Oct 2010
Going 'Beyond the Genome'
14/10/10 14:08 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
The most accurate estimate of the number of human genes is 22,333 human genes, and about 2,000 are highly predictive and medically actionable according to presentations given at BioMed Central's Beyond the Genome conference. S. Pelech wonders why despite the complete sequencing of the human genome for nearly a decade, it is still unresolved exactly how many human genes actually exist. He notes that phosphosites have been identified by mass spectrometry in cell lysate proteins that have since been deleted from Uniprot, while about 4 to 5 percent of human proteins predicted by genome sequencing are still not yet tracked in this repository. Read More...
Move Aside, Genome … It’s the Interactome’s Time to Shine
11/10/10 20:37 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
The New Scientist proposed that after genome sequencing, it’s the interactome (detailed maps maps of interactions between proteins, RNA, and genes) and the phenome (sum total of all traits, from genes to behaviour, that make up a living thing) that will take genetics to the next level. S. Pelech comments that based on data from the 1000 Genomes Project around 60 million human single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are projected to exist, and it will likely take several decades before most of the critical SNP's are actually identified and related to phenotype. Moreover, based on current capabilities and efforts expended on the proteomics front, linking the genomics and proteomics data towards a rationale and predictable understanding of phenotype is a herculean effort that will probably take another hundred years. Read More...
Human Genome Times 50 in One Small Flower
08/10/10 15:26 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
The rare white flower from Japan, the Paris japonica, has been found to have the longest genome in the world that with about 150 billion base pairs is about 50 times longer than that of a human being, and blogger Elizabeth Pennisi at ScienceShot suggests that "plants with lots of DNA have more trouble tolerating pollution and extreme climatic extinctions — and they grow more slowly than plants with less DNA, because it takes so long to replicate their genome." Based on other evidence, S. Pelech disagrees and provides several examples of species where there is a poor link if any between the size of a genome and the rate of growth, life span or evolutionary selection for these organisms. Read More...
What to Do with All That Data?
07/10/10 18:41 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Blogger Mike the Mad Biologist proposed that with genome sequencing getting faster and cheaper, the problem is evolving from how to sequence genomes to storing, processing and best make use of the information. S. Pelech agrees and notes that unless there is a well funded parallel program of biomedical research that can make sense of the genomics data from a proteomics perspective, the genome sequencing efforts will yield primarily correlative data that will offer limited risk assessment at best. Read More...
Hey Scientists! (Don't) Get a Life!
05/10/10 15:07 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Scott Kern at Johns Hopkins' Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center has observed that researchers — particularly cancer researchers at his institution — have apparently lost their passion for their work, and that patients are suffering as a result. His criticisms has raised the ire of many other bloggers , who have challenged his view. S. Pelech notes that the absence of trainees and established scientists during weekends and evenings in institutions does not mean that they are not still working. With the the advent of personal computers and the Internet, it is not necessary to come to work to read the literature, plan experiments and analyze the results. Read More...