genetics – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Black Frogs Rising: How Nature Is Dealing With Chernobyl’s Radioactivity

from the nature-is-healing dept

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine is the largest in Europe, and one of the ten largest in the world. It’s of particular concern at the moment because it sits close to the front line between the Ukrainian and Russian armies, and has been subject to bombardment and loss of backup power. The fear is that damage arising from battles around it could result in the release of radioactive material, or even lead to a more serious accident.

The present fears about Zaporizhzhia have rather obscured the fact that in the north of Ukraine lies Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986. With the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement that was put in place in 2016, the situation there seems to be stable, although the Russian invasion of Ukraine means the nuclear power plant is still potentially at risk. Surrounding the Chernobyl plant is an officially designated Exclusion Zone covering around 2,600 square kilometers (about 1,000 square miles). The Wikipedia entry explains:

Today, the Exclusion Zone is one of the most radioactively contaminated areas in the world and draws significant scientific interest for the high levels of radiation exposure in the environment, as well as increasing interest from tourists. The zone has become a thriving sanctuary with natural flora and fauna with some of the highest biodiversity and thickest forests in all of Ukraine. This is due to the lack of human activity in the Exclusion Zone and despite the radiation.

In effect, the Exclusion Zone has become a massive scientific experiment regarding the effects of radiation on living things. These can take unexpected forms, as a recent open access article in Evolutionary Applications reveals. The authors of the paper have written a shorter, more approachable post about their work for the Phys.org site. It explains that in 2016 they noticed Eastern tree frogs that were close to the Chernobyl reactor had an unusual black tint to their skin: normally, they have a bright green color. Investigating tree frogs inside and outside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, they found:

Chernobyl tree frogs have a much darker coloration than frogs captured in control areas outside the zone. As we found out in 2016, some are pitch-black. This coloration is not related to the levels of radiation that frogs experience today and that we can measure in all individuals. The dark coloration is typical of frogs from within or near the most contaminated areas at the time of the accident.

The authors explain:

Melanin is responsible for the dark color of many organisms. What is less known is that this class of pigments can also reduce the negative effects of ultraviolet radiation. And its protective role can extend to ionizing radiation too, as it has been shown with fungi. Melanin absorbs and dissipates part of the radiation energy. In addition, it can scavenge and neutralize ionized molecules inside the cell, such as reactive oxygen species. These actions make it less likely that individuals exposed to radiation will go on to suffer cell damage and increase their survival chances.

In the years since the Chernobyl accident, there have been ten generations of frogs, and the scientists suggest that natural selection in the area explains why dark frogs are now the dominant type for the species, replacing the previous green-skinned variety.

The Chernobyl disaster remains a frightening reminder of how nuclear technology can malfunction catastrophically as the result of human errors. The black frogs study shows that even in these extreme circumstances it is possible to glean interesting scientific information from the abnormal environment that has been created there. Let’s hope that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant does not become another such opportunity for science.

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Filed Under: chernobyl, frogs, genetics, natural selection, nuclear energy, radiation, russia, science, tree frogs, Zaporizhzhia

Goldman Sachs Analyst Asks Whether Curing Patients Is A Sustainable Business Model

from the better-to-ask-whether-the-traditional-drug-development-model-is-sustainable dept

Pharma companies generally like to give the impression that their business is a win-win kind of thing: you get better, they get sales. But sometimes the mask slips, and the real strategy that lies behind the benevolent exterior is revealed. For example, back in 2014 we wrote about the CEO of Bayer, one of the biggest drug companies in the world, openly admitting it developed medicines for rich patients in the West that can pay high prices, not for those in places like India that need them just as much, but can’t afford them.

Now CNBC has spotted another revealing remark that probably reflects what many in the Big Pharma world say privately. It appears in a report called “The Genome Revolution” about a new generation of treatments based on powerful genomic techniques like CRISPR. They hold out the hope that many diseases can be cured permanently, for example by editing the patient’s DNA to replace genetic code that is causing the problem. The report asks: “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” It goes on to explain the issue here:

“The potential to deliver ‘one shot cures’ is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically-engineered cell therapy and gene editing. However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies,” analyst Salveen Richter wrote in the note to clients Tuesday. “While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.”

That’s a fair analysis. Given the choice between creating a product that cures people after one use, and another that requires a lifetime’s supply, the rational choice for a company is the latter. The analyst’s question, shocking as it is, exposes neatly the tension between what Big Pharma and its shareholders may want — fat, recurring profits — and what patients and society desire — a short course of treatment that results in a complete cure. As genomic medicine continues to progress, that question is likely to be posed more frequently, both behind closed doors, and in public debates. It will also bring with it another one: if curing patients isn’t a sustainable business model for traditional pharma companies, why not find other ways to fund the development of genomic treatments?

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Filed Under: business models, cures, diseases, gene therapy, genetic engineering, genetics, health, pharmaceuticals, profits
Companies: goldman sachs

Genome Of A Man Born In 1784 Recreated From The DNA Of His Descendants

from the I-am-your-(great-great-great-grand)-father dept

The privacy implications of collecting DNA are wide-ranging, not least because they don’t relate solely to the person from whom the sample is taken. Our genome is a direct product of our parents’ genetic material, so the DNA strings of siblings from the same mother and father are closely related. Even that of more distant relations has many elements in common, since they derive from common ancestors. Thus a DNA sample contains information not just about the donor, but about many others on the relevant family tree as well. A new paper published in Nature Genetics (behind a paywall, unfortunately) shows how that fact enables the genomes of long-dead ancestors to be reconstructed, using just the DNA of their descendants.

As an article in Futurism explains, the unique circumstances of the individual chosen for the reconstruction, the Icelander Hans Jonatan, aided the research team as they sought to piece together his genome nearly two centuries after his death in 1827. The scientists mainly came from the Icelandic company deCODE Genetics, one of the pioneers in the world of genomics, and highly-familiar with Iceland’s unique genetic resources. The following factors were key:

For one, Jonatan was the first Icelandic inhabitant with African heritage. Iceland also boasts an extensive and highly detailed collection of genealogical records. The combination of Jonatan’s unique heritage and the country’s record-keeping for inhabitants’ family trees made this remarkable recreation possible.

For cultural and historical reasons, Iceland has one of the most complete genealogical records of any nation. This allowed the research team to establish with high probability 788 of Jonatan’s descendants. Samples were taken from 182 of those individuals and then genotyped — a kind of DNA screening. The deCODE group picked out those genomes most likely to provide the longest DNA sequences that had been passed down through the generations from Jonatan’s mother, by looking for fragments of African-pattern chromosomes amidst the otherwise European genetic material. The full genomes of 20 of those 182 were sequenced, and then the parts derived from Jonatan’s African ancestry pieced together to recreate 38% of his mother’s DNA. From this, the researchers were able to establish that Jonatan’s mother was probably from the African region spanned by Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon.

This kind of large-scale reconstruction in the absence of physical samples has never been achieved before, and is certainly a major triumph of biological and computational technology. An important question is whether this is a one-off, made possible by the unique circumstances of Jonatan’s life, or whether it could be applied more widely. According to the Futurism article:

Theoretically, a technique like this could help researchers create “virtual ancient DNA,” which would allow scientists to recreate the DNA of historical figures. Agnar Helgason of deCODE stated that “Any historic figure born after 1500 who has known descendants could be reconstructed.”

While it’s exciting, there are still major hurdles to overcome in terms of the potential future applications. The quantity, scale, and detail of the DNA from living ancestors required to recreate a person’s DNA make it impractical for use within most families. Additionally, with each new generation identifiable DNA fragments get smaller and more difficult to work with.

As DNA sequencing becomes cheaper and more accurate, it will be possible to carry out DNA profiling and collection faster and more economically. Similarly, as computational power increases, chromosome fragments can be analyzed and stitched together more easily. In due course, these kinds of genomic reconstructions will probably become more common. Already, deCODE’s research confirms how DNA can establish the connections not just between present-day members of a family, but also with those long dead. When unexpected patterns of maternity or paternity are revealed, they will bring with them who knows what social consequences for their descendants.

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Filed Under: dna, genetics, genomes, science

DailyDirt: Feeding A Growing Population…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Modern farming is evolving yet again as technology makes growing crops more efficient with increasingly clever tricks. Maybe it’s not such a good idea to mess with plant DNA to insert interspecies genes, but maybe there’s no reason for increasing crop yields or produce quality, anyway. Biologists are messing around with gene expression pathways instead, so they don’t need to change the DNA present — just when or how the genes are (or aren’t) activated. And better fertilizers could be on the way, too. Check out a few of these farming developments.

There’s a way to grow 50% more corn by taking advantage of a newly-discovered regulatory pathway in the plant that controls the stem cell growth of corn (and possibly other crops as well). The resulting ears of corn don’t look all that pretty, but significantly more kernels per ear of corn increases crop yields without necessarily using more land or other resources. The researchers are still just exploring this new way to boost corn growth, and if you like eating corn on the cob — these mutant ears of corn might make you lose your appetite. [url]
Maybe you’ve never heard of the Haber-Bosch process, but it’s essential for farming since it’s been used to create fertilizer (ammonia from nitrogen gas) for about 100 years now. It’s an energy intensive process, so the Department of Energy is looking for alternatives that are scalable, more sustainable and don’t require fossil fuels. [url]
Pesticides and GMO crops may be replaced with RNA interference sprays that can kill bugs or alter plant genetic expression. Genetic sprays wouldn’t necessarily require GMO crops at all since a sprayed-on solution of RNA could effect desirable results without needing to change any plant DNA. Genes could be turned off at will with a spray, making plants more drought tolerant or poisoning insects by crippling their natural development. [url]