Genetics

As a boy, Father William Sanchez sensed he was different. His Catholic family spun tops on Christmas, shunned pork and whispered of a past in medieval Spain. If anyone knew the secret, they weren't telling, and Sanchez stopped asking. Then three years ago, after watching a program on genealogy, Sanchez sent for a DNA kit that could help track a person's background through genetic footprinting. He soon got a call from Bennett Greenspan, owner of the Houston-based testing company.

A new study of the protein-coding genes in 100 breast cancer tumors revealed vast differences among the cancers and highlights how complicated the disease really is, researchers said Wednesday.  “A sobering perspective on the complexity and diversity of the disease is emerging,” they wrote in the online edition of the journal Nature (subscription required), which is publishing a series of studies of the genetic changes in breast cancer. The scientists, led by Michael Stratton at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, England, found 73 different combinations of disease-causing mutations in the tumors, each involving up to six different genes from a set of 40 “driver genes.”  Seven of the 40 individual driver genes were mutated in more than 10% of cases, but 33 others that were less common also contributed to the development of the cancers, the team reported.  In 28 cases, a single mutation was enough to cause disease.  The researchers identified nine new genes that caused the cancers, and also found mutations in genes that were already known to cause breast and other cancers.

Last month, Sen. John McCain dropped by “Saturday Night Live,” drawing laughs from his promise, if elected president, to fight expensive federal projects -- such as, he spoofed, a Department of Defense device to "jam gaydar." That was a joke. But some scientists are, in a way, working on gaydar, the supposed ability to discern whether a person is homosexual by reading subtle cues from their appearance. Just don't refer to it that way. The preferred term is "sexual orientation correlates."

My mom's first day of motherhood was one of the happiest of her life. It was also one of the worst. She had accompanied my dad from Sri Lanka to Washington State University in 1968, so he could complete his doctorate as a Fulbright Scholar. The school was in Pullman, a small town near the Idaho border. Fluent in English, she worked as a university librarian. During her pregnancy, at age 30, she received care from one of Pullman's few obstetricians. She endured labor without drugs, and I was born healthy in 1972.

A genetic analysis of a biopsy sample recently discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has led researchers to conclude that the virus that causes AIDS has existed in human populations for more than a century, according to a study released Wednesday. The study, led by evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona in Tucson, puts the date of origin at around 1900, which is 30 years earlier than previous analyses.

The pace of human evolution has been increasing at a stunning rate since our ancestors began spreading through Europe, Asia and Africa 40,000 years ago, quickening to 100 times historical levels after agriculture became widespread, according to a study published today. By examining more than 3 million variants of DNA in 269 people, researchers identified about 1,800 genes that have been widely adopted in relatively recent times because they offer some evolutionary benefit. Until recently, anthropologists believed that evolutionary pressure on humans eased after the transition to a more stable agrarian lifestyle.

Genetics may eliminate racism, discrimination and harassment. People will have thicker skins. ROBERT D. SUNDE Nipomo

The last two years have seen an exponential increase in the rate of gene discovery, thanks in large part to the advancements in so-called genotyping chip technology. These small glass or silicon platforms have made quick and easy work of simultaneously analyzing hundreds of thousands of genetic variations that exist in the human genome. The screens detect single-letter changes in the DNA code known as single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs (pronounced "snips"). SNPs act as signposts along the genome.

A group of senators has asked the Food and Drug Administration to abandon its approval process of genetically engineered salmon as food, threatening to push legislation to strip the FDA's funding to study the fish if the agency does not comply. Eight senators sent a letter dated July 15 to the FDA asking it to "immediately cease" consideration of such salmon, a product brought before the agency by AquaBounty Technologies 15 years ago. AquaBounty's proposal calls for the embryos of the fish to be sterilized in Canada before being shipped to Panama, where the males would be exposed to estrogen and sex-reversed.

Dr. Leena Peltonen, an unusually prolific genetics researcher whose team discovered mutated genes responsible for 15 inherited diseases and who established the department of human genetics at UCLA, died of cancer March 11 at her home in Finland. She was 57. Her "contribution to understanding the genetics of human disease has been a lifelong commitment and is simply outstanding," said Allan Bradley, director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in England, where Peltonen ended her career.

DNA and RNA molecules are the basis for all life on Earth, but they don't necessarily have to be the basis for all life everywhere, scientists have shown. Researchers at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, England, demonstrated that six synthetic molecules that are similar to - but not exactly like - DNA and RNA have the potential to exhibit "hallmarks of life" such as storing genetic information, passing it along and undergoing evolution. The man-made molecules are called "XNAs.

Just before noon on a December morning in 1988, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake shook over 40% of the territory of Armenia, centered in the northern city of Spitak. The temblor leveled entire towns and cities, killed an estimated 25,000 Armenians - two-thirds of them children trapped and crushed in their crumbling schools - and hastened the dissolution of the Soviet Union, of which Armenia was then a part. But the Spitak disaster was more than a geopolitical milestone. The earthquake was, in the words of one researcher, a "psychiatric calamity" that has yielded a trove of knowledge aboutpost-traumatic stress disorder.

Spending on genetic tests has reached $5 billion annually and could top $25 billion within a decade, according to an insurance industry study published Monday. The rise in spending is likely to intensify the debate over genetic testing as policymakers and employers struggle to contain spiraling healthcare costs. The growing availability of genetic and molecular diagnostic tests offers the promise of earlier detection of disease and more personalized treatments that could wring substantial savings from the nation's $2.6 trillion-a-year healthcare tab. But many medical providers and other experts worry that those benefits may be outweighed by indiscriminate use of genetic testing, similar to what has occurred with some spending on popular prescription drugs and expensive imaging tests.

Patients are holding out hope that someday - soon, they hope - physicians will be able to personalize medical treatment more precisely than they've been able to in the past.  For people with cancer, this might mean taking a quick biopsy, studying the genetic profile of a tumor and then tailoring interventions  to target the cancer effectively, with as few side effects as possible. But a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday underscores why the vision remains a challenge.  Cancer researchers in England showed that individual kidney tumors and their metastases had different mutations in different locations - and that those mutations, in turn, affect the biology of those tumors in varying ways in different locations.    “A single tumor-biopsy-specimen reveals a minority of genetic aberrations … that are present in an entire tumor,” wrote Dr. Marco Gerlinger of the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute and co-authors.  For example, the scientists found that one region of a renal carcinoma could display gene expression signatures associated with a good prognosis, while signatures in another region of the same tumor could be associated with a poor prognosis.

Adrian Saxe is a ceramic artist known for juxtaposing the Historic and the Now with a trippy sense of humor. His latest musings in the show "GRIN — Genetic Robotic Information Nano," at Frank Lloyd Gallery through Jan. 7, incorporate Quick Response (QR) codes, or the square bar codes, into sculpture that emulate antique Chinese vases and scholar's rocks — rocks collected for their unusual and evocative forms. "Made to seduce and then betray, Saxe's elegant vessels present provocative concepts," curator Martha Drexler Lynn wrote for his 1993 retrospective at LACMA, "The Clay Art of Adrian Saxe.

Har Gobind Khorana, who rose from poverty in rural India to become a giant of modern biology, winning the Nobel Prize in 1968 for work that helped decipher the genetic code and explain how cells make proteins, died Nov. 9 in Concord, Mass. He was 89. Khorana died of natural causes, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was an emeritus professor of biology and chemistry. Described by colleagues as brilliant and humble, Khorana shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine with two other scientists, Robert W. Holley of Cornell University and Marshall W. Nirenberg of the National Institutes of Health.

Scientists have linked certain genes to restless legs syndrome, suggesting the twitching condition is biologically based and not an imaginary disorder. Research in the New England Journal of Medicine, linked a gene variation to nighttime leg-twitching. It involved people in Iceland and the United States. A second study in Nature Genetics identified the same variation and two others in Germans and Canadians with the syndrome.

Continental Airlines flight 1403 made history when it landed at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago on Monday, becoming the first revenue passenger trip in the U.S. powered by biofuel. The Boeing 737-800 burned a "green jet fuel" derived partially from genetically modified algae that feed on plant waste and produce oil. In completing the flight from Houston, parent company United Continental Holdings Inc. won by two days the competition to launch the first biofuel-powered air service in the U.S. On Wednesday, Alaska Airlines started 75 passenger flights along with its sister airline, Horizon Air, that will take place over the next few weeks using a biofuel blend made from recycled cooking oil. The 20% biofuel blend the planes will use will reduce carbon dioxide emissions 10%, Alaska Airlines officials said.

During the last ice age, 25,000 years ago, a man — or woman — painted spotted horses on the walls of caves at what is now Pech Merle, France. Scholars still argue about why. Did this prehistoric Picasso paint in order to faithfully depict his surroundings? Or did he work for some other purpose, perhaps creative or religious? Did spotty horses even exist back then? Until now, researchers had generally thought that wild horses of the period were solid black or bay. Now a new genetic analysis shows otherwise — suggesting that the ancient painter was taking little artistic license.