Category Archives: DNA

The Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art will kick off the new year with the work of Laurel Nakadate, a Boston-based artist who traveled across the country to photograph familiar matches she discovered through DNA testing.

Nakadates work, which is presented in partnership with George Mason University, will be on display at the institute from Jan. 22 through May 29. The artist focuses self-representation, identify formation, representation and loneliness.

Her DNA-based series Relations began in 2013. It also features direct relatives of her mother who died shortly after Nakadate completed work on that series. Each photograph features individuals at night with a single light source at a location of their choice.

I realized at a certain point it wasnt just about the people, but it was about these landscapes. It was about standing in these landscapes and night. And it was about the sort of ways that I could still be surprised by photography, Nakadate wrote in a statement.

Tephra will also offer a first look at a series in which technicians edited photos of Nakadates mother with her newborn son, who was born shortly after Nakadates mother died.

The arts institute offered a quick look at upcoming exhibitions as well:

Travis Childers(Feb. 10-June 28): The component parts of one of Childers artworks are often recognizable manufactured objects, such as pencils or model railroad trees and figurineseven his works on canvas are comprised of images lifted from printed newspaper using scotch tape.Through a process that errs on the side of obsession, he assembles works that are deeply influenced by his personal experience of the Northern Virginia suburban landscape and his memories of a more rural childhood.In reference to a collage made from hundreds of skies excerpted from the background of published newspaper images, the artist reflects, There is just something reassuring about seeing so many horizon lines.

Danni OBrien (July 14-Oct. 11): Danni OBrien is fascinated by the history of the plastics boom that took place in the mid-twentieth century.Looming in the corner of her studio, an overburdened wire shelf serves as a library of collected refuse. Boxes and bins of found and scrapped objects are sorted intuitively by criteria such as texture, shape, material, and color.OBrien speaks about her process as caring for the objects as she meticulously integrates them into monochromatic wall mounted works, whose compositions are drawn from diagrams similarly loosened from their original contexts as instructions for home renovations, sewing, or understanding human anatomy.

Dominic Chambers (Fall 2022): Chambers most recent bodies of work feature his friends and acquaintances engaged in acts of leisure and contemplation. Too often, the Black body has been located in our imaginations as one incapable of rest, Chambers explains. Often when we imagine what the Black body is doing it is usually an act of labor, rebellion, or resistance. Instead, his subjects are depicted reading or lost in thought, their gaze fixed on points that seem far beyond the realm of the picture plane.

Image via Laurel Nakadate/Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art

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New exhibit to feature matches discovered through DNA testing - Reston Now

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DNA evidence processed in Amory homicide investigation | News | djournal.com - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael OMalleys office has used burgeoning DNA technology to identify three men who are accused of carrying out a combined six sexual assaults across Cleveland in the 1990s.

Two of the men, who were indicted in recent years as John Doe defendants, have pleaded not guilty to charges including rape. The third man died in 2020, prosecutors said.

OMalley and Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mary Weston said that they went as far as to get a search warrant to get a sample of the tissue of the man who died from the Cleveland Clinic, where he had been treated for pancreatic cancer, so they could test his DNA against that taken from one of the rape kits.

OMalleys office teamed up with the Texas-based genetic testing company Gene by Gene and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yosts Offices forensic crime lab to use the same technique -- and the same genealogist -- that led to the 2018 arrest of the notorious Golden State Killer.

The process, which began with grant money from the U.S. Department of Justice in 2019 and is known as the G.O.L.D. Unit, identified the first defendant earlier this year. OMalley and Weston hope it will help them identify dozens more.

Its a tremendous asset that this technology has evolved to the point that were able to do the things were doing, OMalley said.

Weston said she hopes the technology can bring solace to the minds of the women who were attacked. Weston said one of the women told her that when she stands in line at a Starbucks or in a grocery store, she sometimes wonders if the man who raped her is in line behind her.

These women dont have to look over their shoulder anymore, she said. You take that anxiety out of the equation when you solve the case, even if the person is dead.

John Doe 11

OMalleys office identified John Doe 11 as Thomas Graham, who died in October 2020 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, according to his obituary. Graham is accused of raping three women in the citys West Side neighborhoods from 1993 to 1997.

In each case, Graham picked up women in their 20s off the street, drove them to another location and sexually assaulted them, prosecutors said.

He raped a 25-year-old woman at knifepoint on June 7, 1994, after he picked her up on Madison Avenue and drove to West 48th Street and Storer Avenue, prosecutors said. He picked up a 20-year-old woman near West 44th Street and Clark Avenue on Nov. 22, 1994, drove to Woodbridge Avenue and raped her, prosecutors said.

Four years later, on Aug. 30, 1998, Graham raped a 27-year-old woman in his car after he picked her up at Lorain Avenue and West 47th Street, prosecutors said.

Grahams DNA profile was indicted in 2013 alongside two other men known as John Doe 9 and John Doe 10.

The genealogy company the prosecutors office works with sent OMalleys office Grahams name as a potential match for John Doe 11s DNA profile earlier this year. Once investigators learned he died last year, they surreptitiously obtained an item from one of Grahams relatives and pulled their DNA off it and sent it to be tested. Investigators matched the DNA to a descendant of John Doe 11, prosecutors said.

OMalley said that since his office was unable to get a confirmation sample directly from Graham, he had his office obtain a search warrant to get a tissue sample from the Cleveland Clinic where Graham had received treatment for pancreatic cancer.

The hospital complied with the warrant and DNA testing confirmed that Grahams DNA matched John Doe 11s, prosecutors said.

Weston filed a motion to dismiss the charges against John Doe 11 as abated by death on Dec. 16.

John Doe 64

Leo Bradley Scott Jr., 60, is charged with three counts of rape and two counts of kidnapping in separate attacks of two women on Clevelands East Side in 1994 and 1998.

Prosecutors said Scott grabbed a 22-year-old woman on Oct. 14, 1994, while she was walking on Euclid Avenue near East 118th Street and dragged her to nearby train tracks, where he sexually assaulted her.

In April 1998, prosecutors say Scott pulled up to a 26-year-old woman who was walking home from a party at the Zulu Motorcycle Club and offered her a ride. When the woman said no, Scott pulled her into the car, drove to a parking lot in East Cleveland and raped her inside the car, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors indicted a DNA profile contained in the rapes as John Doe 64 in 2014.

The genealogy company identified Bradley as a potential match to the DNA profile this summer, and investigators pulled a DNA sample off of an item he had touched and testing confirmed the match. The U.S. Marshals office arrested Bradley in July.

John Doe 102

Prosecutors also identified 48-year-old Rayshawn Hundley as the man who was indicted as John Doe 102 in the burglary and rape of a 16-year-old girl on New Years Eve in 1995.

The girl, who lived in Alabama but was visiting family in Cleveland for the holidays, told police she woke up to find a strange man going through the house. The man then attacked the girl and sexually assaulted her, then stole a VCR and videotapes, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors indicted the DNA profile contained in the girls rape kit in 2015. The genealogy tests gave prosecutors the names of two possible suspects as a match for the profile, and they independently obtained samples from Hundley and matched his DNA to the profiles, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors named Hundley as a defendant in court filings in September. His trial is set for February 2022.

The girl, who was then in her early 40s, died this August as prosecutors were waiting to confirm the identity of her attacker, prosecutors said.

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Cuyahoga County prosecutors genealogical DNA unit IDs three more men accused of raping women in the 1990s - cleveland.com

A plop of rain met parched California ground and trickled into a creek. There it scraped against fish and slipped through their gills, stealing traces of each encounter. The droplet then carried the genetic souvenirs downstream until it reached an innovative device that helped unlock the secrets of the creeks creatures.

We call this a microbiology lab in a can, said Jim Birch, director of the SURF center at the Moss Landing-based Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

That can is actually MBARIs environmental sample processor, a $200,000 robotic laboratory the size of a 50-gallon drum. It gathers genetic clues cells, mucus, feces from ecosystems that are collectively dubbed environmental DNA, or eDNA.

In a project on Scott Creek north of Davenport, the device produced one of the nations largest single-site eDNA data collections. From April 2019 to April 2020, scientists uncovered details about endangered and invasive species in the freshwater ecosystem. Now a scientific paper in the works, the study reinforces the growing interest in detecting and better protecting hard-to-find species using eDNA monitoring instead of more invasive techniques such as fish counts.

It has that ability to do that without having to put a lot of nets in the water, said MBARIs Kevan Yamahara, a specialist on the device and one of the papers authors.

Worldwide interest in eDNAs ability to detect rare organisms has expanded over the past few decades. The new technology rediscovered a rare aquatic insect population in the United Kingdom. It detected more mammals than traditional camera traps in the Canadian wilderness. It helped track the spread of the coronavirus.

In Scott Creek, MBARIs device pumped water from the creeks flow and pushed it through a filter several times a day. Once the filter collected enough materials, the machine applied a preservative. According to Yamahara, each filter was then shelved in a carousel similar to the bullet-loaded chamber of a gun. Once the carousel filled with 132 samples, researchers collected the data and brought it to their Moss Landing lab.

Nearly 700 samples emerged from the yearlong monitoring. Researchers focused on the creeks endangered coho salmon and threatened steelhead trout populations, both commercially important fish. Since Scott Creek is one of the southernmost points where coho salmon come to lay eggs, its crucial to know how the species is faring, said Birch, who is also an author of the soon-to-be-submitted research manuscript.

In the creek, the device sat next to a more established monitoring tool: a weir operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Birch said that the weir, a perforated flow-through dam, has allowed NOAA staff to tally, inspect and release fish on a seasonal basis for two decades.

The fish counts continued throughout the project and allowed for comparisons of traditional and emerging monitoring techniques. From the samples, the team gleaned that the amount of steelhead trout DNA usually surpassed that of coho salmon. This complemented the numbers observed in the NOAA fish traps, according to Ryan Searcy, an environmental engineering doctoral student at Stanford and the research papers lead author.

The collected eDNA also provided seasonal data that mirrored the suspected life histories of species through winter rains, summer dry spells and most days in between. The information unveiled the best times to conduct eDNA sampling for certain species, Yamahara said.

The highest concentrations of coho salmon eDNA, for example, appeared during the winter when the fish were thought to be migrating and laying eggs. During the fall, when the creeks flow diminished, so did the amount of salmon eDNA. The findings gave researchers confidence in the data and suggested that the new monitoring methods could be well-suited for documenting the behaviors of migratory fish, Searcy said.

The data revealed other secrets of the creek: The team found that less than 1% of the eDNA came from invasive species. That low number offers hope that species like the New Zealand mudsnail and striped bass are not yet present in the creek, Searcy said. Such monitoring could offer scientists early warning signs for invasive species before ever observing them, Yamahara said.

You dont have to actually physically go and physically look for those specimens, Yamahara said. You can just take a water sample and process it.

MBARIs environmental sample processor traveled around the world when it was unveiled in the late 2000s, Birch said. The version of the Scott Creek device has since transformed into a new model the size of two basketballs.

Researchers included the upgraded tech in underwater autonomous vehicles now used to explore marine habitats like those in Monterey Bay, Birch said. Theyre also used in the Great Lakes to track harmful algae blooms, Yamahara said.

As eDNA monitoring evolves from stationary machinery to traveling endeavors across ecosystems, Yamahara hopes that the technology will progress even more for use in freshwater habitats like Scott Creek. But while the device could revolutionize ecosystem monitoring, the prototype has limitations.

The sheer amount of genetic information the new devices provide, for instance, can overwhelm labs, Birch said. To fix this problem, hed like to see future versions of the tech do that analysis on-site.

Thats really the Holy Grail the brass ring that we are trying to push for here at MBARI to go beyond the simple sampling and do the processing onboard as well, he said.

There were also discrepancies between old and new monitoring strategies. The team detected fish eDNA more frequently than the fish were counted in NOAAs fish traps. Thats unexpected but not unheard of in the field, according to Searcy, especially since detected eDNA could belong to fish upstream of the sampling site.

Since each technique reveals different details about species, they should be seen as complementary at this point, the researchers say. That combination is valuable and rare in the greater Bay Area, said Brian Allee, the lead fisheries biologist at the South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition who was not involved in the study.

While the devices price tag can limit its use, Allee would like to see its eDNA monitoring applied to local urban streams to further investigate endangered species.

What we really want are wild populations spawning on their own on a sustainable basis, he said. That has been a difficult process one in which technology is important since we cant turn the clock back to the Lewis and Clark era.

Originally posted here:
Environmental DNA reveals the secrets of a California creek and beyond - The Mercury News

By Andre Hudson and Christa Wadsworth

The Conversation

How do scientists detect new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19? The answer is a process called DNA sequencing.

Researchers sequence DNA to determine the order of the four chemical building blocks, or nucleotides, that make it up: adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine. The millions to billions of these building blocks paired up together collectively make up a genome that contains all the genetic information an organism needs to survive.

When an organism replicates, it makes a copy of its entire genome to pass on to its offspring. Sometimes errors in the copying process can lead to mutations in which one or more building blocks are swapped, deleted or inserted. This may alter genes, the instruction sheets for the proteins that allow an organism to function, and can ultimately affect the physical characteristics of that organism. In humans, for example, eye and hair color are the result of genetic variations that can arise from mutations. In the case of the virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, mutations can change its ability to spread, cause infection or even evade the immune system.

We are both biochemists and microbiologists who teach about and study the genomes of bacteria. We both use DNA sequencing in our research to understand how mutations affect antibiotic resistance. The tools we use to sequence DNA in our work are the same ones scientists are using right now to study the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

One of the earliest methods scientists used in the 1970s and 1980s was Sanger sequencing, which involves cutting up DNA into short fragments and adding radioactive or fluorescent tags to identify each nucleotide. The fragments are then put through an electric sieve that sorts them by size. Compared with newer methods, Sanger sequencing is slow and can process only relatively short stretches of DNA. Despite these limitations, it provides highly accurate data, and some researchers are still actively using this method to sequence SARS-CoV-2 samples.

Since the late 1990s, next-generation sequencing has revolutionized how researchers collect data on and understand genomes. Known as NGS, these technologies are able to process much higher volumes of DNA at the same time, significantly reducing the amount of time it takes to sequence a genome.

There are two main types of NGS platforms: second-generation and third-generation sequencers.

Second-generation technologies are able to read DNA directly. After DNA is cut up into fragments, short stretches of genetic material called adapters are added to give each nucleotide a different color. For example, adenine is colored blue and cytosine is colored red. Finally, these DNA fragments are fed into a computer and reassembled into the entire genomic sequence.

Third-generation technologies like the Nanopore MinIon directly sequence DNA by passing the entire DNA molecule through an electrical pore in the sequencer. Because each pair of nucleotides disrupts the electrical current in a particular way, the sequencer can read these changes and upload them directly to a computer. This allows clinicians to sequence samples at point-of-care clinical and treatment facilities. However, Nanopore sequences smaller volumes of DNA compared with other NGS platforms.

Though each class of sequencer processes DNA in a different way, they can all report the millions or billions of building blocks that make up genomes in a short time from a few hours to a few days. For example, the Illumina NovaSeq can sequence roughly 150 billion nucleotides, the equivalent of 48 human genomes, in just three days.

So why is genomic sequencing such an important tool in combating the spread of SARS-CoV-2?

Rapid public health responses to SARS-CoV-2 require intimate knowledge of how the virus is changing over time. Scientists have been using genome sequencing to track SARS-CoV-2 almost in real time since the start of the pandemic. Millions of individual SARS-CoV-2 genomes have been sequenced and housed in various public repositories like the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data and the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Genomic surveillance has guided public health decisions as each new variant has emerged. For example, sequencing the genome of the omicron variant allowed researchers to detect over 30 mutations in the spike protein that allows the virus to bind to cells in the human body. This makes omicron a variant of concern, as these mutations are known to contribute to the viruss ability to spread. Researchers are still learning about how these mutations might affect the severity of the infections omicron causes, and how well its able to evade current vaccines.

Sequencing also has helped researchers identify variants that spread to new regions. Upon receiving a SARS-CoV-2 sample collected from a traveler who returned from South Africa on Nov. 22, 2021, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, were able to detect omicrons presence in five hours and had nearly the entire genome sequenced in eight. Since then, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been monitoring omicrons spread and advising the government on ways to prevent widespread community transmission.

The rapid detection of omicron worldwide emphasizes the power of robust genomic surveillance and the value of sharing genomic data across the globe. Understanding the genetic makeup of the virus and its variants gives researchers and public health officials insights into how to best update public health guidelines and maximize resource allocation for vaccine and drug development. By providing essential information on how to curb the spread of new variants, genomic sequencing has saved and will continue to save countless lives over the course of the pandemic.

This article is republished from The Conversation, under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here.

Andre Hudson is Professor and Head of the Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology, Crista Wadsworth is the Assistant Professor in the Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences, also at Rochester Institute of Technology

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by The Conversation, North Carolina Health News December 29, 2021

This article first appeared on North Carolina Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Genomic sequencing: Heres how researchers identify Omicron and other COVID-19 variants - North Carolina Health News

Dublin, Dec. 29, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "DTC (Direct to Consumer) DNA Test Kits Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2021-2026)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global DTC DNA Test Kits Market is anticipated to grow with a CAGR of nearly 24% during the forecast period.

The major factors attributing to the growth of this market are increasing demand for paternity testing, rising prevalence of hereditary diseases, and rise in interest of consumers & physicians in DTC kits & consequent rise in sales of DNA test kits.

Furthermore, the growing number of laboratories researching the DNA kits for gynecological purposes is also a major factor that drives the market growth. For instance, the National Congenital Anomaly and Rare Disease Registration Service has stated that around 3 to 6% of babies worldwide are born with a congenital anomaly every year, this increases the need for the prenatal testing for anomalies. The difficulty in understanding the results of the kits and very less information about the companies selling the kits are restraining the growth of the market.

Furthermore the market is largely penetrating towards new research fields of medicine and healthcare as such the innovation of probes for preimplantation, prenatal, and postnatal genetic testing research drives the overall market growth.

Demand for Ancestry Testing Expected to Increase

The increasing number of people who are interested in knowing their ancestors and family tree increases the demand for DTC DNA test kits, especially in developing countries.

The increasing number of companies such as 23andMe are found to offer various DNA kits that are helpful in ancestry testing. Developed countries are also witnessing the high demand for such products as awareness about such technologies is higher.

North America Dominates the Market

North America is expected to dominate the overall DTC DNA test kits market, throughout the forecast period. The growth is due to factors such as the growing prevalence of congenital anomalies and increasing government initiatives for genetic diagnosis. In the North America region, the United States holds the largest market share due to factors such as high disposable income, and easy acceptance of such kits in the country is expected to increase the demand in this region.

However, Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the fastest-growing market due to the increasing awareness programs and developments undertaken by government bodies to accelerate genetic research in Asian countries. The Asia Pacific will proliferate at a speedy rate due to rapid technological updates in the healthcare sector.

Competitive Landscape

The market studied is moderately competitive and consists of few major players. Growing biotech industry is augmenting the rise in new entrants in this market. It is believed that there will be penetration of the few small to mid sized companies in this market.

Key Topics Covered

1 INTRODUCTION1.1 Study Deliverables1.2 Study Assumptions1.3 Scope of the Study

2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

4 MARKET DYNAMICS4.1 Market Overview4.2 Market Drivers4.2.1 Increasing Demand for Paternity Testing4.2.2 Increasing Number of Hereditary Diseases4.2.3 Rise in Interest of Consumers & Physicians in DTC Kits & Consequent Rise in Sales of DNA Test Kits4.3 Market Restraints4.3.1 Lack of Awareness and Proper Genetic Counselling4.3.2 Regulatory Challenges Pertaining to the Use of DTC Genetic Tests4.4 Porter's Five Force Analysis

5 MARKET SEGMENTATION5.1 By Sample Type5.1.1 Saliva5.1.2 Cheek Swab5.2 By Application5.2.1 Genetic Relatedness5.2.2 Health & Fitness5.2.3 Ancestry Testing5.2.4 Other Applications5.3 Geography5.3.1 North America5.3.2 Europe5.3.3 Asia-Pacific5.3.4 Middle East and Africa5.3.5 South America

6 COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE6.1 Company Profiles6.1.1 Ancestry.com LLC6.1.2 23andMe6.1.3 MyHeritage Ltd.6.1.4 Gene by Gene6.1.5 Living DNA Ltd.6.1.6 Helix OpCo, LLC6.1.7 Veritas Genetics6.1.8 Futura Genetics6.1.9 MapMyGenome

7 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES AND FUTURE TRENDS

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/awgt0i

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Global DTC DNA Test Kits Industry Forecast to 2026 - Increasing Number of Hereditary Diseases, Increasing - Benzinga

Do you have questions about your health? Your DNA may hold the answers. Your bodys genetic code that makes you unique also tells an important story about where you come from and where youre going. Consider it your own internal crystal ball, holding the clues to how youll develop.

Your DNA truly tells a story. It can show you what part of the world your ancestors came from, connecting you to communities across the world. It can help you understand why your hair is curly or straight, or why your eyes are brown or blue. It can reveal fun facts like whether you have an affinity for cilantro or whats unique about your ear wax. And, perhaps most critical, it can contain clues to why certain health conditions might run in your family.

With all of these exciting possibilities, its no wonder that DNA testing especially at-home DNA kits to learn about ancestry has been so popular in recent years. In fact, a 2019 study found that more than 26 million people had taken an at-home, mail-in DNA ancestry test offered by a handful of companies that swiftly came on the market. But did you know theres also an opportunity to test your DNA, uncover answers about your ancestry, reveal fun facts about your tastes and unique attributes, learn about your potential health risks, and help researchers uncover patterns about health that may transform the future of personalized medicine all at no cost to you?

That opportunity is available to anyone age 18 and older in the United States, simply by participating in The All of Us Research Program. A historic initiative by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to engage one million or more people from communities across the country in medical research that aims to change the face of health care as we know it. All of Us is building one of the largest, most diverse databases to inform thousands of studies on a variety of health conditions. By involving participants from all demographics, including many who have historically been underrepresented in medical research, All of Us aims to change health care from the one-size-fits-all approach it often is today to a more individualized approach for tomorrow.

How? One way is through DNA. In addition to answering a wide range of surveys with questions about your health, your family history, the environment you live in participants also have the benefit of sharing biosamples, such as blood, urine and saliva, to help researchers uncover the answers only your DNA can provide. Doing so not only provides you the participant with valuable information about your own personal health and family history, but it also creates infinitely valuable opportunities for medical researchers to know the risk factors for certain diseases and figure out which treatments work best for people of different backgrounds.

But All of Us can only achieve this mission if it involves, you guessed it, All of Us. If you have questions about your health and your familys ancestral history, the next step to find the answers may be by joining the hundreds of thousands of people across the United States already aiding All of Us researchers in their mission to revolutionize precision medicine. A healthier future for all of us begins by taking an in-depth look at your ancestral past; your DNA may hold the key. Unlock the door to a healthy future today. Learn more at the All of Us website.

All of Us is a service mark of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2021

WebMD does not endorse any specific product, service, or treatment.

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Find Answers in Your DNA (Sponsored) - WebMD

The DNA Doe Project is a group of dozens of volunteers using DNA and family trees to identify the unidentifiable.

PHOENIX There are an estimated 40,000 unidentified human remains in the United States.

That's 40,000 people who have no names and no closure for families missing their loved ones.

They had a life, they had a story," said Carrien Binder, a genetic genealogist with the DNA Doe Project. They deserve to have their name back.

The project began in 2017. It's made up of 40 to 60 unpaid volunteers trying to figure out who these people are.

Our goal is to identify Jane and John Doe's using genetic genealogy, Binder said.

The idea is to get a DNA sample from the "Doe" and then compare it with publicly sourced DNA databases like GenBank. The project then looks for relatives and begins forming a family tree.

We can use really distance matches like fifth cousins, third cousins, and fourth cousins to build up family trees and make an identification, Binder said.

The project works in groups trying to puzzle together a tree. Sometimes identifications come together quickly. There is a DNA hit that is a close relative. Other times the puzzle can take years, looking for that missing branch to help identify a John or Jane Doe.

"This is my main hobby. I dont watch a lot of Netflix. I dont have a lot of time for other things. But it is really fulfilling and satisfying and it scratches that mystery-solving itch." Binder said.

In the last few months, The DNA Doe Project identified two previously unidentified people: A woman found in downtown Phoenix in 2017 and a murder victim found on baseline road in 1983.

A lot of people assume if someone is a John or Jane Doe, no one is looking for them. And I have found that is never true.

In four years, the project has identified more than 70John and Jane Doe's. Binder said at least a third of those identifications happened in the last year.

"They deserve to be recognized as a whole person, with a family with hobbies," Binder said, "I think we can give them a part of that when we restore their name"

If you want to help the program you can always donate.

Also if you do have DNA results from at-home DNA tests like 23andMe and ancestry type groups, you can share them with a publicly sourced site to give them more potential matches.

Catch up on the latest news and stories on the 12 News YouTube channel. Subscribe today.

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There are thousands of unidentified remains. Meet the volunteer organization trying to identify them - 12news.com KPNX

Woolly mammoths may have survived in North America thousands of years longer than scientists previously thought, vials of Alaskan permafrost reveal.

The hairy beasts might have persisted in what is now the Yukon, in Canada, until around 5,000 years ago 5,000 years longer than experts previously estimated, a new study suggests. That conclusion comes from snippets of mammoth DNA that were found in vials of frozen dirt that had been stored and forgotten in a laboratory freezer for a decade.

Related: Mammoth resurrection: 11 hurdles to bringing back an ice age beast

"Organisms are constantly shedding cells throughout their life," said study lead author Tyler Murchie, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University in Ontario. For instance, He explained thata person sheds roughly 40,000 skin cells per hour, on average, meaning we are constantly ejecting bits of our DNA into our surroundings.

That's also true of other life-forms; nonhuman animals, plants, fungi, and microbes are constantly leaving microscopic breadcrumb trails everywhere. Most of this genetic detritus doesn't linger in the environment, though. Soon after being discarded, the vast majority of the DNA bits are consumed by microbes, Murchie said. The fraction of the shed DNA that does remain might bind to a small bit of mineral sediment and be preserved. Though only a tiny proportion of what was initially shed remains centuries later, it can nevertheless provide a window into a vanished world teeming with strange creatures.

"In a tiny fleck of dirt," Murchie told Live Science, "is DNA from full ecosystems."

Murchie analyzed soil samples taken from permafrost in the central Yukon. Many of the samples dated to the Pleistocene-Holocene transition (14,000-11,000 years ago), a period marked by rapidly changingclimatic conditions in which many large mammals such as saber-toothedicats, mammoths and mastodons vanished from the fossil record.

The DNA fragments in Murchie's samples were small often no larger than 50 letters, or base pairs. However, on average, he was able to isolate roughly 2 million DNA fragments per sample. By analyzing DNA from soil samples of known ages, he indirectly observed the evolution of ancient ecosystems over this turbulent period.

The main advantage to studying ancient DNA is that researchers can observe organisms that tended not to fossilize well. "An animal has only one body," said Murchie, and the odds of it fossilizing are not that great. On top of that, you have to find it. But that same animal constantly ejected innumerable amounts of DNA into the environment throughout its lifetime.

The soil samples which span a period of time from 30,000 years ago to 5,000 years ago revealed that mammoths and horses likely persisted in this Arctic environment much longer than previously thought. Mammoths and horses were in steep decline by the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, the DNA data suggest, but they didn't disappear all at once due to changes in climate or overhunting.

An earlier study, published in October in the journal Nature, suggested that some mammoths survived on isolated islands away from human contact until 4,000 years ago. However, the new study is the first to determine that small populations of mammoths coexisted with humans on the mainland of North America well into the Holocene, as recently as 5,000 years ago.

. Megafauna extinctions from this era have largely been blamed on one of two explanations: human paleo-hunters or climate catastrophe, said lead author Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist and director of the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre.

However, the new study "changes the focus away from this two-pitted debate that has plagued [paleontology] for so long," Poinar said.

The team's research provides evidence that the extinction of North American megafauna is much more nuanced, he said. There's no doubt that the animals were under pressure from both human hunters and a rapidly changing climate. The question is, "how much were they hunted and whether or not that was truly the tipping point," Poinar told Live Science.

Analyzing ancient DNA from dirt has the potential to tell us a lot about ancient life; Poinar and Murchie said Arctic permafrost is ideal for these types of ancient DNA studies because freezing preserves ancient DNA very well. But that might not be possible forever: As ice in the Arctic melts due to rapid increases in temperature, "we're going to lose a lot of that life history data," Murchie said. "It's just going to fall away before anyone gets a chance to study it."

This study was published Dec. 8 in the journal Nature Communications.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Woolly mammoths and humans coexisted in North America much longer than experts thought - Livescience.com

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Gift Someone The Ability to Unlock Their DNA This Holiday With InsideTracker - Men's Journal