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Ah, I didn't think to look at the other societies. They do apparently have a large campus at that address, so I guess they probably have real office space for those societies there. The property was a country estate when they bought it- now it's inside the Beltway.

27, according to their website. They do cover a wide range of disciplines at least. I was going to note that the Genetics Society of America and the American Society of Human Genetics seem like they'd have a lot of overlap, but then I noticed that they're headquartered at the same address, so I imagine they came to a similar conclusion at some point.

You're a fucking dumbass.

You do realize that many (if not most) of the major vaccines are spearheaded by government research, right? Sure, private companies manufacture the flu and chicken pox vaccines every year, but only under an agreement with the government. Essentially all of the research are done by WHO, the NIH, or other government-funded researchers.

The US government really isn't in the business of developing drugs, but here are two: imatinib (Gleevec) and infliximab (Remicade). A congressional report found that of the 21 drugs with the highest therapeutic impact on society introduced from 1965-1992, the NIH developed 7 of them and was "instrumental" for 15.

Ok, so I don't know a ton about nuclear medicine, I know just enough to be dangerous. Protein crystallization allows us to see it's structure whereby we better understand its function.

The reason this bit of news is so big is that it will (hopefully) allow researchers a way to quickly look at the structures of proteins in such as (in the second link) infectious diseases transmitted by prions, or protein particles. Prions seem to be pure protein; they contain neither DNA nor RNA.

If we can understand the shape and formation of proteins, we can understand how viruses and cells work because proteins are the building blocks. Viruses are obviously first on the chopping block as they are the smallest and infect millions of people world wide (AIDS, influenza, the common cold, etc.).

It only took about ten years for this to be accepted. That is fast.

I found this description

Also eggs cooking is the water coming out.

Now that is plain b-s. As I said, what happens is that when you add energy (heat) to the proteins, they re-fold and turns into a more stable substance, transforming from a liquid to a firm state.

Just to clearify this so that people dont believe your disinformation. If you boil and egg, in water, with the eggshell intact, you still think you will boil the water away from the "egg", making it firm ? You are utterly wrong, and not informative at all. Even a simple google reveals this, look here or here.

Go back to your cave, troll.

Life at the molecular level is a very interesting topic. It's mysterious, it's a great unexplored frontier, and understanding it has direct consequences on our lives. I think you'll feel the same way if you read the following article. It's written specifically to be more accessible to the average reader but I assure you as a biochem major it is not a trivial explaination. You'll really understand what prions are and just how protein mis-folding is responsible for mad-cow and alzheimers.

Unraveling the Mystery of Protein Folding by W. A. (Bill) Thomasson
http://www.faseb.org/opar/protfold/protein.html

Enjoy!

The short of it is that atoms spin on an axis, and if you put atoms in a strong magnetic field, their spin axes will mostly line up. Adding a strong RF pulse will "tip" them in one direction (like tipping a spinning top) and they will precess while going back to alignment with the field. This precession can be picked up as a seperate RF emission, and the nature of the emission from each atom will be affected by what atoms are around it. It's the same concept as NMR, just that medical MRI looks for the specific signature of water, finding differences in tissue density.

Genes are nice, they certainly ~do~ indicate predilictions towards diseases, behaviors etc, but proteisn are the actual workhorses of the body and the actual CAUSE of the diseases etc. The more we understand about proteins, the closer we are to understanding, well, just about everything about us. Read here for a nice intro.

And folding is the real stinker. We can get the gene that codes for a protein. We can see the little ribosomes chug along and make the protein. And then the protein folds up and that's why it works. If it folds like ~this~ it's normal, all friendly. If it folds like ~that~ it's a prion that convinces other normal proteins to fold up just like it and you die of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.

Finding some alien radio transmitter sure would be nice, but finding out why folks die from cystic fibrosis might be a better way to spend downtime.

Genomic (and anti-genomics) Links [To Top]

Mapping the Icelandic Genome. "An Anthropology of the scientific, political, economic, religious, and ethical issues surrounding the deCode Project and its global implications." Contains useful pointers.

Indigenous people's coalition against biopiracy.

The Human Genome Diversity Project as explained by Stanford Professor and posted on the U.N. website.

Various UN reports on the Genome question.

An Outline : Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) Background.

Cultural Survival has issue 20.2 (sum 1996) dedicated to 'Genes, People, and Property' issues.

The archive for discover magazine. Nov. 1994 issue has a few articles about genome and diversity.

The gene letter. The Nov. 96 issue has an HGDP article.

High school lesson plan for teaching students about the HGDP.

"The Gene Wars: Science, Politics, and the Human Genome." An excellent book review with bibliography and online resources.

National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) has a Bibliography Page about the HGP.

Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) of the HGP.

The Human Genome Diversity Project: Scientific, Social and Ethical Issues .

A list of articles from Native-L mailing list, listing all articles related to HGDP posted to the list.

Six papers given at various genome-related conferences. Topics include:

*"Why Human Genetics is a Social Science"
* "Racism, Eugenics, and the Burdens of History"
* "Scientific and Folk Idea About Heredity"
* "The Spectrum of Human Variation"
* "The Human Germ-Plasm Project: Eugenics in the 1920s and the 1990s."

Native net letter to HGDP scientists.

Pilot Projects for a Human Genome Diversity Project - Special Competition.

Molecular Anthropology Symposium at Stanford.

Seeds of Destruction. A must read for anyone who eats french fries or is concerned with genetically modified crops.

Also see Patents and Jumpstations.

Comics [To Top]

Angels of Health/Medicine Cartoon by Quino. Here is another one of a dis-orderly girl.

Patent$ and Thing$ [To Top]

An Upside article discussing patents and its history. Very informative.

Gene Patents and Bioethics.

6,000 human gene patents sought in BBC News and also the Washington Post.

American Society of Human Genetics Position Paper on Patenting of Expressed Sequence Tags.

of course the list is continually updated, ... hope this helps, bobbaqATyouknowHOO

No, this is most likely not about "synthesized genes" (is this really a used concept? Synthesized proteins makes sense to me, but synthesizing a gene seems like a strange concept.) but so called Expressed Sequence Tags (EST). These are short DNA sequences (in the range of 100-200 bases I believe) that are used to map the genome. They bind to positions on the genome that code for proteins (they are "expressed") and are simply a kind of marker. Notice also that an EST is a part of a gene, not a full gene.

EST are useful for detecting whether a gene is present and can therefore be used to piece together the big puzzle of DNA strings that the genome projects produce, but can also be used to detect a disease I presume (I don't fully understand why companies try to patent EST:s).

See this policy paper for an interesting view on the patent issue.

Lars
__

This is from a pull-together of summaries by Science Week on gene patenting stories. It is no longer on their site, but is cached on google at

htt p://www.google.com/search?q=cache:9485790&dq=cache :scienceweek.com/arch2.htm

The pull-together also includes several other summaries of on-topic stories.

The original article was in Science, 1 May 98 280:689, by John J. Doll (US Government), Director of Biotechnology Examination at the US Patent and Trademark Office

ON THE ADVANTAGES OF DNA PATENTING
In the international community of molecular biologists, a debate has been underway for some time concerning the patenting of DNA. Now John J. Doll (US Government), Director of Biotechnology Examination at the US Patent and Trademark Office presents the following points concerning this issue:

1. Just as the issuing of broad product claims at the early stages of polymer technology did not deter development of other new vulcanizable copolymers, the issuing of relatively broad claims in genomic technology should not deter inventions in genomics.
2. The same patentability analysis is conducted for every patent application, regardless of whether the application is for a computer chip, a mechanical apparatus, a pharmaceutical, or a piece of DNA. In every field of technology -- whether emerging, complex, or competitive -- all the conditions for patentability (such as statutory subject matter utility, enablement, written description, novelty, and non-obviousness) must be met before a claim is allowed.
3. In order for DNA sequences to be distinguished from their naturally occurring counterparts, which cannot be patented, the patent application must state that the invention has been purified or isolated or is part of a recombinant molecule or is now part of a vector.
4. Once a product is patented, that patent extends to any use, even those that have not been disclosed in the patent. A future non-obvious method of using that product may be patentable, but the first patent will be dominant and a license for the use of the product may be required.
5. Without the incentive of patents, there would be less investment in DNA research, and scientists might not disclose their new DNA products to the public. It is only with the patenting of DNA technology that some companies, particularly small ones, can raise sufficient venture capital to bring beneficial products to the marketplace or fund further research.
6. A strong US patent system is critical for the continued development and dissemination to the public of information on DNA sequence elements.

   QY: John J. Doll, Technology Center 1600, USPTO, Washington, DC 20231 US.

   (Science 1 May 98 280:689) (Science-Week 22 May 98)

For a contrary view, this position paper from the American Society of Human Genetics, on the earlier issue of expressed sequence tags is worth reading:

http://www.faseb.org/genetics/ ashg/policy/pol-08.htm