A genetically engineered kitty can by all means glow in the dark. Now that's a radically cool pet! Enjoy!

A study explains how a yeast cell becomes cancerous: the fault is a chromosomal translocation An altering of the genome that causes cancer was finally detected and reproduced in the laboratory. The discovery, crucial for understanding the genesis and development of malignancies, is due to the geneticist Charles V. Bruschi, head of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics of yeast, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Trieste (Icgeb) and coordinator of the Society of Italian scientific yeast (Zymi). Together with his group, Bruschi has uncovered, that the so-called chromosomal translocation is at fault. The yeast cells, whose DNA was sequenced completely in 1996, are a good model because they possess many similarities with mammalian cells and are easily manipulated by genetic engineering. Thanks to technical Bit (Bridge-Induced Translocation), designed by Bruschi and Valentina Tosato in 2005, it was possible to artificially induce the translocation and demonstrate the crucial role of this phenomenon in the formation of cancer. "Although it has long been a correlation between the presence of chromosomal translocations and the appearance of cancer cells," explains Bruschi, "so far it was not clear whether a translocation was the origin of cancer or whether, instead, it was a consequence. This is because we see patients when the cancer has already formed and in the cells already exists a particular translocation. In practice, these observations are made when it is too late to establish a relationship of cause and effect. "

For the first time a molecule of genetic material was observed in real time, that is able to correct damage in its structure The repair of a damaged DNA molecules is a mechanism well known in genetics, but so far no one had given testimony in real time. Researchers of the Kavli Institute at the University of Delft, the Netherlands, were able to document at the level of a single molecule of DNA, the homologous recombination, one of the mechanisms of repair frequently put in place by the cells. The work was published in the journal Molecular Cell. The rupture of the molecule of DNA can be caused, for example, from ultraviolet rays or X-ray, but it can also happen during normal cell division. The type of damage can affect a part of the structure internal molecules, but the cells are equipped with various mechanisms to repair it. If these damages were not immediately corrected, they could lead to changes in functional levels!

The entire genome of a person can now be sequenced in only four months and with less than one million dollars. To make "guinea pig" was James Watson The moment in which we can know the gene for gene our identity is always near you: a new method developed by Jonathan Rothberg, the research firm American 454 Life Sciences, has enabled sequenziare the genome of a person in a very short time and with a significantly reduced cost compared to what is required by previous systems. The genome sequenced in the new way is to James D. Watson, the famous discoverer, with Francis Crick, the molecular structure of DNA in 1953: This is the second human code entirely decifrato after that of Craig Venter, the scientist-entrepreneur who first, last September, made public l ' entire sequence of its genome. The new system, however, is a major step forward compared to the pioneering conquest of Venter, both in terms of timing and costs: to map the genome of Watson it took only four months and less than one million dollars (the system Venter had applied for some years and about one hundred million).

Three studies have demonstrated for the first time a genetic cause for this type of cancer. Perhaps also responsible for nicotine dependence A gene variation on a region of chromosome 15 is related to the risk of developing lung cancer. At this same result came three independent studies, two published in Nature and one in Nature Genetics, and is the first time that there is a genetic cause for lung cancer, in addition to environmental factors among them, of course, smoking. Between cancer and smoking is perhaps the most obvious cause-effect relationship in epidemiology. And here lies the point: a region of chromosome contains objected to three genes which in turn contain the instructions to produce a very particular protein: the nicotinic receptor for acetylcholine. As the name implies, this receptor has a strong affinity for nicotine and a change in its structure could cause cancer in itself and, affect dependence on smoking (according to the second one of the three studies)

Muliple mutations of a single gene lead to the accumulation of a protein in motor neurons that causes death. Mutations in a single gene could be the basis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Sla), the neurodegenerative disease that leads to progressive paralysis and that affects every year in Italy 1,500 people, mainly men of average or advanced age. The discovery, the result of years of studies conducted by international team in which the names of Emanuele Buratti Baralle Francisco and the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (Icgeb) in Trieste, and guided by Christopher Shaw of King College London, appeared in Science.