Word: dna
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...supposed to be like putting a man on the moon. Sequencing the entire human genome--spelling out the 3.1 billion chemical "letters" that make up human DNA--would be, scientists said, as challenging and rewarding as the Apollo mission that deposited Neil Armstrong on the lunar surface. But the comparison was never exact, and as the genome project approaches completion, it is becoming increasingly clear just how bad the analogy really is. Landing a human on our nearest cosmic neighbor was a straightforward achievement with no need for caveats or footnotes. As of July 20, 1969, nobody had set foot...
Those sequences are so useful, in fact, that researchers started tapping into the data long before they were complete. Scientists at drug firms, biotech companies and university labs have taken literally hundreds of baby steps into the era of genomic medicine using an impressive array of powerful new tools: DNA chips and microarrays that let scientists see at a glance which of thousands of genes are active in a given tissue sample; sophisticated software that can organize gigabytes of genetic data; huge databases of genes, disease-tissue samples and mRNA--the molecules that initiate the actual construction of working proteins...
...remaining 98,000 base pairs are instructions that govern how much protein gets churned out--an essential clue for developing eventual treatments for diabetics. But before the public project's data began going up on GenBank, finding the hidden code would have been a daunting task. "To isolate the DNA and do all the sequencing would have taken a highly trained Ph.D. a year or two," says Altshuler, "an ungodly, unacceptable amount of work...
...Louis Staudt, an oncologist at the National Cancer Institute, have been asking similar questions about lymphoma. In a paper published in the scientific journal Nature, they showed how lymphomas that look the same under the pathologist's microscope aren't necessarily identical. Staudt and his colleagues used DNA chips to see which genetic switches were being thrown in each of 40 different biopsy samples from lymphoma patients. By looking at specific genes involved in cell proliferation and immune-cell response, says Staudt, they determined that "two different kinds of tumors are hiding within the single diagnosis of diffuse large-cell...
They went to Gene Logic because the company is one of a handful, along with California's Affymetrix and Incyte, that have developed DNA-chip and microarray technology--in this case, chips that can monitor some 42,000 genes in one shot--and software to analyze the results. Using these powerful tools, Gene Logic scientists tested the patient's cells alongside others from both healthy and sick people. In a few days, they completed the analysis...