SUNVIC Testing Major Downtrend Resistance

Testing red major downtrend resistance line. Next resistance is 45.5 to 41.5 cents resistance band. Breakout above this band will boost bull power and propel price to 55 cents and beyond.
Immediate support is 38.5 cents. Next support is 35.5 cents.

Stem-Cell Solution?

A company claims to have made safer reprogrammed stem cells.

PrimeGen, a small biotech company based in Irvine, CA, says that it has solved one of the major hurdles in using reprogrammed stem cells for human therapies. Last year, scientists announced that they had successfully created embryonic-like stem cells from adult cells, circumventing the ethical and technical hurdles associated with embryonic stem cells. But the method used viruses to deliver genes, raising concerns over cancer risk.

According to an article in Forbes,

PrimeGen claimed Tuesday it had circumvented this problem. Instead of genes, it uses unspecified carbon-based "delivery particles" to insert four proteins into cells to stimulate the reprogramming process. This caused some of the cells to revert to being much like embryonic stem cells, PrimeGen said. PrimeGen said it has done the experiment with retinal, skin and testicular cells.

"Our goals are ambitious--we believe with this therapy, we can be in clinic in 2010," said PrimeGen president John Sundsmo in an interview. He said he couldn't release details on what the delivery particles are until the company finalizes an agreement with a corporate partner.

However, some scientists are skeptical. Rather than being published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, the findings were released during a brief presentation at a stem-cell industry conference in New York.

According to Forbes,

Many outside scientists said they weren't familiar with the work and weren't quite sure what to think. "Until the work goes through [peer-review], it would be difficult to evaluate," says James Thomson, the researcher at University of Wisconsin, Madison, who created the first embryonic stem cells in 1998. George Daley, of Harvard University, said he was "pretty suspicious of publication by press release."

Nonetheless, "if this is real it really is a significant step," says Arnold Kriegstein, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at U.C.-San Francisco. "They could be on to something."

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/22027/

What is a gene mutation and how do mutations occur?

A gene mutation is a permanent change in the DNA sequence that makes up a gene. Mutations range in size from a single DNA building block (DNA base) to a large segment of a chromosome.

Gene mutations occur in two ways: they can be inherited from a parent or acquired during a person’s lifetime. Mutations that are passed from parent to child are called hereditary mutations or germline mutations (because they are present in the egg and sperm cells, which are also called germ cells). This type of mutation is present throughout a person’s life in virtually every cell in the body.

Mutations that occur only in an egg or sperm cell, or those that occur just after fertilization, are called new (de novo) mutations. De novo mutations may explain genetic disorders in which an affected child has a mutation in every cell, but has no family history of the disorder.

Acquired (or somatic) mutations occur in the DNA of individual cells at some time during a person’s life. These changes can be caused by environmental factors such as ultraviolet radiation from the sun, or can occur if a mistake is made as DNA copies itself during cell division. Acquired mutations in somatic cells (cells other than sperm and egg cells) cannot be passed on to the next generation.

Mutations may also occur in a single cell within an early embryo. As all the cells divide during growth and development, the individual will have some cells with the mutation and some cells without the genetic change. This situation is called mosaicism.

Some genetic changes are very rare; others are common in the population. Genetic changes that occur in more than 1 percent of the population are called polymorphisms. They are common enough to be considered a normal variation in the DNA. Polymorphisms are responsible for many of the normal differences between people such as eye color, hair color, and blood type. Although many polymorphisms have no negative effects on a person’s health, some of these variations may influence the risk of developing certain disorders.

http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/mutationsanddisorders/genemutation