Category: News
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Should we bring back the Woolly Mammoth?
April 26, 2018 By Anthony King, UC San Diego As scientists get closer and closer to being able to bring extinct animals back to life, big questions emerge. What led to extinction in the first place? What would be the impacts on other species or the environment? Just because we can do it, does that…
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Earth BioGenome Project aims to sequence genomes of 1.5 million species
An international consortium of scientists is proposing a massive project to sequence, catalog and analyze the genomes of all known eukaryotic species on the planet, an undertaking the researchers say will take 10 years, cost $4.7 billion and require more than 200 petabytes of digital storage capacity. Eukaryotes include all organisms except bacteria and archaea. There are…
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Making the MinION
By Laurel Hamers David Deamer was driving through Oregon when he swerved his car to the side of the highway. He dug out a steno pad and a red pen—“the only pen I had”—and hastily recorded the thought that had come to him moments before. What if, he wondered, you could detect the genetic information encoded…
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UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute Head Joins Ambitious Project to Sequence Earth’s Life
Project Aims to Sequence DNA from All Complex Life on Earth SANTA CRUZ, CA – April 23, 2018 – The UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute’s Scientific Director and Biomolecular Engineering Professor David Haussler has joined forces with an international consortium of scientists, proposing the largest genome sequencing project to date: sequencing the DNA of each…
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UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute Celebrates National DNA Day
Participants Invited to Learn How Unlocking Life’s Genetic Code Will Impact Lives SANTA CRUZ, CA – April 18, 2018 – The UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute hosts a National DNA Day event on April 25, 2018 to highlight how genomic research at UC Santa Cruz is advancing new discoveries in fields as diverse as cancer…
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This Week in Nucleic Acids Research
April 11, 2018 University of California, Santa Cruz, researchers present a single-cell RNA sequencing method called Tn5Prime — a Smart-seq2 protocol that includes a Tn5 transposase-based 5′-capture step. “The Tn5Prime method dramatically streamlines the 5′ capture process and is both cost effective and reliable,” according to investigators, who applied the approach to both bulk RNA and individual…
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Reading the entire human genome – one long sentence at a time
April 10, 2018 by Tejas Yadav, The Conversation Fifteen years ago, the Human Genome Project announced they had cracked the code of life. Nonetheless, the published human genome map was incomplete and parts of our DNA remained to be deciphered. Now, a new study published in the journal Nature Biotechnology brings us closer to a complete genetic blueprint by using a…
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Q&A: UCSC’s Jenny Reardon on Genomic Research
April 11, 2018 BY JACOB PIERCE When Jenny Reardon was 11 years old, her father, a former Jesuit priest, told her, “Jenny, genetics is the future.” Encouraged by her intellectually curious dad, she dove head first into the sciences, winning a prize from the General Motors International Science and Engineering Fairat age 14. Reardon double-majored in…
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PanCancer Initiative Unearths Cancer’s Tangled Roots
April 6, 2018 Gen News Highlight Digging deeper than previous cancer genomic studies, the PanCancer Initiative has released an analysis of 33 types of cancer across more than 10,000 patients. The new analysis shows that all 33 cancer types, based on their cellular and genetic makeup and independent of their anatomic site of origin, could…
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Novato Buck researchers aid in groundbreaking cancer study
April 6, 2018 By Richard Halstead, Marin Independent Journal A cancer study whose researchers included scientists at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging concluded with a flurry of scientific papers this week that point to new avenues for cancer treatment. Different types of cancer have typically been classified by their origin in the body —…
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Biology’s moonshot: The mission to decode the DNA of all life
A new plan to sequence all Earth’s animals and plants could lead to medical and material advances that dwarf even what the Human Genome Project has achieved April 4, 2018 By Alice Klein BOB MURPHY has had some close shaves. He once found a deadly viper slithering into his sleeping bag in a Southeast Asian jungle.…
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California Congressman Introduces Bill to Promote Genetic, Genomic Testing
Feb 16, 2018 staff reporter NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – California State Representative Eric Swalwell (CA-D) has introduced legislation designed to promote the use of genetic and genomic testing in healthcare and advance precision medicine. Called the Advancing Access to Precision Medicine Act, the bill — cosponsored by Representatives John Shimkus (IL-R), Scott Peters (CA-D), Erik…