I can´t resist posting this: the English Wikipedia has a list of faux-pas what to to and what not to do when you are travelling, yea, yea!
Genomics of a single cell
This is a fascinating area – methods for amplifying DNA from single cells for complete genome sequencing. The current approach uses isothermal multiple displacement amplification MDA, followed by 454 sequencing. Biotechnology is getting closer towards its origins, yea, yea.
Addendum
We can now add also single cell protein analysis – microfluidic devices that can dissolve and separate proteins before quantifying them by fluorescence in confocal microscopy. Several groups tried to increase the signal-noise ratio by decreasing capillary dimension (leading to clogging) while the new study widens the excitation laser.
Towards a framework of SNP interaction
The forthcoming SNP whole genome association studies will draw a lot of attention. I already have the problem of many interacting SNPs where I am suggesting to divide significant results in 3 compartments – local (LD effects), longrange (cis transcription factor effects) and pathway effects (gene family, system wide effects). The main problem are false positives that can even not be overcome by techniques like FDR. Yea, yea.
Systems biology
A nature genetics paper shows that a single mutation in Pseudomonas has pleiotropic effects – not limited to the level of proteins in the particular network but changing also their relationships. Sounds like a soccer match where a player has to leave the court – which changes positions of all remaining players. “The adaptive mutation draws proteins into tighter coregulation”, yea, yea.
Alternative Impact Factors
There is no need to say that impact factors have largely failed to measure scientific value – even within selected groups (look for the Wikipedia article).
But are there any alternatives to ISI-Thompson? I haven’t found so many, the Hirsch factor, Google Scholar page rank, or Elseviers Scopus. Of course download figures of open access journals help to define popularity. But is this impact?
The latest development are citation management systems like CiteULike or Connotea that require to make all your readings public. Maybe its true what 80-year-old Garfield wrote in the BMJ: “there is no substitute for judgement, quality, and relevance. Impact and other citation measures merely report facts.” So blogs are even more important, yea, yea.
Merlin
Merlin by Goncalo Abecasis is probably the most widely used linkage program. By using sparse tree approach it is extremely fast. I only wonder why its name is not Excalibur (the name of the famous sword that helped Artus to marry Guineva, to banish the Saxons and eventually becoming king of Brittania). Goncalo moved to the US – are you still working on that? Yea, yea.
Gadfly
Just learned from the brandnew (German) book of Hannes Stein “Endlich Nichtdenker / How to become a non intellectual” that Americans call their renegate – apostate – dissident or unconventional intellectuals gadflies. Yea, yea.
Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’arets…
The genesis – the common book of Jewish and Christian faith – reports the begining of the world. Interestingly , the creation of living things include also genes in the same instance: “1.11 let the earth spawn grass and leaves that make seeds…” We have been told that reverse genetics may not be used any more. Whats about forward genetics? Yea, yea.
Munich, Pettenkofer, Nazis and Public Health: An obligation
Reading the biography of Max Pettenkofer you will discover unexpected turns (starting his career as a third class actor in Augsburg) but also recognize him as one of the founders of Public Health (with a big impact on Munich city development by canalization and foundation of a fire department). Munich had been on the forefront even before the foundation of the famous Boston Public Health school.
With Volksgesundheit the idea of Public Health became perverted by the Nazis. With Erbgesundheit in mind the Nazis even tried to eradicate genes from the gene pool. Munich became Hauptstadt der Bewegung, and its university even awarded Mengele (the later physician in Auschwitz) a PhD degree.
During post-war period there was probably no epidemiological research in Munich, with Public Health only an unimportant discipline in the medical curriculum. When doing a first major epidemiological study in Munich at the end of the 1980ies and a first genetic population based study in the mid 1990ies, I felt a particular obligation for informed consent where any misuse of genetic data should be avoided.
Unfortunately, these goals are being threadened by an increasing ignorance of informed consent and missing legislative framework for genetic testing in Germany.
10 commandments
- There is only one human genome.
- You should not misuse it for any other purpose than continuing human lineage
- Observe the order of exons and introns and nongenic sequences.
- Recognize recombination and preserve it for a long lifespan.
- Do not knockout genes.
- Do not mix genomes.
- Do not steal sequences from other genomes.
- Do not assign wrong functions to genes.
- Do not use chromosomes in other cells.
- Do not be jealous on your neighbours sequence nor on your neighbors wife sequence nor on your neigbours children sequence.
Yea, yea.
Finestière, finis terrae, end of world
The French department Finestière of Brittany is the named end of world and always nicely illuminated by impressive phares. Where is the end of the submicron world – at GFP labelled proteins?
Siddur, mantra, prayer
The Jewish siddur, the Buddist mantra and Christian prayer all contain repeating elements. Why does our genome also has has so many long and short interdispersed repeats – to give life a stable background on an ever changing environment? Yea, yea.
SQL injection and retrovirus infection
What is similiar to SQL injection (in webforms) and retrovirus infection (of mammals)? I think there is always a vulnerable situation (tainted variable by unexpected data entry – or double strand break and ligation) that allows foreign code to be inserted. What is different? Retrovirus insertion is probably position specific while SQL injection can even determine its own target. Yea, yea.
Not even one cigarette
New research in the Lancet of Aug 19 shows that even smoking only 1-2 cigarettes a day increases the risk of acute myocardial infarction in the INTERHEART study – as well as chewing tobacco. Although the investigators tested nearly everything (no benefit also by beedies and sheesha!) they missed Bavarian snuff, yea, yea.
Avalanche – backstage story
-moblog- The next Lancet will publish my editorial on the b2AR and asthma association – “Has all been said?” This is to honour my favorite comedian Karl Valentin “It has all been said – but not by everybody”.
I have to confess that I wanted a completely different title “Search and rescue after the avalanche” where I described the tedious work to find all buried corpses under tons of snow – in analogy for the many genetic association studies – fearing already the next avalanche of genomewide SNP scans. Renember – very dangerous – steep 45o slopes, North West and new snow. Yea, yea.