Category Archives: DNA

Genetic information stored anonymously in databases doesn't always stay that way, a new study revealed, raising concern about how much privacy participants in research projects can expect in the Internet era.

Tension has long existed between the need to share data to drive medical discoveries and the fact many people don't want personal health information disclosed. The growing use of genetic sequencing makes this even more challenging because genetic data reveals information not only about an individual, but also about his or her relatives.

In a paper published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers were able to determine the identities of nearly 50 people who had submitted genetic information as part of scientific studies. The people were told that no identifying information would be included in the studies but were warned of the remote possibility that at some point in the future, their identities might become known.

"We have been pretending that by removing enough information from databases that we can make people anonymous. We have been promising privacy, and this paper demonstrates that for a certain percent of a population, those promises are empty,'' said John Wilbanks, chief commons officer at Sage Bionetworks, a nonprofit organization that promotes data sharing, who wasn't involved in the study.

The public and scientific community are concerned about DNA privacy since they worry that genetic informationwhich can show susceptibility to certain diseases and other ailmentsmight be used by insurers, employers or others to discriminate against people.

In the new study, the researchers, led by the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass., used the genetic information of people whose genomes had been anonymously published as part of the 1000 Genomes Project, an international collaboration to create a public catalog of data from at least 1,000 people of different ethnic and population groups.

Using a computer algorithm, the researchers focused on identifying unique genetic markers on the Y chromosome of men in the project. They searched publicly accessible genealogy databases that contain both Y chromosome information and men's surnames.

Such genealogy sites, which people join in hopes of compiling their family tree, sometimes include Y chromosome data because it is passed from father to son and can be traced back generations. Some genealogy sites group such genetic information with surnames.

When they got a match to a surname, the researchers ran numerous Internet searches to collect data on each individual's family tree, including obituaries, which often list the names of a deceased's family members. They also searched for demographic data on the public website of the Coriell Institute for Medical Research, a nonprofit in Camden, N.J., that houses collections of genetic material.

With the family-tree data, they were able to identify nearly 50 men and women who participated in genetic studies. "It only takes one male,'' said Yaniv Erlich, a Whitehead fellow, who led the research team. "With one male, we can find even distant relatives.''

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DNA donors' identities fairly easy to uncover online, study finds

BARBERTON, Ohio - DNA evidence found inside of a dog's mouth apparently helped Barberton police solve a home invasion that happened last October.

However, the suspect, 24-year-old David Stoddard, was not charged or arrested before he allegedly shot and killed a pregnant, 16-year-old Akron girl three months later.

According to Lt. Brian Jamison of the Barberton Police Department, Stoddard was indicted Thursday for aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary in connection with an incident that happened on Oct. 6 at a Jefferson Avenue home.

In that case, police said three masked men burst into the house, fired shots and robbed a woman and her son.

Police said the family dog, a pitbull mix, bit one of the suspects on his left arm. The dog was shot and killed by one of the intruders, officers said.

Officer Chris Mitchell helped process the scene and applied cotton swabs to four corners of the dog's mouth, hoping to find DNA skin cell evidence from the suspect who was bitten.

"Before I did it, I actually got on my laptop in my cruiser and looked it up because I never heard of it being done before and I didn't know if there was any precedent for it," Mitchell said.

On Dec. 5, Barberton police received a letter from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification in Richfield that indicated a potential DNA match to Stoddard.

The officers were stunned that DNA from the dog's mouth potentially cracked a case that otherwise could have gone unsolved.

"We were surprised that it worked, really. We had no other evidence in the case basically. It was at a dead end," Jamison said.

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DNA from dog's mouth solves robbery

BARBERTON, Ohio DNA taken from a dogs mouth helps police track down a man accused of a violent robbery and home invasion. Then police learn the suspect was already in jail, accused of a deadly double shooting.

We were told that three men with masks illegally entered the house, robbed the residents, there were two residents there, said Barberton patrolman Marty Eberhart.

Barberton police say on Oct. 6, they responded to a violent home invasion at a house on Jefferson Avenue.

One of the subjects had a gun, he assaulted one of the residents in the house, and as they were fleeing, they had a pit bull at the house that went after the suspect and bit him in the arm and leg, Eberhart said.

Investigators say one of the three men pulled out a gun and shot the dog.

When officers get there the dog was deceased, they did a DNA swab of the dogs mouth after finding out that the dog had bit a suspect, he said.

Detectives sent the DNA sample to BCI, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Two months later, there was a match.

Approximately on December 5th, we received a letter from BCI saying that theres a possible match in the DNA from the dog bite that came back to David Stoddard, said Eberhart.

David Stoddard, 24, who is from Barberton, is the same man arrested and charged with shooting Jessica Halman, 19,and Anna Karam, 16,inside a home in Akron on Jan. 6. Anna, who was pregnant, died.

Barberton police say at the time, they were making arrangements with Stoddards attorney to turn himself in.

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DNA in Unlikely Place Cracks Case

Authorities in Ohio are crediting DNA taken from a dog's mouth in helping to nab a man accused of violent robbery and home invasion, Fox 8 reported.

Police in Barberton responded to calls about a violent home invasion on Oct. 6, during which one of the intruders assaulted the resident.

"One of the subjects had a gun, he assaulted one of the residents in the house, and as they were fleeing, they had a pit bull at the house that went after the suspect and bit him in the arm and leg," Barberton patrolman Marty Eberhart told the station.

Investigators said one of the three men pulled out a gun and shot the dog.

"When officers got there the dog was deceased. They did a DNA swab of the dogs mouth after finding out that the dog had bit a suspect," Eberhart said.

Detectives sent the DNA sample to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, according to the station. Two months later, authorities learned that the DNA matched that of 24-year-old David Stoddard.

While police were making arrangements with the man's attorney for him to turn himself in, Stoddard was arrested and charged with shooting a woman and teenage girl inside a home in Akron on Jan. 6. The 16-year-old victim, who was pregnant, died, the station reported.

Police say without testing DNA from the dog's mouth, they may have never solved the case.

We were just as amazed, too, that it actually worked when we did the DNA swab and that it came back to a positive match, so we were pretty shocked by it because we didnt have any leads on the investigation, Eberhart told the station.

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DNA from dog's mouth helps track down violent criminal in Ohio

Oscar De La Hoya Signed Boxing Glove - PSA/DNA
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By: mrsportsmem

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Oscar De La Hoya Signed Boxing Glove - PSA/DNA - Video

Blackberry 10/HMV Closing/ Pig Horse Dna - Technology and everything in between
Techguy276.blogspot.co.uk RIM rumoured to be bringing out a blackberry 10 with a full qwerty keyboard HMV closing and the state of the country and tesco and morrisons with meat products with pig dna and horse dna moaning about the government

By: Tom penny

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Blackberry 10/HMV Closing/ Pig

Autographed Phil Hughes Baseball - PSA/DNA
This is a baseball autographed by All-Star pitcher, Phil Hughes, in the sweet spot. You can view more about this product here - http://www.sportsmemorabilia.com

By: mrsportsmem

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Autographed Phil Hughes Baseball - PSA/DNA - Video

The Irish Times - Thursday, January 17, 2013

DICK AHLSTROM

ANALYSIS:Advanced genetic technologies are making it increasingly difficult for food producers to misrepresent their products. DNA analysis readily detected the sometimes minute quantities of pig and horse meat found in the burger products tested.

It also points up the challenge faced by bodies such as the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, which commissioned the DNA tests.

It is not feasible to check every meat product that comes into the country and so our supermarket shelves may still be displaying burgers that contain meat other than the expected beef.

DNA fingerprinting

The DNA technology used to test the meat, sometimes referred to as DNA fingerprinting or profiling, was developed by Alec Jeffreys at the University of Leicester back in 1984. It allowed one DNA profile to be compared directly with another.

Within three years it developed into a service mostly used to prove or disprove paternity.

The huge public scare triggered by so-called mad cow disease and its transmission to humans encouraged the adaptation of the technology to animals.

Trinity College Dublins Prof Patrick Cunningham converted the technology and co-founded DNA profiling company IdentiGEN.

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DNA profiling leaves no room for beefs

In a remarkable act of biological mimicry, researchers in Europe and the United States announced in April that they had created six types of artificial DNAsynthetic genetic material that can encode information just like the real thing. The invention suggests that the earliest life on Earth did not necessarily rely on DNA or its cousin, RNA, since other molecules can also perform the same tricks. The artificial DNA, or XNAs, are simple chemical alternatives to store and propagate genetic information, says team leader Philipp Holliger of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.

Natural DNA consists of a ladder frame of ring-shaped deoxyribose molecules (which form the backbone of the double helix) and rungs of bases (which spell out the genetic alphabet). To create XNAs, Holliger and his team replaced the deoxyribose with alternative synthetic chemical ring structures such as arabinose or cyclohexene. Like DNA, XNAs can hold genetic information that specifies how to build a protein. And XNAs can evolve: When the researchers subjected billions of unique XNA strands to selective pressure in a test tubein this case binding to a provided target moleculeout came XNA sequences folded up into 3-D structures that could bind.

XNAs may also have medical applications. Short strands of nucleic acids, called aptamers, can target a disease-inducing gene or protein and, for example, block it from activating. Natural aptamers are quickly degraded by the body, but because XNA aptamers are foreign, they will last longerlong enough, Holliger hopes, to have therapeutic value.

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38. DNA Mimic Brewed in Lab

In 1983, Stephen Close was arrested, jailed and expelled from the British army for having sex with a male squad mate.

Three decades later, police tracked him down to the northern England city of Salford and demanded a sample of his DNA.

Close, now 50 and openly gay, said he was shocked.

"I was horrified that after all these years they suddenly decided to bring this up again," Close said in a telephone interview from Salford, 205 miles (330 kilometers) north of London.

While it is not illegal in the U.K. to collect genetic material from adults, Britain's DNA database one of the largest in the world, with some 6 million samples has long been a magnet for controversy. Human rights advocate Peter Tatchell says gay men convicted years ago under Britain's now-defunct gross indecency law may have had their rights violated recently by British police who ordered them to submit their genetic material to the database.

"It is absolutely wrong to lump a consenting, victimless offense like 'gross indecency' with rape and child sex abuse," Tatchell told The Associated Press.

Europe's top human rights court in 2008 struck down a British law that allowed the government to store DNA and fingerprints from people with no criminal record. But in 2011, a new law allowed police to collect DNA from offenders who had been convicted of serious offenses before the DNA database was created in 1995.

Amanda Cooper of the Association of Chief Police Officers' DNA database program said police forces were told that "certain sexual offences, such as gross indecency and buggery, should not have a DNA sample taken on the grounds of a sole conviction."

In Close's case, he was first convicted of a gross indecency charge and later theft.

The "gross indecency" law dates back to 1885, and has been used to persecute thousands of English homosexuals, including playwright Oscar Wilde, who spent two years in prison after a trial in 1895, and World War II code breaker Alan Turing, who committed suicide after being convicted in 1952.

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UK Police Accused of Wrongly Taking DNA of Gay Men