Police have a DNA profile of the man who sexually assaulted a woman at North Adelaide last month, but the profile does not match any in the national database.

On September 6, a 23-year-old woman was walking home after having drinks with friends in OConnell St when she was attacked on Gover St just after midnight.

Police say the DNA profile of the offender does not match any match profiles on the National Criminal Investigation DNA Data Base, meaning the offender is unlikely to have a significant criminal history and could be a first time offender.

The suspect is described as aged in his 30s, about 175cm tall, with an olive complexion, shaved head and a calm, husky voice.

Posters depicting an image of the suspect have been distributed to businesses around North Adelaide.

We urge members of the public to take note of them and to read, have a look and to see if you recognise this person, Detective Acting Sergeant Matthew Lyon said.

Police said they have been reviewing CCTV footage and talking to local businesses as part of their ongoing enquiries.

They do not believe the attack is linked to others around North Adelaide, but have warned women to avoid walking alone at night and to stick to well-lit main roads.

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Police have rape suspect’s DNA profile

By Amanda Gardner HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Oct. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists have developed a new DNA test for colorectal cancer and for cancer precursors that seems to be not only accurate, but also noninvasive.

If approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, experts say, the test could be a welcome alternative to colonoscopies, which require a lengthy and uncomfortable preparation.

"The study is interesting and may hold some promise in the future," said Dr. David Beck, chairman of the department of colon and rectal surgery at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans. "More testing needs to be done to confirm the findings, and we need to know how available the test will be and what it will cost."

"Currently, it is estimated that almost 50 percent of Americans have not been screened [by any method] for colorectal cancer," added Beck, who was not involved with the study. "Most tests are better than nothing. If further study confirms the usefulness of this test, it would be a significant help."

The researchers began with stool samples from more than 1,000 people who were undergoing colonoscopies for screening and who had just had a colonoscopy that identified a malignancy or pre-malignancy.

In previous studies, the researchers had identified 11 biomarkers that, when combined, could indicate the presence of cancerous or precancerous lesions.

The test has three components, said study author Graham Lidgard, senior vice president of research and development and chief science officer at Exact Sciences in Madison, Wis., which developed the test and funded the research.

The first identifies methylation in two genes. Methylation is a process that can turn off tumor suppressor genes that would normally help curb the proliferation of cancer cells. Abnormal methylation can be found in both colorectal cancers and pre-cancers.

The second component searches for DNA mutations in the K-ras gene. Mutations in this gene can spur tumor growth, and these mutations can be identified both in cancers and in pre-cancers.

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New DNA Test Shows Promise for Spotting Colon Cancer

A DNA sample from a phony "chewing gum survey" led to the arrest of a man who has been charged with killing a 70-year-old woman in 1976, making this the oldest cold case to ever be cracked in Maine.

Gary Sanford Raub, 63, was arrested on Monday in Seattle and charged with murdering 70-year-old Blanche Kimball in Augusta, Maine.

Kimball was found stabbed to death inside her State Street home on June 12, 1976 after neighbors called police to say they had not seen her for several days. The killer eluded investigators and the case turned cold, but authorities kept at it over the decades.

"In Maine, State Police assign the open homicide cases to a detective. There's always a detective assigned to these cases, which are constantly reviewed, as time permits," Maine State Police spokesman Steve McCausland told ABCNews.com.

Recent DNA work by the State Police Crime Lab on evidence from the crime led them to Raub, authorities said.

"It was last summer that we got some very concrete DNA work on some of the evidence that was seized and made a comparison that brought us to this point," McCausland said. "It was DNA that cracked this."

Raub was tracked to Seattle, where he was living as a homeless transient and police knew him from his lengthy criminal record. Authorities discovered that Raub knew Kimball and had at one time lived at her home.

Augusta investigators coordinated with authorities in Seattle and used a fake "gum chewing survey" to get a new DNA sample from Raub.

"I don't know the exact details, but we obviously needed some up-to-date DNA from him and some bubble gum was the key to getting that," McCausland said.

Three decades later, investigators remained committed to finding justice for Kimball.

Continued here:
Fake 'Gum Survey' DNA Solves Case

Two high-profile entrepreneurs say they want to put a DNA sequencing machine on the surface of Mars in a bid to prove the existence of extraterrestrial life.

In what could become a race for the first extraterrestrial genome, researcher J. Craig Venter said Tuesday that his Maryland academic institute and company, Sythentic Genomics, would develop a machine capable of sequencing and beaming back DNA data from Mars.

Separately, Jonathan Rothberg, founder of Ion Torrent, a DNA sequencing company, is collaborating on an effort to adapt his company's "Personal Genome Machine" for Martian conditions.

"We want to make sure an Ion Torrent goes to Mars," Rothberg told Technology Review.

Although neither team yet has a berth on Mars rocket, their plans reflect the belief that the simplest way to prove there is life on Mars is to send a DNA sequencing machine to the planet.

"There will be DNA life forms there," Venter predicted Tuesday in New York, where he was speaking at the Wired Health Conference.

Venter said researchers working with him have already begun tests at a Mars-like test site in the Mojave Desert. Their goal, he said, is to demonstrate a machine capable of autonomously isolating microbes from soil, sequencing their DNA, and then transmitting the information to a remote computer, as would be required on an unmanned Mars mission. (Hear his comments in this video, starting at 00:11:01). Heather Kowalski, a spokeswoman for Venter, confirmed the existence of the project, but also said the prototype system was "not yet 100 percent robotic."

Meanwhile, Rothberg's Personal Genome Machine is being adapted for Martian conditions as part of a NASA-funded project at Harvard and MIT called SET-G, or "the search for extra-terrestrial genomes."

Christopher Carr, an MIT research scientist involved in the effort, says his lab is working to shrink Ion Torrent's machine from 30 kilograms down to just 3 kilograms so that it can fit on a NASA rover. Other tests, already conducted, have determined how well the device can withstand the heavy radiation it would encounter on the way to Mars.

NASA, whose Curiosity rover landed on Mars in August, won't send another rover mission to the planet before at least 2018 (see "The Mars Rover Curiosity Marks a Technological Triumph"), and there's no guarantee a DNA sequencing device would go aboard. "The hard thing about getting to Mars is hitting the NASA specifications," says George Church, a Harvard University researcher and a senior member of the SET-G team. "[Venter] isn't ahead of anyone else."

Originally posted here:
Genome Hunters Go after Martian DNA