Category Archives: Transhuman News

A micrograph of HeLa cells, derived from cervical cancer cells taken from Henrietta Lacks.

A micrograph of HeLa cells, derived from cervical cancer cells taken from Henrietta Lacks.

Last week, scientists announced they had sequenced the full genome of the most widely used human cell line in biology, the "HeLa" cells, and published the results on the web. But the descendents of the woman from whom the cells originated were never consulted before the genetic information was made public, and thus never gave their consent to its release.

Morning Edition's Renee Montagne spoke to Rebecca Skloot, author of the best-selling book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which chronicles the cells and the family tied to them. Skloot also wrote an op-ed in Sunday's New York Times about the need for international standards to protect the privacy of genetic data.

Henrietta Lacks was a poor black tobacco farmer in southern Virginia. In 1951, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Her doctor, without telling her, took a little piece of her tumor to study it.

Lacks died soon afterward, but her cells kept growing and reproducing in the doctor's Johns Hopkins lab. As scientists recognized their surprising ability to grow indefinitely, the cells become hugely important to medical research. For the past 60 years, the HeLa cells have been used in experiments on topics as diverse as cloning, the effects of radiation, and the polio vaccine.

Lacks' family didn't find out about the immortal cells until the 1970s.

"It has been a long legacy within the family of 'research without consent,' and they've [experienced] quite a few privacy violations along the way," says Skloot.

Some of the HeLa genome has been available for years. The European researchers who sequenced the full genome initially claimed last week that no private medical information about Lacks or her descendents could come from the data they published online.

But right away other researchers began to refute that. They noted that although the cells have mutated, they still contain Henrietta's genes.

Read more:
Sequencing Of HeLa Genome Revives Genetic Privacy Concerns

Public release date: 27-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Dr. Hilary Glover hilary.glover@biomedcentral.com 44-020-319-22370 BioMed Central

The genome of the western painted turtle (Chrysemys picta bellii) one of the most widespread, abundant and well-studied turtles in the world, is published this week in Genome Biology. The data show that, like turtles themselves, the rate of genome evolution is extremely slow; turtle genomes evolve at a rate that is about a third that of the human genome and a fifth that of the python, the fastest lineage analyzed.

As a group, turtles are long-lived, can withstand low temperatures including freezing solid, can survive for long periods with no oxygen, and their sex is usually determined by the temperature at which their eggs develop rather than genetically. The painted turtle is most anoxia-tolerant vertebrate and can survive up to four months under water depending on the temperature. Turtles and tortoises are also the most endangered major vertebrate group on earth, with half of all species listed as endangered. This is the first turtle, and only the second non-avian reptile genome to be sequenced, and the analysis reveals some interesting insights about these bizarre features and adaptations, many of which are only known in turtles.

The western painted turtle is a freshwater species, and the most widespread turtle native to North America. Bradley Shaffer and colleagues place the western painted turtle genome into a comparative evolutionary context, showing that turtles are more closely related to birds and crocodilians than to any other vertebrates. They also find 19 genes in the brain and 23 in the heart whose expression is increased in low oxygen conditions including one whose expression changes nearly 130 fold. Further experiments on turtle hatchlings indicated that common microRNA was involved in freeze tolerance adaptation.

This work consistently indicates that common vertebrate regulatory networks, some of which have analogs in human diseases, are often involved in the western painted turtle achieving its extraordinary physiological capacities. The authors argue that the painted turtle may offer important insights into the management of a number of human health disorders, particularly those involved with anoxia and hypothermia.

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Media contact

Dr Hilary Glover Scientific Press Officer, BioMed Central Tel: +44 (0) 20 3192 2370 Mob: +44 (0) 778 698 1967 Email: hilary.glover@biomedcentral.com

Notes

Read this article:
Getting under the shell of the turtle genome

Mar. 26, 2013 The genome of the mountain pine beetle -- the insect that has devastated British Columbia's lodgepole pine forests -- has been decoded by researchers at the University of British Columbia and Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre.

This is a first for the mountain pine beetle and only the second beetle genome ever sequenced. The first was the red flour beetle, a pest of stored grains. The genome is described in a study published Tuesday in the journal Genome Biology.

"We know a lot about what the beetles do," says Christopher Keeling, a research associate in Prof. Joerg Bohlmann's lab at the Michael Smith Laboratories. "But without the genome, we don't know exactly how they do it."

"Sequencing the mountain pine beetle genome provides new information that can be used to help manage the epidemic in the future."

The genome revealed large variation among individuals of the species -- about four times greater than the variation among humans.

"As the beetles' range expands and as they head into jack pine forests where the defensive compounds may be different, this variation could allow them to be more successful in new environments," says Keeling.

Researchers isolated genes that help detoxify defence compounds found under the bark of the tree -- where the beetles live. They also found genes that degrade plant cell walls, which allow the beetles to get nutrients from the tree.

Keeling, Bohlmann and their colleagues also uncovered a bacterial gene that has jumped into the mountain pine beetle genome. This gene codes for an enzyme that digests sugars.

"It might be used to digest woody tissue and/or the microorganisms that grow in the beetle's tunnels underneath the bark of the tree," said Keeling. "Gene transfers sometimes make organisms more successful in their environments."

This study involved researchers from the University of Northern British Columbia and the University of Alberta.

More here:
Mountain pine beetle genome decoded

Putting genome data into the public domain advances science, but nearly all of it can be linked to someone.

a.k.a. HeLa: Henrietta Lackss cells became a staple of biomedical research.

Last week European scientists were shamed into cutting off public access to a genome sequence. As far as I know, its the first instance of a genome pulled from the public record.

Its also a bad precedent.

The case involves a line of cervical cancer cells, known as HeLa. As told in the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a bestseller by reporter Rebecca Skloot, the HeLa cell line came from the body of Henrietta Lacks, a poor African-American tobacco farmer. The cells were collected without Lackss knowledge, and later researchers did even more dodgy research involving her children.

Lacks died of her cancer in 1951, but HeLa went on to become a big deal in science. In fact, it is the most widely used model cell line for studying human biology. Thats according to some German researchers who, on March 11, decided to expand that knowledge by publishing the HeLa genome.

The publication set off a tizzy of criticism online, tracked here by researcher Jonathan Eisen. Although no law required the Germans to ask permission from Lackss family, it seemed in very poor taste not to have done so, especially given the notoriety of the case. Eventually Skloot, whose book is being made into a movie by Oprah Winfrey and HBO, got involved. She briefed the Lacks family and conveyed their concerns to the scientists, who then agreed to put a block on the data.

In her write-up of the episode for the New York Times, Skloot quotes one of Lackss granddaughters, Jeri Lacks-Whye, as telling her: That is private family information It shouldnt have been published without our consent.

Private information? Whatever the past injustices the Lackses have suffered, thats just entirely wrong. There is no law here or in Germany (that I know of) that lets anyone put a claim on the DNA information of another person.

Even what right you have to your own DNA information isnt settled. Some states have sought to pass laws that attempt to define DNA as personal property. That way, no one could surreptitiously collect yours and publish it. Eric Topol, a doctor at the Scripps Institute, tweeted at me to say, Individuals should own their own DNA data!

See more here:
The Dawn of Genome Trolling