Word: bacterium
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...test the innovative ideas he had for transforming the emerging field of genetics. In 1992 he secured private funding and created his own company, the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville. Within three years he completed the first-ever genome sequencing of an entire organism-Haemophilus influenzae, the bacterium that causes meningitis. The firm soon became a go-to place for sequencing projects, and it wasn't long before Venter hungered for the biggest prize in biology: the map of the human genome. In the 1990s such a project was almost unthinkable, a feat of mind-numbing complexity that involved...
...shuttled between his ship and his lab, Venter was overseeing another, equally grand and potentially revolutionary science project: creating life in the lab. Among the organisms he and his team sequenced in the years leading up to the human-genome work was Mycoplasma genitalium, an unlovely bacterium whose preferred target on the animals it infects is evident by its name. That organism, which the team sequenced in 1995, has one of the smallest known chromosomes of any self-replicating life-form - just 485 genes. What, Venter wondered back then, was the minimum genome an organism needed to survive and reproduce...
...University of Chicago researchers prompted monkeys to develop antibodies to heroin by attaching molecules of the drug to a protein from cow's blood. It was this model on which Kosten, who became interested in solving addiction as a medical student at Cornell, based TA-CD. Using the cholera bacterium as a vector is a crucial tweak in design; it allows the cocaine vaccine to sidestep the potential viral syndrome associated with other vaccines, such as Cytos's experimental anti-nicotine vaccine, which is delivered via virus, Kosten says. And because cocaine addiction is most severe in Western countries where...
...Haemophilus influenzae is a bacterium, while the microbes that cause the flu are viruses. The Hib vaccine recall does not affect flu vaccines...
...question is whether governing bodies will be prepared. The infrastructure to deal with safety concerns needs to be put in place now to avoid future problems.Venter and his team have already succeeded in creating a synthetic chromosome—based on the DNA sequence of the active bacterium Mycoplasma gentitalium. Their artificial chromosome was built entirely from available chemicals and has been christened, Mycoplasma labortorium. In theory, the chromosome could be transplanted into an empty bacterial cell and replicate itself thereafter. Synthetic Genomics has already filed for a patent on their “biological invention.” Scientists...