Category Archives: DNA

New patent opens SYGNIS and QUALIPHIin a leading position in a 70 million global market.

Madrid/Heidelberg, 23 April 2013 - The biotech company SYGNIS Pharma AG (Frankfurt: LIO1; ISIN: DE000A1RFM03; Prime Standard) has been granted a patent by the USPTO (US patent and Trademark office) for its flagship product, QUALIPHI the polymerase for complete DNA amplification. Polymerase proteins are the main tool for amplifying long DNA fragments and whole genomes, and are a basic need for research involving the analysis and modification of DNA.

QUALIPHI is an upgraded version of the Phi 29 DNA polymerase used in isothermal amplification which provides enhanced properties compared to similar polymerase proteins on the market. Being less time-consuming and having highly superior performance characteristics, the method developed by SYGNIS enables DNA amplification from concentrations as low as those found in a single cell. This is extremely useful in cancer research, and many other applications.

"Certainly, the need for amplification of nucleic acids from minimal concentrations as present in single cell applications will be a critical issue in the coming era of personalised medicine and NGS. We expect QUALIPHI to become an essential tool for the DNA amplification needed in these markets", said SYGNIS` CEO, Pilar de la Huerta.

With the significant growth in the field of DNA amplifications used in sequencing and personalised medicine, the market of whole genome amplification with polymerase proteins is expected to grow at over 20% per annum over the next few years. Current estimates indicate that the size of the global isothermal DNA market alone is approximately 70 million, with the US as the leading market for QUALIPHI.

In 2012, SYGNIS granted an exclusive global licence to QIAGEN, including sublicensing rights, for the commercialization of QUALIPHI in the DNA amplification market. QIAGEN is a global leader in sample and assay technologies in research and molecular diagnostics.

About SYGNIS Pharma AG: http://www.sygnis.de

After the merger in 2012 between X-Pol Biotech, specialising in DNA amplification and sequencing, and SYGNIS Pharma AG, listed in the German Stock Exchange (Prime Standard segment, Tick: LIO1; ISIN: DE000A1RFM03), SYGNIS` new mission is to develop and distribute technologies and products from X-Pol, which has a commercial product in the DNA amplification segment, QUALIPHI, and is currently developing other products in the field of Next Generation Sequencing.

For further information: Pilar de la Huerta CEO/CFO of SYGNIS Pharma AG ,+34 902 02 69 31 / 609 47 29 34 / 654 41 01 11

# # # Disclaimer: Some statements included in this press release, relating neither to proven financial results nor to other historical data, should be viewed as forward-looking, i.e. not definitive. Such statements are mainly predictions of future results, trends, plans or goals. These statements should not be considered to be total guarantees since given their very nature, they are subject to known and unknown risks, as well as to aspects beyond human control, and can be affected by other factors as a consequence of which the actual results, plans and goals of SYGNIS Pharma AG may deviate greatly from the established conclusions or implied predictions contained in such statements. SYGNIS does not undertake to publicly update or revise these statements in the light of new information or future results or for any other reason. # # #

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SYGNIS granted US patent for QUALIPHI®, the Next Generation DNA amplification tool

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Its hard out here for a chief marketing officer. The economy is still tough, media is changing daily, and cost pressures continue to mount. And with the average CMO tenure of less than 18 months, its not surprising CMOs are looking for advice and insight from trusted sources.

Understanding these challenges, DNA, an independent full-service agency with expertise in brand strategy, advertising, digital strategy and media, has created the CMO Brief a compilation of short videos that provide insights and thoughts from business leaders about branding, marketing, media, culture and leadership.

DNA has launched the CMO Brief with six business leaders from a wide variety of industries Clark Kokich, chairman of Razorfish; Rod Brooks, CMO of PEMCO Insurance; Kurt Beecher Dammeier, founder and owner of Beechers Handmade Cheese; Nonie Creme, creator of the Butter London; Tom Berquist, senior vice president of member strategies at BECU; and Ed Kelly, president and CEO of American Express Publishing. Additional upcoming briefs will feature Concur, Virginia Mason and Windermere Real Estate.

Working with CMOs, entrepreneurs and marketing leaders day in and out, weve gained a unique perspective on their world the highs, the lows, the pain points and the incredible insight that comes from their experiences and challenges, said Alan Brown, principal and managing director, DNA.

Were thrilled to offer CMO Brief as an interesting and relevant resource that taps into these marketing minds and shares a new perspective from this side of business, Brown added.

Initial CMO Brief video topics include:

About DNA

Founded in 1998, DNA is a full-service marketing communications agency based in Seattle, Washington. The agency provides services in brand strategy, advertising, interactive and design. As one of the fastest growing agencies on the West Coast, DNA has a talent and passion for transforming brandsand helping their client partners win unreasoning loyalty from their customers and prospects in the process. Some of DNAs clients include: Group Health Cooperative, PEMCO Insurance, BECU, The Avon Foundation, F5, Executive Travel Magazine, PowerA and Trupanion. Visit DNA on the Web atwww.dnaseattle.com, on Twitter at @dnaseattle and on Facebook.

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DNA Launches CMO Brief: Insights and Advice From and For Entrepreneurs and Marketing Leaders

STONY BROOK, NY--(Marketwired - Apr 23, 2013) - Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. (OTCBB: APDN), (Twitter: @APDN), a provider of DNA-based anti-counterfeiting technology and product authentication solutions, announced today that it has been awarded a Phase I research grant by the United States Missile Defense Agency (MDA) for approximately $150,000, for advanced development of APDN's anti-counterfeiting platform for military electronics.

The award, granted by the MDA Small Business Innovative Research program (SBIR), aims to develop advanced and innovative methods of placing markings or coatings onto original parts at the time of manufacture, to enable customers at later stages in the supply chain to confirm that the component is authentic.

The project expands on, but is separate from the research and testing supported by the Defense Logistics Agency, a project which prepared the platform now required by DLA for all items in a class of electronics provided by contractors to the agency.

Dr. James A. Hayward, President and CEO of Applied DNA Sciences, commented:

"The SBIR research award from the Missile Defense Agency is another highly important sign that our company's technology has awakened widespread interest in the military and its suppliers.It builds on the momentum of the ongoing requirement by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) which requires use of our product by trusted suppliers to DLA.The research for MDA will aid our ongoing work in expanding the range of applications of SigNature DNA, further compressing the time used to mark and authenticate items, and opening up the ability to use still more and varied carriers for our mark."

The award is a Phase I (feasibility) grant, typically followed by a competition for Phase II (implementation) and Phase III (commercialization) grants.Said Dr. Hayward: "We are optimistic that we will be able to take this research project through implementation and move to the commercialization stage."

The MDA Small Business Innovative Research program distributes over $1 billion annually, in order to harness the creativity of smaller businesses in the service of its unmatched technological platform, and in defense of the country.

Approved for Public Release 13-MDA-7255 (19 April 13)

About Applied DNA Sciences

APDN is a provider of botanical-DNA based security and authentication solutions that can help protect products, brands and intellectual property of companies, governments and consumers from theft, counterfeiting, fraud and diversion. SigNature DNA and smartDNA, our principal anti-counterfeiting and product authentication solutions that essentially cannot be copied, provide a forensic chain of evidence and can be used to prosecute perpetrators.

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Applied DNA Sciences Awarded Phase I SBIR Contract by the United States Missile Defense Agency

Earlier this year Illumina, the maker of the worlds most widely used DNA sequencing machines, agreed to pay nearly half a billion dollars for Verinata, a startup in Redwood City, California, that has hardly any revenues. What Verinata does have is technology that can do something as ethically fraught as it is inevitable: sequence the DNA of a human fetus before birth.

Verinata is one of four U.S. companies already involved in a rapidly expanding market for prenatal DNA testing using Illuminas sequencers. Their existing tests, all launched in the last 18 months, can detect Down syndrome from traces of fetal DNA found in a syringeful of the mothers blood. Until now, detecting Down syndrome has meant grabbing fetal cells from the placenta or the amniotic fluid, procedures that carry a small risk of miscarriage.

The noninvasive screen is so much safer and easier that its become one of the most quickly adopted tests ever and an important new medical application for Illuminas DNA sequencing instruments, which have so far been used mainly in research labs. In January, Illuminas CEO, Jay Flatley, told investors that he expects the tests will eventually be offered to as many as two million women a year in the United States, representing half of all pregnanciesup from around 250,000 mothers, mostly older, who now undergo the invasive tests. Its unprecedented in medical testing how fast this has gone from lab research to acceptance, says Diana Bianchi, executive director of the Mother Infant Research Institute at Tufts University and the chief clinical advisor to Verinata. Its a huge impact for any technology in its first year.

But this is likely to be just the start for prenatal DNA sequencing. The same labs and companies that launched the Down syndrome tests, like Verinata, have also figured out how they can get much more information from a mothers bloodstream, including the complete genome sequence of her fetus. Thats a technical breakthrough, and maybe a commercial one, too. Pregnancy, with its hopes, anxieties, and frequent doctors visits, could be where genome sequencing finally finds a major consumer application.

I think that we are going to sequence the genome of everyoneof every fetus in the first trimester, at least in part, says Arthur Beaudet, a pediatrician and head of human genetics at the Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston. Today some patients have their genomes sequenced to shed light on genetic diseases or illnesses like cancer, but one day people wont wait until theyre sick. We are already going to know the data at birth, he says.

That wont happen right away. For one thing, sorting out a fetuss exact DNA code via its mothers blood requires a huge amount of repeated sequencing, making it too expensive for routine use. (Illumina currently charges $9,500 to sequence the genome of an adult, and so far attempts to sequence fetal DNA have cost much more.) And there are still technical problems: the fetal genome results are still not accurate enough for making diagnoses. Ethically, too, the technology is a minefield. If we learn the genetic destiny of our children while they are still in the womb, what kinds of choices might we make?

Technically, all this is possible before weve figured out whether we should be doing it, says Jay Shendure, a genome scientist at the University of Washington. Youve got the whole genomethen what do you do with that? There are a lot of things that will have to get ironed out. Shendure works with Ariosa, one of Verinatas competitors. Last summer, his was one of two U.S. labs to demonstrate how the fetal genome might be revealed from a pregnant womans blood. He says the studies conducted so far on fetuses, including his own study, have been retrospectivethey studied blood samples stored by hospitals. But Shendure says he is now working with doctors at Stanford to implement the technology during an actual pregnancy. In other words, as early as this year the first human whose complete genetic code is known in advance could be born.

Full Genome

In 1997, a Hong Kong scientist named Dennis Lo showed that a pregnant womans blood contains trillions of bits of DNA from her baby. The DNA comes from cells in the placenta that have died and ruptured. By Los estimate, as much as 15 percent of the free-floating DNA in a mothers bloodstream is the fetuss. High-speed DNA sequencing can turn those fragments into a wealth of information.

Sequencing the DNA in the blood of a pregnant woman could reveal the full genetic code of a fetus.

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Prenatal DNA Sequencing

23 April 2013 Last updated at 12:39 ET By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website

DNA sequenced from nearly 40 ancient skeletons has shed light on the complex prehistoric events that shaped modern European populations.

A study of remains from Central Europe suggests the foundations of the modern gene pool were laid down between 4,000 and 2,000 BC - in Neolithic times.

These changes were likely brought about by the rapid growth and movement of some populations.

The work by an international team is published in Nature Communications.

Decades of study of the DNA patterns of modern Europeans suggests two major events in prehistory significantly affected the continent's genetic landscape: its initial peopling by hunter-gatherers in Palaeolithic times (35,000 years ago) and a wave of migration by Near Eastern farmers some 6,000 years ago. (in the early Neolithic)

But the extent to which present-day people are descended from the indigenous hunters versus the newcomers that arrived in the Neolithic has been a matter of some debate.

The genetic markers of this first pan-European culture, which was clearly very successful, were then suddenly replaced around 4,500 years ago, and we don't know why

Analysis of DNA from ancient remains in Central and Northern Europe appears to show that the genetic legacy of the hunter-gatherers was all but erased by later migrations, including pioneer Neolithic farmers but possibly by later waves of people too. Still others caution that more samples are needed, and suggest that this picture might not be true for all regions of the continent.

The latest paper reveals that events some time after the initial migration of farmers into Europe did indeed have a major impact on the modern gene pool.

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Making of Europe unlocked by DNA

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Little Mix - DNA Italian special event (20 april 2013) Milan (FULL)
The Girls live show at Magazzini Generali / Milano / Italy songs: Wings, DNA, Change Your Life How Ya Doin #39;?

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Little Mix - DNA Italian special event (20 april 2013) Milan (FULL) - Video

MASS DNA sampling led to the jailing yesterday of a father-of-two for the shocking rape and murder of a teenaged girl in a rural part of the Netherlands 14 years ago.

A court in the northern city of Leeuwarden jailed farmer Jasper Steringa for 18 years for the 1999 murder of 16-year-old Marianne Vaatstra. The crime had initially been blamed on asylum seekers.

Steringa, 45, lived for 13 years less than 2 kilometers from the field where Vaatstra's body was found, raped, strangled and with her throat cut.

She disappeared during the night of April 30 as she returned home by bicycle from celebrating the Dutch national day.

The investigation went cold and was only reopened after changes in Dutch law last year allowed police to identify a suspect by comparing DNA found on a crime scene with genetic material indicating a family relation.

Around 7,300 men turned up voluntarily in September to specially set-up DNA-testing stations in the area to have the inside of their cheeks swabbed. One of those men was Steringa, who reportedly knew the game was up because, thanks to the change in the law, a DNA test of one of his relatives would also have identified him. Steringa confessed to the crime.

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Eastday-DNA sampling snares rapist-murderer

Public release date: 22-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Amy Molnar sciencenewsroom@wiley.com Wiley

A new analysis has found that the loss or amplification of particular DNA regions contributes to the development of prostate cancer, and that patients with two of these DNA changes have a high likelihood of dying from the disease. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study provides valuable information on the genetics of prostate cancer and offers insights into which patients should be treated aggressively.

Cells can become cancerous when they lose or amplify pieces of DNA containing important genes. Using a method that can detect these genetic changes in cells from prostate tumors from 125 patients, Jianfeng Xu, MD, DrPh, Director of the Center for Cancer Genomics at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, and his colleagues at Wake Forest, Brady Urological Institute of Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, and Karolinska Institute of Sweden found that changes in 20 gene regions likely contribute to prostate cancer development. Four of these regions had not been reported before. Importantly, changes in seven of the 20 regions were linked with early death from prostate cancer. Also, patients whose cancer cells had a loss of the PTEN gene and an amplification of the MYC gene were more than 50 times as likely to die from prostate cancer than other patients who had similarly staged tumors and prostate-specific antigen levels at the time of diagnosis. Analyses of 333 tumors from additional patients confirmed the link between PTEN and MYC and prostate cancer lethality.

In addition to providing new information about the genetic changes involved in the development and progression of prostate cancer, the findings may help guide doctors as they weigh different treatment options for patients with the disease. "For example, prostate cancer patients who have DNA copy number alterations at PTEN and MYC may not be appropriate candidates for active surveillance and should be treated intensively," explained Dr. Xu.

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URL Upon publication: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/cncr.27954

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Particular DNA changes linked with prostate cancer development and lethality