Scientists in Boston have come up with a twist on an important method for “editing” genomes that could give researchers added control over the DNA of living things and influence a raging patent dispute over the powerful techniques.
Feng Zhang, a researcher at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, reported today in the journal Cell that he had developed a replacement for a key component of the genome-engineering system commonly known as CRISPR-Cas9.
We invariably imagine electronic devices to be made from silicon chips, with which computers store and process information as binary digits (zeros and ones) represented by tiny electrical charges. But it need not be this way: among the alternatives to silicon are organic mediums such as DNA.
For 51 years, newborn babies have gotten a heel-prick test in which their blood is screened for dozens of congenital disorders. Routine newborn screening has basically eliminated the risk of death or irreversible brain damage that some of these disorders can pose if they are not identified right away.
Now some researchers in Boston are trying to find out if genomic sequencing at birth would be as successful.
Two years ago, Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy after she found out she was carrying a genetic mutation that greatly increased her risk of contracting potentially fatal breast cancer. This March, the actress also revealed she also had her ovaries removed due to a second health scare.
Now two major revolutions, one genomic and one in informatics, are completely changing the face of preventive medicine. Every day all over the world, millions of genetic sequences — from disease-related genes to complete genomes of plants, animals, bacteria and viruses — are resolved, identified and dissected.
Gholson Lyon, a geneticist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory recently pointed out in an article about Apple’s DNA-related ambitions that we don’t yet have a “killer app to interact with [our DNA] quickly and easily.
What’s missing is technology that democratizes access to the genome and makes it programmable. Lyon agrees; there is still a technological hurdle in that “common systems for interpreting [the genome] are lacking.”
The Human Genome Project was one of mankind’s greatest triumphs. But the official gene map that resulted in 2003, known as the “reference genome,” is no longer up to the job.
So say scientists laying plans for a new universal map they say will combine the genomes of hundreds, and eventually thousands, of people to create a true reference that reflects all of humanity.
The problem with the existing gene map is that it represents only one way a person’s genome could look. The new map, called a “graph genome,” or pan-genome, would use mathematics to reflect every possible twist or turn a person’s genome could take as it spirals around 46 chromosomes.
Under a collaboration announced today, San Diego-based Cypher Genomics said it would use its biomarker discovery service to help New Jersey’s Celgene (NASDAQ: CELG) identify key genetic variants among patients who respond well to specific drugs.
Of all the rumors ever to swirl around the world’s most valuable company, this may be the first that could involve spitting in a plastic cup.
Apple is collaborating with U.S. researchers to launch apps that would offer some iPhone owners the chance to get their DNA tested, many of them for the first time, according to people familiar with the plans.
The apps are based on ResearchKit, a software platform Apple introduced in March that helps hospitals or scientists run medical studies on iPhones by collecting data from the devices’ sensors or through surveys.
As some 3,000 experts in genomics and bioinformatics gather in Boston this morning for the opening of the 2015 Bio-IT World Conference & Expo, San Diego’s Edico Genome announced it has forged a partnership with Intel to accelerate data analysis of next-generation genome sequencing technologies.
Edico Genome was founded two years ago to address a bottleneck in the analysis of data generated by next-gen machines like Illumina’s HiSeq X Ten.
Digital technology and molecular biology are advancing in ever more wondrous ways, perhaps none so transformative as the biological storage of data. It sounds crazy, but we could be on the cusp of a once-unthinkable kind of convergence.
