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3rd Chromosome Deciphered
veeoh writes: "Another chapter in the human book of life has been published.
Scientists working as part of the Human Genome Project(including some from the Wellcome Trust) have deciphered the complete genetic instructions of a third chromosome, one of the 24 bundles of DNA that carry our genetic material.
The BBC has an
article about the discovery"
I wonder how similar 3rd chromosome of mice is to the 3rd chromosome of the human genome. Any research being done in this field?
What do you think of MusicCity now?
How long would it take for politicians to understand that? Again, this shows that innovation can only come from having information/knowledge freely available.
Just wishing that we had more enlightened politicians..... is this just a fat dream?
pronoblem
For anyone interested in a more detailed article, visit this link
/wave
Before you email me, remember: "There is no god!"
... have deciphered the complete genetic instructions of a third chromosome, one of the 24 bundles of DNA that carry our genetic material.
Wouldnt it be cool if they found an easter-egg in the "instructions"?
or if there was a secret message encoded in them ala the Netscape Weenies message.
I Heart Sorting Networks
Though most of the issues are readily apparent and most people are at least partially familiar with them, there are some that I foun to be quite interesting (especially the commercialization aspect of genetic code):
Ethical, legal, and social issues
I for one am glad that my government is competing with the private sector. This doubling of the research makes sure that it is more reliable when it is finished.
How would you like to get a revolutionary new cancer drug, only to find out that the shotgunning method used by Celera missed a few steps? With the government and Celera both having data, errors can be found and corrected before they cost someone dearly.
DUH. The government can't hold patents.
And why shouldn't the Government compete with the private sector? Especially in cases like this, where the companies would undoubtedly make a move to restrict the information and use of it, it's good to have a group who is required to release it into the Public Domain later working on it.
Of course, I could be totally wrong.
As always the difference between the fool and the wiseman is knowing what to do with the information at hand....
For those who don't know, chomosome is actually the genetic code that makes one more or less like Noam Chomsky.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
Intriguingly, some people (37%) have an extra chunk of DNA in chromosome 20 and could have an extra copy of a specific gene of unknown function
Make way for homo superior
Cant wait till my kids start manifesting the X FACTOR
http://cincyboys.blogspot.com/ Everything Cincinnati. Including the word 'Finnih'
The book has one chapter for each of the 23 chromosomes and it has some general discussion as well as some facts that are known or suspected about the sequences in that chromosome.
I'm appalled that our government would waste so much money on something that could easily be done in the private sector.
[...]
The government should never be competing with the private sector.
Hhmm...
This type of view is often seen on Slashdot. It seems to be a common view in America. It is much less common over here in Europe. (But then we're a bunch of liberal losers, of course...)
Your government put a man on the Moon. Do you think that would have happened if it was left up to the private sector? Similarly with the Genome project. There is masses of work to be done, expensive work, a lot of which is not going to have any immediate financial payback. (Despite what most people think, the mapping of the genome is just a small part of the task ahead to actually understand the whole thing).
Just as the Moon landing would never have taken place without the government, neither would the complete mapping of the Human Genome, and Mankind would be poorer for it.
As a Slashdot reader you may appreciate another perspective. The Internet came out of US government funded work. The Web came out of the CERN project, which is funded by governments internationally. Many of the most commonly-used formats on the web (JPEG, MPEG, MP3) came from EU funded projects. If it was left up to private corporations, it might have taken another twenty years (or more?) before we had anything resembling the Web we have today.
I know a lot of you Americans hate paying taxes and distrust your government, but don't let that blind you to the fact that governments are often the driving force behind new technologies, not corporations.
Shouldn't this be the "All-your-Base-Pair-are-belong-to-us" department?
"Help make the world a better place. Kill a moron."
Humans have 23 chromosomes, but there are 24 different variants of the chromosomes, since you have X and Y. If you want to sequence the entire genome, you have to sequence the 22 normal chromosomes, then sequence XX, and then sequence XY (since they're paired, that means "sequence X", "sequence Y", and double as necessary).
All in all, you have to sequence 24 different objects. Read the article, and note the picture at the bottom, and you'll understand.
Why does that DNA link go to a picture of Douglas Adams? Just because his initals are DNA doesn't make him the genetic code of us ;)
It's a sad commentary on "civilized" society that three lifestyle-related diseases are presented in a sentence that places the blame on essentially defective genes. Diabetes, now reaching epidemic proportions in adults and children, is nearly always caused by a poor diet. Obesity is caused by poor diet and lack of exercise. As a former sufferer of eczema, I proved for myself that a lifestyle change could cure it. By converse, my lifestyle caused it.
I'm not finding fault with the researchers or trying to cause a ruckus in general, but don't be surprised if these discoveries lead to a society where no one is aware that these (and other) diseases are a result of lifestyle, and every one is lined up at the doctor's office to shell out large sums of $$$ to have their "defective" genes fixed. Remember also that these diseases strain the bodily systems (or cause "imbalance" in non-allotropic medical parlance), and lead to other diseases, causing a potentially endless cycle ending only in bankruptcy/non-insurability/death...
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
buy a clue.
The government can not patent something.
If this is done with public funds, then it will be open to the public. If the pvt. sector does it, then they will patent it. they'll probably loose it in the long run.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Chimera (unix, linux, windows) is a molecular modeling program developed by UC San Francisco, but it was funded by a government grant from the NIH, so guess what, you can download it for free provided you don't want to make money using it.
The NIH (government orginization) has actually REQUIRED that people that use their money to come up with a protein sequence should deposit it in a freely accessable database
Also, just a side note. If anyone wants to download the program, just grab some protiens from the protien database and load them up. Some stuff you might find interesting in the way of proteins.
tryptophan
hemoglobin
Alcohol Dehydrogenase
DNA (not a protein, but oh well)
Insulin
more...
Enjoy,
Steve
Cancer drugs, and drugs in general, will still go through many rounds of testing to measure their safety and efficacy. If a drug makes it through the testing and proves its worth, how much do we care if it was developed from faulty data? In this case the ends really do justify the means. Hell, I can randomly stick atoms together, and if I come up with something that cures cancer, I'd call that a success.
Now, if I were a, say, cancer researcher, I'd want the most accurate sequence I could get, since it might make finding a useful drug much faster and easier. As a consumer, I want the researchers to have accurate sequences for just that reason, but I'm not too concerned about trusting what they come up with if it's not.
> Great, but can I grow that third arm I've always wanted? NO! Damn hippy scientists.
I have one for spanking the monkey and one for moving the mouse and clicking the buttons.
What do I need a third one for?
Si
DNA is apparently Douglas N. Adam's initials. But what that has to do with the story is anyone's guess.
> Diabetes, now reaching epidemic proportions in
> adults and children, is nearly always caused by
> a poor diet.
Dude, feel free to talk about your eczema however you want because you probably know a fair a bit about it but don't EVEN go spouting this crap about diabetics unless you're going to get your facts straight.
There's two types of diabetes. While I'll grant that one of them is triggered by lifestyle (but that's not all there is to it, else EVERY obese person in the world would be diabetic, which obviously isn't the case), the other is strictly hereditery.
It usually hits kids just as they start going into puberty; sixth grade and around in there. It has nothing to do with lifestyle; I spent easily half my time tearing around the neighrbood with friends and I was within a few pounds of "average" weight, yet fate still plucked me out and gave me the disease.
Unless of course you're prepared to claim that having an active childhood causes diabetes..
Diabetes is hereditary. Fact, end of story. If I sound pissed off, it's because I am.
The academic consortium and Celera lied when they announce completion of the genome in 2000. All they had was a rough draft of the ACGT order. The precise ordering, gene decoding, and followup work is continuing more slowly. The three shortest of the 24 unique human chromosomes have now been decode, with the rest by 2005 or sooner.
Doesn't it bother you the least little bit that organizations--whether private or public--are trying so hard to convince us that mapping our genetic material will ultimately benefit the generations to come if we just trust them enough to do the right thing?
No, it doesn't bother me. You're paranoid. Really.
Perhaps there is reason for this level of paranoia in the US. Is there? What is this terrible thing that your government has done to make you Americans feel like this?
I know people who work on projects like the Human Genome project. I've worked on lots of government (UK and EU) funded projects myself. The intentions behind these projects are good. The people doing them are good people.
I'm not so naive as to think that everything governments do is good, but when it comes to things like the Human Genome project, I don't think we have any reason to be paranoid.
I made two changes, so I don't know if it was one, the other, or both: avoidance of direct contact with cleaning chemicals (gloves rock!) and reducing meat/dairy in my diet. This is my own experience and not the result of some study. Since I'm writing this now, the only web link would be the auto-generated link to this CID.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
It's been a few decades since I only had 46 chromosomes. Now I have trillions of them.
When talking about the number of chromosomes to map, the correct number is 24. Once you've mapped one of an autosome pair, you have the map for the other one, too.
Yes, lifestyle changes can cure certain diseases. That dosen't mean people weren't genetically predisposed to the problems.
It's almost impossible for me to gain weight, for example, because of my genes. I can't get above 130 lbs without intensive exercise.
To change the emphasis of the sentance you cited;
The discovery could shed light on why some
people are more likely to develop common
diseases
Just because lifestyle can be changed to help with a disease dosen't mean that some people aren't a lot more succeptible to particular conditions. The fact that a particular substance can be used to cure a condition does not prove that lack of said substance therefore 'caused' the condition.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
The WTCHG is actually a cool place that looks for genes for complex diseases, writes useful software, and are heavily invested in using Linux as a scientific computing platform.
They have an 86 cpu Mosix/Linux cluster, and two 8 CPU, 8GB machines running Linux.
What, DNA *isn't* open source? Does this mean the Human Genome Project is illegal because according to the DMCA we can't reverse engineer the content?
(consulting my EULA)
I think I can shed some light on the subject...
The pathology of diabetes is complex. First, one has two recognize there's two types of diabetes. Type 1, called juvenile or insulin-dependent, diabetes and type 2, or non-insulin-dependent, diabetes.
Type 1 is most definitely genetic. While it doesn't have 100% concordance between identical twins, developmental factors can come into play, there is a genetic predisposition. Several genes have been linked with type I diabetes. The primary pathology of this disease is that it is an autoimmune disease. The immune system of the diabetic attacks the cells of the pancreas, depleting the organ of its ability to produce insulin.
Type 2 is a far more complex disorder. The pathology of this disease is that the pancreas is able to produce insulin, albeit not as much as normal people. The significant issue is insulin resistance. The body starts to ignore the metabolic signals of insulin, which causes a feedback loop that ultimately taxes the pancreas and leads to depletion of the pancreatic insulin function (it peters out over time). Due to its complexity and the generalization that it is a disease of obesity, it was considered more of a behavioral disorder (at least more so than type 1). Research, however, is showing there are genetic predispositions to type 2 diabetes (some of this is not even in the genome of the diabetic, but int the small chromosome of the mitochondria, the energy producing organelle in the cells). Also, studies are finding there also seems to be some autoimmunity involved in type 2 diabetes. Lastly, there appears to be a trigger event, believed to possibly be viral.
So, while type 2 diabetes is indeed exacerbated by obesity, one cannot call it a disease of diet.
--
On the topic of obesity, research is showing that there are more factors involved than 'being lazy and eating crap'. On the whole, 'being lazy and eating crap' is bad for your health and its true that our society is progressively leading less healthier lifestyles... but one should note some people can eat crap and not exercise and be perfectly svelte and healthy. Then there are people like one of my colleagues who is a world-class longcourse triathelete, exercises more than anyone I know, eats an exceptionally healthy diet, and can count the number of times she's been sick in the last decade on one hand.. yet she her body mass index puts her in the obese category.
Increasingly, research is showing that adipose (fat) tissue should be considered an organ of the endocrine system. The complex events of endocrine singaling are what regulate resting metabolic rate, glucose and insulin levels, fat metabolism and deposition, caloric intake, response to diet, etc. It is a very complex system that has a lot of factors, including genetic ones.. as well as ones which may be environmental or behavioral but have very definite and difficult to reverse pathologies.
The value of genetics research, pharmacogenetics and pharmacology should not be shrugged off. Yep, put down the donut is good advice, but let's not ignore complexicity because a simple answer sounds nice.
--
Ciao, C.Sc.
I'll leave arguing with your main points to other people, but I'd like to give you a link to a bunch of privately funded people who just might make something of the moon: the Artemis Project.
I wish them all the luck in the world, except for my luck. I need it myself.
Can someone tell me what the difference is between the "rough draft" that was finished in the spring and the "gold standard" that this decoding is part of? How are they different? How can the completion of the Human Genome Project be asserted when there are still plenty of missing pieces? If this is only the 3rd chromosome that was "fully" decoded (fully in quotes because there still are 4 gaps in this one), then how can scientists claim that they're close to being finished?
It sounds a bit like a play for funding.
Scientist: Look how great our work is! We've finished decoding the Human Genome!
Funding source: Um. There are lots of gaps here. Isn't this work unfinished?
Scientist: That's why we need more funding!
Funding source: (scratches head) Uhhh...okay.
"I'm appalled that our government would waste so much money on something that could easily be done in the private sector."
Firstly its not just your government spending money on this. A lot of it came from other governments. Indeed in Europe a large amount of the money came from the Welcome trust. Certainly it's this group that has spent a lot of the money going on decoding the genome, and providing base line annotation.
Secondly its not clear that the private sector could do this. Although they have been involved late in the day, they were not when the early pioneering work which has made this possible, from Fred Sangers original work on sequencing technology, to all the mapping efforts, cloning techniques and so on. This of course includes most of the work that was done by Venter before Celera came into being.
And third are you really suggesting that as soon as any company opens up, that the government should immediately shut down all resources that they are providing for a specific project.
And finally of course the data which has been produced from the "public sector" (much of the funding for which has not come from your, or indeed any government), has been released freely into the public domain. In other words the rights are not owned by the government.
Its easy to come out with a knee jerk libertarian "the free market can do anything" response to things. The reality is that it can't, and often doesn't. There is a big role for people doing things in other ways. Science in particular benefits from this. Its much easier to advance if you don't have to read pages of NDA's for every single piece of data that you need. And if the free software/open source community does not show you that, then what will.
Phil