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Vertebrate Genomes Project
The Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP) is a project which aims to generate high-quality, complete reference genomes of all 66,000 vertebrate species. It is an international cooperation project with members from more than 50 separate institutions and was launched in February 2017. In October 2021, VGP partnered with Colossal Biosciences to sequence and assemble elephant genomes for preservation purposes. In April 2022, VGP partnered with the Human Genome Project and the African BioGenome Project for sequencing research. In July 2022, VGP and Colossal Biosciences announced that they successfully sequenced the entire Asian elephant genome; this is the first time that mammalian genetic code has been fully sequenced to this degree since the Human Genome Project was completed in the early 2000s. In November 2022, VGP successfully sequenced the Nile Rat genome in order to facilitate research on type 2 diabetes and the health effects of circadian rhythm A circadian rhythm (), or ci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colossal Biosciences
Colossal Biosciences is a biotechnology and genetic engineering company working to genetically resurrect the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, and the Dodo. It has claimed to have the first woolly mammoth hybrid calves by 2027 and will reintroduce them to the Arctic tundra habitat to restore the mammoth steppe grasslands and combat climate change. Endangered Asian elephants reportedly would have mammoth traits. Likewise, it plans to launch a thylacine research project to release Tasmanian tiger joeys back to their original Tasmanian and broader Australian habitat after a period of observation in captivity. The company develops genetic engineering and reproductive technology for conservation biology. It was founded in 2021 by George Church and Ben Lamm. History Foundation In a 2008 interview with ''The New York Times'', George Church first expressed his interest in engineering a hybrid Asian elephant-mammoth by sequencing the woolly mammoth genome. In 2012, Church was part of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying, mapping and sequencing all of the genes of the human genome from both a physical and a functional standpoint. It started in 1990 and was completed in 2003. It remains the world's largest collaborative biological project. Planning started after the idea was picked up in 1984 by the US government, the project formally launched in 1990, and was declared essentially complete on April 14, 2003, but included only about 85% of the genome. Level "complete genome" was achieved in May 2021, with a remaining only 0.3% bases covered by potential issues. The final gapless assembly was finished in January 2022. Funding came from the United States government through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well as numerous other groups from around the world. A parallel project was conducted outside the government by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asian Elephant
The Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''), also known as the Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus ''Elephas'' and is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in the north, Sumatra in the south, and to Borneo in the east. Three subspecies are recognised—'' E. m. maximus'' from Sri Lanka, ''E. m. indicus'' from mainland Asia and '' E. m. sumatranus'' from the island of Sumatra. Formerly, there was also the Syrian elephant or Western Asiatic elephant (''Elephas maximus asurus'') which was the westernmost population of the Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''). This subspecies became extinct in ancient times. Skeletal remains of ''E. m. asurus'' have been recorded from the Middle East: Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey from periods dating between at least 1800 BC and likely 700 BC. It is one of only three living species of elephants or elephantids anywhere in the world, the others being the African bus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African Grass Rat
The Nile rat (''Arvicanthis niloticus'') is a species of rodent in the family Murinae. Taxonomy The species is divided into the following six subspecies. *''A. n. niloticus'': Nile, Egypt; *''A. n. dembeensis '' (): Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea; Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi, Uganda Democratic Republic of Congo; *''A. n. naso '' (): Yemen; *''A. n. rhodesiae '' (): Zambia; *''A. n. solatus '' (): Senegal; Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Central African Republic; *''A. n. testicularis '' (): upper Nile, central Sudan.Glover M.Allen (1939)A checklist of African Mammals/ref> Description ''Arvicanthis niloticus'' is a rodent of medium size, with the length of the head and of the body between 159 and 202 mm, the length of the tail between 125 and 173 mm, the length of the foot between 33 and 42 mm, the length of the ears between 19 and 23 mm and a weight up to 201 g.Dale J. Osborn & Ibrahim Helmy (1980)The contemporary land m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Type 2 Diabetes
Type 2 diabetes, formerly known as adult-onset diabetes, is a form of diabetes mellitus that is characterized by high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and relative lack of insulin. Common symptoms include increased thirst, frequent urination, and unexplained weight loss. Symptoms may also include increased hunger, feeling tired, and sores that do not heal. Often symptoms come on slowly. Long-term complications from high blood sugar include heart disease, strokes, diabetic retinopathy which can result in blindness, kidney failure, and poor blood flow in the limbs which may lead to amputations. The sudden onset of hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state may occur; however, ketoacidosis is uncommon. Type 2 diabetes primarily occurs as a result of obesity and lack of exercise. Some people are genetically more at risk than others. Type 2 diabetes makes up about 90% of cases of diabetes, with the other 10% due primarily to type 1 diabetes and gestational diabetes. In type 1 diabete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circadian Rhythm
A circadian rhythm (), or circadian cycle, is a natural, internal process that regulates the sleep–wake cycle and repeats roughly every 24 hours. It can refer to any process that originates within an organism (i.e., Endogeny (biology), endogenous) and responds to the environment (Entrainment (chronobiology), entrained by the environment). These 24-hour rhythms are driven by a circadian clock, and they have been widely observed in animals, plants, fungi and cyanobacteria. The term ''circadian'' comes from the Latin ''wikt:circa#Latin, circa'', meaning "approximately", and ''dies'', meaning "day". Processes with 24-hour cycles are more generally called diurnal rhythms; diurnal rhythms should not be called circadian rhythms unless they can be confirmed as endogenous, and not environmental. Although circadian rhythms are endogenous, they are adjusted to the local environment by external cues called zeitgebers (German for "time givers"), which include light, temperature and redox cy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allele
An allele (, ; ; modern formation from Greek ἄλλος ''állos'', "other") is a variation of the same sequence of nucleotides at the same place on a long DNA molecule, as described in leading textbooks on genetics and evolution. ::"The chromosomal or genomic location of a gene or any other genetic element is called a locus (plural: loci) and alternative DNA sequences at a locus are called alleles." The simplest alleles are single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP). but they can also be insertions and deletions of up to several thousand base pairs. Popular definitions of 'allele' typically refer only to different alleles within genes. For example, the ABO blood grouping is controlled by the ABO gene, which has six common alleles (variants). In population genetics, nearly every living human's phenotype for the ABO gene is some combination of just these six alleles. Most alleles observed result in little or no change in the function of the gene product it codes for. However, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protein-coding Genes
The human genome is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and in a small DNA molecule found within individual Mitochondrial DNA, mitochondria. These are usually treated separately as the nuclear genome and the Human mitochondrial genetics, mitochondrial genome. Human genomes include both protein-coding DNA sequences and various types of non-coding DNA, DNA that does not encode proteins. The latter is a diverse category that includes DNA coding for non-translated RNA, such as that for ribosomal RNA, transfer RNA, ribozymes, small nuclear RNAs, and several types of RNA#Regulatory RNA, regulatory RNAs. It also includes Promoter (biology), promoters and their associated Cis-regulatory element, gene-regulatory elements, DNA playing structural and replicatory roles, such as Scaffold/matrix attachment region, scaffolding regions, telomeres, centromeres, and Origin of replication, origins of replication, plus large ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genomics
Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dimensional structural configuration. In contrast to genetics, which refers to the study of ''individual'' genes and their roles in inheritance, genomics aims at the collective characterization and quantification of ''all'' of an organism's genes, their interrelations and influence on the organism. Genes may direct the production of proteins with the assistance of enzymes and messenger molecules. In turn, proteins make up body structures such as organs and tissues as well as control chemical reactions and carry signals between cells. Genomics also involves the sequencing and analysis of genomes through uses of high throughput DNA sequencing and bioinformatics to assemble and analyze the function and structure of entire genomes. Advances in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genome Projects
Genome projects are scientific endeavours that ultimately aim to determine the complete genome sequence of an organism (be it an animal, a plant, a fungus, a bacterium, an archaean, a protist or a virus) and to annotate protein-coding genes and other important genome-encoded features. The genome sequence of an organism includes the collective DNA sequences of each chromosome in the organism. For a bacterium containing a single chromosome, a genome project will aim to map the sequence of that chromosome. For the human species, whose genome includes 22 pairs of autosomes and 2 sex chromosomes, a complete genome sequence will involve 46 separate chromosome sequences. The Human Genome Project is a well known example of a genome project. Genome assembly Genome assembly refers to the process of taking a large number of short DNA sequences and reassembling them to create a representation of the original chromosomes from which the DNA originated. In a shotgun sequencing project, all th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
