THE cost of DNA testing appears to be behind Australian Wool Innovation cutting off funds to its nucleus flock.

In a letter to its levypayers AWI said cost would deter DNA testing by stud breeders.

"The cost of genotyping is currently in the order of $130 and would have to drop to about $20 before a significant uptake is expected, " AWI chief executive Stuart McCullough and chairman Wal Merriman said in the letter.

Late last year AWI was asked to contribute $4.8 million to a nine-year program costing almost $13 million and involving a 6000-head flock joined over five years and four subsequent years of measurements.

At the time the Sheep Co-operative Research Centre paid $150 for a test that provided a parentage, detection of single gene traits such as pollness and predictions for a range of traits for wool and carcass quality, fertility and parasite resistance.

But Victorian Department of Primary Industries geneticist Dr Ben Hay said DNA costings were falling sharply worldwide.

Dr Hay said the cost of reading DNA had dropped by more than $100 in the past five years.

"And we can expect even greater reductions in the next couple of years," Dr Hay said.

Although AWI quoted a $130 test cost in its letter of last week, Sheep CRC chief executive Dr James Rowe said it had contracted a price of $110 for this year's pilot program and stud breeders would pay a subsidised rate of $50.

"We reckon it will be down to $50 next year," he said.

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AWI not OK with DNA

Health News of Tuesday, 3 July 2012

Source: Daily Graphic

The DNA Centre at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital says it has the facilities to assist the law enforcement agencies in the detection of crime.

It said its machines could determine the identity of criminals by extracting DNA from saliva, hair, blood, semen or any other bodily fluid left at a crime scene or on the victims by the perpetrators.

The Director of the centre, Dr Bartholomew Dzudzor, told graphic.com.gh that unfortunately, however, officials at the centre had not been trained in the collection of forensic samples from crime scenes, adding that the centre would be willing to partner the police if the police could perform that task.

He explained that during the commission of violent crimes, such as murder, kidnapping, rape, robbery, among other things, minute traces of blood and other bodily fluids, as well as hair, were left at the crime scene.

He said what was needed was well-trained forensic experts to carefully collect those samples, adding that extreme caution was essential to ensure that the samples were not contaminated.

According to him, DNA extracted from the samples would then be compared to the DNA of suspects and if they matched, the suspects could then be charged with the crime.

DNA may point at an individual and yet he or she may not be the perpetrator of the crime only if he or she was a homozygous (identical) twin, he said, adding that homozygous twins were formed from the same egg and, therefore, had similar DNA.

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Korle Bu DNA Centre to help unravel crimes

NEW YORK, July 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue:

Global DNA Probes-Based Diagnostics Industry

http://www.reportlinker.com/p098404/Global-DNA-Probes-Based-Diagnostics-Industry.html#utm_source=prnewswire&utm_medium=pr&utm_campaign=Diagnosti

This report analyzes the worldwide markets for DNA Probes-based Diagnostics in US$ Million by the following Application Areas: Infectious Diseases, Cancer Testing, Genetic Predisposition, Identity/Forensics, Molecular HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen) Typing, and Others. The report provides separate comprehensive analytics for the US, Canada, Japan, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. Annual estimates and forecasts are provided for the period 2009 through 2017. Also, a six-year historic analysis is provided for these markets. The report profiles 63 companies including many key and niche players such as Abbott Laboratories, Affymetrix, Inc., Becton, Dickinson & Company, Beckman Coulter, Inc., bioMerieux, Celera Group, Gen-Probe Incorporated, Genzyme Corporation, Luminex Molecular Diagnostics, QIAGEN, Roche Diagnostics, and Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, Inc. Market data and analytics are derived from primary and secondary research. Company profiles are primarily based upon search engine sources in the public domain.

I. INTRODUCTION, METHODOLOGY & PRODUCT DEFINITIONSStudy Reliability and Reporting Limitations I-1Disclaimers I-2Data Interpretation & Reporting Level I-3Quantitative Techniques & Analytics I-3Product Definitions and Scope of Study I-3Infectious Diseases I-4Cancer I-4Genetic Predisposition I-4Identity/Forensics I-4Molecular HLA Testing I-4Other Diagnostic Applications I-4II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. MARKET DYNAMICS II-1

Industry Overview II-1

DNA Probes: Robust Growth Ahead II-1

Decoding the Genetic Puzzle II-1

Advantages of DNA-Probe Tests II-2

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Global DNA Probes-Based Diagnostics Industry

ScienceDaily (July 2, 2012) Scientists say they have assembled more completely the string of genetic letters that could control how well parrots learn to imitate their owners and other sounds.

The research team unraveled the specific regions of the parrots' genome using a new technology, single molecule sequencing, and fixing its flaws with data from older DNA-decoding devices. The team also decoded hard-to-sequence genetic material from corn and bacteria as proof of their new sequencing approach.

The results of the study appeared online July 1 in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Single molecule sequencing "got a lot of hype last year" because it generates long sequencing reads, "supposedly making it easier to assemble complex parts of the genome," said Duke University neurobiologist Erich Jarvis, a co-author of the study.

He is interested in the sequences that regulate parrots' imitation abilities because they could give neuroscientists information about the gene regions that control speech development in humans.

Jarvis began his project with collaborators by trying to piece together the genome regions with what are known as next-generation sequencers, which read chunks of 100 to 400 DNA base pairs at a time and then take a few days to assemble them into a draft genome. After doing the sequencing, the scientists discovered that the read lengths were not long enough to assemble the regulatory regions of some of the genes that control brain circuits for vocal learning.

University of Maryland computational biologists Adam Phillippy and Sergey Koren -- experts at assembling genomes -- heard about Jarvis's sequencing struggles at a conference and approached him with a possible solution of modifying the algorithms that order the DNA base pairs. But the fix was still not sufficient.

Last year, 1000 base-pair reads by Roch 454 became available, as did the single molecule sequencer by Pacific Biosciences. The Pacbio technology generates strands of 2,250 to 23,000 base pairs at a time and can draft an entire genome in about a day.

Jarvis and others thought the new technologies would solve the genome-sequencing challenges. Through a competition, called the Assemblathon, the scientists discovered that the Pacbio machine had trouble accurately decoding complex regions of the parrot, Melopsittacus undulates, genome. The machine had a high error rate, generating the wrong genetic letter at every fifth or sixth spot in a string of DNA. The mistakes made it nearly impossible to create a genome assembly with the very long reads, Jarvis said.

But with a team, including scientists from the DOE Genome Science Institute and Cold Spring Harbor in New York, Phillippy, Koren and Jarvis corrected the Pacbio sequencer's errors using shorter, more accurate codes from the next-generation devices. The fix reduces the single-molecule, or third-generation, sequencing machine's error rate from 15 percent to less than one-tenth of one percent.

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DNA sequenced for parrot's ability to parrot

The key to Angelines true identity remains elusive (File Photo)

MANILA, Philippines It seems singer Angeline Quintos quest to find her biological mother has not yet come to an end.

Although frustrated and emotional after the recent DNA test she underwent together with Veronica Tolentino, the woman claiming to be her biological mom, came back negative, Quinto vowed to continue searching for her real mother.

Sabi ko nga po sa tatay ko, tulungan niyo rin naman po ako na sana may magawa rin siya para makita namin ang totoo kong nanay, Quinto shared in a taped interview with The Buzz aired on July 1.

Aside from Tolentino, Quintos father Pop Quiros, also subjected himself to a DNA testing. Unlike Tolentino, the test yielded a positive result for Quiros, which means that shes Quintos biological father.

Natutuwa po ako na si Papa ko talagang tatay ko po at siyempre 'yung mga nakilala ko po na mga kapamilya ko simula noong bata ako, talagang kapamilya ko po, she said.

However, Quinto, for her part, felt sorry that she got a negative result when her DNA was cross-examined with Tolentinos.

Nakita niyo naman po kung ano ang reaction ni Aling Veronica, talagang umiyak siya noong niyakap niya ako. Sabi ko nga po, Pasensya na po kayo, siguro po ganoon talaga, the singer recalled.

Feeling for Tolentino, Quinto related that shes praying for her to eventually find her own biological daughter whom shes been searching for, for so long.

As for her own search, Quinto vowed that this is not the end; just the beginning of yet another chapter.

Originally posted here:
DNA Results Negative For Angeline Quinto, Purported Mother

A few strands of DNA could help solve the mystery of dark matter. A newly proposed detector aims to use DNA to resolve the conflicting claims from current dark matter detectors.

Dark matter is thought to make up about 85 per cent of the matter in the universe. The prime suspects are so-called weakly interacting massive particles, which are immune to the electromagnetic and strong nuclear forces. In theory, WIMPs interact with normal matter only via gravity and the weak nuclear force.

Attempts to detect WIMPs on Earth have provided conflicting results. On the positive front, two experiments CoGeNT in Soudan, Minnesota, and DAMA/LIBRA at Gran Sasso, Italy have seen more putative dark matter particles hitting their detectors in June than in December. All else being equal, the excess is attributed to Earth's relative velocity through the sea of dark matter that fills our galaxy. In June, Earth is moving in the same direction as the sun and so encounters a "headwind" of dark matter, the theory goes. In December, Earth, in its orbit around the sun, is moving in the opposite direction.

But, crucially, other bigger and more sensitive experiments, such as CDMS-II and XENON1O0, have seen no such particles. One way to resolve the conflict would be to detect the directionality of dark matter particles, to see if they are indeed aligned with the direction of the sun's motion through the galaxy, as required by DAMA/LIBRA and CoGeNT.

Now Andrzej Drukier of Biotraces a biotech firm based in Herndon, Virginia and a group of cosmologists and biochemists are suggesting that DNA could help break the impasse.

Their proposed detector consists of a 1-metre-square sheet of gold foil and a "forest" of single-strand DNA molecules suspended beneath in an ordered array, like the bristles on a toothbrush. When a WIMP strikes a gold atom in the foil, it would dislodge a gold nucleus and send it careening through the array, severing the DNA strands along its path. Energetic particles like cosmic rays have been shown to collide with and break strands of DNA, though WIMPs would have much lower energy.

The broken DNA strands would be gathered, amplified and analysed to determine exactly where each strand was severed. Given that the sequence of bases that make up each DNA strand is well known, the location of the cut on each strand and hence the path of the gold nucleus could be tracked to within a nanometre in three dimensions, around 1000 times better resolution than current detectors.

"The higher resolution means that we would get more data per WIMP event," says team member George Church of Harvard University.

Such 3D resolution would allow cosmologists to infer the both the energy and the direction of a WIMP, which could in turn confirm the existence of the predicted "WIMP wind" created by the solar system's motion through the galaxy.

A DNA-based detector has other advantages too, the team claims. It can operate at room temperature, as opposed to near absolute zero for current detectors. And by changing the material of the foil, it can be tuned to look for particles of different energies, including the WIMPs apparently detected by CoGeNT and DAMA/LIBRA. The team is now testing the feasibility of the design.

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Humble DNA could help decipher dark matter

Perhaps the greatest and most fiercely contested race in modern science is the search for dark matter.

Physicists cannot see this stuff, hence the name. However, they infer its existence because they can see its gravitational influence on the structure of galaxies and clusters of galaxies. It implies that the universe is filled with dark matter, much more of it than the visible matter we can see

If they're right, dark matter must fill our galaxy and our Solar System. At this very instant, we ought to be ploughing our way through a dense sea of dark matter as the Sun moves towards the constellation of Cygnus as it orbits the galactic centre.

That's why various groups are racing to detect this stuff using expensive detectors in deep underground caverns, which shield them from radiation that would otherwise swamp the signal.

These experiments are looking for the unique signature that dark matter is thought to produce as a result of the Earth's passage around the Sun. During one half of the year, the dark matter forms headwind as the Earth ploughs into it; for the other half of the year, it forms a tailwind.

Indeed, a couple of groups claim to have found exactly this diurnal signature, although the results are highly controversial and seem to be in direct conflict with other groups who say they have not seen it.

There's a a straightforward way to make better observations that should solve this conundrum. The dark matter signal should vary, not just over the course of a year, but throughout the day as the Earth rotates.

The dark matter headwind should be coming from the direction of Cygnus, so a suitable detector should see the direction change as the Earth rotates each day.

There's a problem, however: nobody has built a directional dark matter detector.

That's why a revolutionary new idea from an unlikely collaboration of physicists and biologists looks rather exciting. The group brings together diverse people, such as Katherine Freese at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, an astrophysicist and one of the leading thinkers in the area of dark matter, and George Church at Harvard University in Cambridge, a geneticist and a pioneer in the area of genome sequencing.

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How A 'DNA Tracking Chamber' Could Detect Dark Matter

Perhaps the greatest and most fiercely contested race in modern science is the search for dark matter.

Physicists cannot see this stuff, hence the name. However, they infer its existence because they can see its gravitational influence on the structure of galaxies and clusters of galaxies. It implies that the universe is filled with dark matter, much more of it than the visible matter we can see

If they're right, dark matter must fill our galaxy and our Solar System. At this very instant, we ought to be ploughing our way through a dense sea of dark matter as the Sun moves towards the constellation of Cygnus as it orbits the galactic centre.

That's why various groups are racing to detect this stuff using expensive detectors in deep underground caverns, which shield them from radiation that would otherwise swamp the signal.

These experiments are looking for the unique signature that dark matter is thought to produce as a result of the Earth's passage around the Sun. During one half of the year, the dark matter forms headwind as the Earth ploughs into it; for the other half of the year, it forms a tailwind.

Indeed, a couple of groups claim to have found exactly this diurnal signature, although the results are highly controversial and seem to be in direct conflict with other groups who say they have not seen it.

There's a a straightforward way to make better observations that should solve this conundrum. The dark matter signal should vary, not just over the course of a year, but throughout the day as the Earth rotates.

The dark matter headwind should be coming from the direction of Cygnus, so a suitable detector should see the direction change as the Earth rotates each day.

There's a problem, however: nobody has built a directional dark matter detector.

That's why a revolutionary new idea from an unlikely collaboration of physicists and biologists looks rather exciting. The group brings together diverse people, such as Katherine Freese at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, an astrophysicist and one of the leading thinkers in the area of dark matter, and George Church at Harvard University in Cambridge, a geneticist and a pioneer in the area of genome sequencing.

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Revolutionary 'DNA Tracking Chamber' Could Detect Dark Matter

Scientists find that declining DNA methylation in mouse neurons may cause age-related memory deficits.

Researchis increasingly connecting changes in epigenetic regulation of gene expression to the aging process. Many studies demonstrate that DNA methylation declines with age. Now, new research published yesterday (July 1) in Nature Neuroscience links DNA methylation with brain aging. Researchers show that levels of an enzyme that attaches methyl groups to cytosine nucleotides throughout the genome is linked to cognitive decline, and that its overexpression can restore performance of aging mice on memory-related tasks.

We already know normal aging is associated with cognitive decline, but this paper links that with expression a specific DNA methyltransferase, said Yuan Gao, an epigeneticist at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development in Maryland, who did not participate in the study. The current work also builds on other studies demonstrating that proper regulation of methylation in brain cells is critical to memory formation. Previous studies have suggested a connection between loss of DNA methylation and Alzheimers disease, said Gao, suggesting that if researchers could restore [methyltransferase] activity and cure or delay dementia, it would make a nice model for developing drugs to tackle age-related cognitive diseases.

DNA methylation, wherein a methyl group is attached to a cytosine next to a guanosine, is one form of epigenetic regulation that can modulate how available genes are to the cells transcription machinery, and thus how highly expressed they are. Scientists already appreciate how differences in epigenetic regulation can affect development of diseases like cancer, without need for gene mutations. Studies are also accumulating that correlate declining methylation with aging, although the mechanism remains unclear.

Classically, DNA methylation is considered a repressive modification, but that view is beginning to change, suggesting a more nuanced role for methylation in gene regulation, explained senior author Hilmar Bading of the University of Heidelberg. The twist in Badings current research is that the methyltransferase his group focuses on, Dnmt3a2, may be working to enable gene transcription, rather than repress it.

This gene-activating role may stem from methylation that blocks repressors, rather than activators, explained Trygve Tollesfbol, who investigates the role of epigenetics in cancer and aging at the University of Alabama, who did not participate in the research. Whether methylation is located in the promoter or body of the gene can also determine whether it inhibits or enhances transcription, explained Guoping Fan, who studies epigenetic regulation of neuron development at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Badings group identified Dnmt3a2 when looking for genes that are upregulated by neuronal activity. Knowing that DNA methylation decreases with age, first author Ana Oliviera compared Dnmt3a2 expression in 3-month-old and 18-month-old mice, and found lower levels of Dnmt3a2 in the older mice. Furthermore, learning tasks designed to stimulate hippocampus neurons failed to upregulate Dnmt3a2 expression in old mice as robustly as in young mice.

Theorizing that reduced Dnmt3a2-dependent DNA methylation contributed to older mices poorer performance on learning and memory tasks, the scientists used an adeno-associated virus to supplement Dnmt3a2 expression in their hippocampal neurons. Boosting its expression enhanced both brain methylation in the older mice, and their ability to learn. Conversely, when the researchers used short hairpin RNA to knockdown Dnmt3a2 expression in young mice, their performance on learning and memory tests worsened.

I think Dnmt3a2 has a basic gating function, said Bading. Neurons need to turn genes on and off quickly in response to changing stimulation. Bading hypothesizes that Dnmt3a2-dependent methylation helps keep geneslike brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and Arc, both regulated by Dnmt3a2 and both involved in responses to signaling changesreceptive to changing stimulation, putting the genome in the right state for being inducible, Bading said. Genes like BDNF shouldnt be transcribed all the time, but it may be that without Dnmt3a2-dependent methylation, the door is closed neurons cant express them when they need to.

This could set up a vicious cycle, Bading explained, because Dnmt3a2 is also induced by neuronal activity. Less Dnmt3a2 would result in less expression of methylation-dependent genes, possibly including Dnmt3a2 itself, and the effect would worsen over time. It would take many years to add up, but aging takes years, Bading noted.

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DNA Methylation Linked to Memory Loss