March 10, 2017 at 1:31 PM

Opitz C syndrome is a genetic disease that causes severe disabilities in patients and has been diagnosed in three people in the Iberian Peninsula, and sixty people in the world. A team led by the professors Daniel Grinberg and Susana Balcells, from the Group on Human Molecular Genetics of the University of Barcelona and the Biomedical Research Networking Center of Rare Diseases (CIBERER) has now identified a gene that causes the Opitz C syndrome in the only patient in Catalonia diagnosed with this severe congenital disease. This new scientific advance is a first step to discover the genetic bases of this syndrome which, so far, does not offer treatment possibilities, prenatal diagnosis or genetic counseling.

The new study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, has the participation of several researchers at the CRG, including members of the Genomic and Epigenomic Variation in Disease laboratory, the genomics unit, and the bioinformatics unit. It also had the participation of John M. Opitz (University of Utah, United States), Giovanni Neri (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Italy) and experts at the Department of Clinical and Molecular Genetics of the University Hospital Vall d'Hebron (VHIR).

Opitz C syndrome: rare but not invisible

The genetic bases of this ultra-minority disease, described for the first time in 1969 by John M. Opitz, are still unknown. It is generally thought that its origin is caused by the apparition of dominant -maternally silenced- novo mutations. At the moment, the diagnose is clinical and it is based on the symptomatology presented on patients with different degrees (trigonocephaly, learning disability, psychomotor disability, etc.) and which, in lots of cases, coincides with similar minority pathologies such as the syndromes of Schaaf-Yang, Bohring-Opitz and Prader-Willi.

In the new study, the experts described for the first time, the existence of a novo mutation -p.Q638*- located in the gene MAGEL2 of the only diagnosed person with Opitz C syndrome in Catalonia. Identifying this mutation, found in the Prader-Willi Region on chromosome 15, widens the knowledge horizons on genetics and the possibilities for a diagnosis on these rare diseases.

"The p.Q638* mutation, identified in the gene MAGEL2, coincides with the one described concurrently and independently in a patient with Schaaf-Yang syndrome, a new minoritary disease affecting fifty people in the world. The first cases were described on a scientific bibliography in 2013 by the team of Professor Christian Schaaf, from the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston", says Professor Daniel Grinberg, member of the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona (IBUB), the Research Institute of Sant Joan de Du (IRSJD) and CIBERER.

"Consequently, from a genetic diagnosis perspective -says DanieL Grinberg- this patient initially diagnosed with Opitz C in Catalonia would correspond to the group of patients with Schaaf-Yang syndrome"

Genetics will define the limits of rare diseases

Identifying the genes that cause a disease is a breakpoint to understand the pathology and set new future therapeutic approaches that improve the quality of life of the patients. In the new study, the teams of the UB and the CRG applied techniques of DNA massive sequencing (exome and genome), a powerful methodology that allows identifying altered genes in each patient.

According to Luis Serrano, director of CRG, "projects like this one show the important role of genomics in the future of medicine and the way on which we diagnose and treat diseases. To understand the diseases and offering not only a diagnosis but also approaches to possible treatments is very relevant in minority diseases. It is a satisfaction for the CRG to contribute with our knowledge and advanced technologies in a project that gives hope to a vulnerable collective" concluded the researcher.

Susana Balcells, tenured lecturer at the UB and also member of IBUB and CIBERER, added "what we can see from a clinical symptomatology view in these kinds of diseases which are so hard to study and diagnose, is far from the initial molecular defect that generates the disease".

"All these clinical doubts -continued Balcells- will be solved with genetics, which will define the limits of these rare diseases and will ease the scientific consensus on the diagnosis and genetic causes that create them".

Crowdfunding: when society supports scientific research

The members of the Group of Human Molecular Genetics of the University of Barcelona and the CRG are currently in contact with the team of Professor Schaaf and three families of patients diagnosed with Schaaf-Yang syndrome in the Iberian Peninsula.

In December 2026, the first author of the study published in Scientific Reports, Roser Urreitzi, researcher of CIBERER and lecturer at the UB, coordinated the meeting between the experts and the affected families. The meeting took place at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona and was a new encouragement for the collaboration of researchers and affected families in future projects with the participation of the UB, CRG and CIBERER Biobank, in Valencia. This cooperation has also allowed the three patients to be examined by the same clinical expert: the pediatrician Dr Anna M. Cueto, assistant doctor and clinical geneticist at the Department of Clinical and Molecular Genetics of the University Hospital Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona. This is clearly a new progress in the field of ultra-minority diseases.

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Researchers discover genetic bases of Opitz C syndrome - News-Medical.net

A bill that passed its first hurdle yesterday in Congress threatens to take away genetic privacy protections put in place with the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act(GINA) of 2008.H.R.1313, the Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act, might instead be called the telling on relatives ruling.

GINA

According to GINA, employers cant use genetic information to hire, fire, or promote an employee, or require genetic testing, and health insurers cant require genetic tests nor use results to deny coverage. The law clearly defines genetic tests DNA, RNA, chromosomes, proteins, metabolites and genetic information genetic test results and family history of a genetic condition.

GINA refers to a case,Norman-Bloodsaw v. Lawrence Berkeley Labfrom 1998, that allowed clerical and administrative workers to sue their employer for requiring testing for highly private and sensitive medical genetic information such as syphilis, sickle cell trait, and pregnancy without their consent or knowledge during a general employee health exam. Im not sure how syphilis and pregnancy got lumped in with sickle cell trait (a carrier), but requiring any such test is considered an illegal search under the Fourth Amendment. The sickle cell request also violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by singling out employees of African ancestry.

Yesterday the bill passed its first mark-up session, and will either head for the next markup with the Ways and Means Committee or become part of a package of health-care-related bills that goes to the House floor soon, according to Derek Scholes, PhD, the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) director of science policy, who attended the session.

Nancy J. Cox, PhD, ASHG president, in a letter to the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, provides a frightening overview:

If enacted, this legislation would undermine fundamentally the privacy provisions of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It would allow employers to ask employees invasive questions about their and their families health, as well as genetic tests they and their families have undergone. It would further allow employers to impose stiff financial penalties on employees who choose to keep such information private, thus empowering employers to coerce their employees into providing their health and genetic information.

Single-gene diseases are unlike other health conditions or clinical findings, such as infections or high serum cholesterol readings, because a diagnosis in one person reveals risks to relatives in accordance with Mendels laws. A 24-year-old school bus driver in perfect health, for example, whose parent receives a diagnosis of Huntingtons disease, could under the new bill face queries from an employer or health insurer about the 50% risk.

ALL IS NOT WELL(NESS)

The bill isbuilt around an exception in GINA concerning genetic testing that is part of health or genetic services the employer offers, such as part of a wellness program. However, GINA stipulates that only the person and the health care provider or board certified genetic counselor can view the results. GINA also spells out that genetic testing as part of a wellness program must be entirely voluntary.

A May 16, 2016, ruling from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commissionlaid the groundwork for penalizing employees who refuse to answer questions about their or their spouses health. This could amount to thousands of dollars a year, according to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation. H.R.1313 would make that even worse.

It would further permit workplace wellness programs to penalize much more severely employees who wish to keep their genetic and health information private, allowing penalties of up to 30 percent of the total cost of an employees health insurance, Dr. Cox writes. And the Public Health Service Act permits an increase to 50%. Penalties of this magnitude would compel Americans to choose between retaining the privacy of their health and genetic information and accessing affordable health insurance.

Is charging for the right to enjoy the genetic privacy that was once mandated by law a mechanism to underwrite the new health care plan?

REPERCUSSIONS

H.R.1313 would effectively repeal the fundamental genetic and health privacy protections in GINA and the ADA. It would allow workplace wellness programs to ask employees questions about genetic tests taken by themselves or their families, and to make inquiries about the medical history of employees, their spouses, their children, and other family members, Dr. Cox writes.

Other family members harkens back to GINA, bastardizing its protections, for the 2008 law casts a wide net for relatives, down to the fourth degree.

While first-degree relatives are a persons children, siblings, and parents, and second-degree are grandparents, grandchildren, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, and half-siblings, third-degree relatives extend to great-grandparents, great grandchildren, great uncles/aunts, and first cousins, and, ridiculously, fourth-degree relatives to great-great-grandparents, great-great-grandchildren, and first cousins once-removed. I remember my disappointment when I realized that the notifications of new fifth cousins pouring into my email after taking an ancestry test were pretty meaningless, since we each have more than 4,000 of them.

Also worrisome is that the new mandate reeks of genetic determinism, the idea that genotype dictates phenotype.

Genetic information alone does not a diagnosis make. Thats why a clinical diagnosis considers symptoms and results of other types of tests. And while the example of the young bus driver with a family history of HD lies at an extreme because people who inherit the mutation nearly always develop the disease, that situation of complete penetrance is unusual. Most inherited diseases are incompletely penetrant some people with a disease-associated genotype may never develop the condition due to protections from other genes (see Why do healthy people have harmful mutations?here). Another repercussion of H.R.1313 is that it might frighten people away from participating in clinical trials.

I also fear misunderstanding on the part of people charged with analyzing anyones genetic fitness, so to speak, on the basis of a list of mutations or other gene variants. Remember the sickle cell screen of the early 1970s? That was adisasterbecause many parents thought that a finding of children having sickle cell trait meant that they had or would develop the disease. I was even told off-the-record that at least one parental suicide resulted from the well-meant but widespread misinformation.

Will wellness coaches serve as the go-betweens for employees and employers, and if so, how much genetics do they know? Would a wellness coach know that the Huntingtons disease that is in the family of the active and healthy 24-year-old takes many years to develop, even after the first symptoms appear? I didnt see any hard science requirements in this job descriptionor a few others. (Im thinking of the Pilates instructors who have told me that I am lengthening my spine, but thats probably not the same thing.)

The letter from ASHG urges the committee not to support H.R.1313, and to encourage workplace wellness programs without sacrificing employees civil rights. All Americans should be free to participate in genetic research or benefit from genetics-based clinical advances without fear of genetic discrimination, Dr. Cox concludes.

As we gear up to encourage folks to participate in the Precision Medicine Initiativeby contributing their personal genome information, the direct to consumer genetic testing industryis not only alive and well but growing, and loading our genome sequences onto our smartphonesis no longer science fiction, H.R.1313 seems to be coming at a most inopportune time. Lets hope the 1313 is bad luck for its passage!

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Saving GINA: Is Genetic Privacy Imperiled? - PLoS Blogs (blog)

Hitachi High Technologies America (HTA) will partner with ZS Genetics to commercialize ZS single-molecule DNA sequencing platform, the companies said today, through a collaboration whose value was not disclosed.

The companies said ZS Genetics proprietary third-generation technologies, based on high-resolution electron microscopy (EM), will allow users for the first time to sequence long reads50,000 or more base-pairsof single DNA molecules at high quality. The company expects to average hundreds of millions of base-pairs of sequencing data per hour.

ZS Genetics says its technology is designed to sequence entire human genomes in days by reading sequences of single DNA molecules that are hundreds of times longer than those read by any other existing technologies, without the need for amplification.

ZS Genetics third-generation sequencing processes DNA samples into single-stranded DNA that is then modified into double-stranded DNA with a few heavy atoms or modified deoxyribonucleotide triphosphates (dNTPs) per base pair. Each dNTP contains a unique label separately identifiable in the electron microscope image, which is captured and analyzed with software that recognizes the DNA and labels.

The technology typically sequences each sample 5 to 10 times, rather than 30 to 50 timesa reduction in oversampling that ZS Genetics says on its website will collapse the informatics costs of sequencing and improve the quality of genomes produced.

Privately held ZS Genetics plans to establish an early-access center in its Wakefield, MA, facility later this year for product and application development, in collaboration with select customer and supply-chain partners it did not name.

The companies did not disclose other details and terms of their strategic product development relationship.

The technical capabilities of our two companies are expected to produce a DNA sequencing platform capable of enabling unique scientific discovery, as well as offering a powerful tool to complement and broaden current short-read sequencing technologies, ZS Genetics CEO John A. McCarthy, Jr., said in a statement. The rapidly increasing complexity of scientific discovery continues to reinforce the need for higher quality and more scientifically rich DNA sequencing capabilities."

Added Phil Bryson, vp and gm of HTAs Nanotechnology Systems Division: We are confident that HTAs decades-long leadership in high-resolution EM for highly complex applications in R&D and industry can translate readily into this powerful and important new application for the life sciences industry.

HTA, a subsidiary of Hitachi High-Technologies Corp., sells and services semiconductor manufacturing equipment, analytical instrumentation, scientific instruments, and bio-related products, as well as industrial equipment, electronic devices, and electronic and industrial materials. HTA is a privately owned global affiliate company operating within the Hitachi Group Companies.

Excerpt from:
Hitachi Partners with ZS Genetics to Commercialize Sequencing Platform - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

By Tom Polansek | CHICAGO

CHICAGO The strain of bird flu that infected a chicken farm in Tennessee in recent days shares the same name as a form of the virus that has killed humans in China, but is genetically distinct from it, U.S. authorities said on Tuesday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture identified the strain in Tennessee as H7N9, following a full genome sequencing of samples from the farm. It said all eight gene segments of the virus had North American wild bird lineage.

On Sunday, the USDA confirmed the farm in Tennessee was infected with highly pathogenic bird flu, making it the first case in a commercial U.S. operation in more than a year.

In China, at least 112 people have died from H7N9 bird flu this winter, Xinhua news agency said on Friday.

However, that virus has Eurasian lineage, U.S. flu experts said.

"Even though the numbers and the letters are the same, if you look at the genetic fingerprint of that virus, it is different," said Dan Jernigan, director of the influenza division at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Jernigan said the risk to humans from the virus found in Tennessee is low. Genome sequencing shows the H7N9 virus did not have genetic features present in the virus in China that make it easier for humans to become infected, he said.

The virus found in Tennessee likely mutated to become highly pathogenic from a less dangerous, low pathogenic form, he said.

Disease experts fear a deadly strain of bird flu could mutate into a form that could be passed easily between people and become a pandemic.

Multiple outbreaks of the virus have been reported in poultry farms and wild flocks across Europe, Africa and Asia in the past six months. Most involved strains that were low risks for human health, but the sheer number of different types, and their simultaneous presence in so many parts of the world, has increased the risk of viruses mixing and mutating - and possibly jumping to people, according to disease experts.

China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention has said the majority of people infected by H7N9 in China reported exposure to poultry, especially at live markets.

Identifying the viruses in Tennessee and China both as H7N9 is similar to having two cars from different states with the same license plate number, said Carol Cardona, avian flu expert at the University of Minnesota.

The strain in Tennessee "is NOT the same as the China H7N9 virus that has impacted poultry and infected humans in Asia," the USDA emphasized in a statement.

"While the subtype is the same as the China H7N9 lineage that emerged in 2013, this is a different virus and is genetically distinct from the China H7N9 lineage," the USDA added.

U.S. officials are working to determine how the Tennessee farm, which was a supplier to Tyson Foods Inc, became infected. All 73,500 birds there were killed by the disease or suffocated with foam to prevent its spread.

Tyson, the world's biggest chicken company, is "hopeful this is an isolated incident," spokesman Worth Sparkman said.

Authorities have not identified the name of the farm or the town in Lincoln County, Tennessee, where it is located.

(Editing by Matthew Lewis and Bernard Orr)

SARAJEVO Nejra Isaretovic, a 25-year old physiotherapist from Sarajevo, is busy these days studying German and taking driving lessons -- key skills required for her new job in Germany.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said on Wednesday that it intends to expand mental health care to former service members with other-than-honorable (OTH) administrative discharges.

(Reuters Health) - Improvement or worsening of chest pain symptoms and quality of life after a CT scan of the heart may depend on what the scan finds, a large study suggests.

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Tennessee bird flu shares name, not genetics, of feared China strain ... - Reuters

SAN DIEGO, March 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bionano Genomics, Inc., a company focused on genome structure analysis, today highlighted results from a study demonstrating how combining genomic sequencing and mapping technologies, including Bionanos next-generation mapping (NGM), produced the most continuous de novo mammalian assembly to date, of the domestic goat (Capra hircus). The paper, Single-molecule sequencing and chromatin conformation capture enable de novo reference assembly of the domestic goat genome, was published online in advance of print in the March 6, 2017 issue of Nature Genetics (DOI:10.1038/ng.3802).

The paper described the use of single-molecule real-time long-read sequencing for contig formation (PacBios RSII), followed by scaffolding using chromatin interaction mapping (Phase Genomics Hi-C) and optical mapping data (Bionano Genomics Irys). The resulting assembly was polished with paired-end short-read sequencing for sequence accuracy (Illuminas HiSeq).

Hi-C has been gaining popularity for scaffolding de novo assembled genomes. By cross-linking remote regions of chromosomes, Hi-C has the potential to make scaffolds reaching chromosome arm lengths possible. However, this cross-linking does not always enable order and orientation of the contigs to be determined correctly. In the scaffolding of the goat genome described here, Hi-C introduced 7 times more errors than Bionano (21 vs. 3).

Since Bionano NGM is the only non-sequence based scaffolding method, it is the only technology capable of correcting errors inherent to both short-read and long-read sequencing. Bionano genome maps are created completely de novo, and therefore provide an entirely independent assembly with which to compare the sequence contigs. The Nature Genetics paper describes how Bionanos genome maps were able to correct 36 mis-assemblies in the PacBio contigs. Furthermore, Bionano allowed for precise sizing of 79% of the remaining gaps, which is not possible with Hi-C.

Erik Holmlin, Ph.D., CEO of Bionano, commented, This paper follows the recent release of multiple reference-quality human genomes, including the Chinese and Korean reference genomes, all of which included Bionano data to create the most contiguous and accurate assemblies possible. Since the time this study was conducted over 18 months ago, Bionano has significantly advanced its scaffolding tools and with the recently released Saphyr instrument, the cost to map a mammalian genome has decreased six-fold. This publication serves as important validation of NGM as a complementary genomic tool to combine with next-generation sequencing to reveal highly informative native structure of chromosomes.

Bionanos hybrid scaffold pipeline within the Bionano Access analysis and visualization software allows users to combine two genome maps, each created by labeling a different sequence motif with an NGS assembly. This combination typically doubles the contiguity achieved using one genome map, incorporates about 50% more contigs into the assembly, and provides an additional de novo assembly to be used in error correction. Using Saphyr, two mammalian genome maps can be created in a single run, for a total reagent and consumables cost of less than $2000 a fraction of the sequencing and scaffolding cost for the entire project described in this paper, which approached $100,000.

The generated assembly, ARS1, represents an approximate 400-fold improvement in genome continuity due to properly assembled gaps compared to the previously published goat assembly, and better resolves the full structure of large repeats longer than 1 kilobase (kb). ARS1 comprises just 31 scaffolds and 649 gaps covering 30 of the 31 haploid, acrocentric goat chromosomes (excluding only the Y chromosome), which compares favorably to the current human reference (GRCh38), which has 24 scaffolds, 169 unplaced or un-localized scaffolds, and 832 gaps in the primary assembly.

The researchers concluded that the assembly strategy using multiple complementary technologies achieved superior continuity and accuracy, is cost-effective compared to past finishing approaches, and sets a new standard for mammalian genome assembly quality.

The Bionano Access software, which includes two-enzyme hybrid scaffolding and related scaffold editing, will be released as a free download later this month.

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About Bionano Genomics

Bionano Genomics, Inc. provides the Irys and Saphyr systems for next-generation mapping (NGM), which is the leading solution in physical genome mapping. NGM offers customers whole genome analysis tools that reveal true genome structure and enabling researchers to capture whats missing in their data to advance human, plant and animal genomic research. NGM uses NanoChannel arrays to image DNA at the single-molecule level with average single-molecule lengths of about 350,000 base pairs, which leads the genomics industry. The long-range genomic information obtained with NGM detects and deciphers structural variations (SVs), which are large, complex DNA segments involving repeats that are often missed by sequencing technologies and which are a leading cause of inaccurate and incomplete genome assembly.

As a stand-alone tool, NGM enables the accurate detection of SVs, many of which have been shown to be associated with human disease as well as complex traits in plants and animals. As a complementary tool to next-generation sequencing (NGS), NGM integrates with sequence assemblies to create contiguous hybrid scaffolds for reference-quality genome assemblies that reveal the highly informative native structure of the chromosome. NGM also provides the additional ability to verify, correct and improve a NGS-generated genome assembly.

Only Bionano provides long-range genomic information with the cost-efficiency and high throughput to keep up with advances in NGS.

NGM has been adopted by a growing number of leading institutions around the world, including: National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, BGI, Garvan Institute, Salk Institute, Mount Sinai and Washington University. Investors in the Company include Domain Associates, Legend Capital, Novartis Venture Fund and Monashee Investment Management.

For more information, please visit http://www.BionanoGenomics.com.

Notes: Bionano Genomics is a trademark of Bionano Genomics, Inc. Any other names of actual companies, organizations, entities, products or services may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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Nature Genetics Paper Demonstrates How Inclusion of Bionano Genomics' Next-Generation Mapping is Essential to ... - Yahoo Finance

A chance encounter on a country drive led to the export of 2,400 heifer calves to Turkey.

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What are your cattle operations genetic goals? There's plenty at stake if you don't know them, or even worse...

Sign Up for the BEEF Daily newsletter today!

Cow-calf producers who dont use science when selecting genetics may find their herd on the wrong end of a smoking gun.

The beef business is moving from a segmented industry to one thats more united, and information is at the core of that shift. Genomic data is helping that transition.

The world is watching what we do and how we do it. And that need for transparency will soon hit our use of genomic technology. We need to get ready.

A cowherds ability to maintain a high weaning rate with minimal supplementation of harvested feeds is a key contributor to a ranchs overall sustainability.

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Can you breed cattle to follow the road less traveled and graze hillsides? Research says its possible.

This exclusive gallery features photos and information on the 100+ operations that make up the annual Seedstock 100 listing.

Bull buying season is nigh, and since your bull battery contributes 75% of your genetics, taking a little time to prepare ahead of the sale is time well spent. Those tips and more await you in this weeks Trending Headlines.

With most genetics available to everyone, increasingly, the primary point of differentiation among seedstock suppliers is their understanding of customer needs. That takes a relaetionship.

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Cattle Genetics | BEEF Magazine

By Joel Couture . March 8, 2017 . 2:00pm

Predators, harsh elements, and bad breeding will make quick work of careless players inNiche, a turn-based strategy game about helping animals survive in the wild.

In Niche, players will have to manage animals with a random set of genetic traits, playing to their strengths and dealing with their weaknesses as they try to survive in various environments. To do so, players will need to decide what actions to give each member of their pack on each turn, sending them out for food, digging shelters, having them mate and give birth to offspring, or attack predators.

Each turn counts as a day in the life of each animal, and after a set amount of time, each of these animals will quickly die. Death can be sped up significantly by hunger, sickness, and attacks, so players will have to deal with these issues quickly before they cut through their packs lifespan.

Players can boost their chances of survival through smart breeding. Each genetic trait can be passed on through the use of dominant-recessive genes, letting players put scientific knowledge to use, or learn more about the science of genetics through the game. In doing so, they can get rid of negative traits and boost positive ones using real science.

Niche is available now on Steam Early Access.

Video game stories from other sites on the web. These links leave Siliconera.

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Goods Genetics Are Key To Surviving Niche's Harsh Worlds - Siliconera

Seattle Genetics, Inc. (SGEN - Free Report) announced that the FDA has lifted the clinical hold on two phase I trials of its candidate, vadastuximab talirine (SGN-CD33A; 33A).

Vadastuximab talirine is an early stage candidate that is being developed for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

The partial clinical hold was implemented in Dec 2016 to evaluate the potential risk of liver toxicity in patients treated with vadastuximab talirine, who underwent a stem cell transplant either before or after the treatment.

Seattle Genetics outperformed the Zacks classified Medical-Biomedical/Genetics industry year to date. The stock jumped almost 27.1% during this period while the industry gained 6.9%.

The clinical hold on vadastuximab talirine was resolved through an analysis of the clinical data from over 300 patients treated to date and evaluated by an independent committee of clinical experts, collaborative interactions with the FDA and protocol amendments designed to further enhance patient safety.

Consequently, Seattle Genetics will resume two phase I trials of vadastuximab talirine. The first trial will be a combination treatment with standard of care, or 7+3, chemotherapy in newly diagnosed younger AML patients. The second is monotherapy and combination treatment with hypomethylating agents in both newly diagnosed and relapsed AML patients.

Meanwhile, the company continues to enroll patients in the phase III CASCADE study in frontline older AML patients and in a phase I/II study in frontline high-risk myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS).

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Seattle Genetics currently carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell). Some better-ranked stocks in the health care sector include Heska Corp. (HSKA - Free Report) , Sunesis Pharmaceuticals (SNSS - Free Report) and Celgene Corp. (CELG - Free Report) . While Heska sports a Zacks Rank#1 (Strong Buy), Sunesis Sciences and Celgene carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can seethe complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here

Heskas earnings estimates increased from $1.53 to $1.65 for 2017 and from $1.90 to $2.01 for 2018, over the last 30 days. The company posted positive earnings surprises in all of the four trailing quarters with an average beat of 291.54%.

Sunesis loss estimates narrowed 5.06% and 8.80% for 2016 and 2017, respectively, over the past 30 days. The company recorded positive earnings surprises in three of the last four quarters, the average being 0.54%.

Celgenes earnings estimates increased from $6.52 to $6.60 for 2017 and from $8.15 to $8.16 for 2018, over the last 60 days. The company posted positive earnings surprises in three of the four trailing quarters with an average beat of 5.08%.

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Seattle Genetics (SGEN): FDA Lifts Hold on Trial of AML Drug - Zacks.com

Performance Genetics LLC, a leading Thoroughbred analytics and performance evaluation company is pleased to announce the launch of its two-year-old in training sale site BreezeUpIQ.com BreezeUpIQ.com uses the latest in machine learning algorithms, specifically XGBoost, to develop a predictive algorithm to select elite horses from two-year-olds in training sales. More than half of the winning solutions in machine learning challenges hosted at data science platform Kaggle adopt XGBoost as their winning algorithm. "This project is the culmination of years of work, gathering data at major two-year-olds in training sales across North America and Europe and using racetrack outcomes to develop a predictive algorithm for two-year-olds in training sales. In all, I have data on just over 6,000 horses that subsequently had 3 or more starts so are valid records to create a prediction algorithm on," said Byron Rogers of Performance Genetics. "The algorithm normalizes a breeze and gallop out for the sex and distance breezed and using other variables such as velocity, decay, stride length and strides per second it is able to capture both linear and non-linear relationships in the data to elite performance making it a unique player in the two-year-olds sales market", Rogers added. In a randomized holdout set of 1,000 two-year-olds with racing outcomes that the algorithm had not seen before, the BreezeUpIQ XGBoost model selected just 6.8% of all horses, with 23.1% of these being subsequent stakes winners. "The model doesn't find every stakes winner, as some stakes winners will for one reason or another generate breeze data that is not different to a lot of average horses, but it delivers an outstanding strike rate for selecting elite runners at two-year-olds in training sales for the relatively small number horses that it does identify as being unique. Importantly it is learning off new data every month to become more and more precise," said Rogers. Current plans will see the algorithm used at the upcoming OBS March 2YO sale and major two-year-olds sales in North America with plans to roll out the service at European two-year-olds sales this year. For further information please contact, Byron Rogers Performance Genetics LLC e: byron@performancegenetics.com m: +1 859 285 0431

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Performance Genetics Offering Breeze-Ups Analytics - BloodHorse.com (press release) (registration) (blog)

It wasnt until a few weeks after the albino ball python hatched that Justin Kobylka noticed it was distinctly marked with three smiley faces. He saw one a yellow blob that looks like a smiling emoji and thought it was cool. Then, when reviewing a photograph of the snake, he noticed they comprised a trio a pattern that he, a professional snake breeder, had never heard of. He was in the presence of a rare masterwork of genetic engineering.

I knew theoretically that you could get smiley faces one smiley face is not that uncommon, said Kobylka, who hatched his first batch of snakes in an incubator underneath his dorm room bed in college, in an interview with Inverse. I would likely be able to breed more in the future that have just one, but I dont know if I could get three ever again no matter how long I try. Its really a lucky thing.

This snakes existence is a mixture of luck and years worth of careful science. While the snakes unique pattern is what makes it viral worthy, what is less obvious is how difficult it is for a highly patterned albino that is, white-skinned ball python to even exist.

There are two recessive mutations, fairly common in the natural world, manifested this snake: albinism and pybalism, the characteristic of having high-color, high-contrast patterns like the smiley face. The first albino ball python that ever hatched was bred from double heterozygous parent snakes that both contained mutant alleles at both genes encoding these two traits. Because the odds are one in 16 that a snake carrying both mutations could hatch and each female only has six eggs a year, it could take two to three years for this breeding to even occur, Kobylka says.

Breeding gets easier once the first albino pyball is born: Using it in a second pairing with another double heterozygous parent, the odds drop to one in four. Still, theres no guarantee that the albino pyballs characteristic splotch pattern will form the shape of a smiley, let alone three times in a row; it occurs in only one in ten snakes. This is where Kobylkas luck factors in.

The special smilies are fun, but were just happy to be able to make an albino ball python, says Kobylka. Two years ago, making an albino ball python was a holy grail.

When these special snakes hatched, they were worth a pretty penny for collectors; they are valued between $30,000 to $40,000. Today, Kobylka can use an albino python in the actual pairing as a double homozygous animal as the parent, which drops the odds to another albino ball python hatching to one in four. While this easier breeding system has increased the quantity available, and has dropped the price to about $4,500 each.

Is it possible for you to get an emoji snake exactly like this? Probably not science isnt on your side and Kobylka is keeping this one.

Photos via Giphy

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This Very Rare Emoji Snake Is a Genetics Marvel - Inverse