Monthly Archives: February 2014

Georges St-Pierre discusses Takedown: The DNA of GSP and Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre talks about his new documentary Takedown: The DNA of GSP, as well as his role as Batroc the Leaper in Capt...

By: Fight Now TV

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Georges St-Pierre discusses Takedown: The DNA of GSP and Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Video

It took a distraught Lindie Mdluli several days to summon the courage to go to a South African police station after she was raped in 2007. When she got there, Mdluli says that police officers didn't discuss the kind of investigative DNA work that she had seen on television detective shows.

"Nobody told me about crime-scene DNA," said 37-year-old Mdluli, whose assailant was arrested but later released. "From watching TV, I thought they were going to ask for my clothes, but nobody asked."

Mdluli's story of failed opportunities to build a criminal case is common in South Africa, which struggles with high rates of rape and murder. In a rare bright spot, a new law will expand a state DNA database used to fight crime by compelling police to take samples from convicted offenders as well as suspects in crimes ranging from homicide to theft, a major undertaking that will test the nation's troubled police force.

Dozens of countries have legislation similar to the so-called DNA Act, which was signed by President Jacob Zuma on Jan. 27. The goal is to match more offenders, including many who break the law more than once, with their crimes, exonerate the wrongly accused and crack cold cases. It will take a while to implement nationwide. Some 100,000 police are to receive training in the collection of genetic evidence; education starts in April and is expected to last five years.

While South Africa's forensic experts are highly skilled, police on the beat have been tarnished by cases of corruption, mismanagement and even violent crimes. Last year, a South African magistrate harshly criticized a police detective for shoddy work in the murder investigation of Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee athlete who says he killed his girlfriend after mistaking her for an intruder in his home. Pistorius' murder trial starts March 3.

Last week, top South African police officials said they were committed to enforcing the DNA Act during a forensic science conference in Pretoria, the capital.

Activist and lawyer Vanessa Lynch said of skepticism of the police: "I just want to put a positive spin, instead of it becoming a mudslinging match against the police."

Lynch co-founded the DNA Project, an advocacy group that campaigned for the new South African law, after her father, John, was killed in his Johannesburg home in 2004. His clothes, a potentially valuable source of DNA samples, were discarded. Police did not take DNA samples from bottles from which the attackers had been drinking before the murder. Family and friends cleaned up the crime scene before investigators arrived, inadvertently destroying evidence.

The new law will give rape victims, including children, "a voice to speak for them," said Mdluli, the rape victim who was a panelist at a Johannesburg conference last week on the measure. She recalled her discomfort at pitting her word against her alleged assailant, a man she knew, without the support of DNA evidence. She eventually dropped the case.

Another woman at the conference, Karen Howell, immediately had DNA samples taken after she was raped in 2011 in her Johannesburg home, set up a neighborhood network to track her two assailants, called police to arrest one of the men after she saw him walking in a street and hounded police until they put a more responsive investigator on her case. Last year, the two attackers received lengthy jail terms.

Link:
South Africa to Fight Crime With New DNA Law

How Personalized Medicine will transform Human Space Flight

Significant attention has been given to methods of shielding human space participants from radiation on missions. But what if some astronauts suffer from susceptible DNAbeforeentering the space radiation environment? Two American scientists have proposed that certain astronaut molecular profilesmay 1) reduce inherent DNA stability, 2) slow DNA repair, and 3) render DNA more susceptible to mutational events when exposed to the radiation of space.

Michael A. Schmidt, Ph.D. (Sovaris Aerospace) andThomas J. Goodwin, Ph.D. (NASA Johnson Space Center) have identified a novel approach to space radiation countermeasures, which is based on understanding the DNA stability, DNA repair capability, and oxidative susceptibility of individual astronautsbeforethey enter the space environment. This methodology is linked to individual genotype and micronutrient status, both of which are potentially modifiable by appropriate pre-flight and in-flight countermeasures.

For instance, common gene mutations affecting one carbon metabolism (MTHFR, MTR, MTRR) may result in the build-up of a faulty base (uracil) within the DNA backbone. This can lead to single strand DNA breaks and double strand DNA breaks, before astronauts enter space. The effect of this is amplified by folate and B12 deficiency.

Other common gene mutations (Hfe) trigger excessive iron accumulation, which creates unstable DNA through oxidative stress mechanisms, also before entering space. Magnesium is a central atom in most DNArepairenzymes. Significant serum, urine, and muscle loss of Mg has already been found in ISS astronauts on long missions, thus raising the question about whether we are already flying some astronauts with diminished capacity to repair DNA damage.

According to Schmidt, "We are examining how individual molecular influences affect DNA stability and repair before astronauts enter the elevated radiation conditions of space, and then how to manage those influences while they live in space. But we are looking well beyond DNA and into the vast network of molecular influences on astronaut physiology. We and our colleagues are using genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics to develop a platform for personalized medicine that will guide the present and future of human space flight. As the field evolves, we expect to increasingly be able to individualize countermeasures, so that each astronaut receives the protocol that is most suitable to him or her. This will be crucial for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Of equal importance, we use what we've learned from the complexity of space to translate these benefits to earth-based medicine."

Goodwin states, "In the end, it is about advancing the science and about developing solutions, which we see evolving in phases. Our goal, at minimum, includes: (1) establish the criteria for ''best evidence'' that can be used to develop individualized countermeasurestoday; (2) establish the criteria for best evidence that prioritizes research, clinical assessment, and individualized countermeasures to be developed in the near term; and (3) establish a deliberate discovery path that seeks to develop sophisticated and more complex models for long-term deployment of personalized medicine, as the future standard of preparation and care in human space flight."

Their paper, entitledPersonalized Medicine in Human Space Flight: Using Omics Based Analyses to Develop Individualized Countermeasures that Enhance Astronaut Safety and Performance, was recently published in the journalMetabolomics(Schmidt, MA, Goodwin, TJ.MetabolomicsDec 2013;9(6):1134-1156).

Michael A. Schmidt, Ph.D.is co-chair of the Advanced Pattern Analysis & Countermeasures Group. He and his team have ongoing collaborations with NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Johnson Space Center, and commercial space flight companies that are focused on human missions to the ISS, Moon, Mars, and elsewhere. Dr. Schmidt is the founder ofSovaris Aerospace, LLCand Chairman ofMetaboLogics, LLC, based at the Infectious Disease Research Complex at Colorado State University. Sovaris Aerospace, LLC uses pattern analysis, signal processing, and predictive modeling to develop molecular/physiologic assessment and countermeasure solutions for humans in space. MetaboLogics, LLC, applies these methods to earth-based medicine.

Originally posted here:
Novel Ways to Protect Astronaut DNA before Entering Space Radiation Environments

Posted on: 5:50 pm, February 20, 2014, by Katie DeLong, updated on: 08:22pm, February 20, 2014

Richard Conley

RACINE (WITI) 44-year-old Richard Conley of Racine is accused of breaking into his neighbors residence, stealing two rolls of quarters, and leaving DNA at the scene that linked him to the crime.

Conley, who has a lengthy criminal history including convictions going back to 1997, has been charged in this case with burglary of a building or dwelling, repeater.

A criminal complaint in the case says officers responded to a residence in the 2100 block of Romayne Avenue, where they spoke with a man who said someone had broken into his apartment after breaking and window, and had taken two rolls of quarters.

This apparently occurred while the man was gone at the store.

The complaint indicates blood was found on a fan that was in the windowsill that had been moved. The complaint says a screen on the window was removed.

Additionally, there was a wooden chair lying outside the mans apartment window which may have been used to break the window, according to the complaint.

The complaint says a sample of the blood found on the fan was sent to the Wisconsin Crime Lab for analysis with an order to check any DNA located against the DNA database.

The complaint says the DNA located in the blood sample was matched to the DNA of Conley.

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DNA evidence links Racine man to theft of two rolls of quarters