JacketFlap connects you to the work of more than 200,000 authors, illustrators, publishers and other creators of books for Children and Young Adults. The site is updated daily with information about every book, author, illustrator, and publisher in the children's / young adult book industry. Members include published authors and illustrators, librarians, agents, editors, publicists, booksellers, publishers and fans. Join now (it's free).
Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.
Blog Posts by Tag
In the past 7 days
Blog Posts by Date
Click days in this calendar to see posts by day or month
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Dawn Field, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 13 of 13
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: Dawn Field in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
Even when speakers are proficient in English, Scientific English can still present challenges. Some bill it as ‘a foreign language’ even for native English speakers. Anyone who has learned how to use it might first laugh at that comparison and then grit their teeth on the grain of truth. Learning conversational English is a big enough task. Getting good enough to build a career in science fluently using Scientific English is a Herculean task.
Do you have back pain? Statistics show you likely do. Or you have had it in the past or will in the future. Back pain can be a million different things, and you can get it an equal number of ways. Until you've suffered it, you don't realise how disruptive it can be. Trying to fix back pain is a superb way to make people understand the power of scientific method and how to use it.
Many say now is the century of biology, the study of life. Genomics is therefore “front-and-centre”, as DNA, is the software of life. From staring at stars, we are now staring at DNA. We can’t use our eyes, like we do in star gazing, but just as telescopes show us the far reaches of the Universe, DNA sequencing machines are reading out our genomes at an astonishing pace.
Announced on January 13th by President Obama in his eighth and final State of the Union Address, the multi-billion dollar project will be led by US Vice President, Joe Biden, who has a vested interest in seeing new cures for cancer. Using genomics to cure cancer is being held on par with JFK’s desire in 1961 to land men on the moon.
Knowledge that we all have DNA and what this means is getting around. The informed public is well aware that our cells run on DNA software called the genome. This software is passed from parent to child, in the long line of evolutionary history that dates back billions of years – in fact, research published this year pushes back the origin of life on Earth another 300 million years.
It is hard to quantify the impact of ‘role-model’ celebrities on the acceptance and uptake of genetic testing and bio-literacy, but it is surely significant. Angelina Jolie is an Oscar-winning actress, Brad Pitt’s other half, mother, humanitarian, and now a “DNA celebrity”. She propelled the topic of familial breast cancer, female prophylactic surgery, and DNA testing to the fore.
Society owes a debt to Henrietta Lacks. Modern life benefits from long-term access to a small sample of her cells that contained incredibly unusual DNA. As Rebecca Skloot reports in her best-selling book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, the story that unfolded after Lacks died at the age of 31 is one of injustice, tragedy, bravery, innovation and scientific discovery.
Kuwait is changing the playing field. In early July, just days after the June 26th deadly Imam Sadiq mosque bombing claimed by ISIS, Kuwait ruled to instate mandatory DNA-testing for all permanent residents. This is the first use of DNA testing at the national-level for security reasons, specifically as a counter-terrorism measure. An initial $400 million dollars is set aside for collecting the DNA profiles of all 1.3 million citizens and 2.9 million foreign residents
Another ‘Awareness Day’, International Kissing Day, is coming up on July 6. It might not seem obvious but kissing, like most subjects can now be easily linked to the science of DNA. Thus, there could be no more perfect opener for my Double Helix column, given the elegance and beauty of a kiss. To start, there is the obvious biological link between kissing and DNA: propagation of the species. Kissing is not only pleasurable but seems to be a solid way to assess the quality and suitability of a mate.
One of the most fun and exciting sources of information available for free on the Internet are the videos found on the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) website. TED is a hub of stories about innovation, achievement and change, each artfully packaged into a short, highly accessible talk by an outstanding speaker. As of April 2015, the TED website boasts 1900+ videos from some of the most imminent individuals in the world. Selected speakers range from Bill Clinton and Al Gore to Bono and other global celebrities to a range of academics experts.
DNA is the foundation of life. It codes the instructions for the creation of all life on Earth. Scientists are now reading the autobiographies of organisms across the Tree of Life and writing new words, paragraphs, chapters, and even books as synthetic genomics gains steam. Quite astonishingly, the beautiful design and special properties of DNA makes it capable of many other amazing feats. Here are five man-made functions of DNA, all of which are contributing to the growing “industrial-DNA” phenomenon.
Watching the field of genomics evolve over the past 20 years, it is intriguing to notice the word ‘genome’ cozying up to the word ‘million’. Genomics is moving beyond 1k, 10k and 100k genome projects. A new courtship is blossoming.
The Obama Administration has just announced a Million Genomes Project – and it’s not even the first.
Now both Craig Venter and Francis Collins, leads of the private and public versions of the Human Genome Project, are working on their million-omes.
The company 23andMe might be the first ‘million-ome-aire’. By 2014, the company founded by Ann Wojcicki processed upwards of 800,000 customer samples. Pundit Eric Topol suggests in his article “Who Owns Your DNA” that without the skirmish with the FDA, 23andMe would already have millions.
In 2011, China’s BGI, the world’s largest genomics research company, boldly announced a million human genomes project. Building on projects like the panda genome and the 3000 Rice Genomes project, the BGI is building new next-generation sequencing technologies to support its flagship project.
Also in 2011, the United States Veterans Affairs (VA) Research and Development program launched its Million Veteran Program (MVP) aiming to build the world’s largest database of genetic, military exposure, lifestyle, and health information. The “large, diverse, and altruistic patient population” of the VA puts it ahead of the others in collecting samples.
Venter’s path will be through his non-profit Human Longevity, Inc (HLI), launched in San Diego, California in 2014 with $70 million in investor funding. To support the company’s tagline — “It’s not just a long life we’re striving for, but one which is worth living” — Venter aims to sequence a million genomes by 2020.
At a price tag of $1000 dollars per genome, one million genomes could cost a billion US dollars. The original human genome project cost $3 billion only 13 years ago, but produced 1 trillion US dollars in economic impact.
The Collins’ ‘million-ome’ will pull together new and existing genomes, with an initial budget of $215 million dollars. This includes genomes from the MVP, which has already enrolled 300,000 veterans and sequenced 200,000. The focus will initially be on cancer but subjects will be healthy and ill, men and women, old and young; it is the foundation of a Precision Medicine Initiative.
In addition to these projects we will have millions anyway. ARC Investment Analysis suggested we could see 4 to 34 billion human genomes by 2024 at historical rates of sequencing – if current trends in dropping costs and demand continue.
How could we have more genomes than humans living on earth? Cancer genomics is in ‘gold rush’ phase. Steve Jobs was famously one of the first 20 people to have his genome sequenced. He paid $100k but did so to also have the genome of the cancer that killed him sequenced. He left a personal genomics legacy to the world, but his investment in DNA sequencing also serves as a reminder that a genome is not the same as a cure. Hopes are high, though, especially for cancer diagnostics. The International Cancer Genomics Consortium is already backed with a billion dollar budget and the field continues to explode.
Further, an adult human body consists of 37 trillion genomes all working together (plus the 100 trillion genomes of the microbial cells in our microbiome). There is mounting evidence we are all genomic mosaics, meaning we all have more than one genome (e.g. from pre-cancerous cells, transplants, and mothers who carry the genomes of past live-born babies).
It is good to cultivate a healthy skepticism and not be drawn into the hype. Critics exist, as always. At the other end of the continuum, Ken Weiss of The Mermaid’s Tale blog, a geneticist himself, has outlined reasons to put valuable research dollars elsewhere than a million genomes project or precision medicine, but given than they will happen, he also contemplates what should be done with resulting data.
Eric Topol said in response to the rise of ‘million-ome’ projects, that there are now many 100k projects and he “might rather have 100,000 people with ‘pan-oromic definition’ than 1 million with just native DNA”. By high definition he means all the mapping (sensors, anatomy, environmental quantified, gut microbiome, etc.) that belongs to his vision of a “Google medical map”.
There are huge differences between “projections,” “announcements,” and “hard (published) data.” Big projects can fall by the way-side. 23andMe hit a barrier with the FDA decision. The BGI is still tooling up. Obama hasn’t yet secured a budget. Venter is giving himself time. Everyone is starting to think about genomes inside the systems in which they exist in (cells, organs, organisms, ecosystems).
Regardless of trajectory, it is a foregone conclusion that, counting all sources, the number of sequenced genomes will pass one million in 2015, if it hasn’t already.
Google is imagining the day when researchers compute over millions of genomes and is building the infrastructure to support it; Google Genomics has launched offering $25/year pricing to hold your genome in the Cloud.
Why stop at millions? Jong Bhak is calling for billions. He is suggesting that “the genomics era hasn’t even started.” Bhak, a leader of the Korean Personal Genomes Project, a project to sequence the genomes of all 50 million Koreans, has outlined a vision for a Billion Genome Project.
The first to talk of ‘a genome for everyone’ was perhaps George Church, technologist and founder of the Personal Genome Project. He wrote 2005 a paper entitled “The Personal Genome Project.” In it he recalled talking with Wally Gilbert that “Six billion base pairs for six billion people had a nice ring to it”—back in 1976, soon after Gilbert invented DNA sequencing, for which he won a Nobel Prize.
The fact that more voices in global science are debating the pros and cons of ‘millions and billions of genomes’ is evidence that 2015 marks a shift towards a Practical Genomics Revolution. It is becoming practical to think big(ger).
NHS England is creating 11 Genomic Medicine Centres designed to deliver its ambitious 100,000 Genomes Project. In the broader sense it is an undeniable sign that genomics is poised to transform human medicine by improving the efficacy of medical diagnosis and personalized treatment.
This is a major step in the implementation of the Genomics England initiative, which offers a high profile glimpse of a future in which it becomes commonplace to use genomic information to improve our lives – starting with our health. Located in major city hospitals from Newcastle to Manchester to Cambridge to London, these centres will collect samples from patients suffering from cancers and rare diseases and put the United Kingdom at the forefront of genomic medicine.
From each donated sample, taken with due diligence and promised anonymity, will come invaluable medical information married to genomic data. The complete data set will build a lasting knowledge legacy for future generations and is ideally just the start of what will come to be known as the ‘practical genomic revolution’.
Sampling 100,000 people is still only a tiny proportion of England’s 53 million inhabitants, but it means anyone living in this country will be far more likely to know someone who has contributed their genome to science in the hopes of helping humanity and eventually themselves.
Perhaps you have already entered the world of DNA self-study?
Completed in 2003, the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of the DNA double helix by Watson, Crick, Wilkins and Franklin, the Human Genome Project was the first “Big Science” project in biology. In only five decades, science has leapt from the discovery of the DNA helix to reading the entire human blueprint. In the last 12 years, ever-larger projects have followed, such as the 1000 and 10,000 genome projects, and the cost of sequencing a human genome plummeted to a level where the NHS can invest in a 100,000 Genomes Project as a crucial part of its strategy to protect and improve human health.
What might happen in the next five years? Where will we be by 2020?
As we enter the year 2015, few realize that it actually marks the 20th anniversary of the genomic revolution. It was in 1995 that Craig Venter, one of the leaders of the private human genome project and now founder of Human Longevity (a company working towards a million human genomes), and colleagues published the first complete genome sequence of a free-living organism – the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae. We now have the genomes of thousands of microbes and an array of species across the Tree of Life. Large-scale sequencing projects are taking off. This month alone saw announcements that the Smithsonian Institution will launch a virtual Biodiversity Genomics Institute on the back of its Global Genome Initiative, and Russia will create a DNA databank of every living thing by 2018.
The early signs of the coming ‘practical genomics revolution’ are growing more visible. Analysis of DNA is starting to impact us more directly. How many of us as individuals, or family units, have submitted our own DNA already for analysis of paternity, kinship, ancestry, or health? How many are even more ahead of the curve and ventured to submit samples to uBiome or the American Gut Project to look at gut microbes, our “second genome”? How many have checked the contents of food — is your hamburger really cow? Or used DNA information to breed animals, from dogs to cats to livestock, where the presence of the ‘pulled’ gene, which stops horns from developing in cattle is highly desirable?
Perhaps these scenarios are still far from common place, but they are certainly real.
The website DNA Testing Choice now holds a catalogue of hundreds of DNA testing options. The most famous, perhaps, 23andMe, a company that flew in the face of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and had its health-related genotyping services in the United States closed down in late 2013, is now open for business in the United Kingdom. Branded as a DNA ancestry company in the United States, it is now offering health-related reports in the UK-based arm of the company. The company advertised in late 2014 ‘what better Christmas gift to give than a genome?’ Pricing starts at £125.
The sequencing of large cohorts of humans and deeper research into the human microbiome, the trillions of microbes that live with us, will produce the science headlines of 2015 and beyond.
Will you or your loved ones have your genomes sequenced in 2015? Will you opt for participation in research projects that are opening their doors to the public or turn to the consumer genetic marketplace?
By 2020 society will likely look back on 2015 as a turning point in human history — the start of the ‘practical genomics revolution’.
