Researchers in Europe studying Neanderthal DNA say it should be possible to construct a complete genome of the ancient hominid despite the degradation of DNA over time. There is also hope for reconstructing the genome of the mammoth and cave bear, according to a research team led by Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Their findings are published in this week’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Debate has raged for years about whether there is any relationship between Neanderthals and modern humans. Some researchers believe that Neanderthals were simply replaced by early modern humans, while others argue the two groups may have interbred.”We are confident that it will be technically feasible to achieve a reliable Neanderthal genome sequence,” Paabo and his researchers reported.

They said problem of damaged areas in some DNA could be overcome by using a sufficient amount of Neanderthal DNA from different individuals, so the whole genome can be determined.

“The contamination and degradation of DNA has been a serious issue for the last 10 years,” observed Erik Trinkaus, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “This is a serious attempt to deal with that issue and that’s welcome. I’m not sure they have completely solved the problem, but they’ve made a big step in that direction.” Anthropologist Richard Potts of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, called the work “a very significant technical study of DNA decay”.

“Missing link” stem cells may speed race for cures
Scientists have discovered a new type of embryonic stem cell in mice and rats that should speed up research into regenerative medicine and help in the hunt for cures to a range of diseases. Two independent teams from Britain’s Oxford and Cambridge universities said on Wednesday that so-called rodent epiblast stem cells were very similar to human embryonic stem cells, making them particularly good models for analysing human health. The new cells effectively constitute a “missing link” between mouse and human embryonic stem cells, according to Roger Pedersen, leader of the Cambridge group. Two papers published in the journal Nature show that when mouse stem cells are derived from the innermost cell layer—or epiblast—of a week-old rodent embryo they are in many ways almost identical to human ones.

... contd.