The Hindu | The problematics of genetics and the Aryan issue - The Hindu The Hindu Tony Joseph's article (How genetics is settling the Aryan migration debate, June 16) on how recent genetic studies of Indian populations might be settling the ... |
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The problematics of genetics and the Aryan issue - The Hindu - The Hindu
Martin Ogando and his 91-year-old grandmother, Delia Giovanola, flip through a stack of photos until they reach an image of a man Ogando never saw in life: his father.
The two share similar skin tone and blue eyes products of the same genetics that finally allowed Ogando to discover his birth identity through DNA tests in November 2015.
The tests showed that he's the biological son of Jorge Ogando and Stella Maris Montesano, a child born in captivity in a clandestine detention center and taken away from parents who were forcibly disappeared in 1976 during Argentina's dictatorship.
"I found out the truth about my life," Ogando said of the tests that also reunited him with his grandmother. "A beautiful, but heavy truth."
During the 1976-1983 dictatorship, Argentina's military rulers systematically stole babies born to political prisoners, most of whom were then killed. Some 30,000 people died or were disappeared for political reasons during the dictatorship, according to human rights groups.
The search for those children spearheaded by the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo human rights group, led to breakthrough advancements in DNA identification.
The group emerged from gatherings of grandmothers who marched every week in front of the main square in Buenos Aires to demand the missing children. They also traveled around the globe in search of experts to find out if it was possible to determine the parenthood of the stolen babies, perhaps from blood samples.
"What were we supposed to do?" said Giovanola, one of the founders of the Grandmothers group. "Blood from whom? First we needed to find the baby. And then, the problem was that we lacked the blood samples from the parents. That's why the whole family on the mother and the father's side began to give blood."
The Grandmothers turned for help to U.S. geneticist Mary-Claire King, who in 1984 worked with Argentine colleagues to identify by genetic analysis the first confirmed stolen child. She later developed a system using mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited only from mothers, to identify individuals.
That led officials in the post-dictatorship era with strong prodding from the Grandmothers to pass a law formally creating Argentina's National Genetics Bank, the first of its kind in the world, which is now celebrating its 30th anniversary.
The institution's head, Mariana Herrera, noted that the institution was created by the government to solve crimes committed by the state itself. "There's nowhere else where this has turned into a policy to repair human rights abuses," she said.
The bank contains a database of blood samples collected from families searching for kidnapped children as well as adults who suspect they might have been stolen as infants.
To date, 122 cases of stolen children have been resolved most by the Genetics Bank but several hundred remain unaccounted for.
The bank has become a world authority in the matter, helping Colombia, Peru and El Salvador find the disappeared from their own conflicts. It's also provided information to the group Bring Back Our Girls of Nigeria, which has been hunting for the children stolen by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram.
The 40-year-old Ogando, a Doral, Florida, resident who was known for most of his life as Diego Berestycki, contacted the Grandmothers and carried out the test after the man who raised him died.
"I would have loved to have met my parents. From what my grandma tells me, I looked a lot like my dad. I even walked like him," Ogando said.
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Genetic bank that ID's Argentina's stolen babies turns 30 - ABC News
FLORENCE, S.C. -- McLeod Health welcomes Dr. Carmen A. Taype-Roberts to McLeod Physician Associates as part of McLeod Pulmonary and Critical Care Associates.
Board certified in pulmonary and internal medicine, Taype-Roberts provides treatment to patients with multiple lung conditions including COPD, asthma, chronic lung infections, respiratory failure and lung cancer.
A Peru native, Taype-Roberts comes to McLeod from Southern California where she served on the medical staffs of Scripps Mercy Hospital and Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center of Chula Vista, California.
Taype-Roberts served on the faculty of the University of California, San Diego and has extensive research experience and multiple publications in molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics and pulmonary diseases.
Taype-Roberts received her medical degree from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru in 2001, and completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at St. Barnabas Hospital, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Bronx, New York in 2011.
She completed her fellowship in pulmonary medicine at the University of California, San Diego of La Jolla, California in 2014. In addition to her medical degree, Taype-Roberts holds a doctorate in human genetics from the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom and is bi-lingual in Spanish and English.
For more information or to schedule an appointment, call (843) 777-7863.
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McLeod Health, Physician Associates welcome new pulmonologist - SCNow
Karen Kaspar / EyeEmGetty Images/EyeEm
Last October, scientists made a splash when they determined that on average, people can only live for about 115 years . That was the magic age at which the human body and brain just petered out; it wasnt designed to chug along much longer than that, they said.
That conclusion, published in the journal Nature , sparked hot debate among longevity researchers. Some felt the results vindicated what they felt to be the case, while others took issue with pinpointing a limitand such a specific one, at that.
Now, in the new issue of Nature , the editors invited scientists who criticized the original authors methods to lay out their arguments for why there isn't necessarily a limit to human aging. In the five resulting critiques, researchers tease apart the original authors methods, noting that they made assumptions that weren't warranted and overreached in their conclusions. (The researchers who concluded that human lifespan maxes out at 115 years stand by their findings, and they responded to each of the current authors criticisms.)
The new papers dont argue that human lifespan is limitless. But they note that its premature to accept that a maximum lifespan for humans exists. Its equally possible, they say, that humans will continue to live longer, and therefore might survive beyond 115 years. It was reasonable that when everybody lived to 50 that the very long lived, for whatever reasongenetics or luckwould make it to 80," says Siegfried Hekimi, professor of genetics at McGill University in Canada and one of the authors of a criticism. "If people live on average to 80 or 90, like they do now, then the very long lived make it to 110 or 120. So if the average lifespan keeps expanding, that would mean the long-lived would live even longer, beyond 115 years."
Overall, trends in longevity have been going up, and average lifespan has inched upward since even the 1990s. Back then, life expectancy in the U.S. was just around 50 years, while babies born today live to about 79 years on average. In any given year, however, if you look at the longest-lived, or the age at which the oldest person died, there may be considerable variation. There may be several years in which the maximum lifespan drops a bit, and other years in which it jumps.
MORE: How Silicon Valley Is Trying to Hack Its Way Into a Longer Life
The maximum lifespan in a population varies so much year to year that if you take the wrong snapshot of dataas Hekimi contends the original authors didit may look like there is a flattening of the age at which the longest lived die. If you throw a die several times every year that represents maximum lifespan, by chance alone you will see a lot of spread," he says. "Sometimes it will be low, sometimes it will be high.
For example, in coming up with the maximum lifespan of 115 years, the original papers researchers divided their population data into two groups: from 1968 to 1994 and 1995 to 2006. They determined that maximum lifespan peaked in the first era and started to plateau in the next. However, that coincides with the years in which Jeanne Calment, the oldest-lived human, was alive. She passed away in 1997 at age 122, so the plateau in maximum lifespan that the original researchers saw could be wholly attributed to her, Hekimi says. He and the other authors argue that the conclusion that human lifespan stops at 115 years was based on misinterpreting the data by seeing a plateau at 115 years where there was none.
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There's No Known Limit To How Long Humans Can Live, Scientists Say - TIME
Daughters of Charity Services of Arkansas is dedicated to Christian values in our service as we provide quality, holistic care to individuals and communities in southeast Arkansas.
In the late 1980s Daughters of Charity recognized the need for healthcare services in the Arkansas Delta, Lincoln County, and Desha County.
Our first medical clinic, St. Elizabeth Health Center, opened on December 3, 1990 with humble beginnings in the city of Gould, Arkansas (Lincoln County). The clinic was established in the remodeled city jail.
We acquired our second medical facility, DePaul Health Center in Dumas, Arkansas (Desha County) on August 10, 1992. In September 1998 we opened the wellness center in Gould to provide a state-of-the-art exercise facility for the residents of Gould and communities from across southeast Arkansas. We also acquired the dental practice of Charles Woodyard, whose staff added a much-needed component to our ministry work.
In February 2007 we moved our administrative office out of DePaul Health Center and into the newly renovated Adams Building on Main Street in Dumas.
At Daughters of Charity Services of Arkansas, we see and treat people of all ages.
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Republican senators he is delaying a vote on the GOP health care bill until after the Fourth of July recess because he does not have the votes to move it to debate, two senior Senate Republican aides told ABC News.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell confirmed the delay, saying, "We're going to continue the discussions within our conference on the differences that we have."
Sen. John Thune, R-Neb., stressed that the goal was to still replace Obamacare.
"While the schedule may have slipped a little bit, we are intent on rescuing Americans from a failed system that has driven up their cost and made it more difficult for them to find coverage," he said.
Earlier today Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn told ABC News, "I expect to have the support and get it done ... and yes, we will vote this week."
At least five Republican senators said they would oppose a procedural vote on the GOP health care plan as it stands, effectively blocking the bill from reaching the Senate floor.
In order to pass the bill in the Senate, Republicans can afford only two defections; in case of a tie, they have the option of calling in Vice President Mike Pence to cast the tie-breaking vote.
Before the delay was announced, Republicans senators were invited to the White House for a meeting with President Trump.
"The president invited us to come down," McConnell said at a news conference this afternoon. "The White House has been very much involved in these discussions. They're very anxious to help, and we appreciate the invitation, and I hope all of our members will head down"
After President Trump's meeting with almost all Senate Republicans on Tuesday afternoon, McConnell stood by his previous word on the delay, stating, "I had hoped, as you know, that we could have gotten to the floor this week but we're not quite there. But I think we have a really good chance of getting there. It will just take as you little bit longer."
He remains steadfast that the delay is not a substitute for inaction. McConnell told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl, "It will be dealt with in one of two ways -- either Republicans will agree and change the status quo or the markets will continue to collapse and we'll have to sit down with [Democratic Sen. Chuck] Schumer, and my suspicion is any negotiation with the Democrats would include none of the reforms that we would like to make both on the market side and the medicaid side." McConnell concluded, "So for all of those reasons, we need to come up with a solution."
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WASHINGTON The top U.S. Senate Republican struggled on Wednesday to salvage major healthcare legislation sought by President Donald Trump, meeting privately with a parade of skeptical senators as critics within the party urged substantial changes.
Republican leaders hope to agree on changes to the legislation by Friday so lawmakers can take it up after next week's Independence Day recess.. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday abandoned plans to seek passage of it this week because Republicans did not have 50 votes to pass the bill.
For seven years, Republicans have led a quest to undo the 2010 law known as Obamacare, Democratic former President Barack Obama's signature legislative achievement. Trump made dismantling it a top campaign promise during last year's presidential campaign but policy differences within the party have raised doubts Republicans can achieve a repeal.
Democrats have unified against the bill and Republicans control the Senate by a slim 52-48 margin, which means McConnell can afford to lose only two Republicans. So far at least 10 - including moderates and hard-line conservatives - have expressed opposition to the current bill, although some indicated they would vote for it with certain changes.
McConnell, with his reputation as a strategist on the line, met with a procession of Republican senators in his office on Wednesday. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said party leaders will talk to every Republican senator who has concerns about the bill or is undecided.
The House of Representatives passed its healthcare bill last month, only after striking a balance between the center of the party and the right wing. Now McConnell must find a similar sweet spot.
During a lunch meeting on Wednesday Republicans made presentations on potential fixes. Senator Rand Paul called for jettisoning more parts of Obamacare to get conservatives on board.
TAX ISSUE
Senator Mike Rounds suggested keeping a 3.8 percent Obamacare tax on high earners' investment income, which the current bill would eliminate. Rounds said the tax could pay for more Americans to receive the tax credits that help pay for health insurance.
Senator Bob Corker, who also supports keeping the tax, said one of the issues he was focused on was helping lower-income Americans pay for health plans.
"My sense is there's a good chance that issue and other issues people are trying to get addressed can be addressed," Corker told reporters.
Trump said the bill was moving along well and predicted a "great, great surprise" but did not elaborate.
Maine Senator Susan Collins, a moderate, said it would be "very difficult" to reach agreement by Friday. Collins and other centrists were put off by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's projection on Monday that 22 million people would lose medical insurance under the existing bill.
Finishing the legislation's revisions by Friday would be "optimal," Cornyn said, so the CBO can analyze the new version..
Even then, Democrats could mount a forceful resistance. They have repeatedly said they will not discuss a repeal but have expressed openness to negotiating improvements.
The Senate's top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, proposed Trump call all 100 senators to Blair House across the street from the White House to craft a bipartisan bill fixing Obamacare but Trump said did not think Schumer's offer was serious.
McConnell said Democrats had refused "to work with us in a serious way to comprehensively address Obamacare's failures in the seven years since they passed it."
The legislation has triggered protests at the Capitol and police said they arrested 40 people, including cancer survivors, on Wednesday for blocking Senate offices.
Obama's 2010 Affordable Care Act, which passed without Republican support, expanded health insurance coverage to some 20 million people but Republicans call it a costly government intrusion.
The Senate bill rolls back Obamacare's expansion of the Medicaid government insurance for the poor and cuts planned Medicaid spending starting in 2025. It also repeals most of Obamacare's taxes, ends a penalty for not obtaining insurance and overhauls subsidies that help people buy insurance with tax credits.
For graphic on who's covered under Medicaid, click: tmsnrt.rs/2u06kvB
(This story fixes attribution of quote in 10th paragraph to Senator Corker from Senator Rounds.)
(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Richard Cowan, Susan Cornwell, Steve Holland, Jeff Mason, Mohammad Zargham, Tim Ahmann and Jeff Mason; Writing by Lisa Lambert, Will Dunham and Frances Kerry; Editing by Bill Trott)
WASHINGTON Flush with cash, political groups outside the White House are aggressively coming to President Donald Trump's aid as he battles low public approval numbers, questions about his election campaign's ties to Russia and a stalled legislative agenda.
WASHINGTON Leaders of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee said on Wednesday they had reached an agreement that would allow them to see memos written by former FBI Director James Comey about his meetings with President Donald Trump.
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Senate Republicans struggle to salvage healthcare effort - Reuters
Mr. McConnell, who was re-elected handily in 2014, seems committed to his partys pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act even if it might hurt some constituents back home. A study last year by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the percentage of uninsured in Kentucky dropped from 18.8 percent in 2013, the year the health law was put in place, to 6.8 percent one of the sharpest reductions in the country.
Here in Whitesburg, a city of roughly 2,000 people at the base of Pine Mountain, Mr. Gormans sentiment seems to be the prevailing one. In nearly two dozen interviews with health care workers and patients, at the hospital and at a nonprofit clinic run by the Mountain Comprehensive Health Corporation, Kentuckians sounded both fearful and flummoxed by the health care drama on Capitol Hill.
It makes me very nervous, said Brittany Hunsaker, 29, a clinic social worker who counsels pregnant women addicted to opioids. Some of the most vulnerable people that we serve, we may not be seeing any more.
Several clear themes emerged. Most people said they want everyone covered, and were appalled, as was Mr. Gorman, when they learned the Congressional Budget Office had estimated the Republican plan would leave 22 million more people uninsured over a 10-year period. They are happy that lawmakers are trying to fix Mr. Obamas health law rising premiums are a worry for many but fear that Republicans, in their haste, will make a bad situation worse.
Sorting out the way forward is agonizingly complex. Kentuckys Medicaid expansion and successes under the Affordable Care Act are largely the result of former Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat who is out of office now. Meanwhile, Gov. Matt Bevin, a Republican elected in 2015, is pushing for a Medicaid waiver from the federal government that includes requirements for many beneficiaries to work or participate in job training.
Dr. Van Breeding, the clinics director of medical affairs, lamented that the Republican bill in the Senate had gotten mixed up in party politics, while patients had been forgotten. He summed up the situation this way: Senator Paul is worried about the financial aspect of it. Senator McConnell is worried about the political aspect of it. And Im worried about patients not having access to basic health care.
Kathy Collins, 50, who suffers from lupus, an autoimmune disease and who was uninsured until she got Medicaid coverage through the laws expansion is among Dr. Breedings patients. Sitting in her hospital bed here Tuesday morning, she said she was surprised to hear that Mr. McConnell, whom she had voted for previously, was leading the charge to roll it back.
He is? she asked. Well, then, hes no good for Kentucky.
Health care is a growing part of this regions economy, and people here are also deeply concerned that the repeal will bring job losses to a region already decimated by unemployment from the coal industry downturn.
Dr. Breeding says the number of uninsured patients at the clinic dropped from 19 percent to 4 percent as a result of the health care law. He said Mountain Comprehensive was barely getting by financially before the law was passed; business is much better now. Mountain Comprehensive has hired more people and now offers extended weekend hours and an optometry clinic services that have been financed by revenue brought in from the health law, Dr. Breeding said.
And those services mean more health care jobs.
If they do what they say they are going to do, then we may lose our jobs, said Vicki Roland, a surgical nurse. I think what we have works pretty good for the people. If they revamp it, Im not sure whats going to happen.
Mr. McConnells office did not respond to a request for an interview. But Mr. McConnell did make his case for why the bill would help Kentucky on the Senate floor last week, and in an opinion piece in The Cincinnati Enquirer on Sunday, in which he argued that the legislation would stabilize markets and deliver flexibility to state officials to address problems like the opioid crisis.
Despite his constituents concerns, Mr. McConnell has little reason to worry about a political backlash; he is widely credited with building the Republican Party in this state, and after three decades in the Senate, his seat is secure. In 2014, he clobbered his Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, winning by more than 15 percentage points.
He ran on a clear platform to repeal and replace Obamacare, as did Matt Bevin, the governor, as did Rand Paul, the other senator, as did Donald Trump, said Scott Jennings, a Kentucky Republican strategist with close ties to Mr. McConnell. And they all have one thing in common: They have overwhelmingly won their elections in Kentucky.
Still, there has been pushback. On Monday, nearly 100 opponents of the repeal protested outside Mr. McConnells northern Kentucky office. On Tuesday, more than a dozen organizations representing health care providers signed an open letter to Mr. McConnell, published in his hometown paper, The Courier-Journal of Louisville, imploring him to STOP the mad rush to pass this bill and instead seek advice from health care experts.
You said you have a responsibility to act, the letter said. We believe you have a duty to act responsibly. Kentuckians deserve better.
The local newspaper here in Whitesburg, The Mountain Eagle, published an editorial assailing Mr. McConnell for putting the bill together behind closed doors. Why the secrecy, Sen. McConnell? its headline read.
Dr. Breeding, recently named Country Doctor of the Year by Staff Care, a Dallas-based health care company, shares these sentiments. His message to Mr. McConnell: Dont rush it. Bring in the experts. Lets hammer it out.
To spend a day with Dr. Breeding is to get a glimpse of his patients challenges. His weekday mornings begin at 4:30 a.m., when he arrives at the hospital in Whitesburg. Dressed in his workout gear, he makes rounds, visiting patients whose ailments run the gamut: pneumonia, respiratory failure, colon cancer, lupus, black lung disease, dementia, heart attack, kidney infection and multiple myeloma, a bone cancer.
By 8:30 a.m., after a break for a brisk walk through town, he arrives at the clinic, where his nurse practitioner, Heather Yates, says she sees the health care debate from both sides.
Like her colleagues, Ms. Yates, 35, worries that undoing the Affordable Care Act will hurt patients. But she has had to cope with the high cost of premiums; when her husband was out of work, they qualified for subsidies under the Affordable Care Act but still paid $400 a month for an insurance policy with a deductible of as much as $1,500. Now the couple pays $1,000 a month, with a $6,000 deductible, for a plan that covers all expenses once the deductible is met.
Ive got a mix of emotions, she said. I do want everybody to have insurance, but I understand what its like to pay for it too.
Follow Sheryl Gay Stolberg on Twitter: @SherylNYT
A version of this article appears in print on June 29, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: For Kentucky, A Fear the Cure Will Be Worse.
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In McConnell's Own State, Fear and Confusion Over Health Care Bill - New York Times
McConnell hopes to strike a deal on a revised version of the bill by Friday and send it to the Congressional Budget Office, according to The Washington Post. But resolving lingering differences could prove difficult in the short window.
Republicans face difficulties in winning over skeptical senators, as tweaks to appease conservatives could alienate moderates, or vice versa.The hurdles threaten to delay a key plank of the sweeping agenda Republicans hoped to pass when Trump won the White House and the GOP held onto both chambers of Congress.
Amid Republicans' push to win over skeptical senators, Trump set some lofty goals for the bill Wednesday.
"I think this has a chance to be a great health care at a reasonable cost. People can save a lot of money. We get rid of the mandates, we get rid of so much. Got rid of a lot of taxes. All the bad parts of Obamacare are gone. Essentially, it's a repeal and replace," Trump said.
A CBO score of the existing bill shows a mixed bag on those counts. It estimated that the bill would lead to 22 million more uninsured Americans by 2026 than under current law, a figure that multiple moderates criticized.
Average premiums would fall by about 20 percent relative to current law by 2026. But out-of-pocket costs could rise for many consumers "because nongroup insurance would pay for a smaller average share of benefits under this legislation," the CBO said.
The Senate plan would lead to an estimated $321 billion in deficit reduction from 2017 to 2026, according to the office.
The bill has received dismal approval ratings in polling so far. In addition, most major medical groups have opposed the proposal.
As Republican leaders pushed to strike a deal on the plan, some GOP senators increased their calls to figure out a bipartisan solution for Obamacare's problems. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told NBC News that if the GOP does not reach a deal by Friday, it may be time to start seeking a bipartisan solution.
Moderate Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, are among the other GOP senators who have said they would be open to a bipartisan solution.
On Tuesday, McConnell indicated that he did not see that as a possibility yet. He said of Democrats: "They're not interested in participating in this."
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Trump predicts a 'big surprise' on health care as Senate GOP pushes to win votes - CNBC
Photo Credit Tim Lahan
To the Editor:
Re How Health Care Went Wrong (Op-Ed, June 19):
Christy Ford Chapin praises the innovation of prepaid physician group practices as particularly elegant models. She suggests that concierge medicine is their modern-day successor. Not so. No matter the payment structure, fragmented medical practice cannot deliver consistent quality to individual patients and larger populations.
Concierge medicine is not only a step backward, but it is also a move toward an unequal, two-tier system. Ms. Chapin criticizes Kaiser Permanente as different from and lacking the benefits of those earlier elegant models; in fact, Kaiser is the archetype.
Kaiser Permanentes model is often heralded as focused on prevention and delivering the right care at the right time. Incentives are correctly aligned to help patients get and stay healthy, with care and coverage typically more affordable than elsewhere.
Our Permanente physician-led clinical teams constantly innovate to create integrated, person-centered and technology-supported care. The results are clear: Kaiser Permanente is first in more categories of care effectiveness than any other commercial health plan.
EDWARD ELLISON RICHARD S. ISAACS OAKLAND, CALIF.
Dr. Ellison is executive medical director of the Southern California Permanente Medical Group. Dr. Isaacs is chief executive and executive director of the Permanente Medical Group.
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Kaiser Permanente's Archetype for Health Care - New York Times
Planned Parenthood supporters and other opponents of the Republicaneffort to repeal and replace ObamaCare formed a human chain around the Capitol Wednesday afternoonin a massive protest amid GOP attempts to save their healthcare bill.
Demonstrators held signs reading "Stand with Planned Parenthood" and "Don't Take Away Our Care" while chanting "healthcare, now!" The goal of the protest was to form a continuous human chain around the entire Capitol.
The protest was organized by liberal activist group MoveOn.org, which promoted the protest on Twitter leading up to the demonstration.
Were forming a human chain around the Capitol to protest #Trumpcare. Join us at 5 pm! #PeoplesFilibuster https://t.co/y2glkeJy5Z pic.twitter.com/cpEmYu1Lc2
The protest was also promoted by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who promised on Twitter that she would be attending.
RT to spread the word: Human chain at the U.S. Capitol tomorrow at 5 p.m. ET. Ill be there. Tell your friends, tell your neighbors.
Thousands of protesters had joined the march less than an hour after it was scheduled to begin. Protesters with massive Planned Parenthood banners and megaphones led chants, while other Planned Parenthood volunteers in special vests directed protesters.
Probably at least 1500 people at @PPact human chain around capitol building (this is less than half the video) pic.twitter.com/FvDIBK4f0R
Manny from @PPact doing an amazing job keeping us all in line to form the #humanchain @IndivisibleTeam @TopherSpiro pic.twitter.com/GptY8ZfWe5
Multiple lawmakers, dressed in black and wearing mourning veils, held a simultaneous "funeral" for Medicaid on the Capitol steps. The mourners included Democratic Reps. John Lewis (Ga.), Frederica WilsonFrederica WilsonDemonstrators form human chain around Capitol to protest GOP healthcare bill Florida governor signs strengthened 'stand your ground' bill into law Dem: Trump needs psychological help MORE (Fla.) and Joyce BeattyJoyce BeattyDemonstrators form human chain around Capitol to protest GOP healthcare bill Washingtonians take center stage at Will on the Hill Trump should work with Congress to block regulations on prepaid cards MORE (Ohio), among others.
Republicans are currently working to find a compromise to pass their version to repeal ObamaCare. Nine GOP senators have already announced their opposition to the Senate's version of the bill, forcing Senate leadership to delay the vote until after the July 4 recess.
Senate Republicans can only afford two GOP defections, assuming no Democrats vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Last week, Planned Parenthood held similar rallies against the Senate bill in at least 20 states. The bill in its current state would defund Planned Parenthood for a year.
"As the Senate drafts its Trumpcare bill behind closed doors, with no hearings, the public is making its voice heard," Planned Parenthood said last week in a statement.
Taylor Lorenz contributed.
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Demonstrators form human chain around Capitol to protest GOP healthcare bill - The Hill
President Donald Trump may not have as great a grasp on health-care policy as he claims.
The president "seemed especially confused" during a meeting with senators Tuesday when a senator "complained that opponents of the bill would cast it as a massive tax break for the wealthy," The New York Times reported. Trump then said he would address tax reform later, according to the Times, which cited an aide who had a readout of the exchange.
Trump appeared to dispute the report in a pair of tweets Wednesday morning, alleging that the "failing" Times "writes false story after false story about me."
He added that he knows health care "well" and wants "victory" for the United States.
Trump ran on a campaign of repealing and replacing Obamacare, promising on the campaign trail to immediately do so if he won the presidency. He has repeatedly applied pressure on the House and Senate to pass an Obamacare replacement plan, though he has reportedly had less influence on senators than he did on House members.
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Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich discussed Medicaid spending on "Fox & Friends" on June 27, 2017.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said all the media coverage that declares the Republican health care bills would cut Medicaid is wrong, because he claimed the program actually gets a significant boost over the years.
Reports about both the House and Senate bills have pointed out the measures reduce funding for Medicaid, the joint state and federal health insurance program for the very poor. Using the House bill as an example, Gingrich said its really the opposite.
"After all the news media talking about cutting Medicaid in the House Republican bill, I did some research," Gingrich said June 27, 2017, on Fox & Friends. "It actually goes up 20 percent over the next 10 years."
Gingrich said Republicans had a "communications problem" for not pointing this growth out when discussing the bill, resulting in coverage focused on deep Medicaid cuts.
Those news reports mostly focus on analyses by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The bill before the Senate would reduce Medicaid spending by $772 billion over 10 years by 2026, the CBO said. A similar analysis for the bill that passed the House in May would winnow Medicaid spending by $834 billion in the same time frame.
So where is Gingrich getting his 20 percent increase in Medicaid spending from?
We reached out to his office and didnt hear back. But it appears hes talking about the rate at which Medicaid will grow over the next decade something the programs slated to do whether Republicans pass a health care law or not.
The GOP proposals, however, put major limits on future funding for that growth.
Medicaid costs keep going up
Medicaid originally was a program for low-income children, pregnant women, elderly and disabled individuals, and some parents, but it excluded other low-income adults.
As part of its efforts to provide health coverage options for as many people as possible, the Affordable Care Act allowed states to expand Medicaid and help pay for it with more federal dollars. Thirty-one states plus Washington, D.C., currently have extended Medicaid benefits to essentially all adults making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. The poverty line for a family of four is $24,600 in 2017.
That coverage is expensive, and its only going to cost more as the years go on. For calculating how the GOP bills may affect Medicaid spending, the CBO used baseline figures from March 2016 to draw estimates for how much the program would cost.
"There are two reasons Medicaid costs go up: More people are being served and the cost of serving them is going up," said Joan Alker,Georgetown University public policy professor and executive director of the Center for Children and Families.
Costs could rise due to increasing drug prices, inflation, an aging population with more older Americans, or any number of other considerations.
"CBO's baseline projects what Medicaid will need to account for these factors," Alker said.
From 2017 through 2026, the federal government would spend more than $5 trillion on Medicaid under current law, the CBO projected.
Another way to measure that growth is to calculate the percent change from current spending levels to that estimated 2026 level.
If the Affordable Care Act stayed in place and nothing changed, the CBO said Medicaid spending would increase from $393 billion in 2017 to $624 billion in 2026. Thats a 58.8 percent increase.
Now come the semantics: The House and Senate bills both slow the rate of that increase in spending, although they do so in different ways and on different schedules. But they both assume major reductions in how high the dollar amount for funding increases.
Opponents of the GOP bills call that a cut. The CBO calls that "reductions in outlays." Gingrich is saying its an increase. How?
How the GOP bills slow Medicaid spending
It looks like Gingrich focused on the projection for how the House bill would affect future funding.
Starting with the $393 billion in spending in 2017, Medicaid spending would go up steadily each year to reach $474 billion in 2026, under the House bill. Thats a 20.6 percent increase.
The Senates plan would increase funding to $466 billion in 2026, or about 18.5 percent higher than 2017. The projections assume what would happen if the bills took effect, with reductions starting in 2018.
The CBO said that under the Houses bill, 14 million fewer people would be enrolled in Medicaid by 2026, relative to current law. The Senate bill would see 15 million fewer enrollees.
Keep in mind that Medicaid spending goes up under any scenario. Its just at a far lower rate under the Republican health care bills.
Policy analysts told us itmakes reductions to Medicaid with no allowance for how the program may need to grow in the future.
"If he's claiming that there's no cut in the (House bill) because Medicaid spending in 2026 would be higher than it is now, that's largely irrelevant," Ben Sommers, a Harvard University health policy and economics professor, told PolitiFact. "Given that this dramatically reduces spending to what would occur under current law, most people would call this a cut. "
Such reductions also put new limits on how many people have access to Medicaid. The changes all but guarantee states will have to alter eligibility requirements and take away benefits without regard to whether people actually need them.
"The bills restrain the rate of increase well below Medicaids actual rate of increase," said Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University health law and policy professor. "Of course its a cut. If federal growth is kept artificially low, the only choice is to spend more to make up the deficit."
Our ruling
Gingrich said under the House health care bill, Medicaid spending "actually goes up 20 percent over the next 10 years."
By any CBO projection and under any proposed legislation, Medicaid spending will increase over the next decade because health care costs are increasing. The House health care bill limits that increase to 20 percent,while maintaing the status quo requires a 60 percent increase, according to the CBO.
Both the bills in the House and the Senate limit thegrowth of spending.
The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details. We rate it Half True.
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Newt Gingrich misleads with point that House health care bill grows Medicaid spending - PolitiFact
June 27, 2017
Alzheimer's disease patients are increasing with the aging of the world's population, becoming a huge health care and social burden. To find the cause of various diseases, in recent years, scientists have focused within the human genome on copy number variations (CNVs), which are changes in the number of genes within a population.
Likewise, a group of genes responsible for a gene number change has also been reported for Alzheimer's disease, but to date, it has not been easy to identify a causative gene from multiple genes within the pathogenic CNV region.
Now, a new approach to finding Alzheimer's disease (AD) causative genes was estimated by paying attention to special duplicated genes called "ohnologs" included in the genomic region specific to AD patients. Human ohnologs, which are vulnerable to change in number, were generated by whole genome duplications 500 million years ago.
In a new study published in the advanced online edition of Molecular Biology and Evolution, Mizuka Sekine and Takashi Makino investigated the gene expression and knockout mouse phenotype for ohnologs, and succeeded in narrowing down the genetic culprits. The narrowed gene group had a function related to the nervous system and a high expression level in the brain which were similar to characteristics of known AD causative genes.
Their findings suggest that the identification of causative genes using ohnologs is a promising and effective approach in diseases caused by dosage change.
Explore further: Characterizing the mouse genome reveals new gene functions and their role in human disease
More information: Molecular Biology And Evolution (2017). DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msx183
The first results from a functional genetic catalogue of the laboratory mouse has been shared with the biomedical research community, revealing new insights into a range of rare diseases and the possibility of accelerating ...
An algorithm developed by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) scientists has the potential to help patients with mysterious ailments find genetic causes for their undiagnosed diseases.
Geneticists from Trinity College Dublin have used our evolutionary history to shine light on a plethora of neurodevelopmental disorders and diseases. Their findings isolate a relatively short list of genes as candidates for ...
Although a family history of Alzheimer's disease is a primary risk factor for the devastating neurological disorder, mutations in only three genes the amyloid precursor protein and presenilins 1 and 2 have been established ...
Using a new and powerful approach to understand the origins of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida are building the case that these diseases are primarily caused ...
Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) are two of the most prevalent forms of neurodegenerative disorders. In a study published online today in Genome Research, researchers have analyzed changes ...
(Medical Xpress)Via genetic analysis, a large international team of researchers has found rare, damaging gene variants that they believe contribute to the risk of a person developing schizophrenia. In their paper published ...
Using a new skin cell model, researchers have overcome a barrier that previously prevented the study of living tissue from people at risk for early heart disease and stroke. This research could lead to a new understanding ...
Whole genome sequencing involves the analysis of all three billion pairs of letters in an individual's DNA and has been hailed as a technology that will usher in a new era of predicting and preventing disease. However, the ...
Researchers have found that genes for coronary heart disease (CAD) also influence reproduction, so in order to reproduce successfully, the genes for heart disease will also be inherited.
When Ricky Ramon was 7, he went for a routine checkup. The pediatrician, who lingered over his heartbeat, sent him for a chest X-ray, which revealed a benign tumor in the top-left chamber of his heart. For Ramon, it was the ...
Gene mutations accumulating in cells are typical of the development of cancer. Finnish researchers have found that a similar accumulation of mutations occurs also in some patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
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Alzheimer's is triggered by pheromone insult. Anger closes erectile tissues in the upper and middle meati, explaining this behavior among sufferers as defensive. Lesions progress rostro-centrally along the olfactory and accessory olfactory nerves. Healthy adult male facial skin surface lipid liquid pheromone by mouth diminishes symptoms, laughing usually returns for instance. (N=2, so this is obviously just anecdotal, but the partial recovery was welcome.)
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Estimating Alzheimer's disease causative genes by an evolutionary ... - Medical Xpress
June 28, 2017 Micrograph showing inflammation of the large bowel in a case of inflammatory bowel disease. Colonic biopsy. Credit: Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 3.0
Scientists have closed in on specific genes responsible for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) from a list of over 600 genes that were suspects for the disease. The team from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the GIGA Institute of the University of Lige combined efforts to produce a high resolution map to investigate which genetic variants have a causal role in the disease.
In the new study, published today (28 June) in Nature, scientists examined the genome of 67,852 individuals and applied three statistical methods to zoom in on which genetic variants were actively implicated in the disease. Of the regions of the genome associated with IBD that were studied, 18 could be pin-pointed to a single genetic variant with more than 95 per cent certainty. The results form a basis for more effective prescription of current treatments for the disease as well as the discovery of new drug targets.
More than 300,000 people suffer from IBD in the UK. IBD is a debilitating disease in which the body's own immune system attacks parts of the digestive tract. The exact causes of this disease are unclear, and there currently is no cure.
To understand more about the genetics underlying IBD, researchers have conducted genome wide association studies and previously found hundreds of genetic variants linked to the disease. However, it was not certain which specific genes were actually implicated by those variants.
Dr Jeffrey Barrett, joint lead author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute said: "We have taken the biggest ever data set for IBD and applied careful statistics to narrow down to the individual genetic variants involved. Now we have a clearer picture of which genes do and do not play a role in the disease. We are zooming in on the genetic culprits of IBD."
The high resolution map of the disease enabled scientists to see which variants directly influence disease, and to separate them from other variants which happen to be located near each other in the genome.
Dr Hailiang Huang, first author from the Massachusetts General Hospital and Broad Institute said: "An issue with studying complex diseases is that it can be hard to move from genetic associations, usually including many genetic variants of similar evidence, to knowing exactly which variants are involved. We need to be careful in deciding when we are sure we have the right variant. This new technique helps us to pinpoint which genetic variants are implicated in IBD with greater confidence."
Professor Michel Georges, joint lead author from the GIGA Institute of the University of Lige said: "These results will help towards rational drug discovery for complex human diseases like IBD, and possibly for the development of personalised medicine by finding biomarkers for more effective prescription of existing drugs."
Explore further: Isolated Greek villages reveal genetic secrets that protect against heart disease
More information: Hailiang Huang et al. (2017) Fine-mapping inflammatory bowel disease loci to single variant resolution. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature22969
A genetic variant that protects the heart against cardiovascular disease has been discovered by researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators. Reported today in Nature Communications, the cardioprotective ...
Genetic variants linked to higher body mass index (BMI) are associated with lower risk of Parkinson disease, according to a study published by Nicholas Wood and colleagues from the University College London, UK, in PLOS Medicine.
In two studies published today (30 January) in Nature Genetics, researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators have identified a genetic variant that doubles an individual's risk of developing ...
Scientists from the Welcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators have discovered 17 rare human genetic variations associated with risk factors for diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.
Genetic diagnosis of disease and personalization of treatment have the potential to dramatically improve strategies for diagnosis and therapy. Around 80% or rare diseases are thought to have a genetic component, but currently ...
Genome wide association studies (GWAS) scan the entire genome in order to pinpoint genetic variants associated with a particular disease. The technique is employed to identify biological pathways - the series of actions and ...
Scientists have closed in on specific genes responsible for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) from a list of over 600 genes that were suspects for the disease. The team from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators ...
A study led by scientists at Monash University has shown that a new therapy developed through stem cell technology holds promise as a treatment for chronic asthma.
Inflammation is the process by which the body responds to injury or infection but when this process becomes out of control it can cause disease. Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) researchers, in collaboration with ...
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Research into the mechanism behind asthma attacks has discovered potential new ways to treat - and possibly prevent - this life-threatening condition.
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Inflammatory bowel disease: Scientists zoom in on genetic culprits - Medical Xpress
New Delhi: Calling for better health research in India, health experts, including those from the All India of Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), on Wednesday said that innovations in medicine alone can help cure rare diseases.
Considering India's population, doctors said that the number of patients suffering from rare diseases was quite significant now.
The diseases are usually severe and chronic and it is often difficult to diagnose and treat them due to their complexity, according to them.
Although significant progress has been made in new therapies, unfortunately, treatment is available only for five per cent of rare diseases and much work needs to be done in this regard, they felt.
"Tremendous progress has been made towards developing new therapies, which has drastically improved patients' quality of life. A greater understanding of the underlying biology of the disease would enable researchers to develop more targeted therapies," said I.C. Verma, Head of Genetic Medicine, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.
According to Verma, need of the hour is continued research for newer drugs and treatment methods that can provide greater relief to patients with rare diseases.
Mentioning new therapies that have helped patients, Verma said Enzyme Replacement Therapy (ERT) had proved to be very successful for the treatment of a missing enzyme in the body that causes diseases like Gaucher, Pompe, Fabry, etc.
"More recently, a therapy called Substrate Reduction Therapy (SRT) is being used which helps the body produce less substrates so that less is accumulated in the cells. More therapies like this are needed which can enable patients to more effectively manage rare diseases," he said.
Madhulika Kabra, Additional Professor at Pediatrics Department's Genetics unit of AIIMS, said that rare diseases were complex and their underlying biological mechanisms were not adequately understood by many.
Stating that a small patient population made it difficult to conduct clinical studies and thereby establish efficacy and safety of a particular treatment, Kabra said: "Going beyond symptom management and combating the root cause of a rare disease is essential."
Considering the high cost of new therapies, Sudeep Singh Sachdev, Nephrologist at Max Smart Super Speciality Hospital, called for innovations in existing and new treatment options as they would result in better management of rare diseases.
"The development of therapeutic options for rare diseases is challenging. Policy and regulatory interventions for furthering research will play a critical role in overcoming the many challenges in drug development for rare diseases and would provide a ray of hope to the patients and their families."
Prasanna Shirol, co-founder, Organisation for Rare Diseases India, said that developing therapy options for more and more rare diseases would provide relief to a lot of patients and families.
"At present, treatment is available only for a handful of rare diseases and hence, it is important that research is done in the area of other such diseases so that patients suffering from them have an option of leading healthier and active lives," Shirol said.
The government also needed to extend its support for a future where drugs and therapies would become more accessible for different rare disease patients, he added.
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Innovations in medicine needed to cure rare diseases: Doctors - Zee News
Your body contains trillions of cells which make up the physical you. Each one of these cells has a blueprint that is completely unique to you, called yourDNA.
In order to read all that information on your DNA, we use machines that do gene sequencing. A gene is a distinct stretch of DNA that determines something about who you are. Gene sequencing is where we can go through and laboriously read every single character in your DNA and then store it in a big file.
What if we couldchange genes in order to start changing your attributes? This is now possible using a technology calledgene editing.This is where we are able to precisely snip sections of DNA from the strand and then replace them with our own snippets.
All these methods fall under the envelope of genetic engineering. Consequently, gene editing is just another form of genetic engineering.
Genetic engineering is the direct manipulation of an organisms DNA using any number of methods. GMO is the genetic modification of organisms. Its been around for a while and uses imprecise methods of genetic engineering. Gene editing is now a more precise method of genetic engineering which hopes to avoid any bad associations with GMO.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: GMO vs Gene Editing vs Genetic Engineering
Originally posted here:
Gene drives are used to bias genetic inheritance in favor of rapidly spreading, self-destructive genes and could be an environmentally friendly and cost-effective way to suppress populations of disease-spreading insects. The rise of CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology has recently revolutionized gene-drive systems because it offers a rapid, efficient, and reliable way to make precise, targeted changes to the genome.
The new study based its calculations on past gene-drive findings that resulted in up to 99% of offspring inheriting the inserted gene. However, the few offspring that don't inherit the gene present a big problem for this technology. Since a fraction of these offspring is immune to the gene drive, any attempt to eliminate a mosquito species in this manner would result in a rapid rebound of those that are gene-drive immune. The impact of this resistance on the ability of gene drive to spread and suppress populations had previously been discussedbut had not been thoroughly evaluated.
The mathematical modeling that the investigators utilized found that the gene-driveevolved resistance would have a major impact on attempts to eliminate a mosquito species on a continent-wide scale. To address this issue, the research team devised a technique that they determined could potentially suppress mosquito species continent-wide.
Employing a strategy called multiplexing, which involves using one of the components of the CRISPR system, a gRNA, to target multiple locations in a gene at once, the research team suggested that the size of the population that could be suppressed increases exponentially with the number of these gRNAs utilized. It also shows that with four or five multiplexed gRNAs, a mosquito species could potentially be suppressed on a continental scale.
"Knowing that we can potentially overcome the issues of resistance through careful engineering and multiplexing is huge," noted senior study investigator Omar Akbari, Ph.D., assistant professor of entomology at UC Riverside.
The researchers demonstrated the technology was feasible using a fruit fly model. Now they are working to adapt this technology to the mosquito species that transmit malaria, dengue, and Zika.
"The potential of multiplexing is vast. With one gRNA, we could suppress a room of mosquitoes," Dr. Marshall concluded. With four, we could potentially suppress a continent and the diseases they transmit. But nature has a knack for finding a way around hurdles, so assessing that potential will require a lot more work."
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LogicBio Therapeutics has got off a $45 million series B funding round as it eyes the cash for disease-modifying gene therapies in rare childhood diseases.
London-based investment firm Arix Bioscience led the oversubscribed round in the semi-stealth biotech, with new investors OrbiMed, Edmond De Rothschild Investment Partners, Pontifax, and SBI, along with previous investors OrbiMed Israel Partners, also stumping up cash.
Arix Bioscience's investment manager, Daniel OConnell, M.D., Ph.D, will join Cambridge, Massachusetts-based LogicBios board as part of the raise. This brings its total raised to $50 million, much of which will be put toward finishing off preclinical work and moving them into human tests.
The biotech sets itself up as a breakthrough gene therapy company targeting lifelong cures for serious, early-onset rare diseases by combining the best of gene therapy and gene editing in a one-time treatment.
It was founded in 2014 with platform technologies discovered by Adi Barzel, Tel Aviv University, Dr Leszek Lisowski, Childrens Medical Research Institute, Australia, and Professor Mark Kay at Stanford University School of Medicine.
The first platform, GeneRide, is a technology that uses homologous recombination that is designed to allow site-specific transfer of therapeutic genetic material without the use of promoters or nucleases. The company says it also has access to a library of synthetic, non-pathogenic, recombinant adeno-associated viral (rAAV) vectors developed at Stanford that allows for better predictability of vector performance in clinical trials.
Joe Anderson, CEO of Arix Bioscience, said: Early intervention for rare genetic disorders in children is important and LogicBio is uniquely positioned at the forefront of this research area with its proprietary genetic therapy technology to deliver a durable cure for young patients with life-threatening genetic diseases and otherwise limited options. LogicBio has huge potential and, alongside its excellent team and investors, we look forward to supporting the company to achieve continued success in this area.
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Arix leads $45M series B for gene therapy biotech LogicBio - FierceBiotech
The go to gene-delivery vehicle, the adeno-associated virus (AAV), doesnt always go to where you would want it to go, particularly if the destinations you have in mind include the brain or the peripheral nervous system. Typically, viral vectors struggle to cross the bloodbrain barrier. Also, they tend to become dispersed across the body when they are tasked with delivering genetic cargo to far-flung neurons beyond the brain and spinal cord, such as those that sense pain and regulate heart rate, respiration, and digestion.
To help develop gene-delivery systems that can provide efficient transduction to neurons throughout the body, scientists based at the California Institute of Technology have introduced two AAV variants: one that efficiently ferries genetic cargo past the bloodbrain barrier and another that is efficiently picked up by peripheral neurons residing outside the brain and spinal cord.
Details appeared June 26 in the journal Nature Neuroscience, in an article entitled Engineered AAVs for Efficient Noninvasive Gene Delivery to the Central and Peripheral Nervous Systems. The vectors are able to reach their targets following a simple injection into the bloodstream. Also, the vectors are customizable and could potentially be used as part of a gene therapy to treat neurodegenerative disorders that affect the entire central nervous system, such as Huntington's disease, or to help map or modulate neuronal circuits and understand how they change during disease.
Here, we describe AAV-PHP.eB and AAV-PHP.S, capsids that efficiently transduce the central and peripheral nervous systems, respectively, wrote the articles authors. In the adult mouse, intravenous administration of 1 1011 vector genomes (vg) of AAV-PHP.eB transduced 69% of cortical and 55% of striatal neurons, while 1 1012 vg of AAV-PHP.S transduced 82% of dorsal root ganglion neurons, as well as cardiac and enteric neurons.
The work was led by Viviana Gradinaru, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology and biological engineering at Caltech. "We have now developed a new collection of viruses and tools to study the central and peripheral nervous systems," she said. "We are now able to get highly efficient brain-wide delivery with just a low-dose systemic injection, access neurons in difficult-to-reach regions, and precisely label cells with multiple fluorescent colors to study their shapes and connections."
The new vectors could help researchers study the activity and function of specific types of neurons within peripheral circuits using genetically encoded sensors and tools to modulate neuronal firing with light or designer drugs, respectively. The new vectors could also deliver genes that code for colorful fluorescent proteins, proteins that are useful in identifying and labeling cells.
The efficiency of these vectors facilitates robust cotransduction and stochastic, multicolor labeling for individual cell morphology studies, the articles authors noted. To support such efforts, we provide methods for labeling a tunable fraction of cells without compromising color diversity.
In the labeling process, multiple AAVseach carrying a distinct colorare mixed together and injected into the bloodstream. When they reach their target neurons, each neuron receives a unique combination of colors, thereby giving it a visually distinct hue that makes it easier for the researchers to distinguish its fine details from those of its neighbors. Furthermore, the team devised a technique to control the number of neurons labeledlabeling too many neurons makes it impossible to distinguish individual onesthat allows researchers to visualize individual neuron shapes and trace their connecting fibers through intact tissues using another technology that Dr. Gradinaru's laboratory has helped develop, known as tissue clearing.
"Usually, when researchers want a mouse or other animal model to express fluorescent proteins in certain cells, they need to develop genetically modified animals that can take months to years to make and characterize," said former graduate student and first author Ken Chan (Ph.D. '17). "Now with a single injection, we can label specific cells with a variety of colors within weeks after the injection."
"For our new systemic viral vectorsAAV PHP.S and AAV PHP.eBthere are many potential uses, from mapping circuits in the periphery and fast screening of gene regulatory elements to genome editing with powerful tools such as CRISPR/Cas9," asserted Dr. Gradinaru. "But perhaps the most exciting implication is that our tools, when paired with appropriate activity modulator genes, could enable noninvasive deep brain modulation for the treatment of neurological diseases such as Parkinson's disease."
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