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Category Archives: DNA
Police turn to DNA phenotyping as experts attempt to put a face on crime – The Denver Channel
Posted: February 7, 2017 at 9:52 pm
High Wind Warningissued February 7 at 6:02PM MST expiring February 8 at 2:00PM MST in effect for: Alamosa, Costilla, Custer, El Paso, Fremont, Huerfano, Las Animas, Pueblo, Saguache, Teller
Winter Storm Warningissued February 7 at 11:54AM MST expiring February 8 at 6:00PM MST in effect for: Boulder, Clear Creek, Gilpin, Grand, Jackson, Jefferson, Larimer, Park, Summit
Winter Weather Advisoryissued February 7 at 3:38PM MST expiring February 8 at 6:00PM MST in effect for: Delta, Garfield, Mesa, Montrose, Ouray, Rio Blanco, San Miguel
Winter Weather Advisoryissued February 7 at 3:38PM MST expiring February 8 at 6:00PM MST in effect for: Archuleta, Dolores, Gunnison, Hinsdale, La Plata, Montezuma, Montrose, Ouray, San Juan, San Miguel
Winter Storm Warningissued February 7 at 3:38PM MST expiring February 8 at 6:00PM MST in effect for: Delta, Eagle, Garfield, Gunnison, Mesa, Moffat, Montrose, Pitkin, Rio Blanco, Routt
Winter Storm Warningissued February 7 at 2:39PM MST expiring February 8 at 6:00PM MST in effect for: Chaffee, Lake, Saguache
Winter Weather Advisoryissued February 7 at 10:38AM MST expiring February 8 at 5:00AM MST in effect for: Conejos, Mineral, Rio Grande, Saguache
Winter Weather Advisoryissued February 7 at 10:38AM MST expiring February 8 at 6:00PM MST in effect for: Chaffee, Lake
High Wind Warningissued February 7 at 2:20PM MST expiring February 8 at 2:00PM MST in effect for: Alamosa, Costilla, Custer, El Paso, Fremont, Huerfano, Las Animas, Saguache, Teller
High Wind Warningissued February 7 at 2:20PM MST expiring February 8 at 2:00PM MST in effect for: Custer, Huerfano, Pueblo
Fire Weather Warningissued February 7 at 2:10PM MST expiring February 8 at 6:00PM MST in effect for: Crowley, El Paso, Huerfano, Las Animas, Otero, Pueblo
Winter Weather Advisoryissued February 7 at 5:20AM MST expiring February 7 at 11:00PM MST in effect for: Conejos, Mineral, Rio Grande, Saguache
High Wind Watchissued February 7 at 5:04AM MST expiring February 8 at 2:00PM MST in effect for: Alamosa, Costilla, Custer, El Paso, Fremont, Huerfano, Las Animas, Saguache, Teller
Winter Storm Watchissued February 5 at 9:09PM MST expiring February 8 at 6:00PM MST in effect for: Chaffee, Conejos, Lake, Mineral, Rio Grande, Saguache
Winter Storm Watchissued February 5 at 9:03PM MST expiring February 8 at 6:00PM MST in effect for: Boulder, Clear Creek, Gilpin, Grand, Jackson, Jefferson, Larimer, Park, Summit
Winter Storm Watchissued February 5 at 3:02PM MST expiring February 8 at 6:00PM MST in effect for: Boulder, Clear Creek, Gilpin, Grand, Jackson, Jefferson, Larimer, Park, Summit
Winter Storm Watchissued February 5 at 3:02PM MST expiring February 8 at 6:00PM MST in effect for: Grand, Jackson
Winter Storm Watchissued February 5 at 3:39AM MST expiring February 8 at 12:00PM MST in effect for: Delta, Garfield, Mesa, Montrose, Ouray, Rio Blanco, San Miguel
Winter Storm Watchissued February 5 at 3:39AM MST expiring February 8 at 12:00PM MST in effect for: Archuleta, Delta, Dolores, Eagle, Garfield, Gunnison, Hinsdale, La Plata, Mesa, Moffat, Montezuma, Montrose, Ouray, Pitkin, Rio Blanco, Routt, San Juan, San Miguel
Winter Storm Watchissued February 5 at 12:17AM MST expiring February 8 at 12:00PM MST in effect for: Archuleta, Delta, Dolores, Eagle, Garfield, Gunnison, Hinsdale, La Plata, Mesa, Moffat, Montezuma, Montrose, Ouray, Pitkin, Rio Blanco, Routt, San Juan, San Miguel
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Police turn to DNA phenotyping as experts attempt to put a face on crime - The Denver Channel
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Familial DNA bill passes NY Senate – Metro.us
Posted: at 9:52 pm
Legislation has passed in the state Senate that would allow New York to use familial DNA, a test that Karina Vetranos parents were pushing for in their effort to help solve her brutal rape and murder.
Familial DNA searching is a technique that compares DNA found at a crime scene, for example, to DNA already in the offender databank, providing near matches that could lead authorities to family members of the person who left the DNA sample.
It is unknown if familial DNA played a part in catching the suspect who is charged with killing Vetrano, state State Sen. Joseph Addabbo, Jr. said. The test is only legal in a handful of states, and New York is not one of them.
RELATED:Karina Vetranos family seeks ideas on donating reward money
The Queens Democrat co-sponsored the bill with Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato, a member of the DNA Subcommittee of the New York State Commission on Forensic Science.
I continue to believe that this type of search is an important resource in violent criminal investigations where the trail seems to be getting colder and colder, Addabbo said.
It took six long and painful months for the investigators to identify and arrest a suspect in Karinas case. Against great odds, our law enforcement agencies did a tremendous job in connecting the dots between the suspects earlier suspicious behavior, a 911 call, and the murder.
We know that familial DNA has been used in roughly 10 other states for almost 10 years, with success in finding felons, he added.
The DNA Subcommittee plans to create a report by the end of the year recommending best practices for the use of familial DNA searching.
There will be a public hearing on the issue on Friday. The senator said he will be testifying.
While there are legitimate questions regarding privacy rights and other issues surrounding the practice, I believe we can develop a policy that would address these concerns while giving our law enforcement community a powerful new tool to bring violent felons to justice, Addabbo said.
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Familial DNA bill passes NY Senate - Metro.us
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Oscar Directing Nominees Help Us Trace Their DNA – Variety
Posted: at 9:52 pm
Directors influence each other with their work. Sometimes that influence is overt La La Land clearly evokes Singin in the Rain and Umbrellas of Cherbourg but other times it is more unexpected, hinging on storytelling choices or structure.
SEE MORE: Awards: The Contenders This story first appeared in the February 07, 2017 issue of Variety. Subscribe today.See more.
Variety asked this years directing nominees to help us trace the DNA of their movies, and all were happy to oblige.
Arrival Paramount In Villeneuves alien-invasion tale, humans eventually discover that the aliens want to help you help us.
Villeneuves choices: 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968: Definitely 2001, Villeneuve says, of Stanley Kubricks sci-fi classic in which Earthlings, searching for signs of intelligent life, are nearly outwitted by artificial intelligence. Jaws 1975: It was Spielbergs idea that you unveil slowly the entity, to create suspense, Villeneuve says. That very slow striptease is something I stole from Jaws.
Our choices: The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951: Aliens caution Earthlings not to destroy themselves with nuclear weapons in Robert Wises sci-fi classic. Starman 1984: A friendly interplanetary visitor gets a hostile reception from fearful humans in John Carpenters movie. The Miracle Worker 1962: Language is the bridge between two seemingly separate worlds in Arthur Penns Helen Keller biopic.
Hacksaw Ridge Lionsgate A deeply religious medic who refuses to carry a gun becomes an unlikely hero in Mel Gibsons brutal World War II saga.
Gibsons choices: Saving Private Ryan 1998: Its part of a great tradition of war films, Gibson says of Spielbergs D-Day drama, which raised the bar on graphic war carnage. Sergeant York 1941: That was kind of an inspiration, Gibson says of Howard Hawks movie, although that one is about a conscientious objector who actually picked up a gun and started shooting.
Our choices: The Longest Day 1962: A massive battle against impossible odds is fought with a giant all-star cast in Ken Annakins tale. From Here to Eternity 1953: A soldier receives unfair harsh treatment from officers in the run-up to Pearl Harbor in Fred Zinnemanns movie. Platoon 1986: Willem Dafoe suffers a Christ-like death, after being betrayed by a Judas among his own men in Oliver Stones Vietnam War movie.
La La Land Lionsgate Damien Chazelle traces his L.A. musicals lineage back to the silent era.
Chazelles choices: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg 1964: This film definitely, Chazelle says, citing Jacques Demys musical as an influence, and Lola, an earlier Demy film, also was very influential. Singin in the Rain 1952: Chazelle cites any of those great Gene Kelly musicals like Singin in the Rain or American in Paris, the former directed by Stanley Donen and the latter by Vincente Minnelli in 1951. Boogie Nights 1997, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson: I was influenced by some of those great L.A. movies, Chazelle says. I love Boogie Nights, Short Cuts, and a couple of others. 7th Heaven 1927: Chazelle cited Frank Borzages silent weepie in which a woman whose lover has died in WWI briefly imagines their entire life together, had he returned as the inspiration for his ending when accepting an award from the New York Film Critics Circle.
Our choice: A Star Is Born 1954: George Cukors film features the original show-business-tale trope: An established star discovers a rising talent, then suffers a decline.
Manchester by the Sea Amazon Studios Kenneth Lonergans wrenching drama revolves around the aftereffects of unspeakable tragedy.
Lonergans choices: Five Easy Pieces 1970: Lonergan cites Bob Rafelsons haunting tale of an estranged family dealing with its ghost as an influence. Coal Miners Daughter 1980: Its such a human story, Lonergan says of Michael Apteds bio of Loretta Lynn starring Sissy Spacek. Its got a personal scale and a universal scale. Its a very emotional story with a lot of love and a lot of loss. Bang the Drum Slowly 1973: Lonergan also took inspiration from John Hancocks tale of a dying baseball players final season.
Our choices: Ordinary People 1980: A suburban family begins to splinter after the eldest sons accidental death in Robert Redfords movie. Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf 1966: Edward Albees play, adapted by Mike Nichols, focuses on a married couple whose great tragedy is either their dead son or their dead dream of having a child.
Moonlight A24 Barry Jenkins directed this coming-of-age tale about being young, black, poor, and gay in 80s Miami.
Jenkins choices: Happy Together 1997: This is one of three films I usually cite, Jenkins says of director Wong Kar-wais movie. It was the first film I saw that dealt with a relationship between two men. Beau Travail 1999: I love the way she deals with masculinity in a corrupt system, Jenkins says while saluting Claire Denis movie as an influence. Three Times 2005: Jenkins also mentioned Hou Hsiao-Hsiens film set in three separate time periods, with the same actors playing different characters who encounter each other in each section of the film.
Our choices: Boys Dont Cry 1999: A young transgender man runs afoul of small-town intolerance in Kimberly Peirces indie landmark. Boyhood 2014: A boys youth is thrown off-kilter by his moms personal drama in Richard Linklaters film.
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Oscar Directing Nominees Help Us Trace Their DNA - Variety
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DNA, witness ID lead to charges against St. Louis drug dealer in 2012 killing – STLtoday.com
Posted: at 9:52 pm
ST. LOUIS A first-degree murder charge filed here Tuesday says a DNA match and witness identification have linked a convicted drug dealer to a 2012 fatal shooting in St. Louis.
Charles Billingsley, 26, who is in federal prison for drug trafficking, was charged in the May 17, 2012, shooting death of 19-year-old Lamar E. Miller.
Millers body was found behind the wheel of a black Ford Mustang in the 5400 block of Beacon Avenue in the citys Walnut Park East neighborhood, police said. He suffered a gunshot to the head.
Charges say a witness told Detective Scott Sailor that he had been in the back of the Mustang and saw Billingsley shoot Miller while Miller was driving.
DNA found inside the car was a match to Billingsley, and Millers DNA was found on clothing worn by Billingsley the day of the killing, the charges say.
Billingsley had given his clothing to someone for safekeeping, charges say, and the recipient at some point turned over the clothes to police, and told them Billingsley admitted killing Miller.
Billinglsey has been serving an eight-year term in federal prison since 2013 for several counts of marijuana trafficking and illegal possession of a firearm. He also has drug convictions in St. Louis County in 2009 and 2013.
His address in court records is in the first block of Chambers Road in St. Louis County, near Riverview. He also was charged Tuesday with armed criminal action, and cash bail was set at $500,000.
Miller lived in the 2000 block of East Prairie Avenue.
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DNA, witness ID lead to charges against St. Louis drug dealer in 2012 killing - STLtoday.com
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DNA ‘barcoding’ allows rapid testing of nanoparticles for therapeutic … – Phys.Org
Posted: at 9:52 pm
February 7, 2017 A microfluidic chip used to fabricate nanoparticles that could be used to deliver therapeutic genes to specific organs of the body. Credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech
Using tiny snippets of DNA as "barcodes," researchers have developed a new technique for rapidly screening the ability of nanoparticles to selectively deliver therapeutic genes to specific organs of the body. The technique could accelerate the development and use of gene therapies for such killers as heart disease, cancer and Parkinson's disease.
Genetic therapies, such as those made from DNA or RNA, are hard to deliver into the right cells in the body. For the past 20 years, scientists have been developing nanoparticles made from a broad range of materials and adding compounds such as cholesterol to help carry these therapeutic agents into cells. But the rapid development of nanoparticle carriers has run into a major bottleneck: the nanoparticles have to be tested, first in cell culture, before a very small number of nanoparticles is tested in animals. With millions of possible combinations, identifying the optimal nanoparticle to target each organ was highly inefficient.
Using DNA strands just 58 nucleotides long, researchers from the University of Florida, Georgia Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a new testing technique that skips the cell culture testing altogetherand could allow hundreds of different types of nanoparticles to be tested simultaneously in just a handful of animals.
The original research was done in the laboratories of Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor, and Daniel Anderson, the Samuel A. Goldsmith Professor of Applied Biology, at MIT. Supported by the National Institutes of Health, the research was reported February 6 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"We want to understand at a very high level what factors affecting nanoparticle delivery are important," said James Dahlman, an assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, one of Langer's former graduate students, lead author on the study, and one of the paper's corresponding authors. "This new technique not only allows us to understand what factors are important, but also how disease factors affect the process."
To prepare nanoparticles for testing, the researchers insert a snippet of DNA that is assigned to each type of nanoparticle. The nanoparticles are then injected into mice, whose organs are then examined for presence of the barcodes. By using the same technologies scientists use to sequence the genome, many nanoparticles can be tested simultaneously, each identified by its unique DNA barcode.
Researchers are interested not only in which nanoparticles deliver the therapeutics most effectively, but also which can deliver them selectively to specific organs. Therapeutics targeted to tumors, for example, should be delivered only to the tumor and not to surrounding tissues. Therapeutics for heart disease likewise should selectively accumulate in the heart.
While much of the study was devoted to demonstrating control strategies, the researchers did test how 30 different particles were distributed in eight different tissues of an animal model. This nanoparticle targeting 'heat map' showed that some particles were not taken up at all, while others entered multiple organs. The testing included nanoparticles previously shown to selectivity enter the lungs and liver, and the results of the new technique were consistent with what was already known about those nanoparticles.
The single-strand DNA barcode sequences are about the same size as antisense oligonucleotides, microRNA and siRNA being developed for possible therapeutic uses. Other gene-based therapeutics are larger, and additional research would be needed to determine if the technique could be used with them. In the research reported this week, the nanoparticles were not used to deliver active therapeutics, though that would be a near-term next step.
"In future work, we are hoping to make a thousand particles and instead of evaluating them three at a time, we would hope to test a few hundred simultaneously," Dahlman said. "Nanoparticles can be very complicated because for every biomaterial available, you could make several hundred nanoparticles of different sizes and with different components added."
Once promising nanoparticles are identified with the screening, they would be subjected to additional testing to verify their ability to deliver therapeutics. In addition to accelerating the screening, the new technique may require fewer animalsperhaps no more than three for each set of nanoparticles tested.
There are a few caveats with the technique. To avoid the possibility of nanoparticles merging, only structures that are stable in aqueous environments can be tested. Only nontoxic nanoparticles can be screened, and researchers must control for potential inflammation generated by the inserted DNA.
In Langer and Anderson's laboratory, Dahlman worked with Kevin Kauffman, who remains at MIT, and Eric Wang, now an assistant professor the University of Florida. Other co-authors of the paper included Yiping Xing, Taylor Shaw, Faryal Mir and Chloe Dlott, all of whom are at MIT.
"Nucleic acid therapies hold considerable promise for treating a range of serious diseases," said Dahlman. "We hope this technique will be used widely in the field, and that it will ultimately bring more clarity to how these drugs affect cellsand how we can get them to the right locations in the body."
Explore further: Making organs transparent to improve nanomedicine
Treating a disease without causing side effects is one of the big promises of nanoparticle technology. But fulfilling it remains a challenge. One of the obstacles is that researchers have a hard time seeing where nanoparticles ...
Nanoparticles are being studied as drug delivery systems to treat a wide variety of diseases. New research delves into the physical properties of nanoparticles that are important for successfully delivering therapeutics within ...
Nanoparticles are particles that are smaller than 100 nanometers. They are typically obtained from metals and, because of their tiny size, have unique properties that make them useful for biomedical applications. However, ...
A nanoparticle-based drug delivery system that can sense and respond to different conditions in the body, as well as to an externally applied magnetic field, could enhance doctors' ability to target drugs to specific sites ...
For millions of people hearing disorders make a negative impact on their lives. Scientists are looking into new ways of treating hearing disorders, by using different sorts of nanoparticles as original inner ear delivery ...
RNA interference (RNAi), a technique that can turn off specific genes inside living cells, holds great potential for treating many diseases caused by malfunctioning genes. However, it has been difficult for scientists to ...
More and more scientists are using the powerful new gene-editing tool known as CRISPR/Cas9, a technology isolated from bacteria, that holds promise for new treatment of such genetic diseases as cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy ...
Inspired by the hair of blue tarantulas, researchers from The University of Akron lead a team that made a structural-colored material that shows consistent color from all viewing directions. This finding overturns the conventional ...
Using tiny snippets of DNA as "barcodes," researchers have developed a new technique for rapidly screening the ability of nanoparticles to selectively deliver therapeutic genes to specific organs of the body. The technique ...
How the natural defence force within our immune system attacks and destroys harmful invaders such as virus-infected and cancerous cells has been visualised in microscopic detail by scientists from UCL, Birkbeck, University ...
(Phys.org)In an effort to curb the adverse environmental impacts of paper production, researchers in a new study have developed a light-printable paperpaper that can be printed with UV light, erased by heating to 120 ...
Scientists used one of the world's most powerful electron microscopes to map the precise location and chemical type of 23,000 atoms in an extremely small particle made of iron and platinum.
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DNA 'barcoding' allows rapid testing of nanoparticles for therapeutic ... - Phys.Org
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Scientists Get Down And Dirty With DNA To Track Wild Pigs – NPR
Posted: at 7:47 am
This wild hog from Hawaii was raised at the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colo. Feral pigs in the wild tend to eat anything containing a calorie from rows of corn to sea turtle eggs, to baby deer and goats. Rae Ellen Bichell/NPR hide caption
This wild hog from Hawaii was raised at the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colo. Feral pigs in the wild tend to eat anything containing a calorie from rows of corn to sea turtle eggs, to baby deer and goats.
In the foothills of Colorado's Rocky Mountains, a gravel road leads to a 10-foot-tall fence. Type in a key code, and a gate scrapes open. Undo a chain to get behind another. Everything here is made of metal, because the residents of this facility are experts at invasion and destruction.
They're wild pigs, aka feral swine, wild hogs or Sus scrofa. And biologists at the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins have invented a promising new way to track the invasive animals by looking for tiny traces of them in mud and water.
Biologist Morgan Wehtje points to a boar who's asking her to scratch his bristled back. At 280 pounds, he weighs about as much as an NFL tight end. "His name is Makunakane, which means 'Big Papa' in Hawaiian," says Wehtje. The smaller pigs, like a female named Bobbie Socks, weigh about 150 pounds. They're dense and compact, says Wehtje, "which is why if they were to run at you they'd take you out."
They are opportunistic omnivores. If they get can their mouth around it and it has a calorie in it, they will eat it.
Jack Mayer, biologist, Savannah River National Laboratory
Wehtje and her colleagues study the biology and behavior of these pigs, which were raised in captivity. They're playing in the snow and scoping out the fence with their wet snouts. But their wild, much less cuddly counterparts are destroying the landscape in most U.S. states producing an estimated $1.5 billion in damage per year.
These animals will eat anything, from rows of corn to sea turtle eggs, to baby deer and goats.
"People don't realize that wild pigs are voracious predators," says Jack Mayer, a biologist with the Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken, S.C., who has studied wild pigs for 40 years. "They will run down and kill and eat lamb, sheep, goats, calves, domestic chickens."
And more.
"Pigs will eat humans," says Mayer. "It's been documented in combat, remote area homicide situations and plane crashes. Pigs will go in and feed on human carcasses."
They are "opportunistic omnivores," Mayer says. "If they get can their mouth around it and it has a calorie in it, they will eat it."
In Texas, feral pigs are tearing up suburban yards. In Louisiana, they damaged levees by digging for food.
Pigs came to North America 500 years ago with early explorers as a source of food. Centuries later, the Eurasian wild boar was introduced to parts of the U.S. by sports hunters, and today's feral swine are "a combination of escaped domestic pigs, Eurasian wild boars, and hybrids of the two," according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Kelly Williams,of the National Wildlife Research Center, in Fort Collins, checks a sample of dirty water from Texas that she's about to analyze for bits of pig DNA. Rae Ellen Bichell/NPR hide caption
Kelly Williams,of the National Wildlife Research Center, in Fort Collins, checks a sample of dirty water from Texas that she's about to analyze for bits of pig DNA.
Once female wild pigs are about 6 months old or so, they can produce as many as a dozen offspring per year. For a number of reasons that haven't been completely nailed down, their populations have really exploded in the last 30 years, Mayer says. There are now at least 6 million wild pigs across the country, with established populations in 35 states.
State and federal legislators have funneled a lot of money into controlling and eliminating these animals because of the trail of destruction they leave behind. But controlling them can feel like an infuriating game of whack-a-mole, because they move a lot, reproduce quickly, and are smart enough to learn to avoid traps and bait. They're also sneaky.
"These things are very secretive," says Mayer. "A lot of people didn't know about wild pigs until they walked out their front door on Sunday morning and saw that it looked like somebody on drugs had rototilled their yard."
But the pigs may have met their match. Kelly Williams, a biological science technician at the National Wildlife Research Center, is going high-tech on these hogs.
She and her colleagues at the National Wildlife Research Center have recently developed a way to keep tabs on the animals without ever even laying eyes on them. All she needs is a scoop of water.
"So, for example, right now in New Mexico the forest service is out collecting water for me," says Williams. "All they have to do is carry around a little Nalgene bottle, scoop up a water sample and ship it back to me."
Pigs love water and mud. They drink it, play in it and roll in it to keep heat and bugs away. When they do, they leave bits of themselves behind drool, skin cells, hair and urine like a wildlife crime scene. Each of those bits contains pig DNA.
"We know pigs are pretty messy, dirty animals, so they might shed more DNA than a coyote lapping up water or something," Williams says.
She worked with wild pigs at the National Wildlife Research Center to identify these tiny bits of DNA called "environmental DNA," or eDNA which can sometimes be detectable up to a month after a pig has visited a site.
Ecologists have used eDNA to monitor invasive fish in the Great Lakes and endangered whale sharks in the Arabian Gulf. Williams' colleagues developed a version to track the presence of Burmese pythons in Florida. Wild pigs are one of the first land animals to be tracked so extensively using eDNA.
Williams starts with a bottle of dirty water, mixed with a solution to preserve the DNA inside.
"Sometimes it looks like chocolate milk," she says. "Sometimes it looks like lemonade."
Williams spins down all the solids in the liquid sample, amplifies the DNA inside, and compares what she finds to 125 base pairs of mitochondrial DNA that could only belong to a pig.
At the end, she gets an answer "Yes, pigs were here," or "No, they weren't." She then passes the results along to people like Brian Archuleta, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in New Mexico.
Archuleta has a goal for the new year: wild pig annihilation.
"Total elimination by the last day of September of this year," he says of his goal. Archuleta is not joking.
Researchers set up cameras in the wild in Texas to confirm that their test for pig DNA corresponded to visits by actual wild pigs. Courtesy of Kelly Williams/National Wildlife Research Center hide caption
Researchers set up cameras in the wild in Texas to confirm that their test for pig DNA corresponded to visits by actual wild pigs.
He covers eastern New Mexico, which is not only thousands of square miles of desert, mountains and sand dunes, but also right next to Texas, which is teeming with pigs (not to be confused with javelina, a smaller, unrelated species native to the Americas).
To track wild pigs in his region, Archuleta used to have to repeatedly send people out across deserts and mountains to place cameras, use dogs to sniff them out, and bait traps with tubes of corn.
"The eastern side of New Mexico is a big place lots of country. We are looking for a needle in a haystack," says Archuleta.
But recently, he just had a few people go out and collect water, and then shipped the samples to Kelly Williams. With the results he got back he was able to narrow the search to about 10 square miles in the desert, and another small area in the mountains.
Next, Archuleta booked a helicopter, hired some sharpshooters and flew over the areas where pig DNA had been found. They shot eight hogs in one place and 13 in another.
"There are unknown places in New Mexico that I'm sure have pigs that we just don't know about," he says.
He's hoping the new eDNA sampler will help him find every last one.
Meanwhile, Kelly Williams is already on to her next challenge. She's working on a way to use eDNA to track another elusive species the Nile monitor. These hissing, tail-whipping, 5-foot-long lizards are expanding their reach in Florida. They eat endangered owls for breakfast.
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Injection could permanently lower cholesterol by changing DNA – New Scientist
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High cholesterol isnt good for us
CMEABG-UCBL-Chapon/Phanie/Science Photo Library
By Michael Le Page
A one-off injection could one day lower your cholesterol levels for the rest of your life.
People born with natural mutations that disable a specific gene have a lower risk of heart disease, with no apparent side effects. Now a single injection has successfully disabled this same gene in animal tests for the first time.
This potential treatment would involve permanently altering the DNA inside some of the cells of a persons body, so doctors will have to be sure it is safe before trying it in people. But the benefits could be enormous. In theory, it could help millions live longer and healthier lives.
The results of the animal study were described by Lorenz Mayr, of pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, at a genomics meeting in London on 1 February. Mayr, who leads the companys research into a DNA editing technique called CRISPR, wouldnt say whether AstraZeneca plans to pursue this approach, but he was clearly excited as he presented the findings.
The idea would be to do it as a one-off, he later told New Scientist. It should be permanent.
Heart attacks and strokes kill a quarter of people living in rich nations, and high levels of bad LDL cholesterol in the blood greatly increases the risk. For this reason, millions of people now take statins to lower their LDL cholesterol levels. While statins undoubtedly extend the lives of many people, some experience side effects such as muscle pain, leading drug companies to look for alternative treatments.
In 2005, it was discovered that a few people naturally have very low cholesterol levels, thanks to mutations that prevent their livers from making a protein called PCSK9. They have a lower incidence of cardiovascular disease and no apparent side effects whatsoever, says Gilles Lambert at the University of Reunion Island, who studies PCSK9.
The PCSK9 protein normally circulates in the blood, where it degrades a protein found on the surface of blood vessels. This second protein removes LDL cholesterol from the blood: the faster it is degraded by PCSK9, the higher a persons cholesterol levels. But people who lack PCSK9 due to genetic mutations have more of this LDL-removal protein, and therefore less cholesterol in their blood.
To mimic this effect, two companies have developed approved antibodies that remove the PCSK9 protein from the blood. These are very effective at lowering cholesterol and no serious side effects have been reported so far, Lambert says. It is yet to be shown if they reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, but the first trial results are due to be announced in March.
However, the antibody drugs are extremely expensive and need to be injected every two to four weeks, so even if the antibodies work as well as hoped, they cannot be dished out to millions like statins. All attempts to develop conventional drugs to block PCSK9 have failed.
But gene editing provides a radical alternative. Using the CRISPR technique, the team at AstraZeneca have disabled human versions of the PCSK9 gene in mice.
They did this by injecting the CRISPR Cas 9 protein and a guiding RNA sequence into the animals. The RNA guide helps the Cas9 protein bind to a specific site in the gene. It then cuts the gene at that point, and when the break is repaired, errors that disable the gene are likely to be introduced.
There was an even bigger fall in cholesterol levels in the mice given the CRISPR treatment than in those injected with the antibody drugs.
This gene editing approach would be a closer mimic of what happens in people born with PCSK9-disabling mutations than injecting antibodies, says pharmacologist Patricia McGettigan of Queen Mary University of London, who has looked at the safety of PCSK9 therapies. That might actually be really productive, she says.
The big worry about using gene editing to alter DNA inside the body is that it could also cause unintended off-target mutations. In the worst case, these could turn cells cancerous.
Mayr says the team has tested for off-target effects in 26 different tissues in the mice, and that the results will be published soon. Its very promising in terms of safety, he told New Scientist.
Whats more, the CRISPR method is constantly being improved. Other teams have developed modified versions of the CRISPR protein that are so precise off-target effects occur no more often than natural mutations in cells. Even so, Lambert thinks human trials are at least a decade away. For now its very far-fetched, he says.
An alternative approach that should have fewer off-target effects would be to use modified forms of the CRISPR protein to switch off the PCSK9 gene without altering its DNA. Instead of changing the genome, this kind of editing targets the epigenome instead the chemical tags added to DNA that influence how active particular genes are.
Many think epigenome editing will prove more useful than conventional genome editing for treating diseases. I think the future is CRISPR 3.0 and 4.0, Mayr says, referring to epigenome editing.
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Murdered jogger’s family pushing for enhanced DNA testing – myfox8.com
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myfox8.com | Murdered jogger's family pushing for enhanced DNA testing myfox8.com Officials say Lewis confessed, providing detailed incriminating statements about the crime. His DNA, obtained through a voluntary cheek swab, matched that found under Vetrano's nails, on her phone, and on her back. If convicted, he faces 25 years to ... Police: DNA leads to arrest in strangling of NYC jogger Suspect's DNA match to jogger lead to arrest: Cops Howard Beach Jogger 'Helped Us Identify' Her Killer by Fighting Back: NYPD |
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Murdered jogger's family pushing for enhanced DNA testing - myfox8.com
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Who are you: New in-home DNA testing unlocks family secrets – wtkr.com
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wtkr.com | Who are you: New in-home DNA testing unlocks family secrets wtkr.com NORFOLK, Va. - We all come from somewhere in this great big world. But, how many of us really know just where that "somewhere" is? For my mother's side of the family, it's Italy and France. Growing up, there was always great cooking in our home. And ... |
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How To Plan The Trip Of A Lifetime With Your DNA – Forbes
Posted: February 6, 2017 at 2:48 pm
Forbes | How To Plan The Trip Of A Lifetime With Your DNA Forbes Fielding's quest to to connect clients with intimate, unforgettable experiences like these fueled the idea of a DNA-dictated itinerarya notion that was, fittingly, in her genes. Familiar with ancestral testing thanks to her family's background in ... |
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How To Plan The Trip Of A Lifetime With Your DNA - Forbes
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