Parasites' genetic code 'cracked'

[AlGore-08.com]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4681707.stm

International scientists say they have sequenced the genomes of three parasites responsible for diseases that kill more than 150,000 people a year.

Their understanding should help with treatments for Chagas disease, African sleeping sickness and leishmaniasis caused by the three pathogens.

(snip)

The three parasites - Trypanosoma crucei, Trypanosoma cruzi and leishmania major - contain between 8,000 and 12,000 genes, but have more than 6,000 in common.

Najib El-Saued, molecular biologist at the Institute for Genomic Research, Rockville, the US, said this meant it might be possible to make drugs to fight all three diseases at once.

More than 500 million people are at risk for one or more of these diseases so the potential of the scientists' findings is huge, said the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative.

(more... )

[earthboundmisfit]

1. I'm betting a high percentage of Iraq vets will come back w/Leishmaniasis

Nasty stuff, hard to treat, and not well known (yet) in the U.S.:

From Spring 2004 Deployment Quarterly:
Parasite In Sand Fly Bite Big Concern For Military, And Medical Providers
A little-known parasite that causes chronic, festering sores will be returning home with some of Operation Iraqi Freedom's warfighters.

Cutaneous leishmaniasis, which affects the skin, is caused by a sand fly bite that deposits the parasite that eventually causes weeping sores that don't heal as quickly as regular sores.

"The majority of these are lesions on the face or on the hands over joints. So in the short term, it's just not pleasant to have a lesion that won't heal potentially for up to a year - and some of these get quite large," said Army Lt. Col. Peter Weina, a "leish" expert at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research...

more at:
www.deploymentlink.osd.mil/news/dquarterly/spring04/sand_flies.htm

[WhiteTara]

7. wow can you imagine what that would mean

to a diabetic? That is the biggest scare, wounds that won't heal.

[Psephos]

2. Three parasites

"International scientists say they have sequenced the genomes of three parasites responsible for diseases that kill more than 150,000 people a year."

I thought you were going to say they were identified as Bush, Cheney, and Rove.

[merwin]

6. LOL, good one.

[drhilarius]

3. And to think none of this would be possible w/o...

the incredible theories posited by intelligent design!:sarcasm:

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

4. What a great programmer God is. Junk DNA. Genetic diseases. Appendix. Etc.

[Psephos]

5. What bears comment is that DNA works so well, not that it has flaws

The junk codons, for example, are starting to look like they aren't junk. At least some of the junk is more likely meta-genetic (DNA whose job is to control other DNA).

A lot of things we take as faults or failures in the body (cancer is a great example) are actually tradeoffs made to advance a different agenda. Nature does not care one whit about individual survivorship, especially after reproduction. Cancer, to be specific, is the price of having plasticity (tissue that can change form or function). The cells in the body that are most suceptible to change or renewal (colon lining, epithelium of mouth and throat, breast, testicles, skin) are the the ones most likely to develop cancer.

You "catch" and "cure" cancer in your own body dozens of times per day. Until the advent of life-stretching technologies, most people died of other diseases before probability caught up with them and let a precancer slip through the multiple back-up systems designed to eradicate it.

The appendix is not an error of programming, but a vestigial structure leftover from an earlier era when our bodies had need of different digestive capabilities. Vestigial, or more precisely, made-over or re-purposed structures, are the very stuff of evolution. Everything in our bodies is made over from something else.

If you read this book, Genome, by Matt Ridley, I'll bet you never disparage the quality of programming in DNA again.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060932902/qid=1121401370/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-5575623-4847238?v=glance&s=books

Peace.

EDIT: changed subject line to be more clear

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

11. Good stuff

I actually have read "Genome" (and many other books on evolutionary biology and primatology). It all fascinates me.

My point was simply that if "intelligent design" were true, the appendix wouldn't exist. You're correct that many bodily problems arise from tradeoffs, but the appendix is not one of them. No intelligent designer would put an appendix in a modern human.

You're totally correct that so-called "junk" DNA is not entirely junk. We don't know what fraction serves some useful purpose, but I doubt it will turn out to be 100%. Just as human-written computer code often includes junk, so too--I expect--does our DNA. If God were all-knowing, he/she/they would never have so much garbage in her/his/their code.

Besides, "intelligent design" is a theory of nothing. It CANNOT explain our origins because it fails to explain who designed the designer. There must be an origin to intelligence somewhere. Evolution is an outstanding theory. "Intelligent design" seeks to discredit a perfectly sound theory with a non-theory of our origins.

[Psephos]

12. Thanks for clarifying; excellent post

We seem to share a lot of the same views.

That question about who designed the designer has always struck me as all that needs to be said regarding ID. As LaPlace said regarding God as the universe's watchmaker, "Sir, I have no need of that hypothesis."

It's rather like the old myth regarding the world resting on the back of a turtle, which stands on another turtle, which stands....

Peace.

[aresef]

8. "...scientists say they have sequenced the genomes of three parasites..."

They finally figured out DeLay, Frist, and Santorum? THANK YOU GOD!

*rimshot*

[smirkymonkey]

9. You mean there's a genetic code for Republicans?

Wow, who knew?

[frustrated_lefty]

10. You hadn't heard?

1) blue-eyed
2) blonde-haired
3) aquiline features

It only takes 3 parasites to spread the disease, but the ruling parasite MUST remain pure. :p