OMAHA, January 14, 2008 — Researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), in collaboration with scientists at Affymetrix, have discovered a novel way to derive sequences for microarrays, resulting in the first ever commercially available whole-genome rhesus macaque microarray. This advance in primate genome research may help researchers to better understand the evolutionary relationship between primates and humans, and will increase the utility of rhesus macaque as a model organism for disease research

Rob Norgren and his collaborators used human transcript annotation to design primers to amplify and sequence rhesus genes. In collaboration with Affymetrix, this strategy was extended to an in silico approach using information… READ MORE

LONDON, December 17, 2007 — Researchers at Queen Mary, University of London have developed a new technique that combines three previously available technologies to quickly and precisely identify DNA rearrangements associated with tumor formation and growth. This new approach, which utilizes M-FISH, high-resolution karyotyping and exon array analysis, may help researchers identify critical candidate genes and genetic markers and better understand the role of complex genetic changes in human cancers.

Traditionally, researchers have used techniques such as g-banding karyotyping and 24-color fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis to identify sections of a chromosome that differed between tumor cells and normal cells. However, these techniques are limited in their resolution and cannot pinpoint exactly where in the DNA sequence the changes occur or how they change gene expression. READ MORE

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., October 29, 2007— A team of researchers from the United States, Germany and Sweden has discovered that the age of onset and severity of Parkinson’s disease (PD) in a large Swedish family is associated with the number of copies of a single gene. The finding suggests that lowering expression of the gene, or the protein it encodes, may one day protect carriers from this devastating neurodegenerative disease.
The team, led by Matthew Farrer in the U.S. and Thomas Gasser in Germany, used Affymetrix 500K Arrays in combination with real-time PCR and microsatellite analysis to look at copies of SNCA, the gene encoding alpha-synuclein (SNCA), in two arms of a family known as the Lister family complex. They showed that the more copies of… READ MORE