Remember what happened to Seth Brundle when his DNA got mixed up with a fly? Geena Davis got a career. We cannot let something so catastrophic happen again. Or worse.
You have all heard of the Human Genome database, right? This is a database that resulted from sampling all of the human DNA. Drug companies and others mine this data to develop new drugs for erectile restless leg dysfunction and such.
Well, as it turns out. Not all the DNA in the human DNA database is human afterall.
Earlier this year, molecular biologists announced that 20 per cent of nonhuman genome databases are contaminated with human DNA, probably from the researchers who sequenced the samples.
Now, the human genome itself has become contaminated. Bill Langdon at University College London and Matthew Arno at Kings College London say they’ve found sequences from mycoplasma bacteria in the human genome database.
This contamination has far reaching consequences. Biotech companies use the human genome database to create DNA chips that measure levels of human gene expression. Langdon and Arno say they’ve found mycoplasma DNA in two commercially available human DNA chips.
Anybody using these chips to measure human gene expression is also unknowingly measuring mycoplasma gene expression too.
So if suddenly you start to feel a little mycoplasmotic (don’t we all sometimes), now you know why.
I would be OK with this if the mycoplasma had some cool abilities that we could inadvertently inherit, like what happens with radioactive spiders. But as far as I know the mycoplasma just kind of sits around and does nothing of consequence and I already do that.
June 23, 2011 at 10:24 pm
These kinds of stories always re-affirm my primary concern that our ability to do new and frightening things with our DNA, vaccines, and medicines etc. has far outpaced our ability to create the clean, controlled production and supply chains that are a necessary part of the wide scale use of these technologies.
June 24, 2011 at 1:45 am
Oh if only Pepsi, Campbell's, and Cadbury were there to hear that news!!!
June 27, 2011 at 7:01 pm
Well, they know it already but are allowed (in some cases by law) to have certain percentages of adulterants in their products. There's no threshold safe level of say, rodent hair, in an injectable medication but there is in a candybar.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news if you didnt know this already…