StemCell Therapy

Researchers from the University of Ottawa have discovered that plants may be able to control the genetics of their intimate root symbionts - the organism with which they live in symbiosis - thereby providing a better understanding of their growth.

In addition to having a significant impact on all terrestrial ecosystems, their discovery may lead to improved eco-friendly agricultural applications.

We talked to research lead Nicolas Corradi, Associate Professor in the Department of Biology and Research Chair in Microbial Genomics at the University of Ottawa, and lead author Vasilis Kokkoris, Postdoctoral Fellow in theCorradi Lab, to learn more about their recent study published in the journalCurrent Biology.

AMF are plant obligate symbionts that grow within the plant roots and help their hosts to grow better and be more resistant to environmental stressors.

AMF genetics have long been mysterious; while typical cells carry one nucleus, the cells of AMF carry thousands of nuclei that can be genetically diverse. How these nuclei communicate with each other and whether the plants can control their relative abundance, has been a total mystery.

Our work provides insights into this unique genetic condition:

1- We demonstrate that the host plant symbiont influences the relative abundance of thousands of co-existing nuclei carried by their fungal symbionts.

2- We find evidence that co-existing nuclei of different genetic backgrounds cooperate, rather than compete with one another thus potentially maximizing growth benefits for both the fungi and their plant partners."

By analyzing single spores, we were able to quantify the genetics of thousands of nuclei and define their relative abundance in different fungal strains and across plant species.

To ensure that we accurately analyze single nuclei, we used advanced microscopy to visualize and count the nuclei in the spores.

Lastly, we used mathematical modelling to prove that the observed abundance of nuclear genotypes we identified cannot be a product of luck but instead is the result of a driven cooperation between them.

To better understand what is regulating the AMF nuclei we grew different AMF strains with different hosts and found that plants have control of the relative abundance of the fungal nuclei."

Our research provides an answer as we demonstrate that the genetics of these fungi, and their effect on plant growth, can be manipulated by plants thus explaining the reason for the observed variability on plant growth.

From an environmental standpoint, this new knowledge allows for better understanding how plants can influence the genetics of their symbiotic partners, thus influencing entire terrestrial ecosystems.

From an economic standpoint, it opens doors to improved sustainable agricultural applications."

Reference: Kokkoris V, Chagnon P-L, Yildirir G, et al. Host identity influences nuclear dynamics in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Current Biology. 2021. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.035.

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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Plants May Be Able To Control the Genetics of Their Microbial Symbionts - Technology Networks

In 1775, Gen. George Washington was fighting two enemies. His visible enemy was the British, with whom the Colonists had begun fighting at the battles of Lexington and Concord. Washingtons second enemy was invisible, but deadlier than British muskets: smallpox.

A smallpox epidemic threatened Washingtons Continental Army. Fortunately, Washington had experience with the disease (he had caught and survived smallpox while in the Caribbean Islands) and sought to have his troops inoculated.

Inoculation was new and controversial in Colonial America, even outlawed in places. It didnt help that the method of inoculation practiced at the time was risky. Called variolation, the procedure entailed making a small incision in a patients arm and inserting a dose of the live virus large enough to trigger immunity but small enough to prevent severe illness or death, writes Andrew Lawler in an April 2020 National Geographic article.

But Washington was a firm believer in the science-based treatment. While soldiers already in the army were given a choice (and many refused), Washington insisted that all new recruits be inoculated. By the end of 1777, some 40,000 soldiers had been vaccinated.

A compelling case can be made that his (Washingtons) swift response to the smallpox epidemic and to a policy of inoculation was the most important strategic decision of his military career, Lawler quotes historian Joseph Ellis as saying.

This story touches on the dilemma of immunization as a medical treatment. On the one hand, vaccines have saved millions of lives. Yet despite being applauded as a medical miracle, vaccines have always generated a level of public distrust.

This is not a new problem. It has waxed and waned ever since weve had vaccines, said Dr. Christopher Martin, a professor in the West Virginia University Schools of Public Health and Medicine. Martin also serves on the West Virginia COVID-19 Vaccine Medical Advisory Group.

When it comes to vaccine hesitancy, people fall along the spectrum. At one end are people like me, who love vaccines. Whenever a new vaccine comes up thats indicated for me, I get it right away, Martin said.

Theres another group at the other end of the spectrum that are completely resistant to any kind of data or argument. Theres nothing you can say. As my Irish father used to put it, you might as well save your breath to cool your porridge.

But most people fall somewhere in the middle. These are the ones Martin tries to reach. Calling someone anti-science isnt helpful, he said. We have to tailor the message. In focus groups it came out that West Virginians concern is I dont want to be told to have this vaccine. They are concerned about personal liberties.

Thats why our theme for the COVID vaccine is that its a choice. We try to get people to understand what a powerful decision they can make to protect themselves.

A brief look at how vaccines developed in this country can shed light on the present cultural divide.

While variolation can be traced back to ancient China, it is Edward Jenner who is generally credited with devising the first vaccine. In 1796, he inoculated a 13-year-old boy with the vaccinia virus (cowpox) and demonstrated that it gave immunity to smallpox. The practice quickly became widespread.

Louis Pasteur began experimenting with attenuated vaccines in the late 1800s. Attenuation takes an infectious pathogen (a bacteria or virus) and makes it less virulent. Although weakened, the pathogen is still viable.

Pasteur developed a rabies vaccine in 1885. His research led to other attenuated vaccines, including ones for cholera, anthrax, measles, mumps, rubella and yellow fever.

Attenuated vaccines are in contrast to inactivated vaccines where a killed, nonviable version of the germ is used. Generally, inactivated vaccines do not provide long-term immunity; additional shots could be necessary (the annual flu shot is an example).

Over the next 200 years, mass implementation of the smallpox vaccine led to the disease being eradicated globally in 1979 one of the greatest successes of modern medicine.

Research for a polio vaccine began in the 1930s. Jonas Salk was the first virologist to become a celebrity after he developed an inactivated polio vaccine in 1954.

Polio is a disabling disease caused by the poliovirus. It can infect a persons spinal cord, causing paralysis and sometimes death.

Children are especially vulnerable, and 1950s American families were terrified of the disease. It was said fear of polio was second only to fear of the atom bomb. An epidemic in 1952 resulted in more than 21,000 paralytic cases and more than 3,000 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

In 1955, a nationwide polio inoculation campaign began for schoolchildren, sponsored by the March of Dimes. But the campaign was quickly suspended when it was discovered that Cutter Laboratories in California had produced defective batches of the vaccine.

Cutter was one of five companies producing the polio vaccine. A flaw in the labs manufacturing process led to batches of vaccine being distributed where the virus was not inactivated. As a result, more than 200,000 children received a polio vaccine that contained live, viable virus. It was later determined that the faulty batches caused an estimated 40,000 cases of polio, with about 200 cases leading to paralysis. Ten children died.

As tragic as these numbers were, they were a small fraction of the casualties caused by natural polio each year during this period.

The incident led to tighter federal regulations overseeing the production of vaccines. Pharmaceutical companies made improvements to their production processes and applied more rigorous safety testing. The inoculation campaign was resumed and polio cases began to drop.

The Salk vaccine was later replaced by an oral attenuated vaccine. Many of the Baby Boom generation remember lining up as schoolchildren in the 1960s to swallow a sugar cube dosed with the polio vaccine.

By 1979, there were no new cases of polio originating in the United States. The World Health Organization and other groups are still working to eradicate polio globally.

Not surprisingly, Cutter Laboratories was taken to court over its botched rollout of the vaccine. In the landmark case they were declared not at fault, but still liable for their product. This liability without negligence decision would have major repercussions for the pharmaceutical industry.

Dr. Paul A. Offit addressed the mixed legacy of this legal precedent in his 2005 book, The Cutter Incident: How Americas First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis. He contends that the verdict in the court case against Cutter made vaccine manufacturers an easy target for litigation and huge monetary awards from juries.

Such litigation persisted despite overwhelming consensus from the scientific and health communities that vaccines were low risk and that adverse effects were rare. Pharmaceutical companies began to shy away from vaccine research and manufacturing because of liability issues.

Pharmaceutical and biotech companies continued to be hauled into court throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and supplies were threatened. By 1985, for example, only one company was still making the pertussis vaccine (for whooping cough) a critical vaccine for childhood safety.

Vaccines were the first medical product almost completely eliminated by litigation, Offit said, discussing his book in an American Enterprise Institute video in 2006.

Congress saw that action was needed to protect vaccine manufacturers and health care providers and passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in 1986, which included the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

This law created a special vaccine court to handle disputes and shield vaccine manufacturers from most lawsuits. The law was upheld in a Supreme Court ruling in 2011.

Despite this protection, vaccine shortages became an intermittent problem. Offit gives more examples. In 1998, the tetanus vaccine was in such short supply that its use was restricted to emergency rooms. The flu season of 2003-2004 began early and created a demand that exceeded supply. The following year proved even worse with 30 million fewer doses of flu vaccine than the year before.

There have been shortages of nine of the 12 vaccines routinely given to children including the vaccine for meningitis (pneumococcus).

Parents could only hope that their children werent among the thousands permanently harmed or killed by pneumococcus every year, Offit writes.

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection transmitted to humans through the bites of certain types of ticks. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, joint pain and rash. Left untreated, the disease can lead to serious joint and neurological complications. The CDC says cases are on the rise. EPA studies show that climate change is likely a factor in increasing the range of ticks that carry infection.

Only one company has ever marketed a Lyme disease vaccine. SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline) licensed the LYMErix vaccine in 1998, and would end up distributing some 1.5 million doses.

Anecdotal reports surfaced of people who said they developed arthritis after getting the vaccine. Lyme disease itself can cause chronic arthritis, but controlled case studies did not show a higher incidence of arthritis as an adverse effect of the vaccine.

An advisory panel by the Food and Drug Administration confirmed this conclusion, as did a report from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which concluded that the rate [of arthritis] was not shown to be elevated among vaccine recipients.

According to CDC statistics, some 23% of adults in the U.S. get some form of arthritis (in West Virginia, the figure is 33.6%). In all likelihood, the people who developed arthritis would have done so regardless of whether they received the vaccine or not.

Even though no credible evidence surfaced to link the vaccine to these claims, that didnt stop anti-Lyme vaccine groups from forming or media outlets from carrying their anti-vax message to the general public. A class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of 121 people.

It was a fiasco that has really never occurred to any other vaccine, said Dr. Stanley Plotkin, an emeritus professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania and veteran vaccine researcher, in a 2019 Scientific American article.

With demand dampened by the distrust and backlash, the company pulled the LYMErix vaccine from the market in 2002. Today, 20 years later, there still is no available human vaccine for Lyme disease.

While Lyme disease is not deadly, the same cant be said of COVID-19. But a significant segment of the population is showing hesitancy over receiving either of the two COVID-19 vaccines currently being distributed.

Advances in immunology, microbiology and molecular genetics have led to new categories of vaccines in recent years. Both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines approved by the FDA for emergency use are made from messenger RNA (mRNA).

These vaccines are different from traditional vaccines discussed above, in that they do not contain either weakened attenuated virus or inactivated virus proteins.

Instead, mRNA uses synthetic genetic material that encodes a harmless piece of viral protein in this case, the spike protein in the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

The synthetic mRNA issues this code to the bodys cells and teaches them to build the protein, which triggers the bodys immune response, the same as with a natural infection. This builds up our immunity to the virus. How long this immunity will last is still unknown.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are the first mRNA vaccines to advance through all the clinical trial stages and be approved for use.

These vaccines use a new platform [mRNA], but theres no additional risk, Martin said. Long before COVID came out, we had done the science. All the pioneering work has been done.

In fact, research into mRNA vaccines has been ongoing for decades. If there was a real problem with the technology, wed have seen it before now for sure, said Michael Goldman, a professor of immunology and director of the Innovative Medicines Initiative, in Horizon, a European Union research and innovation publication.

Some people have expressed concerns, not with the mRNA platform as such, but with the compressed time frame in which COVID-19 vaccines were rushed into production.

But one of the advantages of the mRNA platform is speed. It takes far less time to produce a synthetic mRNA vaccine than with traditional vaccines.

Also, as Martin points out, in this case the companies began manufacturing the vaccines before clinical trials were completed. They did steps in parallel, which was a financial risk, not a safety risk, Martin said.

There is nothing different about the clinical studies that were done. Ive had both doses. The only negative experience for me is knowing its not yet available for more people.

Martin adds that psychological considerations come into play surrounding vaccine hesitancy. Nothing is risk free, he said. But we arent very good at perceiving risk accurately. Subjectively, doing nothing feels safer. People feel that doing something making a choice to get the vaccine is more risky. But it is clear that if you dont get vaccinated, you are at greater risk.

After releasing its instructions to the cells, the mRNA is quickly broken down by enzymes and does not enter the nucleus of a cell. Its not DNA. It has nothing to do with your genetic material, Martin said. And its not possible to get COVID from the vaccine.

Allergic reactions are possible, but very, very rare. If it happens, a reaction is entirely manageable. Vaccination clinics are easily equipped to handle that.

Some people have reported mild symptoms, particularly after the second shot. In a statement, the FDA said that the most commonly reported side effects, which typically lasted several days, were pain at the injection site, tiredness, headache, muscle pain, chills, joint pain, and fever ... more people experienced these side effects after the second dose than after the first dose.

But Martin takes issue with calling these side effects. You might feel unwell or have a low-grade fever, he said. Thats not a side effect thats the primary effect. Thats just your immune system at work. It means you are going to be one of the 95% who are protected.

Scientists question whether COVID-19 will ever be eradicated, as with smallpox, or even largely eliminated, as with polio. What is certain is that, whatever happens, vaccines and the publics willingness to trust them will play a major role.

Ultimately, overcoming a pandemic isnt just about science. Its about culture and the perceptions that people bring to science.

Excerpt from:
The mistrusted medical miracle: Vaccines have revolutionized health, but some still question their safety - Charleston Gazette-Mail

I have not yet seen any redpolls at my feeder this year, but it is only early February, so a birdwatcher can hope. When they do arrive, I dont plan to stress out about which species and subspecies are present. Because, frankly, it is difficult to tell them apart, and they are all adorable.

Poll is a Middle English word that means head. It is still occasionally used in that sense if you are talking about livestock. Polled cattle are the unhorned members of a breed, which is to say, they are just headed. Of course, we most commonly use the word to mean either a place to vote (going to the polls) or a collection of votes (taking a poll). This probably derives from the fact that people have only one head, but they have two hands. So, in a crowd it is safer to count heads to get an accurate count, as there are always jokers who will raise both hands.

Both the male and female redpolls have a prominent scarlet square right on top of their heads, while only the males have the blush of pink or red on their chests and sides. Hence, this is a cleverer name than, say, the rose-breasted grosbeak, which leaves out the female entirely.

Most sources recognize two species of redpoll, usually referred to in this country as the common and the hoary redpolls. In Europe, the hoary is called the Arctic redpoll. Both adjectives are accurate, more or less. We use the word hoary infrequently. Generally, we intend it to mean having a frosted appearance. Hoar frost is the kind of frost that grows in obvious crystals, like icy fur on objects. Hoar is an Old English word that means appearing to be old. Several animals and plants with a frosted appearance get this tag: the hoary bat, the hoary marmot, and hoary verbena.

Hoary redpolls have a more limited breeding range than do common redpolls. The Europeans might do better to call them tundra redpolls because they only live in that habitat. In contrast, the common redpoll breeds in the tundra, but it also nests down into the northern taiga of Canada. Hoary redpolls, for example, breed only around Ungava Bay in northernmost Quebec, but common redpolls build nests halfway down the province and on Newfoundland as well.

The appearances of the two species follow at least two ecogeographic rules. Glogers rule states that endothermic species (warm-blooded) will be darker colored in more humid environments. In terms of the amount of precipitation it gets, the Arctic tundra is a desert, so that the hoary is a lighter plumaged bird than the common fits.

The sides and back of the common are heavily streaked with brown. This is especially pronounced in the females. In hoary redpolls the females retain some streaking, but it is very faint in the males. David Sibley includes an illustration in his page for the hoary redpoll that shows its absence of streaking under the tails as well. Common redpolls show variable amounts of streaking there.

The hoary also tends to be larger than the common, which conforms to Bergmanns rule: animals found in colder climates tend to have larger body mass than those from warmer climates. Common redpolls average 5.25 inches long, while hoaries average 5.5 inches, which isnt much of a difference. But the Greenland subspecies of the hoary averages a full 12% larger than the Canadian race. This constitutes what is called a cline, a gradual morphological transition across an environmental gradient. From the southern subspecies of the common redpoll in the taiga to the Greenland subspecies of the hoary, there is a tendency toward larger size in a progressively colder climate.

The cline does not apply as well to Glogers rule; the Greenland subspecies of the common is darker than its southern subspecies. But it works for the rest of the subspecies of both species.

The redpolls may even conform to Allens rule, which states that animals from colder climates tend to have a smaller surface-to-volume ratio (i.e., they are rounder) than those from warmer climates. This is often expressed as having smaller or shorter extremities. One of the characters used in the field to distinguish the hoary from the common (when they are both at your feeder in a single flock) is the smaller, shorter, straighter bill of the hoary.

On the New Hampshire Birds online forum, Fred Sladen of North Sutton recently shared a taxonomic discussion from the Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World (2016) that posits a third subspecies for the common redpoll. The so-called lesser redpoll is considered a longer- and slender-billed variant of [the] nominate with slightly longer wing and tail, and slightly deeper pink in adult male. To conform to the ecogeographic rules this subspecies should live somewhere warmer (longer bill, wings, and tail, Allens rule; and darker color, Glogers rule). In fact, it lives in northern Siberia, a colder, drier place than northern Europe, where the nominate species is found in Scandinavia, Finland, and the Baltic countries.

The redpolls were until recently in the genus Carduelis, a once species-rich taxon that molecular genetics has revealed to be what taxonomists call (when no one is listening) a garbage can group. Their DNA has shown the redpolls to be isolated branch of finches deserving of their own genus Acanthis, which is a name that was originally given to a Greek bird that now cannot be identified from contemporary descriptions of it.

The moral to this story is that when redpolls show up at your feeder, dont worry if you cant tell the species apart, never mind the subspecies. Their songs are the same and their ranges grade into one another, so its a mystery as to how they can tell each other apart.

Bill Chaisson has been a birdwatcher from the age of 10. He is a former managing editor of the Eagle Times and now works and lives in the town of Wilmot.

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Of a Feather: When cousins are two of a kind - eagletimes.com

Scientists say their biggest issues have been an absence of national leadership and coordination, plus a lack of funding and supplies for overburdened laboratories.

NEW YORK Despite its world-class medical system and its vaunted Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. fell behind in the race to detect dangerous coronavirus mutations. And it's only now beginning to catch up.

The problem has not been a shortage of technology or expertise. Rather, scientists say, its an absence of national leadership and coordination, plus a lack of funding and supplies for overburdened laboratories trying to juggle diagnostic testing with the hunt for genetic changes.

We have the brains. We have the tools. We have the instruments, said Ilhem Messaoudi, director of a virus research center at University of California, Irvine. "Its just a matter of supporting that effort."

Viruses mutate constantly. To stay ahead of the threat, scientists analyze samples, watching closely for mutations that might make the coronavirus more infectious or more deadly.

But such testing has been scattershot.

Less than 1% of positive specimens in the U.S. are being sequenced to determine whether they have worrisome mutations. Other countries do better Britain sequences about 10% meaning they can more quickly see threats coming at them. That gives them greater opportunity to slow or stop the problem, whether through more targeted contact tracing, possible adjustments to the vaccine, or public warnings.

CDC officials say variants have not driven recent surges in overall U.S. cases. But experts worry that what's happening with variants is not clear and say the nation should have been more aggressive about sequencing earlier in the epidemic that has now killed over 450,000 Americans.

If we had evidence it was changing, said Ohio State molecular biologist Dan Jones, "maybe people would've acted differently.

U.S. scientists have detected more than 500 cases of a variant first identified in Britain and expect it to become the cause of most of this countrys new infections in a matter of weeks. Another troubling variant tied to Brazil and a third discovered in South Africa were detected last week in the U.S. and also are expected to spread.

The British variant is more contagious and is believed to be more deadly than the original, while the South Africa one may render the vaccines somewhat less effective. The ultimate fear is that a variant resistant to existing vaccines and treatments could eventually emerge.

Potentially worrisome versions may form inside the U.S., too. This virus is mutating, and it doesn't care of it's in Idaho or South Africa," Messaoudi said.

But the true dimensions of the problem in the U.S. are not clear because of the relatively low level of sequencing.

You only see whats under the lamppost, said Kenny Beckman, director of the University of Minnesota Genomics Center, which started analyzing the viruss genetics last spring.

After the slow start, public health labs in at least 33 states are now doing genetic analysis to identify emerging coronavirus variants. Other states have formed partnerships with university or private labs to do the work. North Dakota, which began sequencing last week, was the most recent to start that work, according to the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

The CDC believes a minimum of 5,000 to 10,000 samples should be analyzed weekly in the U.S. to adequately monitor variants, said Gregory Armstrong, who oversees the agency's advanced molecular detection work. And it's only now that the nation is hitting that level, he acknowledged.

Still, it is a jumble of approaches: Some public health labs sequence every positive virus specimen. Some focus on samples from certain outbreaks or certain patients. Others randomly select samples to analyze.

On top of that, labs continue to have trouble getting needed supplies like pipette tips and chemicals used in both gene sequencing and diagnostic testing.

President Joe Biden, who inherited the setup from the Trump administration, is proposing a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that calls for boosting federal spending on sequencing of the virus, though the amount has not been detailed and other specifics have yet to be worked out.

Were 43rd in the world in genomic sequencing. Totally unacceptable, White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients said.

For more than five years, U.S. public health labs have been building up their ability to do genomic sequencing, thanks largely to a federal push to zero in on the sources of food poisoning outbreaks.

At the pandemic's outset, some labs began sequencing the coronavirus right away. The Minnesota Department of Health, for example, started doing so within weeks of its first COVID-19 cases in March, said Sara Vetter, an assistant lab director. That put us a step ahead, she said.

The CDC likewise worked with certain states to sequence close to 500 samples in April, and over a thousand samples in May and June.

But many labs didn't do the same especially those overburdened with ramping up coronavirus diagnostic testing. The CDC's Armstrong said that at the time, he couldn't justify telling labs to do more sequencing when they already had their hands full and there wasn't any evidence such analysis was needed.

Up until a month ago, it wasnt on the list of things that are urgently necessary. It was nice to have," said Trevor Bedford, ascientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. "There was definitely lack of federal resources assigned to doing exactly this.

At the same time, because of stay-at-home orders imposed during the outbreak, researchers at some labs were told not to go in to work, Messaoudi said.

Instead of having a call to arms, she said, they sent everyone home.

Over the summer, though, a group of scientistssounded the alarm about the state of genomic surveillance in the U.S. and began pushing for something more systematic.

In November, the CDC began to roll out a national program to more methodically pull and check specimens to better determine what strains are circulating. Then in December, the U.S. got a wake-up call when British researchers announced they had identified a variant that seems to spread more easily.

The CDC reacted by announcing its surveillance program would scale up to process 750 samples nationally per week. The agency also contracted with three companies LabCorp, Quest Diagnostics and Illumina to sequence thousands more each week. State labs are doing thousands of their own.

Meanwhile, the outbreak is almost certainly seeding more COVID-19 mutations.

Where it has free rein of the place, theres going to be significant variants that evolve, Scripps Research Institute scientist Dr. Eric Topol said. "The more genomic sequencing, the more we can stay ahead of the virus.

Read more:
US rushes to catch up in the race to detect mutant viruses - WWLTV.com

ILLUSTRATION: MICHELLE KONDRICH

The availability of a fully sequenced human genome and genome-wide analyses of genetic variation have made DNA-based ancestry tests possible. These consumer DNA tests are now widely marketed as a way to discover or confirm family history. But what do they really tell us about our past, and what do they leave out? We asked young scientists to tell us about their family traditions, stories, and culture, and how they understood their DNA test results in the context of their lived experiences. Their stories are below. To read more reflections by young scientists, find past NextGen Voices pieces at https://science.sciencemag.org/collection/nextgen-voices. Follow NextGen Voices on Twitter with hashtag #NextGenSci. Jennifer Sills

My family comes from Jamaica and the Virgin Islands. There is no meal I would rather have than my mom's home-cooked traditional Jamaican food. Now living in Florida, my mom grows many fruits and vegetables native to Jamaica in a garden that occupies her entire yard. When I visit, we spend most of our time together outside picking fresh mangoes, ackee (a tropical fruit grown in Jamaica), or whatever else happens to be in season. On Christmas, she makes oxtail (a kind of beef stew, my personal favorite), fried dumplings, and ackee with saltfish (its traditional complement of salted cod). These foods are well-spicedalthough not always spicyand flavorful.

Where my family originated is mostly hearsay, and the full history beyond a few generations is hard to trace. My DNA test results confirmed that we have some background in Europe and likely moved to the Caribbean through the slave trade. The details echoed a story on my mom's side of the family that one of our ancestors was the child of an Irish slave master and a woman he enslaved.

I have mixed feelings about the business model of consumer DNA test companies, which make their profit based on the use of others' genetic informationin my mind, the most personal information one can share. However, my mom really wanted me or my dad to do the test to see how that side of our ancestry looked. I chose a company that gives users more control over who can access the results. Of course, these tests are not as accurate for those of us from non-European backgrounds, but the results were roughly what I expected, and it is humbling to think about where our family began compared with where it is now.

Gregg Duncan Fischell Department of Bioengineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA. E-mail: gaduncan{at}umd.edu

My family is Han, the largest nationality of China. Like most families in China, we celebrate the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) by gathering together to make and eat jiaozi (dumplings filled with vegetables and meat), which are shaped like ancient Chinese gold ingots to symbolize wealth. We hang festival couplets (two lines of poetry with the same number of words) that are painted along with intricate designs on red paper, and we put red lanterns and red candles on display throughout the house; the decorations symbolize happiness and protect us from the mythical monster named Nian, who is said to be afraid of the color red. While we wait for the New Year to arrive, we listen to Hebei Bangzi, the local opera, which sounds similar to the Beijing opera but is more difficult for people outside Hebei province to understand because the singers use pronunciations unique to the region. In my hometown (Shijiazhuang, Hebei), people of the same surname gather together to extend best wishes to their elders before the first sunrise of the new year.

Such traditions are a reminder that my surname (Ji) is not common in China. I hoped that finding out more about my family's origins would help to explain my unusual name. My DNA test results told me that 46.34% of my genome came from North China (Han), 20.13% from South China (Han), and 12.21% from Northeast Asia (Japan). I was disappointed that the results contained no detailed information that I found useful. I do not know how many Chinese people have a genetic pattern similar to mine, andunlike scientific researchthe company did not give me the raw data of my genome. Without more information about how the company analyzed my genomic data, I don't know what conclusions I can draw or even whether I should believe the test results.

Yongsheng Ji Division of Life Science and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, China. Email: jiys2020{at}ustc.edu.cn

Fifteen years ago, I probably would have said that my family didn't have a French cultural identity, despite being raised in France. Today, after having been expatriated 10 years in New Zealand, I can confirm that we have a strong French cultural identity, especially when it comes to food. Yet, after we returned to France 3 years ago, our attachment to our home country and its culture and traditions did not feel quite the same. I believe that we unintentionally took bits of New Zealand back to France with us.

Our ever-evolving celebration of Mardi Gras encapsulates our cultural journey. Before our move, we had always celebrated the French holiday in its traditional (if less religious) form. Around the end of February, we would make and eat loads of French crpes, and kids would dress up in festive costumes and attend the carnival. After our move, we discovered that New Zealanders do not observe Mardi Gras, so we adopted a different yet similar tradition, which was brought to the country from overseas and stuck: Halloween. Every year on the 31st of October, my eldest boy dressed up in a scary costume. But because good food is so deeply rooted in our culture, Halloween candy didn't feel sufficient. To supplement the prepackaged treats, we created our own tradition of the Halloween scary lunch. Each year, I would prepare a lunch box filled with funny and scary little monsters, skeletons, and ghosts made of pancakes, carved fruits, and (for the mummies) baked sausages in pastry strings.

Now back in France, we have resumed our celebration of Mardi Gras in February. The kids dress up for school and for carnivals, just like Halloween, but with an emphasis on festive instead of scary, and we make crpes, as we've done in the past. We've also kept our own multicultural family traditions. To adapt our New Zealand Halloween lunches, we now have a Halloween-themed French dinner in October. We've also updated the tradition of hiding a fve (trinket) in our galette des rois (king cake) by using a koru necklace (a traditional kiwi artifact) instead.

Our unique and changing traditions showed me that we could be open to incorporating new values and ideas when we learned the results of our DNA tests. My husband and I are both researchers in ecology and environmental genetics, manipulating DNA data daily and studying insect population genetics. It seemed only natural that we would want to see our own DNA test results. We originally thought that the genetic admixture might be quite high within our family home given that we were born 12,000 km apartI grew up in northern France, and he was raised on the French island of La Runion in the Indian Ocean. We were quite surprised by the results. For instance, I learned that I had ancestors from Italy and Scandinavia but very little French or Western European lineage, whereas my husband, despite being born in the Southern Hemisphere, has more Western European lineage than I do. (His results could perhaps be explained by the fact that half of the first settlers in La Runion were from Brittany.) Although my husband has ancestors in many parts of the world where I do not (such as India, Africa, and Indonesia), we share an unexpectedly high rate of ancestry from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). The results have not changed our lives, but it is interesting to know that, genetically, we are more an Iberian family than a French one! We now want to travel to and discover more about the culture of these southwestern parts of Europe and pass on this heritage to our children. As ecologists, we are curious about the natural and geological histories of the Iberian region, but we would make food an important part of the trip as well. They may not have French crpes in Portugal, but I have heard that the delicious bolo lvedo (Portuguese muffins) are not to be missed.

Marie-Caroline Lefort Cellule de Valorisation Pdagogique, Universit de Tours, Tours, France. Email: marie-caroline.lefort{at}univ-tours.fr

As a Jewish woman born in Iran and living in Israel, I feel connected to the ancient history of my people. Because it is rare to find an Iranian woman in science who keeps Jewish traditions, I feel a responsibility to manifest all the good that is in each part of my background.

My family celebrates the traditional holiday of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year). Wearing white clothing to symbolize purity, we light candles and look into the flames as we give thanks and ask for blessings in the coming year. We celebrate this contemplative holiday with a festive meal steeped in symbolism and tradition. We eat apples dipped in honey and pomegranates to symbolize our hopes for a sweet, peaceful, happy new year that is full of good deeds. The honey represents sweetness, and the apple tree is the only tree that has more fruit than leaves, reminding us that we should maximize our purpose in this world. The numerous seeds in pomegranates, a native fruit of ancient Persia, symbolize the many good deeds we should carry out during the coming year. We also make a traditional Iranian-Jewish stew out of quince, a native fruit of west Asia (including Iran and Israel) that looks like an apple. The sweet smell fills the entire house with a magical floral and fresh perfume. During Rosh Hashanah, the shofar (an ancient musical instrument typically made of a ram's horn) is blown 100 times. The sound marks the time to make our wishes for the new year, which we read in Hebrew.

My DNA test results show that I am mostly Persian, with a very small percentage (0.8%) of Egyptian in my ancestry. The data echo the Biblical and rabbinical stories that I consider my roots. Our cultural history tells us that our ancestors were in ancient Egypt for hundreds of years before moving to Israel with Moses. In 722 BCE, the Jews were exiled from Israel to other regions, including Iran. My father was born in a city that was first settled by the exiled Jewish people from Israel, and my mom is from a city that is well known in Iran as the site of the story of Esther and Mordechai, traditionally told during the holiday of Purim. My family moved to Israel after the revolution in Iran in 1979. My DNA results mirror both these ancient tales and my own family's story.

Ruty Mehrian-Shai Pediatric Hemato-Oncology, Brain Cancer Molecular Medicine, Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan, 52621, Israel. Email: ruty.shai{at}sheba.health.gov.il

I've always struggled with being identified as simply Indian. My name reflects my Indian heritage better than I do, as a Montreal-born, New York City native living in Louisiana. No DNA test could reflect the mix of American and Indian cultural practices that my family has created. Take, for example, American Thanksgiving, which my family co-opted when I was young and combined with a traditional West Bengali feast. At our table, we served the turkey alongside traditional Indian luchi (oil-fried puffed dough) and fusion dishes such as vegetarian shepherd's pie with Indian spices. Because my birthday falls near Thanksgiving, the meal was often followed by a turkey-shaped ice cream cake, Indian sweets like jalebi (a bright orange pretzel of fried sweet dough), gulab jamun (fried syrupy-sweet milk balls), and a spiced tea. We did adhere to the American tradition of overstuffing ourselves with food.

During the holiday, we listened to Bollywood pop, with high-pitched Indian women singing in Hindi or Bengali. Later in the season, my father would mix in some Nat King Cole or Frank Sinatra, or we would play an album from jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi. Being in Queens, I would always play Christmas in Hollis by the Queens-native hip-hop group Run DMC. My parents enjoyed it about as much as I did their Bollywood music, which is to say, not much.

In December, the large extended family of cousins, uncles, and aunts (all with a different honorific based on their birth position relative to my parents) would come over, each removing their shoes at the door out of respect. The men, in sweaters and ties, played bridge cross-legged in a corner on the floor. The women, in saris and their finest gold necklaces and earrings (gaudier than any of the jewelry worn by the hip-hip artists I worshiped), congregated in the dining area, where they teased each other, told stories in Bengali, and prepared meals. Food was served constantly from the moment the first guests arrived until they left. The smell of food cooking, mostly oil and spices, radiated and permeated through every fabric of the house. Chatter, the sounds of food frying, and playful arguing filled every room with noise. Our home was festively decorated; Santa Claus had equal billing with Durga, Kali, and Ganesh.

The kids watched American football or challenged each other to an Indian game called carrom, which is similar to billiards but played on a flat smooth table on the floor. Players use their fingers to flick flat wooden discs into different corner pockets. We would play different tournament styles and use a mix of Bengali and English to taunt and tease each other over missed shots or lucky wins.

Before our current chapter as Americans, my family's Indian past stretches back to time immemorial, but India has a complicated history of invasions and rule. I hoped a DNA test would help clarify some ancestry questions. I wanted the results to say 25% Genghis Khan, 25% Gandhi, 25% Alexander the Great, and 25% unknown. What I got was 64% Central Asian, 30% South Asian, 3% Eastern European, 2% Southeast Asian, and 1% Siberian. So, I could claim Genghis, Gandhi, and Alexander! But of course, not really. I wondered when and where the mingling of my different geographic ancestors took place and if the results were more a reflection of the current genetic reference populations in those areas. The DNA results didn't make me feel differently about my identity, and they were not as interesting as the results I received from a genetic profile that revealed an inversion in one of my chromosomes. That genetic result made me realize how hardy our genomes are and how similar we are as humans; even the 1% or so that makes each of us unique is almost meaningless when considering the bigger picture.

Prosanta Chakrabarty Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science, Baton Rouge, LA 708033216, USA. Email: prosanta{at}lsu.edu

ILLUSTRATION: MICHELLE KONDRICH

Born in South America, I identify as Latina and have always been aware of my mixed ethnicity. My family's celebration of Christmas and Novena (the previous 9 days, an important observance in Colombia) exemplifies our love of food, music, and dance. During the first 8 days, family and friends meet at different houses to share deep-fried cheesy dough and sweets. On Christmas day and the morning after, we eat homemade Colombian tamales wrapped in plantain leaves and boiled for hours, and we drink hot chocolatefirst adding salty cheese to the mugs and eating it with a spoon once it has melted (a delicacy unique to Bogot, Colombia's capital). Sometimes we also eat cheese arepas (flat corn bread) and almojabnas (cheese bread of Spanish-Arab origin). Meanwhile, my mum prepares about 20 liters of her famous ajiaco, a traditional soup from the Bogota plateau. She uses three kinds of potatoes (one of them endemic to the Northern Andes), guascas (Galinsoga parviflora), corn, chicken, capers, and cream. Toward the end of the day, the whole family gathers for a bowl of ajiaco. We admire our araucaria tree, decorated with lights and ornaments, and the creatively assembled nativity scene (often including llamas, lions, jaguars, and the occasional dinosaur) while waiting for midnight to come.

My family seems to carry music in our blood. There is always a moment when my uncle plays the guitar and everyone else joins in with percussion and voices, singing the melodies of cumbia, vallenato, and bambucomusical styles incorporating strings and accordions from Europe, wind instruments from Indigenous communities, and African drums. The upbeat tunes belie the bittersweet themes in the Spanish lyrics. Soon, everyone is dancing to the energetic, fast-moving rhythms of cumbia, salsa, and merengue. Salsa originated with the Latin and Afro-Latin son cubano and jazz musicians from the Bronx in the United States. The music later made its way to Colombia, where it developed into something new, incorporating cumbia and vallenato elements and a faster dancing style.

I took a DNA test because I work in the fields of population genomics and phylogenomics and thought it would be fun to see my own genome sequences. Half of the sites sequenced on my genome were assigned to populations in Spain, Morocco, and West Africa; the other half to Native American populations. The results were not a surprise, but they encouraged me to dig deeper into my family's history. I wish I could learn about and celebrate the Native American traditions of my ancestors, but most were never documented and are now lost. Important traditions are kept in the Amazon regions, such as chontaduro dancing, where communities share the chontaduro fruit (from the Bactris gasipaes palm) and drinks to celebrate abundance and usher in a good fishing season. Traditions around the cassava, plant growing seasons, and hunting also still take place, but because I grew up in the city, I don't feel personally connected to them. I do take pride in using the words from Quechua, Muisca, and even Arabic languages that have been assimilated into Colombian Spanish.

We knew my grandfather was Indigenous from the south (as the government labeled him back in the day), but the DNA test results suggest that our Indigenous ancestry could have been more recent and likely than we thought. I found the test interesting; I received a set of raw data that I can analyze myself, and the results brought my father and me together in a quest for the documents and stories surrounding my family.

Maria Fernanda Torres Jimenez Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden. Email: mftorres27{at}gmail.com

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Beyond DNA: The rest of the story - Science Magazine

Hyloris and Purna Female Healthcare announce partnership to develop novel women’s health product

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Hyloris and Purna Female Healthcare announce partnership to develop novel women’s health product

THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION FOR THE PURPOSES OF ARTICLE 7 OF THE MARKET ABUSE REGULATION (EU) NO. 596/2014 AS IT FORMS PART OF LAW IN THE UNITED KINGDOM BY VIRTUE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION (WITHDRAWAL) ACT 2018. IN ADDITION, MARKET SOUNDINGS WERE TAKEN IN RESPECT OF THE MATTERS CONTAINED IN THIS ANNOUNCEMENT, WITH THE RESULT THAT CERTAIN PERSONS BECAME AWARE OF SUCH INSIDE INFORMATION. UPON PUBLICATION OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT THIS INFORMATION IS NOW CONSIDERED TO BE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND SUCH PERSONS SHALL THEREFORE CEASE TO BE IN POSSESSION OF INSIDE INFORMATION.

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Silence Therapeutics plc Announces $45 Million Private Placement

Strengthened Financial Position Supports Execution into the First Half of 2023 Strengthened Financial Position Supports Execution into the First Half of 2023

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Orchard Therapeutics Announces $150 Million Strategic Financing

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Feb. 05, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IGM Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: IGMS), a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on creating and developing engineered IgM antibodies, today announced that Fred Schwarzer, Chief Executive Officer, will participate in a fireside chat at the Guggenheim Healthcare Talks 2021 Idea Forum Oncology Day on February 12, 2021 at 2:00 p.m. ET. The conference will be held in a virtual meeting format.

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IGM Biosciences to Present at the Guggenheim Healthcare Talks 2021 Idea Forum Oncology Day

NEW YORK and SAN DIEGO, Feb. 05, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Zentalis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ZNTL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing small molecule therapeutics targeting fundamental biological pathways of cancers, today announced that Anthony Sun, MD, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Zentalis, will participate in fireside chats at two upcoming virtual investor conferences.

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Zentalis Pharmaceuticals to Participate in Two Upcoming Investor Conferences

SEATTLE, Feb. 05, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Neoleukin Therapeutics, Inc., “Neoleukin” (NASDAQ:NLTX), a biopharmaceutical company utilizing sophisticated computational methods to design de novo protein therapeutics, today announced that Jonathan Drachman, M.D., Chief Executive Officer, will participate in a fireside chat during the Guggenheim Healthcare Talks | 2021 Oncology Days on Friday, March 12, 2021 at 3 p.m. Eastern Time.

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Neoleukin Therapeutics to Participate in Guggenheim Healthcare Talks 2021 Oncology Days

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 05, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Spero Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPRO), a multi-asset clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on identifying, developing and commercializing treatments in high unmet need areas involving multi-drug resistant bacterial infections and rare diseases, today announced that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) informed Spero that a clinical hold has been placed on its Phase 2a clinical trial of SPR720, Spero’s investigational oral antimicrobial agent being evaluated in patients with nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease (NTM-PD).

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Spero Therapeutics Provides Update on SPR720 Phase 2a Clinical Trial

Recent analysis of Phase 3 DESTINY PWS limited to data collected before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic shows statistical significance in the primary and key secondary endpoints Recent analysis of Phase 3 DESTINY PWS limited to data collected before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic shows statistical significance in the primary and key secondary endpoints

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Soleno Therapeutics Provides Recap of Key Opinion Leader Webinar on DCCR for Treatment of Prader-Willi Syndrome

ZUG, Switzerland and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 05, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CRISPR Therapeutics (Nasdaq: CRSP), a biopharmaceutical company focused on creating transformative gene-based medicines for serious diseases, today announced that members of its senior management team are scheduled to participate in the Guggenheim Healthcare Talks 2021 Oncology Day on Friday, February 12, 2021, at 3:30 p.m. ET.

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CRISPR Therapeutics to Participate in the Guggenheim Healthcare Talks 2021 Oncology Day

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Feb. 05, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Global Blood Therapeutics, Inc. (GBT) (NASDAQ: GBT) today announced that on February 1, 2021, the compensation committee of GBT’s board of directors granted 14 new employees restricted stock units for an aggregate of 103,450 shares of the company’s common stock. These awards were made under GBT’s Amended and Restated 2017 Inducement Equity Plan (the Plan).

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GBT Announces New Employment Inducement Grants

– Management to host webinar for analysts on Friday, Feb. 12, at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time – – Management to host webinar for analysts on Friday, Feb. 12, at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time –

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Denali Therapeutics to Present New Data on ETV:IDS (DNL310) for the Potential Treatment of Hunter Syndrome at WORLDSymposium™

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Bespoke Extracts Welcomes Trend Expert Carly Stojsic as New Director of Marketing

Bagsværd, Denmark, 5 February 2021 — This company announcement discloses the data of the transaction(s) made in Novo Nordisk shares by the company’s board members, executives and their associated persons in accordance with Article 19 of Regulation No. 596/2014 on market abuse.

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Trading in Novo Nordisk shares by board members, executives and associated persons on 3-4 February 2021

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 05, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bright Minds Biosciences (“Bright Minds” or the “Company”), a biosciences company focused on creating the next generation of psychedelic and related therapies for the treatment of mental health and central nervous system disorders, today announced that the Company’s common shares (the “Shares”) are expected to commence trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange (the “CSE”) on Monday, February 8, 2021, under the ticker symbol “DRUG.”

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Bright Minds Biosciences Announces Listing on Canadian Stock Exchange

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