I must admit I was jealous that Craig Venter donated his own DNA to Celera's sequencing project; his sense of self has reached the molecular level. So, I was thrilled recently to see direct-to-consumer genetic testing on the Internet.Don't misunderstand; I'm not advocating that we should get an APOE test [for Alzheimer disease] at the mall in between buying shoes and downing a Frappucino. There's serious genetic testing, for metabolic syndromes, and familial breast cancer, for example. And then

LIGHTING THEIR LOCATIONS:© 2002 Cold Spring Harbor PressImmunolocalization of epitope-tagged proteins. (A-E) represent cells containing HAT-tagged proteins stained with the DNA dye, DAPI, and a monoclonal antibody against hemagluttinin, α-HA. At right the images are merged. (F-J) indicates cells carrying V5 tagged proteins. The bar equals 2 μm.Aliens sifting through the remains of a lost human civilization might puzzle over the function of a ladle. But if found in a room associate

Courtesy of VistaLab TechnologiesMatthew Springer learned to take breaks and rest his hands after suffering two repetitive-motion injuries. "I ended up with two basically useless arms." In constant pain, he says, he could not type for more than a few seconds or do simple tasks like grasp a steering wheel.The injury sent him to physical therapy and he followed a prescribed regimen for a full year. He also practiced yoga, and learned to manage stress. With help from colleagues, who took over his m

Which animals can regenerate?Figure 1This ability is widespread in the animal kingdom, but its distribution is spotty. Salamanders are the best-known regenerators, but cockroaches can regrow legs, Drosophila can renew discs, deer regain antlers, and humans can regenerate fingertips, if the wound is not sutured.What do regenerating systems have in common?In such systems a wound forms a blastema, a recognizable clump of proliferating cells that gives rise to the new structure. The distal tip of th

Figure 1In the regeneration game, mammals pale before such creatures as salamanders. Humans barely avert complete disappointment, regrowing digit tips if they are severed past the last joint, while salamanders are superheroes, regrowing any structure that can be cut off without killing them. Though the salamander is a stalwart regeneration model, research is expanding into model organisms such as the zebrafish and mouse, which offer broader tools and possibly better translation to clinical medic

Frontlines | A Rediscovery, a New Species Courtesy of Luiz Claudio Marigo Much of the Brazilian Amazon remains accessible only by small boats, including the Rio Negro basin. Here, researchers conducting a long-term mammalian parasite study have rediscovered a forgotten bearded saki primate: Chiropotes israelita.1 Small, dark, and shy, Chiropotes lives high in trees. Its elusive nature and remote habitat contributed to the poor understanding of its taxonomy, says Shawn Lehman, anthropology

Jian Ni spent more than a decade outside of China, earning his PhD at Cambridge University and joining Human Genome Sciences of Rockville, Md., when it was still a small company. He kept close tabs on events back home and regularly traveled to China to keep in touch with colleagues. When he finally returned last April to start his own biotechnology company, his contacts in Asia and the United States proved essential to his success in obtaining corporate partners. "We are focusing on licensing

Thom Graves Media Recent findings have some researchers and health professionals calling statins the next aspirin. Some 25 million people worldwide take these enzyme inhibitors to lower cholesterol, creating a nearly $20 billion (US) market in the process. But just as aspirin has expanded its repertoire beyond headaches, statins are showing promise in treating ailments such as Alzheimer disease, multiple sclerosis, and osteoporosis, and some researchers think they could prevent cancer. Nevert

Courtesy of Hannah Carey  OUT COLD: The Spermophilus tridecemlineatus or thirteen-lined ground squirrel, assumes a spherical posture when in torpor to reduce its surface to volume ratio and therefore rate of heat loss. Its heart rate will go as low as 3-5 beats per minute and its body temperature to just a degree or so above ambient temperature. In this cold room, that's 3° to 4° C. As days shorten and the cold encroaches, roughly two dozen mammalian species fatten up and settl

D.F. Dowd Though coined 40 years ago,1 a lot of people still ask, "What's that?" when the term systems biology comes up. "It is used in so many different contexts, nobody is really clear what you mean by it," says John Yates III, a professor at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. He's not the only one stumped by the term's meaning. David Placek, president of Sausalito, Calif.-based Lexicon Branding, a company that cooks up names for pharmaceutical products such as Velcade and Me

Ned Shaw The public distrusts their science and even colleagues can question their motives, but researchers in controversial fields say they're making the world a better place. "I can't think of more important work that I could be doing [for public health]," says Jim Swauger, a toxicologist at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Tobacco companies? A great place to contribute to public health? It's no joke to Tony Albino, whose long track record in cancer research and stint as director of the Amer

Research Briefs Eating for Two, or an Entire Lineage; Serine at the Start of Life; Interdisciplinary Research Eating for Two, or an Entire Lineage Courtesy of Randy Jirtle Duke University researchers give a new twist to the old adage, "You are what you eat." By feeding female agouti (Avy) mice methyl-rich supplements such as folic acid and vitamin B12, Randy Jirtle and Robert Waterland reduced agouti gene expression in their offspring. This change, caused by direct methylation of a transp

5-Prime | Prions - The Terminators What are they? The prion protein (PrP) is a widely expressed, membrane-associated protein transcribed from the PRNP gene, which is highly conserved among mammals. PrPs exist in two forms: a common, harmless alpha-helical form, and a rare beta-sheet form that causes fatal mammalian brain diseases such as scrapie, Creutzfeld-Jacob disease, and mad cow disease. Prion diseases collectively are called spongiform encephalopathies, causing sponge-like vacuoles in

 NETWORKED: (A) Effects of the gal4D+gal perturbation are superimposed on a gene interaction network… Click for larger version (92K) Large-scale biology once conjured images of brute-force genetic screens resulting in collections of mutants. More recently, it has meant genome sequencing on unprecedented scales. But today, as this issue's Hot Papers demonstrate, the leading edge in large-scale biology is proteomics. As in the large-scale efforts of the past, researchers rely on simp

Courtesy of California Department of Health Services Faster than an injection, more reinforcing than crack cocaine: Smoking a cigarette speeds nicotine to the brain faster than any other delivery method, giving smokers precise control over their exact nicotine dose with each puff they take. It turns out that those two attributes--speed and control--greatly enhance nicotine's addictive effect on the brain. "It's not just the drug, but how you take it," says Timothy Baker, associate director, U