Pepsi selling Food containing Genetically Modified Products

Tests commissioned by Greenpeace, shown that Pepsico’s Doritos Corn Chips contains Genetically Modified Mon 863 and NK 603 variety corn ingredients. Both Mon 863 and NK 603 are Monsanto’s genetically modified corn varieties. Mon 863 has a bacterial gene to give pest tolerance, while NK 603 has a bacterial gene for herbicide tolerance. An Independent [...]

The 1000 Genomes Project to Study Human Genetic Variation to Support Disease Studies

The 1000 Genomes Project, led by an international research consortium, will sequence the genomes of at least a thousand people from around the world to create the most detailed and medically useful picture to date of human genetic variation. The international research consortium draws support from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, England, the [...]

Missing Evolutionary Link -how RNA progressed to share functions with proteins

Alan Lambowitz, director of The University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology and Senior researcher Paul Paukstelis and his team has found the missing links in evolution of life from the simple to the complex and involvement of RNA. By crystallizing a fungus the team of researchers were able to visualize [...]

Alternative for Smallpox vaccine

University of California, Irvine researchers  Philip Felgner and Huw Davies with the Department of Medicine found that the modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) produced the same antiviral response in human and animal studies as the current smallpox vaccine Dryvax. Smallpox was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980; the last naturally occurring case in the world was [...]

UK Government-backed sociology study using Genetics raises privacy concerns

The Uk government backed UK Household Longitudinal Study to use genetics analysis of British citizens (previous post on UK BioBank) to assess impact of Genetics and lifestyle in health and medical treatment and how it affects people’s social and economic status over time, is turning into controversy. The expansion of the program to cover “nature [...]

George Bush Sings Glory to Open Source

The truth behind the new bill signed into law by President Bush on 26 December 2007, which states that the findings of NIH-funded research must be made freely available to the public within one year of publication. But all is not Hunky dory , as more obvious once you go through the complete text of [...]

Cryptography with DNA binary strands

Biotechnological methods can be used for cryptography. DNA binary strands can be used for steganography to provide rapid encryption and decryption. It is shown that DNA steganography based on DNA binary strands is secure under the assumption that an interceptor has the same technological capabilities as sender and receiver of encrypted messages. I thought this [...]

DNA-based security solutions to Prevent fraud and theft

Applied DNA Solutions is NewYork company that offers DNA-based security solutions to Prevent fraud and theft Applied DNA Sciences’ technology has been utilized to successfully mark nearly 1 billion items including DVDs and CDs, fine art, prestige wine, luxury and personal care goods botanical DNA encryption, embedment and authentication solutions that can help protect companies, [...]

MIT team discovers new DNA modification in bacteria acting as DNA Bookmark

Researchers from MIT have discovered that bacterial genes, known as the dnd gene cluster, gives bacteria the ability to employ DNA modification by adding sulfur to the sugar-phosphate DNA backbone as a phosphorothioate, The same method used in laboratories worldwide to modify synthetic oligonucleotide.Why would bacteria conserve this system which requires five enzymes, each with [...]

New Microarray technology replacing PCR and speed up HTS

Dr. Richard Gibbs, director of the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Centre and his researchers along with the help of  NimbleGen Systems the  company recently acquired by Roche Applied Science has developed a new technique that combines gene chip technology with the latest generation of gene sequencing machines to allow fast and accurate sequencing of selected [...]

So Thats how Humans Evolved! – Now we can begin to answer the big question

Which of the thousands of long stretches of repeated DNA in the human genome came first? And which are the duplicates the question have been answered by a team of scientists from University of Washington School of Medicine and University of California, San Diego.The research published by Evan Eichler from the University of Washington School [...]

Affymetrix and Illumina in war path again as fresh patent litigation on microarray patents

Illumina and Affymetrix have been in a patent battle since 2004. In its second wave of patent infringement litigation cas against illumina filed in UK, Germany and US, Affymetrix has targeted technology offered by Solexa, the company acquired by Illumina in January 2007, as well as all of Illumina’s BeadArray(TM) products. The new case is [...]

Microsoft Research, HIV, SPAM – MS anti-spam techniques help research HIV vaccines

Ever heard of the Teiresias algorithm, for spam detection developed by Chung-Kwei at IBM – the algorithm was developed in the bioinformatics group of IBM to detect patterns in DNA This algorithm is tested for SPAM detection- discussed in my  my earlier bioinformatics post So you may be wodering whats thats got to do with [...]

Laying with the Lions

The following article is one of the best I just came across which talkes about advantages of better collaboration in pharma companies.   The study and articles are on Act Magazine website  

ENCODE consortium: forming background of why 3 billions bp are required for a human to survive not just the set of genes.

ENCODE consortium today published one in nature and 28 papers in genome research involving 35 groups from 80 organizations around the world, which promise to reshape our understanding of how the human genome functions. The findings totally challenge the tidy collection of independent genes , but sees as a complex networking system, along with regulatory [...]

Plants too recognise its kin

Now wonder,  research proves that even plants recognise their kins. Researchers from McMaster University have found that plants go competitive when forced to share their own environment like pot, with strangers of the same species, but they’re accommodating when potted with their siblings. How they do it??? When a different plant of same species is potted with a growing [...]

How Many Scientists Does it Take To Fix a Gene?

The headline of the article that appeared in a news paper was interesting, I thought I will use the same headline to right about it. The original text of the article can be read at cityonHillPress While reading the article I also came thougth its worth to have a look at the book Building Biotechnology  [...]

4th Dimension in Biology

4D imaging of different microorganisms was the first step of 4D in biology. Recently now from the University of Calgary, sun centre for excellence for visual genomics have created the 4D virtual human (CAVEman) with flesh, and muscles, a breakthrough step ahead in the medical informatics. This 4D virtual human can be used for many [...]

Future of High Throughput Genome Sequencing

In Bangalore Bio 2007 LabIndia has introduced  SOLiD: Sequencing by Oligonucleotide Ligation and Detection which is the Future of High Throughput Sequencing. “This is useful for those who want to do full genome sequencing. Whole genome projects will be more cost effective with this new instrument than they are today,” said Dr. Anupama Gaur, Team [...]

Biotech tax bill is passed

The California State Assembly Wednesday unanimously passed a bill which could assist biotechnology companies at risk of losing tax deductions awarded because the industries’ long development cycles. Allowing biotechnology companies to deduct (net operating losses) over 20 years, instead of 10, encourages investments in medical science and provides additional revenue for emerging biotechnology companies,” the [...]