Leprosy Genome Decoded

xpccx writes "There's an article on Wired about a team of Anglo-French scientists that have "...sequenced the genetic map of the leprosy bacterium which could point to new ways to diagnose and treat the disfiguring disease that strikes 700,000 people every year." It's interesting to note that the scientists discovered that "...the bacterium that causes leprosy seems to have lost nearly half of its nonessential genes, more than any other organisms studied so far." This research was published in Nature."

Comments

Recursion

[Winged Cat]

...the bacterium that causes leprosy seems to have lost nearly half of its nonessential genes, more than any other organisms studied so far.

So, the leprosy genome is, itself, leprous? ^_^

Re:Only half the battle

[Christopher Thomas]

Ok, I'll bite.

Maybe if scientists cooperated (in an open source style) instead of hoarding their knowledge for the likes of Hoffman-LaRoche, Wellcome etc, the breakthroughs would come sooner.

...And this is precisely what publication is for. The goal of a scientist is to publish as many papers as possible to gain prestige (and associated benefits like money). Once a work is published, anyone else can see what the scientist did and build on it. Science is one of the few disciplines where there _is_ a direct incentive to share work.

I bet if they gave biotech grad students this 'source' to leprosy, they would come up with a fix pretty damn quick. With many eyes all bugs are shallow.

You've obviously never done research. Or coded on a complex project. More eyes are often helpful, but the eyes' owners must _understand_ the problem.

Furthermore, it's the biotech grad students that are _doing_ the research! Professors come up with project ideas based on their own readings and past research and the input of their students, and then hire as many students as they can get their hands on to implement the projects for them. This is how (university-based) research _works_.

Please spend a few minutes researching before posting.

leprosy humans and armadilos

[Big Torque]

It seems to remember that only humans and armadilos get leprosy. This being one reson it is hard to study. Maybe this will help explain what we have in common to make this the case?

Re:leprosy humans and armadilos

[HorsePunchKid]

I read an article about armadillos and leprosy recently (sorry, don't know where, possibly Discover, not exactly the best source for science news). The problem (as far as studying it goes) isn't so much that only humans and armadillos get it. Rather, it's proven essentially impossible to culture outside of a human or armadillo. Neither of which are necessarily good places to try and grow or study it :). I seem to remeber that the article pointing out that they'd started to make progress culturing the responsible bacterium in the feet/pads of mice. Anyway, perhaps having the entire genome available will make it possible to select bits and pieces of the genome for study in other easier-to-culture bacteria. I don't exactly understand what the relationship between having lost about half of its non-essential genes and having the longest doubling time of any known bacterium is. Sounds kind of counter-intuitive.

subscription costs are a big problem

[StandardDeviant]

One problem is that subscription costs (for library usage, which is what you need to get for >1 scientist at $LOCATION to make use of the information) are really, really high, and have been rising far faster than inflation. I seem to recall that in my field, something like 90% of the journals are controlled by <3 firms. Hello, price fixing? ("my field" == chemistry). One journal I read had to be dropped last year by my school becuase a year's subscription had crossed the $40,000 USD mark.

The problem is that the most expensive journals tend to also be the most "prestigous" (sp? my internal speeler isn't working well today) journals, e.g. Nature or Science. So people are in this wierd position of wanting to publish in some journals for their resume, and others to reach the widest audience (c.f. Angewantde Chemie, international edition).

In an ideal world there would be some way of having free access to scientific articles, like through the web in some centralized fashion, but I understand that peer review and staff costs are not zero. Not a trivial problem to solve...

--
"Overrated" is "overfuckingused".

Re:subscription costs are a big problem

[Christopher Thomas]

One problem is that subscription costs (for library usage, which is what you need to get for >1 scientist at $LOCATION to make use of the information) are really, really high, and have been rising far faster than inflation I seem to recall that in my field, something like 90% of the journals are controlled by

While I agree that this is an inconvenient trend, it still doesn't prevent researchers from accessing the articles.

For starters, they can always just walk across the street to the local large university's library, which in all likelihood does stock the journal.

For seconds, they can write/email the authour of the article and ask for more information. When I did this, the authour was overjoyed to send me a huge stack of paper (the thesis upon which the article was based).

For thirds, the silliness of the library fee is capped at the point where it becomes cheaper for every scientist just to get a personal subscription to the journals in question, and save library trips for looking up past research (though admittedly this is what the lion's share of journal use is for).

In summary, I don't think that this will ever be a catastrophic problem.