Daily Archives: February 7, 2013

DNA Vergadering 07-02-2013

By: dnasuriname

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DNA Vergadering 07-02-2013 - Video

A DNA sample from a girl in New Zealand has been sent to British police to quash the suggestion that she could be Madeleine McCann.

Scotland Yard said that the girl is not a line of inquiry and it has requested the sample to confirm statements made by New Zealand police that the girl is not Madeleine.

A spokeswoman said: "This is not a line of inquiry, but just to corroborate what police in New Zealand are saying we have requested DNA."

It was reported in New Zealand media that the girl has been mistaken for Madeleine more than once, because she has a similar mark in one of her eyes.

Detective senior sergeant Kallum Croudis told Fairfax Media: "Police will be sending a DNA profile to British police to confirm the identity of a girl who has been mistaken for Madeleine by a member of the public."

Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in the Algarve on May 3 2007 as her parents dined at a tapas restaurant with friends nearby.

Spokesman for the McCann family Clarence Mitchell said: "It is entirely a matter for Scotland Yard and the New Zealand police, and Kate and Gerry (McCann) won't be commenting."

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DNA to quash Madeleine suggestion

By Ilya Rzhevskiy Epoch Times Staff Created: February 7, 2013 Last Updated: February 7, 2013

An employee walks past servers in one of four server rooms at the new Facebook Data Center on April 19 in Forest City, N.C. DNA storage could replace massive server farms, such as those used by Facebook, with a single hard drive that could fit in your pocked. (Rainier Ehrhardt/Getty Images)

Thanks to a lively discussion one evening in a pub, two scientists have come up with a way to store any type of data, from PDFs to MP3 files, into strands of DNA. The new method works without electricity and can store information for thousands of years. It is like the DNA of dinosaurs that died out millions of years ago, which preserved the information of the species and their characteristics since the Jurassic age.

We already know that DNA is a robust way to store information, because we can extract it from wooly mammoth boneswhich date back tens of thousands of yearsand make sense of it, said Nick Goldman, one of the scientists who made the discovery. Its also incredibly small, dense, and does not need any power for storage, so shipping and keeping it is easy.

We downloaded the files from the Web and used them to synthesize hundreds of thousands of pieces of DNAthe result looks like a tiny piece of dust.

The two scientists, Nick Goldman and Ewen Birney, both from the European Bioinformatics Institute, admit that it was totally an accidental discovery that happened after they drank a few beers in a pub.

We realized that DNA itself is a really efficient way of storing information. So over a second beer, we started to write on napkins and sketch out some details of how that might be made to work, Goldman says.

The method basically works by converting the 0s and 1s used in a binomial computer code into the letters of genetic code A, C, G, Tthe four nucleotides. The various combinations of those four letters can be used to record and encode just about anything from a word document to the entire characteristic of the human beings physical body that requires just 3 billion of those letters arranged in a specific combination, compactly pressed deep into each cell of our bodies.

To start off with a nucleotide combination a bit easier than a human body, the scientists picked Shakespeares sonnets as a PDF file and Martin Luther Kings speech I Have a Dream in MP3 format and sent those off to the labs of Agilent Technologiesa biotech company, where the files got synthesized into a strand of DNA.

We downloaded the files from the Web and used them to synthesize hundreds of thousands of pieces of DNAthe result looks like a tiny piece of dust, explained Emily Leproust of Agilent Technologies.

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DNA Storage for Your Hard Drive

The Supreme Court will revisit the crossroad of privacy and evolving science later this month when it considers whether officials can take the DNA -- without a warrant -- of someone who has been arrested but not convicted of a crime.

While all states require DNA from individuals convicted of a felony, the federal government and 28 states also require DNA collection and analysis from at least some arrestees.

Alonzo Jay King Jr, claims his constitutional rights were violated when he was arrested in 2009 for assault. At the time of his arrest, pursuant to Maryland's DNA Collection Act, officials swabbed his cheek and collected his DNA without a warrant.

His 2009 sample was later matched in a state database to DNA from a 2003 rape case. It was a cold case involving a 53-year-old female victim identified as "Vonette W." in Maryland. Based on the new evidence, King was eventually charged with the 2003 rape and robbery. He is currently serving a life sentence.

Lawyers for King appealed the decision arguing that taking the warrantless DNA from someone who has been arrested but not convicted of a serious crime violates the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable search and seizure. The Court of Appeals of Maryland ruled in King's favor.

The court rejected an analogy that taking the DNA was no more invasive than taking a fingerprint.

"Although the Maryland DNA Collection Act restricts the DNA profile to identifying information only, we can not turn a blind eye to the vast genetic treasure map that remains in the DNA sample retained by the State," the court's majority said.

Illustration/Getty Images

Maryland's Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler is asking the Supreme Court to step in and reverse the lower court decision.

In court papers filed with the Supreme Court, the two sides address the balance between an individual's privacy and the needs of law enforcement.

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Supreme Court to Hear Major DNA Case

NEW YORK, Feb. 6, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue:

DNA Microarray 2013: A Focus on Sales Growth

http://www.reportlinker.com/p0980749/DNA-Microarray-2013-A-Focus-on-Sales-Growth.html#utm_source=prnewswire&utm_medium=pr&utm_campaign=Genetically_Modified_Organism,_GMO

DNA Microarray 2013 presents the findings of a global market study of DNA Microarray, involving the participation of 201 buyers and end-users in this field. With a focus on market development, sales growth and commercial opportunities, the study profiled current and evolving areas of this market, as outlined below. Its findings provide valuable product and market information, and decision-making support to suppliers in the DNA Microarray field.

From the early use of miniaturised microarrays for the analysis of gene expression in the mid 1990s, this technique has established markets that are expected to reach $3 billion by 2015. However, these are also changing as new applications are developed and new competitive strategies, such as PCR, grow. This report, based on an analysis of current and evolving developments in the DNA microarray field, has been produced to assist marketing and sales in this field, and the identification of new opportunities. It is the outcome of an extensive global study involving more than 200 experienced DNA microarray buyers and end-users. It's findings provide a "focus on sales growth" to developers and vendors in the microarray field, and the changes that are driving these developments. The following indicate the key market areas covered in the study:

Executive Summary

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Study Participants

2.1 This Chapter

2.2 Countries

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DNA Microarray 2013: A Focus on Sales Growth

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Affymetrix, Inc. (AFFX) and DNA Link, Inc., a Korean genomics-based biotechnology company, today announced that they have signed a Powered by AffymetrixTM (PbA) Program agreement in which DNA Link, Inc. obtains a worldwide license to develop and commercialize a forensic test for comprehensive human identification and other diagnostic tests using Affymetrix microarray technology and the Korea FDA (KFDA) cleared GeneChip System 3000Dx v.2.

AccuIDChip is a novel SNP marker based array for personal identification which can be applied to a variety of forensic samples, including degraded DNA samples. This array utilizes DNA Links unique approach of combining Affymetrix target resequencing array technology and multiplexing PCR technology to genotype hundreds of SNP markers in a single experiment to obtain high quality data and a wide variety of information all with high throughput and cost efficiency.

Dr. Jong-Eun Lee, CEO of DNA Link, said, The advantage of using SNP markers is that they possess lower mutation rate than STR markers, thus are more stable in terms of inheritance which could aid parentage testing, kinship analysis, ethnicity, or predicting phenotypic characteristics. This novel forensic test, AccuIDChip, can be used complementarily with existing STR tests and to build a more comprehensive forensic database. We are pleased to join the ranks of other PbA Program partners, such as Roche Diagnostics and Pathwork Diagnostics in adopting the Affymetrix technology.

We are very pleased to have DNA Link join our Powered by Affymetrix program in which we help partners to develop novel molecular diagnostic tests for personalized healthcare. DNA Link being our first partner in Korea will also provide our other PbA partners access to the Korean personalized genomics market, said Dara Wright, Vice President, Clinical Applications Marketing at Affymetrix.

PLEASE NOTE:

AccuIDChip is not available for in vitro diagnostic use in the United States.

Affymetrix, the Affymetrix logo, Powered by Affymetrix, GeneChip and all other trademarks are the property of Affymetrix, Inc. AccuIDChip is trademark of DNA Link and all other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE: Affymetrix, Inc.

About DNA Link, Inc.

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Affymetrix and DNA Link Sign Partnership for Forensic Test Development for Human Identification