recent years, so its end of the decade target may be realistic.

Even then, it's likely it would only be used in select circumstances for customers willing to pay for a specialised storage solution like critical archives of medical or legal data rather than as a replacement for current large-scale storage methods.

But while we're speculating, a somewhat more sci-fi use for DNA-based data storage could one day involve living computers.

While Microsoft's DNA storage solution will be based on chips, there's every possibility that future versions of storage could involve enzymes or bacteria engineered to carry out computations.

Even outside of cells, DNA potentially offers novel ways to compute data, opening ways to rapidly crunch numbers for certain problems much as quantum computers do for other areas of mathematics.

For now, it's looking as if DNA has a solid role to play in solving a very real problem that will only get worse.

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Microsoft plans on storing its data on DNA in the next 3 years ... - ScienceAlert

So we all know DNA stores the code that makes us well possible, right? Those Gs, Ts, Cs and As might not seem like much, but theyre effectively the same as computer code. Plus, unlike computers, DNA works at the molecular scale meaning that you can pack a metric crapload of information into a really, really tiny space. With the rise of HD, constant streaming, and mega media consumption, storing staggering amounts of data in molecular form might just be a necessity.

Scientists have already been working on DNA-based computer storage for a few years now. Harvard geneticist George Church has been the technologys standard bearer since 2011, and its already made some big leaps. So far weve managed to translate hundreds of megabytes holding everything from a computer virus to an Amazon Gift Card into DNA. But thats small-time. In the next few years, Microsoft believes it can bring a DNA-based storage solution online in a commercial data center by 2020.

Thats a little ambitious, but its not without reason. On top of being tiny, DNA is easy for us to read and as long as life is around, well probably keep some technology that can read and interpret DNA on hand. Plus, while the molecule isnt super stable in the long-term (anything past 10,000 years gets rough really quick, unlike some other media which can last for up to a few million years), you can use the same enzymes that we need to reproduce and make literally millions of copies in a few hours. Sure, each will have some mistakes in the code, but with error correction and other techniques, you could have an easily reproducible archive that would be almost impossible to destroy conventionally.

Thats amazing for everyone from researchers and archivists to universities. Plus, these sorts of applications all but eliminate DNAs biggest problem when it comes to storing data its not easily searchable. Once the enzymes get going, you can do a lot quickly, but if were storing massive amounts of data in these strands, finding specific bits of code might be tough. When used as archival solution, however, theres little concern.

The next big hurdle will be sequencing. Reading the DNA is expensive even today and still costs well into the hundreds. For most applications, thats far too much for daily use. Still, Microsoft clearly thinks the idea is worth the investment. Itll be cool to see how this pans out. Maybe, one day, well all have personal archives with all the data weve ever used or needed, carried around on a small disk inside which sits self-replicating DNA. Maybe thats really what the Matrix is not some dumbass battery, but using humans as computer data dumping sacs. Itd make a helluva lot more sense, at least.

In all seriousness, the amount of data our society is producing has increased and is continuing to increase exponentially. We wont have long at all before this becomes a critical problem, and DNA is one very convenient, albeit slow and expensive, solution.

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DNA Could Power the Hard Drives of the Future - Geek

DNA testing in 431 cases of collected but previously untested biological evidence recovered in Virginia rape cases has resulted in 44 DNA database hits.

Hits are when a DNA profile matches a known profile held in the states DNA databaseprimarily the profiles of convicted felonsor matches the DNA profile of an unknown person recovered from another crime.

Officials did not identify the 44 cases Wednesday in a presentation to the Virginia Forensic Science Board. The results are being turned over to law enforcement for possible investigation, said Brad Jenkins, biology manager for the Virginia Department of Forensic Science. It is not known if any crimes have been solved as a result, he said.

Jenkins said Wednesday that the testing has led to roughly 100 profile matches so far, which then resulted in the 44 hits. The majority of those have been to in-state offenders, he said. Officials said nine were for out-of-state offenders. We have not had any case-to-case hits, he said.

The testing is being done under grants sought by DFS and Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring, who said last year that the effort would build a stronger DNA database, possibly link crimes together, put away dangerous offenders and help victims.

After the meeting Wednesday, Jenkins said he did not believe all the hits have necessarily reached police. Some are still in the report-writing phase so law enforcement may not know about all of them yet, he said.

Jenkins and Linda Jackson, the departments director, briefed the board Wednesday on developments in the continuing project.In 2015 a statewide inventory of law enforcement agencies by the DFS found that for crimes occurring from 1985 to June 30, 2014, there were nearly 3,000 untested PERKsphysical evidence recovery kitsin their possession that might hold biological evidence that could reveal a suspects DNA profile.

A $1.4 million grant is funding the testing of those kitscollected prior to July 1, 2014from which the 44 hits resulted.

An additional roughly 1,200 untested kits from July 1, 2014 until June 30, 2016when state law required all kits to be submitted for testingwill be tested under another grant, officials said. After June 30, 2016, there should be no further untested kits in light of a recent state law requiring law enforcement to submit the kits to DFS for testing with limited exceptions.

The most common reason cited by law enforcement agencies for not performing DNA testing on evidence was that it was not relevant to the investigation or needed for prosecutionfor example where consent was the suspects defense.

Another often-cited reason was that the victim decided not to assist in the investigation or pursue prosecution.

Jackson said the testing started with the backlogged rape kits from the Fairfax County and Virginia Beach police, the jurisdictions with the most kits to be tested.

Frank Green writes for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

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44 'hits' found in DNA testing of old, backlogged Virginia rape ... - The Daily Progress

May 24, 2017 11:52 PM By Kurtis Ming

SAN RAMON (CBS13) With 11-year-old quadruplets, its chaos in the Jones household.

Gabe plays guitar, Zeb is the tech guy, Katie holds her own as the only girl, and Hugh is the athlete.

Theyre very different, mom Amy said. Very individualistic. They all have different likes dislikes, dress differently, different friends.

Gabe and Zeb are identical twins. Katie and Hugh are fraternal twins.

Mom was surprised to learn she was 35percent from Ireland when she did her own Ancestry DNA test through ancestry.com.

That was a total shock. I was always told we were Dutch or British, she said.

Although, shes not so sure these tests are accurate.

It got us wondering what would happen if we tested her quadruplets?

We collected samples from each of the kids and sent them to AncestryDNA and 23andMe. To shake things up a bit, we also changed each of their last names to sound ethnic; Gabe Hernandez, Hugh McDonald, Katie Nguyen and Zeb Patel. We mailed in our samples separately so they wouldnt all arrive together.

Close to two months later, we have our results.

23andMe gives you the option of choosing the percentage of confidence. We chose 90 percent, which should give us the most accurate results, while the 50 percent and 70 percent show more of a probable breakdown of heritage based on the DNA databases.

Despite giving identical twins Gabe and Zeb very different last names, their results show identical heritage. Although fraternal twins Katie and Hugh show different results. In fact, Katie is nearly twice as British and Irish as the identical twins.

DNA expert Ruth Ballard who teaches at Sacramento State University says thats to be expected. She says identical twins should have identical results, but fraternal twins may have inherited different percentages of heritage from each parent.

Sometimes you get more of this. Sometimes you get more of that, Ballard said. Its an estimate, but it gives you a pretty darn good idea where you come from.

After eight weeks, in what AncestryDNA calls a 6-to-8-week long process, we only had three of the four results back.

Its difficult to compare AncestryDNA to 23andMe, because the companies use different heritage breakdowns. For example, AncestryDNA breaks down British and Irish separately, and 23andMe clumps them together.

Although we were very surprised to see through the DNA alone, AncestryDNA linked the siblings to one another as immediate family. The site also identified Amy as their mother from her previous test.

That actually surprised me a little bit with the change of their last name, mom Amy said.

Both sites say they protect your DNA. They allow you to pick your privacy settings and delete your results. However, Dr. Ballard says you dont want your DNA to get into the wrong hands. She says your DNA could tell an insurance company or employers the diseases youre prone to, which she worries could keep someone from getting insurance or a job promotion. She suggests anyone with these concerns to avoid using these services, or to change their last name, much like we did with the quads.

Amys not so sure she trusts the accuracy of the ethnic percentages but says she is fascinated by the results.

You never know where you come from until you start looking.

Eight-time Emmy Award winner Kurtis MingisCBS13's consumer investigative reporter.Since joining CBS13 in 2003, he's held the position of general assignment reporter and weekend anchor, before starting the "Call Kurtis" consumer advocacy program,...

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DNA Heritage Companies Put To The Test With Quadruplets CBS ... - CBS Sacramento

BBC News

Ancestry.com denies exploiting users' DNA - BBC News BBC News A leading genealogy service, Ancestry.com, has denied exploiting users' DNA following criticism of its terms and conditions. The US company's DNA testing ... and more »

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Ancestry.com denies exploiting users' DNA - BBC News - BBC News