When DNA Testing Becomes a Play – The DNA Trail

Most people think science – particularly DNA testing and art do not really get along as they are belong to two different worlds. Nonetheless, seven playwrights have carried out a DNA test and written a play about their DNA test results. It is an articulate way to bring DNA testing in theatre – known as the The DNA Trail.

Perhaps it’s time for playwrights to get the right science resources for their writing (I would suggest DNAmazing as one of their resources) :)
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DNA Testing that Can Help You Find the Right Diet Meal Plan

For a person who is overweight or nearly overweight, normally would seek nutritional advice from nutritionist or health care provider. However, a study from Stanford University said that the most reliable source of nutritional advice are from your genes. This study might explain the reason why some people who are still unable to lose weight although they have consistently stick with their customized healthy diet plan.
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Mitochondrial DNA Testing May Help Cancer Treatment

A mitochondrial DNA testing method has been currently reviewed by a team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University, carried out by Dr. Bert Vogelstein, Kenneth W. Kinzler and colleagues and the recent finding has shown that mitochondrial DNA has the potential to track patients and tumors better than with the conventional approach.

Here’s an excerpt from an article via The New York Times:

Dr. Vogelstein’s team found that more than 80 percent of cancers had mutations in their mitochondrial DNA. These changes are easy to identify because the mitochondrial DNA genome is so small — just 16,000 units — compared with the three billion units of the genome in the cell’s nucleus.

The method his colleagues reported last month is more thorough, since the rearrangement is likely to occur in every cancer cell in the patient’s body. But it requires sequencing a patient’s entire genome. The mitochondrial DNA test is less expensive and so sensitive that a mutation can be picked up from a much smaller sample of blood.

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