When scientists first read out the human genome 15 years ago, there were high hopes that wed soon understand how traits like height are inherited. It hasnt been easy. A huge effort to find height-related genes so far only explains a fraction of this trait.

Now scientists say theyve made some more headway. And the effort is not just useful for understanding how genes determine height, but how theyre involved in driving many other human traits.

At first, these problems didnt seem to be so complicated. The 19th-century monk Gregor Mendel discovered that traits in his garden peas, like smoothness and color, could be passed predictably from one generation to the next.

But Joel Hirschhorn, a geneticist at Boston Childrens Hospital and the Broad Institute, says it became evident that most stories of inheritance were not so simple. Height turns out to be a prime example.

Peoples height didnt behave like Mendels peas, Hirschhorn says. It wasnt like they you had two tall people and theyd either have a tall [child] or a short [child]. Often the child was partway between the parents.

Scientists explained this 100 years ago, when they realized that height was influenced by many genes, and each makes a small contribution.

So when the human genome was sequenced, scientists like Hirschhorn thought they could plumb that data to track all the height genes, and finally understand how height and in fact most other human traits are shaped by our genes.

That effort started slowly. But now, Hirschhorn says, For height there are about 700 variants known to affect height, each of them usually with a pretty small effect on height, usually like a millimeter or less.

That massive global effort has involved studying the genes of more than 700,000 volunteer subjects. Even so, the traits theyve found only explain about a quarter of the inherited height factors.

And, frustratingly, for most of those variants scientists have no idea what they actually do.

Mostly the variants crop up in mysterious bits of DNA between genes on our chromosomes. That makes it hard to figure out their roles.

So Hirschhorn and his army of colleagues, who reported on the effort last weekin the journal Nature, tried a new tack.

Their study focused only on variants that are directly in the genes themselves. By knowing that the genes do, they can understand better how variants might influence height. For example, one is in a gene that influences hormones that regulate growth.

The variants within genes are uncommon, but some have a remarkably large influence on height.

We found some that, if you carry them, you might actually be an inch taller or an inch shorter, as opposed to just a millimeter difference that we found with the previous variants, Hirschhorn says.

Scientists are still very far from identifying all the genes involved with stature, but these new findings do help them better understand the natural biochemistry that influences height.

So far most of our understanding of height has come from scientists who study children who have abnormal growth patterns, according to Constantine Stratakis, a pediatrician and scientific director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

There are rare experiments of nature that have told us these genes are involved in the regulation of growth, he says. In fact, he discovered one of those rare genes, linked to a trait called gigantism.

It leads to babies that double or triple their length in the first year of life, he says.

These natural experiments have been most useful for treating height disorders, but Stratakis hopes that eventually the genome-search methods will provide leads for future treatments.

The bigger lesson here is figuring out how the biology of a complex trait like height really works.

Rare variants can sometimes make a big difference, but most of the time its all about systems that interact that define how an organism behaves, or grows, or has a disease, develops a trait and so on, Stratakis says. And although its humbling to see the complexity, at this point its not unexpected.

Hirschhorn and his colleagues are expanding their already massive study of 700,000 subjects. That approach has drawn skepticism from some scientists, who think its a waste of effort.

David Goldstein, a professor of genetics at Columbia University, says an expanded effort could ultimately implicate every gene in existence, and that hardly helps scientists narrow down the biological factors that contribute to height.

Its likely scientists will never be able to figure out what these hundreds of common variants do to influence height, Goldstein says. Instead, a much better strategy is what Hirschhorn used in this latest study: looking for rare variants that pack a big punch.

Hirschhorn is undeterred.

We probably wont get all of the way to explaining 100 percent of the genetic factors, but in some sense thats not really our goal, Hirschhorn says. Our goal is to use the genetics to do our best at understanding the biology.

To that end, Hirschhorn and his colleagues are not just looking at height; theyre digging into traits that make people susceptible to diabetes and obesity.

The rest is here:
Genetics of Height is Way Complex, It Turns Out - KQED

Progressing at breakneck speed, genetic engineering has seen significant advancements since the first time Jamie Metzl addressed the topic at the Vail Symposium in 2015 to a sold-out audience. Metzl will return today, offering the latest update on the science and implications of this world-changing technology.

Metzl, an annual speaker at the Symposium, is a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council and an expert on Asian affairs and biotechnology policy. He previously served as executive vice president of the Asia Society, deputy staff director of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, senior coordinator for International Public Information at the U.S. State Department, director for multilateral affairs on the National Security Council and as a human-rights officer for the United Nations in Cambodia.

Also a novelist, Metzl explores the challenging issues raised by new technologies and revolutionary science in his science fiction writing. His latest novel, Eternal Sonata, imagines a future global struggle to control the science of extreme human life extension. This world, according to Metzl, is not far off.

Jamie Metzl is a brilliant thinker and eloquent speaker who will be discussing a captivating subject based very much in reality, said Kris Sabel, Vail Symposium executive director. His background in biotechnology allows him to understand this complex science, his experience with international affairs lets him place science in a geopolitical context and his dynamic and creative mind can break it all down into digestible information for everyone

Here, Metzl elaborates on the progress of the genetics revolution, his new book, how this unique science fits into the landscape of technological breakthroughs and how the new administration may impact scientific progress.

VAIL SYMPOSIUM: What sort of progress has the genetics revolution made since you first addressed the issue in front of the Vail Symposium audience two years ago?

METZL: The genetics revolution is charging forward at a blistering, exponentially accelerating pace. Virtually every day, major progress is being made deciphering the genome; describing gene-editing tools to alter the genetic makeup of plants, animals or even humans; and outlining how gene drives can be used to push genetic changes across populations. Even if this rate of change slows, then its absolutely clear to me that these new technologies will transform health care in the short to medium term and alter our evolution as a species in the medium to long term.

VS: Despite your scholarly background on the topic, youve again chosen to use science fiction writing as a way to encompass real issues surrounding the progress in genetics science. How does your new book, Eternal Sonata, based in 2025, two years after the setting of your first genetics thriller, Genesis Code, reflect the true pace, opportunities and consequences of genetic science?

METZL: The genetic revolution is too important to be left only or even primarily to the experts. I write nonfiction articles and spend a lot of time with expert groups, but the general public must be an equal stakeholder in the dialogue about our genetic future. I aspire for my novels to be fun and exciting, but also to help people who might be a little afraid of science find a more accessible on-ramp to thinking about the many complex, challenging human issues associated with technological innovation.

I fully believe well be seeing significant growth in human health and lifespans throughout the coming decades, but this progress will also raise some thorny questions well need to address. Like Genesis Code, its based on real science and tries to explore what it will mean on a human level when new technologies begin to transform our understanding of our own mortality.

VS: How much weight should society put on concerns and opportunities of genetics science, or actually making conscious alterations to humans as a species?

METZL: Advances in genetic technologies will help us live longer, healthier, more robust lives, and we should all be very, very excited about that. Like all technologies, however, there will also be new opportunities for abuse. Thats why we need to have the broadest, most inclusive global dialogue possible to help us develop new norms and standards that can guide our actions going forward. The technologies are new, but the best values we will need to deploy to use them wisely are old.

VS: Has there, then, been any progress in policy to regulate genetics science or legal framework created to limit the radical changes this could have on society?

METZL: There is a real mismatch between the rapid pace of scientific advancement and the glacial pace of regulation. On the one hand, we dont want over-regulation killing this very promising field in its relative infancy. On the other, it is clear that all aspects of altering the human genome must be regulated. This challenge is all the greater because different countries have different belief systems and ethical traditions, so there is a deep need for a global norm-creation and then regulatory harmonization process.

VS: Do you have any insight on how changes in the administration will affect progress in this field of science?

METZL: Many people are worried about how the new administration will deal with these very complex scientific issues. Viewing genetic technologies in the context of the abortion debate would be a significant blow to this work in the United States. But the science is global, and even if the U.S. shuts down all of its labs for ideological or other reasons, then the science will advance elsewhere. Well lose our lead building the future as we wait forever for the coal mining and low-end manufacturing jobs to come back.

More:
Biotechnology xpert Jamie Metzl addresses realities of genetics revolution, Feb. 9 - Vail Daily News

In Soviet Russia, the science tests you.

A few years ago, one of us (Ian) was lucky enough to be invited to visit the N.I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry in St Petersburg, Russia. Every plant breeder or geneticist knows of Nikolai Vavilov and his ceaseless energy in collecting important food crop varieties from all over the globe, and his application of genetics to plant improvement.

Vavilov championed the idea that there were Centres of Origin (or Diversity) for all plant species, and that the greatest variation was to be found in the place where the species evolved: wheat from the Middle East; coffee from Ethiopia; maize from Central America, and so on.

Hence the Centres of Origin (commonly known as the Vavilov Centres) are where you should start looking to find genotypes the set of genes responsible for a particular trait with disease resistance, stress tolerance or any other trait you are looking for. This notion applies to any species, which is why you can find more human genetic variation in some African countries than in the rest of the world combined.

By the late 1920s, as director of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Vavilov soon amassed the largest seed collection on the planet. He worked hard, he enjoyed himself, and drove other eager young scientists to work just as hard to make more food for the people of the Soviet Union.

However, things did not go well for Vavilov politically. How did this visionary geneticist, who aimed to find the means for food security, end up starving to death in a Soviet gulag in 1943?

Enter the villain, Trofim Lysenko, ironically a protg of Vavilovs. The notorious Vavilov-Lysenko antagonism became one of the saddest textbook examples of a futile effort to resolve scientific debate using a political approach.

Lysenkos name leapt from the pages of history and into the news when Australias Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel, mentioned him during a speech at a meeting of chief scientists in Canberra this week.

Finkel was harking back to Lysenko in response to news that US President Donald Trump had acted in January to censor scientific data regarding climate change from the Environmental Protection Agency. Lysenkos story reminds us of the dangers of political interference in science, said Finkel:

Lysenko believed that successive generations of crops could be improved by exposing them to the right environment, and so too could successive generations of Soviet citizens be improved by exposing them to the right ideology.

So while Western scientists embraced evolution and genetics, Russian scientists who thought the same were sent to the gulag. Western crops flourished. Russian crops failed.

The emerging ideology of Lysenkoism was effectively a jumble of pseudoscience, based predominantly on his rejection of Mendelian genetics and everything else that underpinned Vavilovs science. He was a product of his time and political situation in the young USSR.

In reality, Lysenko was what we might today call a crackpot. Among other things, he denied the existence of DNA and genes, he claimed that plants selected their mates, and argued that they could acquire characteristics during their lifetime and pass them on. He also espoused the theory that some plants choose to sacrifice themselves for the good of the remaining plants another notion that runs against the grain of evolutionary understanding.

Pravda formerly the official newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party celebrated him for finding a way to fertilise crops without applying anything to the field.

None of this could be backed up by solid evidence. His experiments were not repeatable, nor could his theories claim overwhelming consensus among other scientists. But Lysenko had the ear of the one man who counted most in the USSR: Joseph Stalin.

The Lysenko vs Vavilov/Mendel/Darwin argument came to a head in 1936 at the Conference of the Lenin Academy when Lysenko presented his -ism.

In the face of scientific opinion, and the overwhelming majority of his peers, Pravda declared Lysenko the winner of the argument. By 1939, after quite a few scientists had been imprisoned, shot or disappeared, including the director of the Lenin Institute, there was a vacancy to be filled. And the most powerful man in the country filled it with Trofim Lysenko. Lysenko was now Vavilovs boss.

Within a year, Vavilov was captured on one of his collection missions and interrogated for 11 months. He was accused of being a spy, having travelled to England and the United States, and been a regular correspondent with many geneticists outside the Soviet Union.

It did not help his cause that he came from a family of business people, whereas Lysenko was of peasant stock and a Soviet ideologue. Vavilov was sent to a gulag where, tragically, he died in 1943.

Meanwhile, his collection in Leningrad was in the middle of a 900-day siege. It only survived thanks to the sacrifice of his team who formed a militia to prevent the starving population (and rats) from eating the collection of more than 250,000 types of seeds, fruits and roots even growing the potatoes in their stock near the front to ensure the tubers did not die before losing their viability.

In 1948, the Lenin Academy announced that Lysenkoism should be taught as the only correct theory, and that continued until the mid-1960s.

Thankfully, in the post-Stalin era, Lysenko was slowly sidelined along with his theory. Today it is Vavilov who is considered a Soviet hero.

In 1958, the Academy of Science began awarding a medal in his honour. The leading Russian plant science institute is named in his honour, as is the Saratov State Vavilov Agrarian University. In addition, an asteroid, a crater on the Moon and two glaciers bear his name.

Since 1993, Bioversity International has awarded Vavilov Frankel (after Australian scientist Otto Frankel) fellowships to young scientists from developing countries to perform innovative research on plant genetic resources.

Meanwhile, research here in Australia, led by ARC Discovery Early Career Fellow Lee Hickey, we are continuing to find new genetic diversity for disease resistance in the Vavilov wheat collection.

In the post-Soviet era, students of genetics and agriculture in Russia are taught of the terrible outcomes of the applications of Lysenkoism to Soviet life and agricultural productivity.

Lysenkoism is a sad and terrible footnote in agricultural research, more important as a sadly misused -ism in the hands of powerful people who opt for ideology over fact. Its also a timely reminder of the dangers of political meddling in science.

More here:
The tragic story of Soviet genetics shows the folly of political meddling in science - The Conversation AU

February 08, 2017 08:00 ET | Source: Fulgent Genetics, Inc.

TEMPLE CITY, Calif., Feb. 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fulgent Genetics, Inc. (Nasdaq:FLGT) (Fulgent Genetics or thecompany) today announced that its fourth quarter and full year 2016 financial results will be released after market close on Monday, February 27, 2017 . The companys Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ming Hsieh, its Chief Science officer Dr. Harry Gao, and its Chief Financial Officer Paul Kim will host an investment community conference call the same day at 5:00 PM ET (2:00 PM PT) to discuss the results and answer questions.

The call can be accessed through a live audio webcast in the Investor section of the companys website, http://www.fulgentgenetics.com, and through a live conference call by calling 1-855-321-9535, passcode # 65226206. An audio replay will be available in the investors section of the companys website or by calling 1-855-859-2056 through March 6, 2017.

About Fulgent Genetics

Fulgent Genetics is a rapidly growing technology company with an initial focus on offering comprehensive genetic testing to provide physicians with clinically actionable diagnostic information they can use to improve the overall quality of patient care. The company has developed a proprietary technology platform that integrates sophisticated data comparison and suppression algorithms, adaptive learning software, advanced genetic diagnostics tools and integrated laboratory processes. This platform allows the company to offer a broad and flexible test menu while maintaining accessible pricing, high accuracy and competitive turnaround times. The company believes its current test menu, which includes more than 18,000 single-gene tests and more than 275 pre-established, multi-gene, disease-specific panels, offers more genes for testing than its competitors in todays market, which enables it to provide expansive options for test customization and clinically actionable results.

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Fulgent Genetics to Announce Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2016 Financial Results on February 27, 2017 - GlobeNewswire (press release)