The Paris japonica, a 12-inch (30-centimeter) flower native to Japan, has a genetic code 50 times long as that of a human being, researchers at London’s Kew Gardens discovered.

If laid end-to-end, this flower’s genome would stretch to more than 300 feet (about 91 meters), the researchers said.

A genome is the full complement of an organism’s DNA, complex molecules that direct the formation and function of all living organisms.

The size of an organism’s genome is typically measured by the number of base pairs — the building blocks of DNA.

The human genome has about 3 million bases and measures about 6 feet (1.8 meters) in length. The known organism with the second longest genome is the marbled lungfish, which has 130 million bases. And the newly discovered flower turns out to have 150 million bases.

However, researchers said bigger genomes don’t necessarily mean a more complex organism.

While genes are generally supposed to correspond to some traits in organisms, many genes don’t appear to correspond to anything. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/sci/2010-10/08/c_13546906.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