Posts tagged Sequencing
What is Bioinformatics?
May 8th
Bioinformatics is a relatively new field and as such, many people aren’t exactly sure what “bioinformatics” really is.
The NIH Biomedical Information Science and Technology Initiative defines bioinformatics as:
“Research, development, or application of computational tools and approaches for expanding the use of biological, medical, behavioral or health data, including those to acquire, store, organize, archive, analyze, or visualize such data.”
Still confused? Don’t fret, most people are when they hear that definition. I usually like to tell people:
“Bioinformatics combines the latest technology with biological research.”
Over the past decade or so, and even prior, computers have become an integral part of every industry. Biological More >
DNA sequencing helps discover cavemen’s tools and diet
Feb 17th
In the 1970s a team of archaeologists led by Carl Gustafson unearthed the remains of a single, 3-ton, male mastodon (Mammut americanum, a close relative of mammoths and elephants), hunted and butchered by a group of men at the Manis site in the state of Washington, USA (Gustafson 1979). Among the mastodon remains they found a spear point that pierced a rib bone. Luckily for us the hunters did not recover the projectile weapon. We thus have evidence of the technology that cavemen in the Americas used to secure their food.
Originally Gustafson and his colleagues dated the mastodon hunting at More >
Cancer Genomics: so many mutations!
Feb 18th
The human genome is the complete collection of over three billion bases in each of our cells. Cancers accumulate multiple changes, or mutations, in their DNA that contribute to the disease by changing how cells behave. For instance, cancers need nutrients to grow. Very often, they get these nutrients by producing signals that encourage new blood vessel formation. Finding the mutations that lead to cancer is very difficult. For one thing, even for cancers that affect the same tissue and look similar, the mutations can be very different. Also, one of the hallmarks of cancer is an increased rate of More >
Copy number variation in Schizophrenia
Sep 1st
Ever had the feeling you have lost your marbles? According to the Phrase Finder that expression has conveyed a sense of loss, anger, and more recently a lack of common sense or sanity. As it turns out it may be the loss of certain segments of DNA (rather than simple mutations like SNPs) that may have a lot to do with the origins of mental illnesses like schizophrenia.
Now before you start thinking that schizophrenics are the only ones to lose their marbles (or large sections of their genomes), It has been previously shown by work like that of Jonathan Sebat of More >
