Category Archives: DNA

Lian Bin "Robert" Xie and his wife Kathy Lin in a file picture. Photo: Danielle Smith

The man accused of murdering five members of the Lin family allegedly had "numerous" conversations about the crime with a fellow prison inmate who gained his trust, telling him where he bought the hammer and rope used in the attack and where they were hidden, a court has heard.

The accused murderer and his fellow inmate allegedly referred to the scheme as Plan B a bold strategy that was only to be pursued if "things go really bad".

But the NSW Supreme Court heard on Monday that one of the men was playing a very different game.

Lian Bin Robert Xie is on trial for the murder of Min "Norman" Lin, 45; Mr Lins wife, Yun "Lily" Li Lin, 44; their sons Henry, 12, and Terry, 9; and Ms Lin's sister, Yun Bin "Irene" Yin, 39, in Boundary Road, Epping, in the early hours of July 18, 2009.

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The court heard on Monday that, after being arrested, the 50-year-old was caught in a carefully planned police sting designed to flush out vital information about his involvement in the crime.

Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi, QC, told the jury that a prisoninmate, known as "Witness A",would give evidence about 21 separate conversations he had with Mr Xie over the course of 18 months they spent in neighbouring cells inLongBayjail from mid-2011.

These allegedly included discussions about two plots - both known as 'Plan B' - by which Mr Xie would allegedlyframe dead people for the murdersby planting theirDNAat the crime scene or on amurder weapon.

The court heard that Witness A told the accused killer that he had a contact inside a funeral parlour called "Harry" who could find a body whoseDNAcould be put on the murder weapon, the location of which would then be leaked to police.

Read more from the original source:
Xie planned bizarre DNA alibi: court

HARTFORD DNA evidence recovered from the body of a murder victim and cell phone records helped Hartford detectives track down the man they say is responsible for the murder of Sonia Rivera, whose body was found a year and a half ago in a trash-strewn lot behind 216 Washington St.

Rivera, 48, was found suffering from severe head trauma about 7:30 p.m. Sept. 27, 2012. Her pants had been pulled down. A brick recovered nearby is believed to be the murder weapon.

Staff at Hartford Hospital used a rape kit to recover evidence from Rivera's body and turned it over to Hartford police. It was sent to the state crime lab and entered into a database. Less than two months later there was a match: Denzil Nurse, a 42-year-old man from Hartford, according to the warrant for his arrest.

Detectives interviewed Nurse and he allowed them to take a mouth swab so that the DNA match could be double-checked, according to the warrant. They also interviewed Nurse, who admitted to having been in the area at the time of the crime, and admitted he knew Rivera, but denied having sexual contact with her.

Police obtained a search warrant for Nurse's cell phone records and determined he was near Washington Street at the time of the crime and that his phone was silent when police think the crime occurred.

When detectives went to talk to Nurse again, they told him they'd found his DNA in Rivera's body. He again insisted he was innocent of killing her, but said she'd performed a sex act on him.

Police, in the warrant, said his explanations of how the DNA got into Rivera's body did not make sense.

He remains jailed in lieu of $2 million bail on a charge of murder. He is due back in court May 29.

Read more from the original source:
DNA, Cell Phone Led Hartford Police To Murder Suspect

Viruses are the enigma of the biological world -- despite having their own DNA and being able to adapt to their environment and evolve, they are not considered to be alive like cells. In order to reproduce and multiply -- a requirement of "life" -- a virus must invade a living cell, eject its DNA into that of the cell, and commandeer the cell's biological machinery. While a virus, essentially, may be nothing more than a dollop of DNA packed into a protective coating of protein called a capsid, the packaging of that DNA is critical. The molecular motors that drive this DNA packaging process, however, have remained almost as enigmatic as the viruses themselves. A better understanding of these motors could be crucial to combating viral infections.

Studying molecular motors is the signature work of Carlos Bustamante, a biophysicist who holds joint appointments with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, as well as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at Berkeley. In his latest research, he and a team of collaborators have shed new light on a type of molecular motor used to package the DNA of a number of viruses, including such human pathogens as herpes and the adenoviruses. Their findings also provide the first experimental confirmation of ideas proposed some 30 years ago.

"In a study of the DNA packaging motor of the Phi 29 virus, we have demonstrated for the first time that the motor not only exerts force on the DNA but also exerts torque to rotate it," Bustamante says. "We have further shown that this rotation is necessary for the motor to coordinate the activity of all its subunits during its mechano-chemical cycles. We also discovered that as the capsid fills with DNA, the motor adapts its operation to effectively throttle down and prepare itself to terminate packaging."

Bustamante is the corresponding author of a paper reporting the results of this study in the journal Cell entitled "A Viral Packaging Motor Varies Its DNA Rotation and Step Size to Preserve Subunit Coordination as the Capsid Fills." Shixin Liu, Gheorghe Chistol, and Craig Hetherington are the lead authors. Co-authors are Sara Tafoya, Aathavan Karunakaran, Joerg Schnitzbauer, Shelley Grimes and Paul Jardine.

In the 1970s, scientists proposed that the DNA within the viral capsid organizes as a spool that might require it to rotate relative to the capsid. It was also suggested that the DNA might need to rotate relative to the packaging motor in order to maintain crucial electrostatic contacts. However, until now, scientists lacked the experimental tools to prove or refute these ideas.

Bustamante, who is a faculty scientist with Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division and UC Berkeley's Raymond and Beverley Sackler Chair of Biophysics, has been a pioneer in the study of single molecules and molecular motors using optical tweezers and microscopic beads. In this latest effort, he and his collaborators modified their standard two-bead optical-tweezers packaging assay by introducing a third "rotor bead" that enabled them to monitor changes in the angle of the DNA around its axis while simultaneously observing DNA translocation into the viral capsid.

"We were able to follow a viral packaging motor in real-time at different stages of its biological task and discover the multiple and specific ways in which the motor's mechanisms are modified in response to external signals," Bustamante says. "We showed that by designing carefully controlled experiments, it is possible to learn a great deal about the subtle molecular mechanisms underlying the coordination of various molecular motor components."

The Phi29 virus that was the subject of this study is a bacteriophage of Bacillus subtilis, a bacterium found in soils and the human gut. Its DNA packaging motor complex consists of three coaxial rings through which DNA is threaded into the capsid. The catalytic core of the motor complex is a ring ATPase that consists of five subunits. The Phi29 packaging ATPase is considered a model for ring-shaped molecular motors that are common in living cells and rely on the coordinated action of their subunits to perform crucial biological functions.

"In a previous study we showed that the Phi 29 ring motor exhibits an interesting division of labor in that four of the five subunits are the workers that move the DNA into the capsid, and the remaining subunit is the supervisor that regulates the progression of the packaging cycles," says Liu. "However the mechanism for breaking the symmetry of the ring remained unclear. Our new results point towards a model in which the supervisory subunit is the one that maintains electrostatic contacts with the DNA backbone phosphates through every cycle by rotating the DNA. This special subunit does not normally change its identity from cycle to cycle."

The typical optical-tweezers packaging assay used by Bustamante and his group involves tethering DNA to polystyrene beads and using laser beams as optical tweezers to exert opposing forces on each bead. With the addition of the rotor bead to this assay, the researchers could not only measure pushing and pulling forces but also torque. They discovered that the packing motor has developed a surprisingly sophisticated mechanism that allows it to respond to increasing internal pressure from the encapsidated DNA.

Originally posted here:
Molecular motor for packaging virus DNA found, may lead to targeted antiviral drugs

Lian Bin "Robert" Xie and his wife Kathy Lin in a file picture. Photo: Danielle Smith

The man accused of murdering five members of the Lin family allegedly had "numerous" conversations about the crime with a fellow prison inmate who gained his trust, telling him where he bought the hammer and rope used in the attack and where they were hidden, a court has heard.

The accused murderer and his fellow inmate allegedly referred to the scheme as Plan B a bold strategy that was only to be pursued if "things go really bad".

But the NSW Supreme Court heard on Monday that one of the men was playing a very different game.

Lian Bin Robert Xie is on trial for the murder of Min "Norman" Lin, 45; Mr Lins wife, Yun "Lily" Li Lin, 44; their sons Henry, 12, and Terry, 9; and Ms Lin's sister, Yun Bin "Irene" Yin, 39, in Boundary Road, Epping, in the early hours of July 18, 2009.

Advertisement

The court heard on Monday that, after being arrested, the 50-year-old was caught in a carefully planned police sting designed to flush out vital information about his involvement in the crime.

Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi, QC, told the jury that a prisoninmate, known as "Witness A",would give evidence about 21 separate conversations he had with Mr Xie over the course of 18 months they spent in neighbouring cells inLongBayjail from mid-2011.

These allegedly included discussions about two plots - both known as 'Plan B' - by which Mr Xie would allegedlyframe dead people for the murdersby planting theirDNAat the crime scene or on amurder weapon.

The court heard that Witness A told the accused killer that he had a contact inside a funeral parlour called "Harry" who could find a body whoseDNAcould be put on the murder weapon, the location of which would then be leaked to police.

Read the original here:
Xie planned bizarre DNA alibi, court told

DNA RS "American Dream" Mini#11
Whats going on guys! hope you enjoy this mini! i have been working on a few stuff! also sub to the new team that Iron Sweed and Auto born made! https://www.youtube.com/user/RiseofSparta.

By: DNA RS

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DNA RS "American Dream" Mini#11 - Video

Estrazione di DNA dalla mucosa buccale (LS-OSA)

By: Liceo Scientifico - Opzione Scienze Applicate "G.Curcio" - Ispica (RG)

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Estrazione di DNA dalla mucosa buccale (LS-OSA) - Video

~What happens to your DNA during testing~
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Science Minute 18 Scientists Create First Artificial Lifeforms With Expanding DNA
The Fortean Slip Science Minute American Scientists create the first artificial lifeforms with expanding DNA. The Fortean Slip Facebook Group Page https://www.facebook.com/groups/574332809255914/...

By: Fortean Slip

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Science Minute 18 Scientists Create First Artificial Lifeforms With Expanding DNA - Video

GS USMLE Reviewer Biochemistry Transcription of DNA {audiobook}

By: Educational books

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GS USMLE Reviewer Biochemistry Transcription of DNA {audiobook} - Video

Youngsta CPT Gary Arsenic discuss the DNA Album
Considered by many as one of the best bodies of work to ever come out of the Cape Town Hip Hop scene, the DNA album delivers a high level of production and lyricism, this dope collabo between...

By: Heavy Words TV

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Youngsta CPT & Gary Arsenic discuss the DNA Album - Video