Daily Archives: March 2, 2013

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PORTLAND, Ore. More than 30 years after an Oregon high school student was found dead in a drainage ditch, authorities this week charged her former neighbor with aggravated murder thanks to advances in DNA technology, according to the Washington County Sheriff's Office.

Kenneth Lee Hicks, 49, of St. Helens, was arrested Wednesday and booked into the county jail without bail, according to a KOIN.com report.

Hicks was 19 when Lori Billingsley's body was found Oct. 10, 1982, in a drainage ditch in the community of Aloha. The 17-year-old had been beaten, stabbed, strangled and sexually assaulted.

The evening before, Billingsley was last seen leaving her home with a group of friends, KOIN.com reported. She was reportedly found beaten to death just 12 hours later.

Hicks was Billingsley's neighbor and the last person to see her alive, the Sheriff's Office said. Sgt. Bob Ray said Hicks was a prime suspect at the time, and detectives believed he knew more than he was telling during interviews. After more than a year of pursuing the case, detectives decided there was insufficient evidence to arrest him.

In 1991, when DNA evidence was gaining recognition as an investigative tool, the Sheriff's Office submitted evidence from the Billingsley homicide to the Oregon State Police crime lab. No profile was identified and the case grew colder.

In December 2010, Mike O'Connell, a retired sheriff's office detective, returned part-time to help solve cold cases and started working on the Billingsley homicide. DNA technology had advanced a great deal in two decades and, last April, O'Connell served a search warrant to obtain Hicks' DNA.

Hicks' DNA profile matched the DNA evidence from the homicide, Ray said.

Ray credited Detective Jim Welch, now deceased, for conducting a thorough investigation back in 1982, saying his work was invaluable to the detectives who re-examined the case.

"The DNA was just the last piece of the puzzle," Ray said.

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DNA match leads to arrest In 1982 cold case murder

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- One of Poland's top veterinarians said Thursday that traces of horse-meat DNA have been found in beef samples taken from three meat processors the first acknowledgement that the country could be a source of the horse meat that fraudulently ended up in processed meat products sold as beef across Europe.

Deputy National Veterinarian Janusz Zwiazek said the DNA was found in three samples out of 121 tested. They came from cold storage at processing plants in central Poland. The meat arrived there from various suppliers in Poland and abroad, including from the Netherlands, Zwiazek told The Associated Press.

Dutch authorities also announced Thursday that their large-scale testing program has uncovered horse meat in two samples out of 370 tests it has carried out since Europe's horse meat scandal erupted.

The country's Food and Wares Authority said it found horse DNA in a batch of beef cuttings and in a meatball labeled as containing only beef and pork at a meat processor and a frozen storage center.

The authority did not release the names of the companies where it found the horse meat traces.

In Greece, authorities said they detected traces of horse meat in salami labeled as containing beef that was imported from the Netherlands, and in frozen kebabs packaged locally. It was unclear whether the kebab meat was locally produced or imported, and food safety authorities were not available for comment.

Greece first detected horse DNA in meat labeled as beef on Wednesday, in frozen meat from Romania.

Polish authorities said some 80 more samples are to be tested, and separate tests are needed to determine the proportion of horse meat.

All three contamination cases have been reported to the prosecutors, Zwiazek said.

"I want to find the culprit, or culprits," he said.

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Poland finds horse meat DNA in beef samples

Nicolle Rager Fuller / NSF

An artist's conception shows an RNA molecule, which may have served as an early form of life on Earth.

By Charles ChoiLiveScience

The human genome can generate molecular hoops similar in makeup to DNA that could potently interfere with genetic activity, researchers say.

These findings reveal there are secrets within the genomes of humans and other animals that scientists are still uncovering, and the old belief that life has useless junk DNA is more false than ever, scientists added.

Discovering more about circular versions of RNA (a molecule similar to DNA that can carry genetic information) could also lead to new ways of fighting diseases such as diabetes, brain tumors and Parkinson's disease, investigators added.

The human genome the blueprint for human life is made of DNA. From the genome, intermediate molecules known as RNA are created that help manufacture key biomolecules such as proteins, which then carry out cellular processes.

After international teams of researchers completely sequenced the human genome, they found about 95 percent of it unexpectedly did not code for proteins. Since this noncoding DNA initially seemed to have no known biological function, some scientists referred to it as junk DNA. [Unraveling the Human Genome: 6 Molecular Milestones]

However, over time, researchers have discovered this noncoding DNA can serve a wide variety of vital purposes. For instance, noncoding DNA can give rise to snippets of RNA known as micro-RNA that can suppress the so-called messenger RNA that normally helps manufacture proteins. This micro-RNA serves a key role in controlling genetic activity, and scientists are developing therapies based on micro-RNA to dampen harmful, malfunctioning genes.

Now researchers find the genomes of humans and other animals can generate circular RNA, highly stable rings that can sponge up micro-RNA, apparently keeping them from interfering with genetic activity if necessary.

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Odd molecular hoops dispel 'junk DNA' myth

Ancient Egyptians were vexed by it, using sulfur to dry it out. Shakespeare wrote of its "bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames o' fire."

Today, acne plagues us still. Doctors can cure some cancers and transplant vital organs like hearts, but they still have trouble getting rid of the pimples and splotches that plague 85% of us at some time in our lives usually, when we're teenagers and particularly sensitive about the way we look.

But new research hints that there's hope for zapping zits in the future, thanks to advances in genetic research.

Using state-of-the-art DNA sequencing techniques to evaluate the bacteria lurking in the pores of 101 study volunteers' noses, scientists discovered a particular strain of Propionibacterium acnes bacteria that may be able to defend against other versions of P. acnes that pack a bigger breakout-causing punch.

As best as dermatologists can tell, zits occur when bacteria that reside in human skin, including P. acnes, feed on oils in the pores and prompt an immune response that results in red, sometimes pus-filled bumps. But the study subjects who had the newly discovered bacterial strain weren't suffering from whiteheads or blackheads, according to a report published Thursday in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.

Someday, the realization that "not all P. acnes are created equal" might help dermatologists devise treatments that more precisely target bad strains while allowing beneficial ones to thrive, said Dr. Noah Craft, a dermatologist at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute who conducted the study with colleagues from UCLA and Washington University in St. Louis.

Doctors might prescribe probiotic creams that deliver "good" P. acnes to the face the same way a daily serving of yogurt helps restore healthy bacteria in the digestive tract.

"There are healthy strains that we need on our skin," Craft said. "The idea that you'd use a nuclear bomb to kill everything what we're currently doing with antibiotics and other treatments just doesn't make sense."

The research is part of a broad effort backed by the National Institutes of Health to characterize the so-called human microbiome: the trillions of microbes that live in and on our bodies and evolve along with us, sometimes causing illness and often promoting good health.

Most of the microbiome attention so far has gone to studying species in the gut, said study leader Huiying Li, an assistant professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at UCLA's Geffen School of Medicine. But the NIH's Human Microbiome Project, which funds her research, also looks at microbial communities in the nasal passages, the mouth, the urogenital tract and the skin.

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DNA science points to better treatment for acne