Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. used the cutting-edge DNA sequencing and identified the radical genomic rearrangements that occur only in tumors, not in healthy cells.

The DNA rearrangements that occur in cancerous cells are unique, which makes it easier for scientists to detect them.

The new method to detect the DNA rearrangements was dubbed PARE, for Personalized Analysis of Rearranged Ends, said Victor Velculescu, an associate professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins University and senior author of the study.

PARE could also be used to determine if a patient’s cancer was completely removed by surgery, said the researchers.

The researchers hope PARE’s cancer detection methods will be accessible to clinicians and their patients within the next two years. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/health/2010-02/19/c_13179346.htm

Robin Lovell-Badge, a stem cell expert at Britain’s National Institute for Medical Research, and a member of the group conducting the study, said there are two main types of experiments: altering an animal’s genes by adding human DNA or replacing a specific animal sequence with its human counterpart.

The researchers said they are now trying to determine where the line should be drawn on experiments that use human material in animals. At the moment, the regulation on how much human DNA can be put into an animal is vague.

Scientists want to make sure the public is aware of what is happening in laboratories before proceeding further. They said they recognized people might be nervous about experiments where animals were given human features or brain cells.

“We are trying to work out what is reasonable,” said Martin Bobrow, chairman of the group conducting the study.

Controversy erupted in Britain after scientists announced plans to create human embryos using empty cow and rabbit eggs two years ago. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/11/content_12430412.htm

The unnamed patient, suffering from beta-thalassemia, was treated in Paris in 2007 and didn’t need a transfusion in two years, according to a study published in the science journal Nature.

Beta-thalassaemia is an inherited blood disorder that affects the body’s ability to create red blood cells.

The common treatment of the disease is bone marrow transplant, but only a small number of patients have chances to receive this treatment because of difficulties in finding the right type of donor.

A team, led by Philippe Leboulch of Harvard Medical School, used a virus as a “Trojan horse” to deliver a slice of DNA into cells which were corrected for the flawed beta-LCR gene.

“At present, approximately three years post-transplantation, the biological and clinical evolution is remarkable and the patient’s quality of life is good,” the study of the team said.

But researchers sounded a note of caution, saying there was a possibility that the patient could develop leukaemia in the future due to side effects from the gene therapy.

Gene therapy has been used since the late 1990s, offering the hope of blocking or reversing inherited disease.

However, successes so far have been few, limited to single-gene disorders, and carried out only under tightly-controlled lab conditions.

The successes only include six children, suffering from a retinal disease called Leber’s congenital amaurosis, and two adults with a myeloid disorder, a disease of white blood cells. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/health/2010-09/16/c_13514512.htm