Category Archives: DNA

NEW YORK (AP) A letter that scientist Francis Crick wrote to his son about his Nobel Prize-winning DNA discovery was sold to anonymous buyer at a New York City auction on Wednesday for a record-breaking $5.3 million.

The price, which far exceeded the $1 million pre-sale estimate, topped $6 million when the commission is included, according to Christie's. The price was a record for a letter sold at auction, Christies said, eclipsing an Abraham Lincoln letter that sold in April 2008 for $3.4 million including commission.

On Thursday, the molecular biologists 1962 Nobel Prize medal in physiology or medicine will be offered by Heritage Auctions, which estimates it could fetch over $500,000.

The items are among a dozen artifacts Cricks heirs are selling to benefit scientific research.

In the March 19, 1953, handwritten letter to his 12-year-old son, Michael, Crick describes his discovery of the structure of DNA as something beautiful. The note tells his son how he and James Watson found the copying mechanism by which life comes from life. It includes a simple sketch of DNAs double helix structure, which Crick concedes he cant draw very well.

The seven-page letter, written to his son in boarding school, concludes: Read this carefully so that you will understand it. When you come home we will show you the model. Lots of love, Daddy.

Crick, who died in 2004 at age 88, was awarded the Nobel Prize along with Watson and Maurice Wilkins. He spent the latter decades of his career doing brain research at the Salk Institute, where he became a professor in 1977.

Michael Cricks daughter Kindra said the family decided to sell the medal and other items because they had been in storage for 50 years, first locked up in a room of her grandfathers La Jolla, Calif., home and later in a safe deposit box.

They chose to sell them now because it coincides with the 60th anniversary of the historic discovery and 50 years since he received the award, she said.

Half the proceeds from the Christies sale will benefit the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, the granddaughter said. Twenty percent of the proceeds from the Heritage Auctions sale will go to the new Francis Crick Institute in London, a medical research institute slated to open in 2015.

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DNA discoverer's letter sells for more than $5M

At left, metallized DNA (red) forms letters on a graphene surface. Treatment with oxygen plasma etches the shape of the letters into the graphene, right. Credit: ZHONG JIN

DNA's unique structure is ideal for carrying genetic information, but scientists have recently found ways to exploit this versatile molecule for other purposes: By controlling DNA sequences, they can manipulate the molecule to form many different nanoscale shapes.

Chemical and molecular engineers at MIT and Harvard University have now expanded this approach by using folded DNA to control the nanostructure of inorganic materials. After building DNA nanostructures of various shapes, they used the molecules as templates to create nanoscale patterns on sheets of graphene. This could be an important step toward large-scale production of electronic chips made of graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon with unique electronic properties.

"This gives us a chemical tool to program shapes and patterns at the nanometer scale, forming electronic circuits, for example," says Michael Strano, a professor of chemical engineering at MIT and a senior author of a paper describing the technique in the April 9 issue of Nature Communications.

Peng Yin, an assistant professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School and a member of Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, is also a senior author of the paper, and MIT postdoc Zhong Jin is the lead author. Other authors are Harvard postdocs Wei Sun and Yonggang Ke, MIT graduate students Chih-Jen Shih and Geraldine Paulus, and MIT postdocs Qing Hua Wang and Bin Mu.

Most of these DNA nanostructures are made using a novel approach developed in Yin's lab. Complex DNA nanostructures with precisely prescribed shapes are constructed using short synthetic DNA strands called single-stranded tiles. Each of these tiles acts like an interlocking toy brick and binds with four designated neighbors.

Using these single-stranded tiles, Yin's lab has created more than 100 distinct nanoscale shapes, including the full alphabet of capital English letters and many emoticons. These structures are designed using computer software and can be assembled in a simple reaction. Alternatively, such structures can be constructed using an approach called DNA origami, in which many short strands of DNA fold a long strand into a desired shape.

However, DNA tends to degrade when exposed to sunlight or oxygen, and can react with other molecules, so it is not ideal as a long-term building material. "We'd like to exploit the properties of more stable nanomaterials for structural applications or electronics," Strano says.

Instead, he and his colleagues transferred the precise structural information encoded in DNA to sturdier graphene. The chemical process involved is fairly straightforward, Strano says: First, the DNA is anchored onto a graphene surface using a molecule called aminopyrine, which is similar in structure to graphene. The DNA is then coated with small clusters of silver along the surface, which allows a subsequent layer of gold to be deposited on top of the silver.

Once the molecule is coated in gold, the stable metallized DNA can be used as a mask for a process called plasma lithography. Oxygen plasma, a very reactive "gas flow" of ionized molecules, is used to wear away any unprotected graphene, leaving behind a graphene structure identical to the original DNA shape. The metallized DNA is then washed away with sodium cyanide.

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Folded DNA templates allow researchers to precisely cut out graphene shapes which could be used in electronic circuits

NEW YORK (AP) A letter that scientist Francis Crick wrote to his son about his Nobel Prize-winning DNA discovery was sold to anonymous buyer at a New York City auction on Wednesday for a record-breaking $5.3 million.

The price, which far exceeded the $1 million pre-sale estimate, topped $6 million when the commission is included, according to Christie's. The price was a record for a letter sold at auction, Christie's said, eclipsing an Abraham Lincoln letter that sold in April 2008 for $3.4 million including commission.

On Thursday, the molecular biologist's 1962 Nobel Prize medal in physiology or medicine will be offered by Heritage Auctions, which estimates it could fetch over $500,000.

The items are among a dozen artifacts Crick's heirs are selling to benefit scientific research.

In the March 19, 1953, handwritten letter to his 12-year-old son, Michael, Crick describes his discovery of the structure of DNA as something "beautiful." The note tells his son how he and James Watson found the copying mechanism "by which life comes from life." It includes a simple sketch of DNA's double helix structure, which Crick concedes he can't draw very well.

The seven-page letter, written to his son in boarding school, concludes: "Read this carefully so that you will understand it. When you come home we will show you the model. Lots of love, Daddy."

Crick, who died in 2004 at age 88, was awarded the Nobel Prize along with Watson and Maurice Wilkins. He spent the latter decades of his career doing brain research at the Salk Institute, where he became a professor in 1977.

Michael Crick's daughter Kindra said the family decided to sell the medal and other items because they had been in storage for 50 years, first locked up in a room of her grandfather's La Jolla, Calif., home and later in a safe deposit box.

They chose to sell them now because it "coincides with the 60th anniversary of the historic discovery and 50 years since he received the award," she said.

Half the proceeds from the Christie's sale will benefit the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, the granddaughter said. Twenty percent of the proceeds from the Heritage Auctions sale will go to the new Francis Crick Institute in London, a medical research institute slated to open in 2015.

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DNA discoverer's letter sells for $5.3M, a record

NEW YORK (AP) A letter that Francis Crick wrote to his young son about his DNA discovery and the scientist's Nobel Prize medal are among a dozen artifacts his heirs are selling at separate auctions to benefit scientific research.

On Wednesday, Christie's was offering the letter with a presale estimate of $1 million or more.

On Thursday, the molecular biologist's 1962 Nobel Prize medal in physiology or medicine will be sold by Heritage Auctions, which estimates it could fetch over $500,000. The medal is being sold with his Nobel diploma, a handsome two-page vellum document that contains an original hand-colored picture of a long-haired youth in a blue tunic holding the Rod of Asclepius.

In the March 19, 1953, handwritten letter to his 12-year-old son, Michael, Crick describes his discovery of the structure of DNA as something "beautiful." The note tells his son how he and James Watson found the copying mechanism "by which life comes from life." It includes a simple sketch of DNA's double helix structure, which Crick concedes he can't draw very well.

The seven-page letter, written to his son in boarding school, concludes: "Read this carefully so that you will understand it. When you come home we will show you the model. Lots of love, Daddy."

Crick, who died in 2004 at age 88, was awarded the Nobel Prize along with Watson and Maurice Wilkins. He spent the latter decades of his career doing brain research at the Salk Institute, where he became a professor in 1977.

Michael Crick's daughter Kindra said the family decided to sell the medal and other items because they had been in storage for 50 years, first locked up in a room of her grandfather's La Jolla, Calif., home and later in a safe deposit box.

They chose to sell them now because it "coincides with the 60th anniversary of the historic discovery and 50 years since he received the award," she said.

Half the proceeds from the Christie's sale will benefit the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, the granddaughter said. Twenty percent of the proceeds from the Heritage Auctions sale will go to the new Francis Crick Institute in London, a medical research institute slated to open in 2015.

Michael Crick, who was in New York to attend the auctions with his daughter, told The Associated Press that the family hoped the prospective buyers "will give people the opportunity to look at them and that they will be an inspiration for future scientists."

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DNA discoverer's items featured at 2 NYC auctions

Peeking at your DNA is getting cheaper.

(Money Magazine)

You might also learn whether your genes raise your chances of getting diabetes -- but your doctor will still probably be more interested in other, more obvious risk factors, such as your family history and diet.

To avoid catching the attention of the IRS, beware of these pitfalls.

In short, although technology is quickly making it cheaper and easier to get data about yourself, it's not always clear which information is worth getting and which isn't.

Here's a guide to using, and paying for, genetic tests.

What you can find out -- and what you'll pay

Roughly, two kinds of tests are available.

The first is ordered by a doctor and will often involve finding all the variations in specific genes. Research has found some variations that point to a higher risk of diseases, including breast cancer and a kind of colon cancer.

A doctor might recommend a screen based on risk factors like family history or ethnic background. Other tests, says David Fleming, an internist and health ethicist at the University of Missouri, can provide clues to how you'll respond to certain drugs or treatments.

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DNA testing: Crack open your genetic code

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Il DNA incontra Facebook- Servizio su Tg Leonardo RAI3 27/03/2013 - Video

DNA , Talita Freitas

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Hello, Deneb! #9 -- Ramps and self.DNA() -- JET Plays Minecraft
I #39;ve finally returned to construction on my island tower fortress citadel castle city, as yet unnamed. I begin this two-part section wherein all I accomplish...

By: Joshua Turcotte

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Hello, Deneb! #9 -- Ramps and self.DNA() -- JET Plays Minecraft - Video

By Joel Schipper, Reporter Last Updated: Tuesday, April 09, 2013, 10:29 PM ORMOND BEACH --

Police arrested a man Monday for a violent sexual crime committed more than a decade ago.

Carl Perdew, 43, is facing felony charges of sexual battery and robbery for the 2002 crime.The DNA test taken from an arrest last August led investigators to Perdew.

A woman says she was leaving a Daytona Beach bar and asked a man to use a phone to call for a ride home.

While the two were walking along some nearby railroad tracks, police say a second man approached. The two men then hit her on the head, robbed her and raped her.

Police say the woman got to a gas station and told officers, but there was no break in the case until last August.

Police say Carl Perdew was arrested for soliciting a prostitute. The DNA swab taken from Perdew was entered into the FDLE crime lab database. That's how investigators discovered the match.

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DNA leads to Ormond Beach rape arrest

Christie's

Francis Crick sketched this diagram of the DNA double-helix molecule in a 1953 letter to his son, Michael. "The model looks much nicer than this," the elder Crick wrote.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

The descendants of Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA's double helix, are likely to receive a seven-figure sum from this week's sales of the late researcher's Nobel Prize and a handwritten letter describing the structure of the DNA molecule but the geneticists who are carrying on Crick's legacy will win a dividend as well.

"We'll probably be giving more money to the Francis Crick Institute than the prize was worth when he got it," mused Michael Crick, the Nobel-winner's eldest child and the recipient of that historic letter back in 1953.

The sales have been timed to take advantage of the 60th anniversary of the double-helix discovery, which was detailed by Crick and American biologist James Watson in a paper published by the journal Nature on April 25, 1953. Their findings opened the way to deciphering the molecular codes that control all of life's processes. The paper's publication date is now celebrated every year as "DNA Day."

Double helix, double sale Crick's legacy is the focus of two million-dollar sales scheduled in New York this week: On Wednesday, Michael Crick's lettergoes on the auction block at Christie's. His father sent it to the 12-year-old at his boarding school in March 1953 just after the researchers worked out the structure of DNA's long, double-helix molecule, but before the Nature paper's publication. "My dear Michael," the letter began, "Jim Watson and I have probably made a most important discovery."

The seven-page letter goes on to lay out the chemical structure of "des-oxy-ribose-nucleic-acid ... called D.N.A. for short." The elder Crick even sketched out the base pairs connecting the molecule's twisted spines.

"As far as we know, it's the first written description of how life comes from life," Michael Crick, now 72, told NBC News.

The letter has been valued at $1 million to $2 million. Michael Crick and his wife, Barbara, will receive half of the proceeds. The other half will go to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, where Francis Crick worked up to the time of his deathin 2004 at the age of 88.

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DNA pioneer's Nobel for sale