In order to do a hair test for paternity, you need to have hair that still has the roots and follicles still attached. This means, cutting hair and often even taking strands from a brush will not work, you need to pull the hair from your head and look to make sure the hair follicles and roots come attached to the sample. In most cases of a paternity test, five to ten strands of hair with the root and follicles still attached are required in order to do the DNA testing. Hair test for paternity costs more than most other DNA testing and is not as reliable because it is more difficult to extract enough DNA from the follicles.

Genetic DNA paternity testing allows courts and individuals to confirm paternity of a child. Most tests do hold up in court and do provide for accurate results. In most cases tests using hair samples are not legal tests and do not hold up in court as the DNA testing company can not guarantee from whom the sample came. Most people use a clinical facility which offer legal tests, but some receive a home test kit in the mail and send the sample out for testing which are for peace of mind but are not usable in court.

Why do people need a DNA test for paternity? In some cases, genetic DNA paternity testing is done to determine the parentage of a child. This procedure allows courts, parents and other concerned individuals to know who the parents are, whether it is for the mother or the father. This information allows the custodial parent to receive support of the said child. In most states, if you receive any kind of support from the government, you need to know the paternity of the father.

Why do people need a hair test for paternity? In most cases people are trying to determine paternity without the alleged parent knowing. They want to send in a sample of the alleged parent and are unsure of what will work. TV shows make testing with hair seem simple and do not show any of the down sides of using hair. There are many types of samples that can be used and while hair is the most well know it is not necessarily the best. Some more reliable options are Band Aids, Fingernail or Toenail clippings, Dental Floss or a Toothbrush. While the results will likely not be court admissible, unless collected by a third party investigator, they do offer peace of mind.

Before genetic DNA paternity testing helped to identify a father, men who were said to be a father were just that, determined and appointed the father. Today, a simple paternity test will reveal if the individual is the legal father or not. This procedure has also aided in the overturning of many rulings by the courts when confirming that someone was a father, they have been found not to be the father, which leads to hardship for many. Check your state laws on to see what the statutes of limitations are for changing paternity.

Earlier tests conducted used the blood type of the mother and father to determine if the baby belonged to the father. Due to technological advancements the most common from of paternity testing is DNA testing, which is done by using cheek swabs from all parties concerned. Some people feel this could cause a big problem with child support agencies, as they try to collect from the real father after collecting support from the wrong father for years. In many states there are laws limiting the amount of time allowed to change the paternity of a child for that exact reason.

With the advancement of DNA testing, the entire process has helped in many areas as people use the genetic DNA paternity testing to find lost children and find missing fathers. Technology keeps advancing and so does paternity testing.

In conclusion, a home DNA test is a relatively simple and painless procedure and usually involves taking a swab of the inner cheek of both the suspected father as well as the child and, if possible, it’s mother. When choosing a home DNA test kit you should look for a kit that is AABB accredited and which offer a 99% inclusion and 100% exclusion rate. If you need or want to use the results for any legal purposes you should talk to the company offering the test and make sure the test option you choose is a legal test.

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Well the story has resurfaced again….

In Dresden, Germany, a citizen commission overwhelmingly recommended a plan where DNA samples would be collected from all dogs when their owners renew their annual canine license. It is projected that within one year, a database of Dresden’s currently registered 12,500 canines would be complete. At that point sanitation workers would begin carrying feces-sample kits and submit evidence to a forensics laboratory, where scientists could easily match the feces to dog. The dog’s owner would be promptly fined up to (the equivalent of) $600 US dollars. Dresden’s commission projects a break-even point after about seven months at which point the city would start to turn a profit.

While in the past I have seen this story surface as a joke it seems that the idea of creating a DNA database to fine errant dog owners seems to be picking up steam and gaining more wide spread support. In the mean time I am going to keep my eyes posted to see how this story unfolds.

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Researchers may have discovered a genetic equivalent  of the Fountain of Youth hidden in the DNA of centenarians.

Only 1 in 6,000 people reaches the century mark and just 1 in 7 million lives to be a supercentenarian (someone who is 110 or older). A new study, published online in Science, suggests that more people may have the right genetic stuff for extreme longevity.
This new study, looked at genetic markers called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), in 1,055 centenarians and 1,267 younger people, all of European descent. The researchers found 150 genetic SNP variants which were linked to extreme longevity.

At first, the team identified only 33 SNPs found more often in people aged 90 to 114 years but not in a control group made up of people who will presumably live an average lifespan.  Thomas Perls, a geriatrician at Boston University School of Medicine who coauthored the new study, the researchers felt that they were still missing part of the story.

Biostatistician Paola Sebastiani of the Boston University School of Public Health devised a different statistical method to identify additional SNPs that would improve the team’s ability to predict longevity. The team tested their predictions on a separate group of centenarians and controls. With the 150 SNPs, the researchers could correctly predict who was a centenarian 77 percent of the time.

“77 percent is a very high accuracy for a genetic model, which means that the traits that we are looking at have a very strong genetic base,” Sebastiani says. On the other hand, the 150 SNPs can’t explain why the remaining 23 percent of centenarians in the study have reached such ripe old ages. It could mean that those people have other, rare genetic variants or lifestyles responsible for their longevity or some combination of the two, she says.

Extrapolating these results to try to predict how long the average person will live would be a mistake, says Nicholas Schork, a statistical geneticist at the Scripps Translational Science Institute and the Scripps Research Institute, both in La Jolla, Calif.  “They’ve identified markers for something, but what that something is remains a mystery,” Schork says. How the combination of genetic markers work together to extend health and life “is the zillion-dollar question.”

Don’t expect the genetic data to lead to a Methuselah pill, Perls says.  “I look at the complexity of this puzzle and feel very strongly that this will not lead to treatments that will get a lot of people to become centenarians,” he says. But the research could conceivably lead to treatments that delay diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Supercentenarians (someone who is 110 or older) had nearly all of the longevity markers. But most of the over-100 crowd carried different combinations of SNPs that fell into one or more of 19 different genetic profiles. These results indicate that there are many different genetic combinations to longevity and that many different biological processes are involved, Sebastiani says.

The researchers had expected that centenarians would lack disease-associated variants, but that isn’t the case. Some of the genetic profiles correlated with extreme delays in the onset of diseases such as dementia, heart disease or cancer. Others seem to allow centenarians to withstand the effects of such diseases.

About 15 percent of people in the general population may actually have what it takes genetically to reach 100, says Perls. “If they’re not hit by a bus, if they’re not in a war, if they haven’t had some other accident happen, maybe they get to fulfill that,” he says. “Now, a bunch of those people may also need to not smoke and not be obese and a number of important lifestyle factors as well.”

Sebastiani says, “One can conjecture that genetically we’re built to live longer,” and longer life expectancies associated with improved public health measures seem to bear that out.

Other studies have shown that genetics account for only 20 percent to 30 percent of a person’s chances of living beyond age 85. Environmental factors, including lifestyle choices such as diet, smoking and exercise habits, are still the most important determinants of longevity.

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How DNA testing is done depends on the results desired and the samples available. DNA profiling is the process of analyzing and comparing two DNA samples. Only identical twins have the exact same DNA sequence, everyone else’s DNA is unique. This makes DNA the perfect way to link individuals to each other or to locations where they have been.

The entire DNA chain is incredibly long, much to long to examine all of it. Human DNA is made up of about 3.3 billion base pairs. The differences between DNA samples occur only in small segments of the DNA–the rest of the DNA is very similar. DNA testing focuses on those segments that are known to differ from person to person.

As DNA testing has evolved over time, the testing methods have become more precise and are able to work with much smaller DNA samples. Early DNA testing was done using dime-size drops of blood. Today’s tests can extract DNA from the back of a licked stamp (in some cases) but is most often done by using cheek swabs. These cheek swabs are easy to collect, painless and very accurate The DNA must be extracted from whatever sample is provided. DNA must be isolated and purified before it can be compared. In essence, it has to be “unlocked” from the cell in which it exists. The cell walls are usually dissolved with a detergent. Proteins in the cell are digested by enzymes. After this process, the DNA is purified, concentrated, and tested.

DNA testing is done most often today using a process called “short tandem repeats,” or STR. Human DNA has several regions of repeated sequences. These regions are found in the same place on the DNA chain, but the repeated sequences are different for each individual. The “short” tandem repeats (repeated sequences of two to five base pairs in length) have been proven to provide excellent DNA profiling results. STR is highly accurate–the chance of misidentification being one in several billion.

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In an unusual case that spanned nearly a year, DNA sample were taken to prove that Molly belonged to Cliff and Darlene Ryckman.

Molly had no microchip and no tattoo, so when the tiny dog went missing last year the Ryckmans were at a loss to prove the identity of the dog they had raised from birth.  Even though they found out who in the neighborhood had taken her in.

Darlene, said “I thought you know what, they do it on humans, they got to do it on animals,” when asked where shy got the idea to preform a DNA test on Molly.

The Ryckmans also own Molly’s sire, Howey, and had the DNA paternity test done to compare genetic material between the two. In all three test were performed on each dog.

The stressful year started last March 4 when the two dogs were let out into the back yard of the family’s home.  The gate wasn’t quite shut, and the two dogs started to chase a cat and the next thing Darlene knew, she couldn’t find Molly.

“I prayed every day,” she said. “I went to a psychic. I put it in The Spectator.”  Darlene also put an announcement on local TV, got the word out at some schools and put up flyers.

Almost right after Molly went missing, a woman responded to the flyers Darlene had posted.  She said had seen two people in the neighborhood pick up a Shih Tzu and take it into an apartment building.  Cliff, tracked down a specific apartment, and was told by a woman there that they did not have Molly.

The Ryckmans weren’t convinced and they were persistent with police.  Eventually they ended up face-to-face with the people who had picked up Molly on the street when they were out with Molly.  Darlene said of the encounter, “Seeing Molly just walking away from me … she was going nuts when she seen me and my husband, and I just broke down because I couldn’t take my dog and these people wouldn’t give me my dog back.”

Cliff said the whole situation was very upsetting for the couple.  He said,”It upset me to go to work because my wife would be crying everyday.”

But finally, after much determination and pursuing Molly through three moves by the people who had Molly, the Ryckmans paid $110 for DNA tests for the two dogs.  Constable Annette Huys, one of two officers working on the case, took the DNA samples.  Huys said, “I’d just come out of the forensic unit, so I was used to collecting lots of DNA, but not necessarily from dogs.”  Huys said unfortunately everybody had fallen in love with the Molly and it didn’t matter which side police dealt with, they were always crying when it came to talking about the Molly.

It took about two weeks for the samples to come back a match. Molly was returned to her the Ryckmans on February 20th.

Staff Sergeant Jack Langhorn called the entire case including taking doggy DNA “extremely unusual.” He said, “It was a unique situation … It wouldn’t be something that we’re going to do on a regular basis.”

Darlene said she’s grateful to the two officers who worked on the case and that, she’ll be getting Molly microchiped shortly.

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Regardless of net worth, it is important for all individuals to have a basic estate plan in place.  This can be done with a family attorney or there are many online legal aid sites that can assist you in creating the proper document. Most often the biological children of deceased individuals have inheritance rights, DNA is being used more and more when estates are in question.

In some cases, previously unknown children can appear to claim part of the estate. Or, a greedy or unhappy family members may claim that a beneficiary is not a biological descendant of the deceased person. Depending on the timing of the claim, defending this claim could require exhumation or testing of autopsy specimens, neither of which is a pleasant process and which can be an expensive process.

DNA has emerged as a common tool in modern human identification and has magnificent and unparalleled applications in modern society. The best defense is a strong offense. In many cases proper legal registration of your DNA profile with your estate planner or attorney will help ensure legal and rightful administration of your estate, should the need arise.

The DNA relationship testing market has been growing steadily over the last twenty years.  Prices are decreasing and the easy of testing is increasing. Today, it is projected that the annual number of persons that will participate in some type of paternity or extended relationship test will exceed 1 million. In sharp contrast, it is estimated that less than 200,000 persons were tested in 1988. The increased demand for DNA testing has been fueled by greater public awareness of the power of DNA and the affordability and easy access to testing.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 2007 was a record year for births in the United States, there were 4,315,000 recorded births. Experts think that the increase has to do with a range of factors, including immigrants having more children, professional women delaying pregnancy until their 40s and a larger population of women in their 20s and 30s. These factors, coupled with the fact that 38.5% of all U.S. births in 2006 were from unwed mothers translates into an increasing need for education of families about the importance of knowing ones biological parents.

About DNA

DNA is the map of life and defines the essence of our individuality. Despite the size of the human genome, over 3.2 billion genetic markers, 99.9% of the DNA in all unrelated people in the world is identical. Thus, the vast differences observed in the human race are created from the minute differences in only 0.1% of DNA. An individual’s DNA can contain valuable information to help the lives of present and future generations. Locked in our DNA code are the secrets of our ancestry and medical conditions that scientists are only now beginning to understand.

PATERNITY

It is natural for families to want to know who the biological father of their baby is. Nationwide, approximately 30% of tested men are excluded as the biological father.  That means that 3 out of 10 test comes back as a negative result for paternity. A child has the right to the sense of identity that comes from knowing who both biological parents are. Knowledge of a child’s biological heritage is also very important in understanding future possible health risks. In addition, determining paternity gives a child legal right to receive financial support from the father and to inherit from the father.  This is the same if the mother is unknown.  In an era when adoption is a popular option it is important to remember that more and more people do not know either biological parent.

RELATIONSHIP TESTING

Relationship DNA testing can determine if a long lost brother or sister, grandparent, aunt or uncle is truly related to the family in question. DNA testing can also reveal if twins are identical or fraternal. Modern DNA testing can provide answers for a new world of relationships. Paternity testing can also be performed indirectly by testing relatives of an alleged father.

FORENSIC PATERNITY

If a person is deceased or unavailable for testing which is often the case in the question of estate settlement, forensic DNA testing can be an invaluable tool.  DNA can be found on evidence that is decades old. Common sources of forensic DNA evidence include: fingernail clippings, hair with roots or follicles, chewing gum, used beverage containers, eyeglasses, hats, lickable stamps or envelopes, teeth, post mortem tissue, a toothbrush, or cigarette butt.  The results that can be looked for from each item differs and it is best to contact your laboratory to see what items they recommend. For more infomation on DNA testing and how it can asssit you please contact DNA Identifiers.  Remeber regardless of you net worth it is important to have an estate plan in place and DNA can be an important part of your plan.

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Muscle growth is governed by myostatin, a protein that determines whether an animal has compact muscles tuned for rapid sprints or a leaner body suited for endurance. There are three possible combination at this specific genetic marker. This test is not designed to identify how good a horse is likely to be, but rather what it will be good at.

According to Equinome, the three genetic combination that are possible are C:C, C:T and T:T. A C:C horse is likely to be a fast, early maturing horse that performs well as a two-year-old, while a C:T horse has a mixture of speed and stamina and is the most versatile in terms of distance, and a T:T horse is best suited to races greater than 1 mile that require stamina.

Horse Genome Project coordinator Ernest Bailey of the University of Kentucky, Lexington stated that breeders have adopted genetic tests for paternity, coat color, and diseases but that performance prediction is new ground.

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Scientist say that more research is needed before the therapy can be tested in patients, but the discovery in human colon cancer cell lines and mice with established human tumors suggests that the addition of a small molecule to the cancer drug Temozolomide disrupts repair mechanisms in a type of tumor cells that is highly resistant to treatment.

Satya Narayan professor of anatomy and cell biology at the college of Medicine and a member of the University of Florida Shands Cancer Center said that, “This is very important because aside from aggressive surgery with possibly chemotherapy, there are no specific treatments for colon cancer. The recurrence rate for this type of cancer after surgery is very high, about 30 to 50 percent, and there is an urgent need to develop new approaches to manage this deadly disease.”

The National Cancer Institute estimates there will be about 106,000 new cases of colon cancer in the United States in by the end of 2009. It is the second most common cause of cancer-related death in both men and women in the Western hemisphere.

Colon cancer forms in the large intestine and survival rates vary according to how soon the cancer is diagnosed and the treatment is started. The challenge of treating patients is that colon cancer is not a single disease but an array of disorders with distinct molecular mechanisms, with one type being quite proficient at repairing the DNA damage inflicted by the drugs currently used to treat the disease.

Narayan’s research team evaluated more than 140,000 small molecules, finally arriving at a tiny molecule that precisely blocks the ability of cancer cells to recognize and repair the DNA damage inflicted by Temozolomide, or TMZ. Narayan said, “Our idea was if you induce DNA damage (with TMZ), and at the same time block cell repair, you can synergize toxic effects to the cancer cells. We hope that with this combination treatment we can reduce the tumors drastically and expand the lifetime of patients much longer than is currently possible.”

TMZ is commonly used against certain types of brain cancer. It works by damaging the DNA of the cancer. By combining TMZ with the small molecule, Narayan’s team was able to disable the colon cancer’s ability to manufacture repair enzymes.

The UF researchers effectively used an amount of TMZ that is about 10 times lower than recommended in its studies of mice with human colon cancer tumors. According to Narayan, if only about one-tenth as much TMZ is needed to kill cancer cells, it will be possible to use lower doses of a drug that creates a great deal of adverse side effects, a partial listing of which includes anxiety, back pain, breast pain, constipation, cough, diarrhea, dizziness, drowsiness, dry skin, hair loss, headache, joint pain, loss of appetite, mouth sores, muscle aches and nausea.

“By using these strategies we can predict that disruption of DNA repair by small molecules can bypass drug resistance factors and dramatically reduce side effects caused by toxic doses of TMZ,” Narayan said.

More study is needed before the combination can be tested in patients, but Narayan believes that TMZ can be combined with the small molecule in a single dose in pill or capsule form.

Sankar Mitra, Ph.D., a professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, who did not participate in the study, said that, the research demonstrates that it is possible to sensitize colon cancer cells to TMZ more broadly than is now possible — a benefit of particular importance to patients with cancers that are as varied as colon cancer. “This could be the start of other small molecule inhibitors”

Sankar Mitra also noted that the therapeutic molecules were selected through sophisticated analysis of the structure of tens of thousands of potential small molecules from the National Cancer Institute database. The computer-based process, which can suggest likely cancer therapeutics within hours, replacing manual analysis which would normally have taken weeks or months.

Robert W. Sobol, Ph.D., an assistant professor of pharmacology and chemical biology, and human genetics, at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute said that, “There have been a multitude of studies suggesting that inhibition of DNA polymerase beta would enhance chemotherapeutic response. However, potential inhibitors have been challenging to identify and most have proven to be non-specific and/or non-selective. The compound identified by Dr. Narayan appears to be the first in what I expect to be a growing list of DNA polymerase beta inhibitors that have clinical potential.”

The research was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health.

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In a study published on September 2nd in HealthDay News the question of why some people are more likely to become addicted to opioid painkillers (like morphine, codeine or oxycodone) has now been partially unraveled by the Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania.

For the study, Geisinger Health System researchers interviewed and analyzed DNA from 705 patients with back pain who were prescribed some kind of opioid painkillers for more than 90 days.

Geisinger Health System researchers found that the group most vulnerable to addiction has four main risk factors in common: age (being younger than 65); a history of depression; prior drug abuse; and using psychiatric medications. Painkiller addiction rates among patients with these factors are as high as 26 percent.

The researchers also looked at a gene located at chromosome 15 that had been linked with alcohol, cocaine and nicotine addiction. This study indicates that genetic mutations on a gene cluster on chromosome 15 may also be associated with opioid addiction.

According to Joseph Boscarino, an epidemiologist and a senior investigator at Geising’s Center for Health Research, “these findings suggest that patients with pre-existing risk factors are more likely to become addicted to painkillers, providing the foundation for further clinical evaluation.”  He Added, “by assessing patients in chronic pain for these risk factors before prescribing painkillers, doctors will be better able to treat their patients’ pain without the potential for future drug addiction.”

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