Category Archives: DNA

Britain's Newcastle University says its scientists have received a license to create babies using DNA from three people to prevent women from passing on potentially fatal genetic diseases to their children the first time such approval has been granted.

The license was granted Thursday by the country's fertility regulator, according to the university.

In December, British officials approved the "cautious use" of the techniques, which aim to fix problems linked to mitochondria, the energy-producing structures outside a cell's nucleus. Faulty mitochondria can result in conditions including muscular dystrophy and major organ failure.

"Mitochondria diseases can be devastating for families affected and this is a momentous day for patients," said Doug Turnbull, director of the research at Newcastle University. The university has said it is aiming to treat up to 25 patients a year.

To help keep women with mitochondria problems from passing them on to their children, scientists remove the nucleus DNA from the egg of a prospective mother and insert it into a donor egg from which the donor DNA has been removed. This can happen before or after fertilization. The resulting embryo ends up with nucleus DNA from its parents but mitochondrial DNA from a donor. The DNA from the donor amounts to less than 1 percent of the resulting embryo's genes.

The license granted to Newcastle University relates only to the clinic's capacity to perform the techniques, Britain's fertility regulator said. The clinic must apply for each individual patient to be treated and no patient application has yet been approved.

Last year, U.S.-based doctors announced they had created the world's first baby using such techniques, after traveling to Mexico to perform the procedure, which has not been approved in the United States.

Critics have raised concerns about the treatment, saying it will put people at unnecessary risk of an untested procedure. Some say women with faulty mitochondria should choose simply to use egg donors and that using the new techniques will open the door to genetically modified "designer babies."

See more here:
UK grants first license to make babies using DNA from 3 people - Chicago Tribune

LONDON (AP) Britains Newcastle University says its scientists have received a license to create babies using DNA from three people to prevent women from passing on potentially fatal genetic diseases to their children the first time such approval has been granted.

The license was granted Thursday by the countrys fertility regulator, according to the university.

In December, British officials approved the cautious use of the techniques, which aim to fix problems linked to mitochondria, the energy-producing structures outside a cells nucleus. Faulty mitochondria can result in conditions including muscular dystrophy and major organ failure.

Mitochondria diseases can be devastating for families affected and this is a momentous day for patients, said Doug Turnbull, director of the research at Newcastle University. The university has said it is aiming to treat up to 25 patients a year.

To help women with mitochondria problems from passing them on to their children, scientists remove the nucleus DNA from the egg of a prospective mother and insert it into a donor egg from which the donor DNA has been removed. This can happen before or after fertilization. The resulting embryo ends up with nucleus DNA from its parents but mitochondrial DNA from a donor. The DNA from the donor amounts to less than 1 percent of the resulting embryos genes.

The license granted to Newcastle University relates only to the clinics capacity to perform the techniques, Britains fertility regulator said. The clinic must apply for each individual patient to be treated and no patient application has yet been approved.

Last year, U.S.-based doctors announced they had created the worlds first baby using such techniques, after traveling to Mexico to perform the procedure, which has not been approved in the United States.

Critics have raised concerns about the treatment, saying it will put people at unnecessary risk of an untested procedure. Some say women with faulty mitochondria should choose simply to use egg donors and that using the new techniques will open the door to genetically modified designer babies.

2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policyand Terms of Use.

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UK grants 1st license to make babies using DNA from 3 people ... - WDEF News 12

Its not just you its been a miserable winter because of rain. You shared with us your rain stories and how you cope (or dont cope) in essays, poetry and photos. Bottom line: Oh, boy, did you answer.

Enjoyed the few days of partly sunny skies this week? Look out the window: The rains back.

We asked for your stories about dealing with our rain, which at the beginning of 2017 is about as bad as its ever been.

We heard from newcomers (surprise, some are not depressed) and some natives (some are really depressed).

You answered with essays, poems, a haiku, reminiscences, photos.

Some of you were like Mike Ristow, an electrical contractor born and raised in Seattle but currently residing in Kailua Kona, Hawaii, and couldnt resist gloating. (Weekend forecast for the Big Island, high 80s.) His email included a link to a video of Its a Jimmy Buffett Christmas!

And then there was Owen Ashurst, who lived six decades in Seattle. He now lives in San Diego (weekend forecast, low 70s). He sent a photo of himself on the beach. His cell number still has a 206 area code. Just to remind me!

We have particular reason for gloomy thoughts about this winter and our incessant rain. This February (8.85 inches) is the wettest on record since 1961 (9.11 inches). And in the first two weeks of March, we got nearly as much rain as is average for the entire month of March (3.55 inches versus 3.72 inches).

You can see by the accompanying historical rainfall chart for our Februaries that for a few years we get lulled into thinking its not so bad. Then, bam!

As Jerry Seinfeld once said, Seattle is a moisturizing pad disguised as a city.

And its not just the rain.

In Seattle, it always seems to look like its going to rain. In March, through the first 14 days, 12 saw at least 80 percent of the sky covered with clouds.

Rain and more rain is in this regions DNA.

The book Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition includes excerpts from explorers writing about our coastal weather. The rain continues, with Tremendious gusts of wind, which is Tremendious. The winds violent Trees falling in every direction, whorl winds, with gusts of rain Hail & Thunder, This kind of weather lasted all day, Certainly one of the worst days that ever was!

The tribal peoples had a different attitude.

The book explains that the Indians went about their daily routine knowing that wind, rain, and thunder were but spirit forces making their powers known for all to see. Paddling canoes that defied the worst waves and wearing hats and capes admirably suited to wet days, the Chinookans may have paused to wonder why the bearded men in the log lodge feared the weather and hid from it.

We had better get used to more Februaries and Marches like weve experienced.

A Seattle Public Utilities study predicts that because of climate change, the Seattle shoreline will rise 7 inches in the next 30 years. Plus, expect warmer and wetter winters.

You know the rainy street scene in Blade Runner with the unremitting drizzle? The future!

Time for your responses.

I used to tell newcomers that they had an 18-month whining period. After that you need to realize that the clouds and rain are not an aberration, and that you have to adapt, says Rick Platz, who now lives in Denver for family reasons.

In this area he worked in marketing. My personal epiphany was when I realized I wasnt looking at layers of gray every day on my commute from Bellevue to Seattle on the I-90.

The epiphany was about finding beauty in all that gray! Such beauty that Platz wrote a poem. It begins, Passing waves of pillows, Cascading from the skies, Layers of gray and light, Floating past our eyes, Evolving through the night

Then there is Meighan Pritchard, the pastor of Prospect United Church of Christ on Capitol Hill. She offered a haiku, based on her daily bicycle commute:

Bike through the monsoon Dry clothes await arrival Oh look daffodils!

Theres something about the rain that inspires our creativity.

Author Tom Robbins wrote in Edge Walking on the Western Rim, a collection of essays by Northwest writers:

Im here for the weather.

In the deepest, darkest heart of winter, when the sky resembles bad banana baby food for months on end, and the witch measles that meteorologists call drizzle are a chronic gray rash on the skin of the land, folks all around me sink into a dismal funk. Many are depressed, a few actually suicidal. But I, I grow happier with each fresh storm, each thickening of the crinkly stratocumulus. Whats so hot about the sun? I ask. Sunbeams are a lot like tourists: intruding where they dont belong, little cameras slung around their necks. Raindrops, on the other hand, introverted, feral, buddhistically cool, behave as if they live here. Which, of course, they do.

Says Brooke McDaniels of Fife who, for existential purposes, considers herself part of Rain City:

I have been a Seattle native my whole life 34 years to be exact! When youve lived here your whole life, the rain isnt something you think about much, unlike the newly implanted here. You make do the best you can rain or not. You drive in it, play in it, work in it its our life as a Washingtonian. I plan on raising my kids here and, well, Im pretty sure theyll grow up just like I did.

Writes Michael Hamilton, a Green Lake resident of Seattle:

I am a native Seattleite Swedish (Medical Center), class of 1944. Always loved the many moods of rain sprinkles, showers, downpours. Each brings its own light, smells, sounds and tastes. To fully appreciate rain, I suggest one has to listen closely to its rhythm and blues. When I catch its beat on my skylights, like a jealous lover demanding to be let in, I drift away into a deep relaxing sleep and awake refreshed, thankful for the experience.

For Owen Ashurst, who now lives happily in San Diego, the unrelenting grayness of Seattle became too much.

Over the years I found dealing with the wet, gray oppressiveness of the late fall, winter and early spring became, quite simply, unbearable. At some point, I found that using the pressure sprayer to blast away the moss and mold from the deck, sidewalk and other surfaces in the spring had lost its sense of romance and accomplishment, he writes. The overriding sense of color was well 50 shades of gray. And I dont mean that in a sensually stimulating way.

Jill Hammond, a Seattle-area resident until four years ago, emailed from Tasmania, Australia (weekend forecast, 79 degrees, sunny), where she works as a document controller for a local utility:

I had no idea how normal people lived around the world; that is, with clear skies and daylight. Here, if it rains it is usually for part of a day. There might be clouds in the sky, but there are sunbreaks as well. Light gets through. It is remarkable how much of a difference it makes to ones mood. I cannot believe I put up with the gray drizzle for so long.

Says Cyndi Aiona, a contract manager with Amazon: I went to college in Oregon. I got a job in Seattle, and I had been here a couple summers before. Summer is different, tell me about it. Ive been here since 1985, my two kids have been raised here. I still have not gotten used to the weather. She also co-produces the annual Live Aloha Hawaiian Cultural Festival in Seattle.

Seattle is fine, she says.

But returning home to visit friends and relatives in Hawaii, like she did in October, and feeling the warm air as she walks out of the airport: I just feel different. My body is alive again.

Rodelyn Coppock has moved here from the Bay Area for a job ahead of her husband and kids, wholl stay in California for another year.

Three months straight with all this rain, my scooter has only left the garage three times and Im starting to feel Stay in pajamas and sweat-socks and watch movies all weekend kind of blue. Im downing vitamin D, now every night turning on the sun lamp I told my husband I wouldnt need, and trying to feel some regret that I left sunnier California for this wet and cold adventure.

But

I love my new job and my team at my new office. Ive got a large and cute studio apartment in a cool, family-friendly neighborhood with a library, several bars and lounges, a small bookstore, coffee and ice cream shops, a church I like, a Kens Market and a bus stop 4 blocks away where I catch an express bus that takes me downtown every day.

A few weeks ago I texted a girlfriend, I love it here. Im never leaving.

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Rain, and more rain, is in our DNA: Your Seattle survival stories - The Seattle Times

By Kati Marton By Kati Marton March 17

My daughter gave me a DNA-test kit for Christmas. I dutifully spat in the vial provided and mailed the contents to ancestry.com. A few days ago, I received the shocking result: I am half European Jewish, half Anglo-Irish. This is surprising news, considering my sister recently did a similar test that found her to be of 89percent European Jewish stock. How could two sisters be of such dramatically different ancestries? My Jewish half made perfect sense: My Hungarian mother and father were both Jewish. When did the Anglo-Irish strand infiltrate my DNA?

It was the second time I was shocked by my identity. At age 30, while interviewing a Hungarian woman rescued by Swedish Holocaust hero Raoul Wallenberg, I learned that my family was not Roman Catholic as I had been led to believe but Jewish. More painfully, I learned my grandparents had perished not under the Allies bombs as I had been told but in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

This revelation was a source of pride, and relief, too, at being in possession of my family history. It drew me back to the homeland I left as a small child. Hungarys violent, hate-filled history became the subject of several of my books. For my parents, it was a different matter. They were part of a generation of secret-keepers, with much to forget. They had twice suffered as a result of their identity. First, as Jews in anti-Semitic Hungary, where they barely survived the Arrow Cross reign of terror. Then, in the 1950s, they were labeled Enemies of the People (a label invented not by Stephen K. Bannon or Donald Trump, but by Joseph Stalin) and jailed as American spies for the crime of being brave reporters who supported the West during the Cold War. For my mother and father, identity was a minefield, and America was their last chance.

Now, thanks to ancestry.com, my own identity is again shadowed. Was my beloved father not my biological father? If not, who was? Searching dusty files of letters crisp with age, I found a copy of a letter (the original is in the Budapest secret police archives) that my father had written my mother from jail. Your only goal must be to leave with the children, he instructs my mother, unaware that she was by then an inmate in the same maximum-security prison in Budapest. Mathew Crosse should come and marry you. Your responsibility for the children and for yourself is to leave me. Heartbreakingly brave words, but who is this Mathew Crosse? Might he be the source of my 50 percent Anglo-Irish blood? Should I search for him? If I were to find an Englishman who visited Budapest in the late 1940s or his offspring what then?

All day I walked around in a fog of disbelief. I felt unmoored. But my family stayed calmly in character. My sister cheered that we had cause to celebrate St. Patricks Day on Friday. My analytical son and daughter suggested we do a DNA redo, using a different company. True Americans Anglo-Irish Canadian in addition to Hungarian they knew who their grandfather was: Papa, who barely survived the fevered identity politics of his Hungarian youth but taught all of us to ski and play tennis (though he failed miserably at teaching us to fence). His proudest achievement was not his career of stellar journalism but leading us to sanctuary in the United States.

In a couple of weeks, my family will celebrate the day a refugee transport brought my parents, my sister and me along with hundreds of other Hungarians to Camp Kilmer, N.J., in 1957. I was the youngest refugee, and it was my birthday. The Marine who processed me noticed this and produced the gift of a silver dollar. I still have it.

(YouTube/Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies)

My ancestry.com shock lifted the next morning. Regardless of the accuracy of this test, I know who I am. Family is about more than DNA. Identity used as a weapon of exclusion leads to hate, and once before it led to ashes gusting from Europes factories of death.

Why search for clues to an Englishman who may or may not be my biological father? Why redo a DNA test? I know who my father was, and I know who I am. I am Papas American daughter.

Of far greater concern than my own, is our countrys DNA today. Would a little girl arriving after an even more perilous journey still be greeted with a smile and a silver dollar?

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A DNA test upended everything I knew about my identity. Now who ... - Washington Post

(LONDON) Britain's Newcastle University says its scientists have received a license to create babies using DNA from three people to prevent women from passing on potentially fatal genetic diseases to their children the first time such approval has been granted.

The license was granted Thursday by the country's fertility regulator, according to the university.

In December, British officials approved the "cautious use" of the techniques, which aim to fix problems linked to mitochondria, the energy-producing structures outside a cell's nucleus. Faulty mitochondria can result in conditions including muscular dystrophy and major organ failure.

"Mitochondria diseases can be devastating for families affected and this is a momentous day for patients," said Doug Turnbull, director of the research at Newcastle University. The university has said it is aiming to treat up to 25 patients a year.

To help women with mitochondria problems from passing them on to their children, scientists remove the nucleus DNA from the egg of a prospective mother and insert it into a donor egg from which the donor DNA has been removed. This can happen before or after fertilization. The resulting embryo ends up with nucleus DNA from its parents but mitochondrial DNA from a donor. The DNA from the donor amounts to less than 1 percent of the resulting embryo's genes.

The license granted to Newcastle University relates only to the clinic's capacity to perform the techniques, Britain's fertility regulator said. The clinic must apply for each individual patient to be treated and no patient application has yet been approved.

Last year, U.S.-based doctors announced they had created the world's first baby using such techniques, after traveling to Mexico to perform the procedure, which has not been approved in the United States.

Critics have raised concerns about the treatment, saying it will put people at unnecessary risk of an untested procedure. Some say women with faulty mitochondria should choose simply to use egg donors and that using the new techniques will open the door to genetically modified "designer babies."

Read this article:
British Scientists Get Approval to Create Babies Using DNA from 3 People - TIME

In this image made available by the Oregon Health and Science University, a faint white blotch in the tube at right is DNA that has been removed from a human egg, center. The red dot is from a laser used in the procedure.

AP Photo/Oregon Health & Science University

Britains Newcastle University says its scientists have received a license to create babies using DNA from three people, the first time such approval has been granted.

The license was granted by the countrys fertility regulator on Thursday, according to the university.

Play Video

The British Parliament took a historic vote Tuesday to allow the creation of babies from the DNA of three people. The controversial procedure is ...

In December, British officials approved the cautious use of the techniques, which are intended to prevent women from passing on fatal genetic diseases to their children. The new procedures fix problems linked to mitochondria, the energy-producing structures outside a cells nucleus. Faulty mitochondria can result in conditions including muscular dystrophy and major organ failure.

Last year, U.S.-based doctors announced they had created the worlds first baby using such techniques, after traveling to Mexico to perform the methods, which have not been approved in the United States. In that case, the mother had suffered fourmiscarriagesand had two children who died from a rare and generally fatal neurological disorder called Leigh syndrome, one at age 6 and one at 8 months.

Play Video

Doctors say the first baby has been born with DNA from 3 people: mother, father and an egg donor. The controversial technique was designed to pre...

The procedure used in that case, called spindle nuclear transfer, involves removing the healthy nucleus from one of the mothers eggs and transferring it to a donor egg which had had its nucleus removed. The resulting egg with nuclear DNA from the mother and mitochondrial DNA from a donor was then fertilized with the fathers sperm.

The resultingembryocontained genetic material from three parents the mother, the egg donor, and the father.

If you look at the amount of DNA, its almost like its 2.001 parents rather than three. But its DNA from three different people, CBS News medical contributor Dr. David Agus explained on CBS This Morning last year.

In Britain, leadersdisagreed heatedly on the issuewhile it was up for debate in the House of Commons, with some raising concerns about designer babies and playing God. Leading churches in Britain both Protestant and Catholic opposed the procedure on religious and ethical grounds, they said.

2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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UK grants first license to make babies using 3-person DNA - CBS News

Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

Police hope DNA imaging will solve brutal cold-case murder of grandmother, 64 Columbus Ledger-Enquirer Columbus investigators are trying a new tool, DNA phenotyping, which uses DNA evidence from crime scenes to create a computer-generated snapshot image of the person from whom the genetic material came. Now police have renderings of what Iris ... CPD seeks DNA technology to identify suspect of 2003 cold case murderWTVM all 4 news articles »

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Police hope DNA imaging will solve brutal cold-case murder of grandmother, 64 - Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

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A new job for DNA - The Economist

DNA is basically nature's hard drive. Humans are the result of a three-dimensional computer program, written in tiny compounds wound up inside the nucleus of all our cells. It's a set of instructions, coded and saved that our bodies write and read to build proteins, construct cells, and perform thousands of other tasks.

Genetic engineering is basically us trying to hack our own hard drives, and we're learning more about the possibilities of accomplishing this every day. But, way back in 1964, a Soviet Physicist named Mikhail Neiman concocted the idea that we could use the compact, efficient, storage system of DNA to store not nature's code but whatever we wanted!

So far, we've only been able to decypher parts of nature's DNA programming. We haven't decoded all of this yet, but scientists do understand how the storage system works now. Meaning, we're real close to putting whatever pictures or files we want into DNA-storage.

Get 15% off Domainweb hosting and domain names when you use coupon code SEEKER at checkout!

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Day 15 of La Mesa Street Murders Trial

YUMA, Ariz. - An expert in DNA forensic analysis told the jury she found Preston Strong's DNA on the steering wheel of Luis Rios' Dodge Durango, in day 15 of the La Mesa Street Murders trial.

According to Lorraine Heath, previously with the Arizona Department of Public Safety's (DPS) Crime Lab, DNA from at least four people was found on the Durango's steering wheel.

Rios' Dodge Durango went missing from the home shortly before police arrived on June 24, 2005, the night of the incident.

The prosecution alledges the suspect used the Durango as his getaway car.

On Tuesday, Heath told the jury that detectives collected and sent her six swabs with DNA evidence from the steering wheel.

"Now the police took swabs from various places in the Dodge Durango," prosecutor John Tate told the jury during opening statements on February 7, "These were sent to the DPS crime lab for DNA analysis by a scientist at the Department of Public Safety. Her name is Lorraine Heath and she created a profile from that DNA that was matched to a profile of Preston Strong."

On Tuesday, Heath confirmed Tate's explanation. However, she only considered three of the individuals to be "major contributors".

"When I look at the profile of more than one person, the information can tell if there is more DNA than another person. It is very dependent on the actual item, but we call those with more DNA "major contributors" or "significant contributors"," Heath told the jury.

Heath said Rios, Strong, and a third unidentified person were considered "major contributors".

"Luis Rios was definitely considered a significant contributor, as is expected for the owner of the vehicle," Heath explained.

Moreover, Strong's DNA was also greatly represented in the sampling.

"We also assign a weight to the decision so, in this case, we believe it is 9 million times more likely the three contributors' DNA belonged to Rios, Strong and an unknown person than if it was Rios and two unknown Hispanic individuals," Heath explained.

According to Heath, when she first tested and found the DNA, she didn't know it belonged to Strong.

"I initially didn't have Strong's DNA to reference it with. I wrote it down as a larger foreign contributor that wasn't Rios. Later when I got Strong's swab, I was able to match Strong to the steering wheel," Heath explained.

Heath said that she tested the DNA on August 25, 2005.

A sample of Strong's DNA was sent to her in late March of 2006. She created his profile on April 5, 2006 and identified him as the second "foreign contributor".

Heath said there was a fourth, or possibly more other minor contributors, whose DNA was found on the steering wheel.

"I wouldn't say the total number was eight, but it was at least four total contributors including minor contributors," Heath explained.

While Heath said she couldn't determine when the DNA was left by a person, she said the more of the person's DNA that is found, the higher they were the last to touch it, especially on something like a steering wheel.

"The steering wheel, for example, was handled a lot by the owner. Right after he touched it, his DNA would be there and if I were then to touch it, I will start rubbing off his DNA and adding mine," Heath explained, "Assuming the vehicle is in routine use by the owner, I would expect another significant contributor handled the vehicle fairly recently."

During cross examination, the defense questioned Heath about the DNA extraction process in 2005 and its evolution since then.

Heath answered that the process for extraction had remained the same, but new procedures in documentation had been implemented.

"I would say I am more likely to document more steps now, than I did then. We are encouraged to write more down," Heath said.

Heath added that per standard procedure, her findings were also peer reviewed by another colleague before being shared with detectives.

The defense also questioned Heath about the number of people whose DNA was tested in reference to the steering wheel.

Heath replied there were 18 total references.

Javier Frigo, Luis Leal Morisca, Raya Shaya, Kimberly Cole, Carlos Banda, Lester Cornelius, Michael McCormick, Arturo Romero and Susan Mejia were ruled out as being possible "significant contributors".

Diego Cisneros, Rebekah Rios, Danny Heredia, Inez Newman, Enrique Bedoya and Andreas Crawford, were ruled out as being "significant contributors" but were given inconclusive results in reference to them being possible "minor contributors".

"I can't say for sure that they aren't or that they are minor contributors, but they are excluded from being major contributors," Heath explained.

Defense Attorney Raymond Hanna further questioned Heath about other evidence items submitted for DNA testing.

Heath said she tested several other items and looked for matches with Strong's DNA but found none elsewhere.

"Strong's DNA was excluded from the 35 other items," Heath said.

A juror also asked about the DNA found on the other items.

"Many of the items collected matched the victims. There were few items with foreign DNA," Heath answered.

"Bindings are difficult to analyze from a DNA perspective. It is hard to get foreign DNA. Typically you just get the person that was bound. We figure one possibility for this is because there is so much friction from the person being bound, so the other DNA rubs off," Heath continued.

Heath said that the foreign DNA that was found on some of the items and bindings submitted could have come from any source, including detectives.

"It could be anything from the time the binding was removed to talking over things [evidence]," Heath explained," We don't like to think we are spitting when we're talking but we totally are."

Heath said trace levels of foreign DNA were found on 6-year-old Danny Heredia.

"But like I mentioned, they could come from anywhere," Heath said.

Yuma Police Department Lieutenant Wayne Boyd also took the stand on Tuesday.

Day 16 of the trial resumes on Monday, March 20.

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Day 15 of the La Mesa Murders trial: Strong's DNA found in Luis Rios' car - KYMA