biotech

Andy Coghlan reports on work using viral vectors to amp up mouse muscles, a form of "gene doping", in New Scientist: "Blood tests won't stop gene cheats".

Autopsies showed that the extra IGF-1 triggered the production of 10 times more protein than normal in the muscles. Giacca also saw activity soar in genes controlling energy production, contraction of muscles and respiration. Also detectable in the muscle were traces of the virus used to deliver the genes. However, the gene, protein and virus were undetectable in blood or urine from the mice (Human Gene Therapy, DOI: 10.1089/hum.2011.157).

Writing this sent me looking through my "gene doping" archives. This from 2006, where I reacted to fears that athletes in the Beijing Olympics might be using viral vectors to amp themselves: "Is the dawn of "gene doping" at hand?"

But there is a total lack of recognition of a basic reality: Somebody who actually could figure out how to genetically enhance an athlete before 2008 probably deserves a Nobel prize! And if they could figure that out, they would be a paid a whole lot more by applying their 'l33t genetic skillz curing osteoporosis or something.

I mean, even Zorin's doctor had that whole residual-Third-Reich-loyalty keeping him in the game.

I'm pretty sure that snark will shorten my life a lot more than red meat ever could.

Stanford geneticist Joanna Mountain recounts some of the experience she brings to 23andMe in her role as Senior Director of Research: "Solving mysteries via DNA". Much of her interests are the anthropological aspects of DNA and ancestry.

Now that we know how DNA aligns with prehistoric migrations, we can trace the DNA of individuals to northern Europe or Central Asia, South America or the Near East, western Africa or Oceania. That information about where DNA is from can, in turn, answer questions about our ancestors. Were they struggling to feed their children through hunting red deer in northern Europe, harvesting shellfish in southeastern Asia, raising alpacas in the highland plateaus of western South America, or digging for tubers in eastern Africa? DNA shows that some of us have ancestors who faced the challenge of survival using several of these strategies.

A new round of "Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr" is going to begin on PBS this month, using 23andMe services as part of the program.

"Harvard prof Henry Louis Gates Jr. hunting for great-great grandfather"

CUMBERLAND, Md. -- Harvard University Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. is asking all residents of Allegany County, Maryland, who are of Irish descent to get their DNA tested to help solve a 150-year-old family mystery -- who is Gates’ great-great grandfather?

I admire the way Henry Louis Gates has rolled with the punches as genealogical data from genetics have changed over the years. In 2006, I wrote in Slate about the limits of DNA ancestry testing, using Gates as an example of how tests before that time could mislead ("How African are you?"). He has made the complexity of interpreting these genealogy assessments into a successful series of television specials, and has probably done more to popularize DNA-assisted genealogy than anyone else in the United States.

I thought of this story when Razib blogged today about "red tape" as a barrier to genetic testing for the purposes of health research ("American medicine & American red-tape").

People are suffering from terminal illnesses, and considerations of the genetic privacy of their near relatives are looming large? Seriously? The reality is that manifestation of a disease itself gives one information about the risks of their relatives.

The reality of genetics today: A Harvard professor is collecting the DNA of all Irish-descent males in Allegany County, Maryland, for the purposes of finding a man who lived in 1820. And many of them are willingly cooperating.

"Privacy advocates" seem like they're living in the 1980's. Of course, when you end up dealing with Congress, the FDA, or other branches of government, living in the 80's is the expected norm.

Nice piece on synthetic biology by Adam Rutherford:

But Freckles is a long way from normal. She is an extraordinary creation, an animal that could not have existed at any point in history before the 21st century. She is all goat, but she has something extra in every one of her cells: Freckles is also part spider.

UPDATE (2012-01-14): A knowledgeable reader writes:

Ah, journalists! What do transgenic animals have to do with synthetic biology? Absolutely nothing, in fact. And the hyperbole fails, too. If the protein was human instead of arachnid (as is the with many cows now), that goat would be part human then? Which would then mean that a lot of bacterial, insect and mouse cells I grow in the lab are part human, too! Woo-hoo! Meet Dima Klenchin, a synthetic biologist...

And Venter Institute's bacterium is not a synthetic life by any stretch of imagination and neither is anything else described in the article (modifying microorganisms for industrial production is about two decades old news). In fact, "synthetic biology" seems to be simply a new buzz word to get funding easier. You see, "transgenic organisms" is getting too routine and stale from the funding point of view and "nanotechnology" too has been overused to the point of losing much of its buzz power as well. So pharmacology is now "chemical biology" and gene engineering is now "synthetic biology".

As for the truly synthetic life, we are finding that it is a very hard going. Everyone would be enormously impressed by a single brand new enzyme or a metabolic pathway (no aping from existing prototypes in nature). Alas, even that turns out to be easier said than done. But fear not - all those computer scientists and physicists will soon, veeeery soon, come to the rescue. :-)

I thought it was a fun article but your points are well taken. I think that there is a faction who are trying to "define down" the term synthetic biology so it applies to everything from recombinant DNA upward. Venter obviously hasn't helped matters by trying to lower the bar for an artificial life form.

But maintaining any useful distinction may become impossible anyway if molecular machines can be made to interact in any useful way with endogenous genomes. Of course if they make spider silk comes straight out the goat's udder it would be more awesome than tomacco!