Scientists at the Department of Energy’s BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) have taken a huge step towards the possibility of enhancing ethanol production following their discovery of a mutated gene that improves ethanol tolerance in microorganisms. This finding could have implications in our ability to meet alternative energy challenges associated with nonrenewable fuels. The research is published in the August 16 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Jean-Jacques Hublin of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology details a recent and curious discovery of a possible genetic integration between Neanderthals and modern humans around 60,000 years ago.

Researchers from the NYU Langone Medical Center analyzed the genetic data from nearly 50,000 individuals to uncover several DNA sequence variations that are associated with the electrical impulses that make our hearts beat. They hope the findings will lead to a better understanding of the underlying factors that may contribute to irregular heart rhythms and sudden cardiac arrests.

The 'central dogma' of genetics: DNA --> RNA --> Protein ... it's been the foundation to our understanding of the transfer of sequence information in living organisms since Francis Crick first coined the term 50 years ago. Despite our advances in decoding the human genome, scientists estimate that we still know very little as to the function of nearly 95% of our DNA.

Much of Dr. Julie Segre's early research career focused on how the largest organ of the human body - our skin, or epidermis - creates a barrier at the interface of the body and the environment. Through these early investigations, Dr. Segre's lab discovered that skin cells expressed high levels of antimicrobial peptides - which can both kill bacteria and fungi, but also stimulate the body's immune system. These observations led Dr. Segre to shift research efforts into identifying the microbes that live on the skin, and the role they may play in human health.

Dr. Segre is an active member of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) - launched by the National Institutes of Health Roadmap for Medical Research, and designed to fuel research into the multitude of microbes that live in the various environments of the human body.

On March 11, 2010, researchers from the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB), in Seattle, WA announced that they had, very successfully, analyzed the first whole genome sequences of a family of four. ISB partnered with Complete Genomics, of Mountain View California, to sequence the genomes of a father, mother and two children – both of which had two recessive genetic disorders, Miller Syndrome (a rare craniofacial disorder), and Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia (or PCD – a lung disease). The results demonstrate the tremendous benefits of having the complete genome from an entire family with which to work – allowing the team to minimize the error rates in sequencing and increase the accuracy of the sequencing data to 99.999%.

 Using just four hairs and a few small fragments of bone from an ancient man discovered in the permafrost of western Greenland, a research team from the University of Copenhagen have sequenced about 80% of the ancient man's genome. 

As published in Nature's advanced online edition yesterday, researchers from the Beijing Genomics Institute have successfully completed the sequencing and initial analyses of a draft version of the giant panda genome. One surprising discovery is that the Chinese bear lacks any recognizable genes required for digesting its staple food, bamboo.

The Genetics and Public Policy Center (GPPC) was established by Johns Hopkins University by PEW charitable trusts. Originally published in The American Journal of Human Genetics, Volume 85, the GPPC conducted a survey of over 4500 individuals pertaining to views on Privacy in Genetics and Participation in Biobank research.

From the Salk Institute

LA JOLLA, CA-When you eat may be just as vital to your health as what you eat, found researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Their experiments in mice revealed that the daily waxing and waning of thousands of genes in the liver-the body's metabolic clearinghouse-is mostly controlled by food intake and not by the body's circadian clock as conventional wisdom had it.