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An international research team at the University of Edinburg just discovered that an inactive gene in patient’s brain might be the cause of severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.

The results show that gene ABCA13 plays a crucial role in brain health. More specifically, the gene is responsible for the way fat cells are processed inside the brain, a key element on which further research will be focused.

Lead researcher Douglas Blackwood, professor of Psychiatric Genetics at the University of Edinburgh, said ”this is an exciting step forward in our understanding of the underlying causes of some common mental illnesses.

These risk genes could signpost new directions for treatments.”

Dr Ben Pickard, of the University of Strathclyde, stresses that ”this study is the first to identify multiple points of DNA damage within a single gene that are linked with psychiatric illness. It strongly suggests that this gene may regulate an important part of brain function that fails in individuals diagnosed with these devastating disorders.”

Once again, the importance of DNA analysis show how it will be able to spare many the atrocious pain that comes with severe physical and mental conditions. Genetic analysis and targeted prevention and cure is just proving once again to be the key to a healthy future

T-Mobile UK experienced earlier this week a massive breach into its data base: a yet undisclosed number of customers records have been stolen and, most likely, sold to an unidentified third party.

“The number of records involved runs into the millions and it appears that substantial amounts of money changed hands”, said in a document Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) acknowledging the breach. The data included customers’ personal information and contract expiration dates. The UK’s Data Protection Act prohibits the selling of data without prior permission from the owner. The ICO said in its report that it believes T-Mobile competitors used the information to call customers prior to the expiration of their contracts and offer them deals with a new operator.

Well. guess what: the thief was a T-Mobile UK insider, not some random hacker looking for easy money. This fact highlights the problem of the threat posed by insiders, especially during an uncertain global economy, which has resulted in layoffs and mergers.

When Swiss DNA Bank’s storage system was designed, one of the questions was: who can access the data our uses will upload? The answer we came up with was no one except its legitimate owner. Our service provides a digital safety box only the user can access. There is no way an insider could ever enter a Forever account and share its content with a third party. It is just impossible.

That is because there are three separate keys to decrypt the information and each one is in a different Swiss DNA Bank’s trustee hands. Because your privacy is always our priority.

Last week an every-day matter such as a Facebook status turned into something more: a rock-solid alibi. It happened to a 19-year-old Newyorker, who has been identified by a robbery witness during a police line-up.

After a couple of weeks in jail, his attorney submitted his computer’s activity record to the court. His Facebook status was updated from his 12-miles-away home computer just one minute after the crime was committed.

The case of course raised both eyebrows and approvals. The important aspect we want to focus on is the increasing credibility on-line records are gaining even on the legal side. If something like a status update on a social network can get you out of jail, we believe that on-line digital document storage is getting closer and closer to becoming tomorrows one and only document storage solution.

If you think about it, the judge ruled the Facebook records as more reliable compared to an eyewitness deposition. So why should an on-line stored will, for instance, be less valid than a regular one. Nothing can be more precise and trackable than a computer record, leaving little chance a fraud is taking place.

At Swiss DNA Bank we believe firmly in the value of the data you store securely and forever in our nuclear shelter. The extra assurance that comes from the DNA sample storage makes it impossible to fake one’s identity.

We believe we were actually able to set the most effective and safe data storage and the the strongest link between the information and its owner.

The issue with Government holding citizen’s DNA profiles is hot topic in the UK right now. Britain has in fact one of the largest DNA databases in the world, with profiles of over 5 million people, or 8 percent of the population.

Police currently have the power to take DNA or fingerprints from anyone at the point of arrest and keep the information indefinitely — much longer than in many other countries.

Last year the European Court ruled against this praxis labeling it as violation of human rights in accordance to the Human Rights Convention, which Britain has signed. Yesterday came the British response: it plans to get rid of DNA profiles of most innocent people after six years. Human rights organizations are roaring against this decision, since there appears to be no differentiation between those arrested for petty crimes and those with more serious charges. Most other European countries only retain the DNA of individuals suspected of crimes like terrorism, rape and pedophilia.

DNA is a very sensitive subject, especially when it comes to one’s privacy. This is why we selected the most innovative technologies to protect the data you store at Swiss DNA Bank and rely on our country’s privacy policy.

The rules that regulate data storage vary around the world. A hot topic on the web. How long exactly data processing and storage companies have to keep them in their facilities before deleting them? This is an open issue not only to smaller data centers, but to big Internet players such as Google and Microsoft as well.

While researching on this core topic for Swiss DNA Bank, I stumbled across a statement by Brad Smith, senior vice president for Microsoft, who claims that a major overhaul in the way that electronic data is stored is needed. The problem roots in diverging ruling from country to country. Whilst one could only ask for data to be saved for six months, another could rule for a year’s storage. “If that’s the case, it’s very difficult to locate a data centre in one country and provide that service to consumers in another country” he explained.

There are too many standards around the world, making the situation confusing and leaving users with little, if none, assurance on how long their data will be preserved.

Of course, at Swiss DNA Bank we solved the problem by giving our users the unique Forever Storage guarantee thanks to our Perpetual Financial Engine. But I’ll definitely keep an eye on the subject and keep you posted.

Luca Boschin

COO Swiss DNA Bank

Privacy and security are two core issues at Swiss DNA Bank. This is why we organized the strongest data protection system available.

But such a unique data collection and its Forever storage guarantee made us think very seriously about the possibility of making this data available to the world. Every time you create an event on your timeline you can choose if you want to keep it private, disclosed to selected people or make it accessible to the public.

The amount of human experience that accumulates in our servers is amazing. So we felt it was important to share the reasons for your choices in life, the consequences of your decisions and the unique knowledge you accumulated throughout your life.

Organizing all this data in a functioning and easy-to-access  search engine is what our technical team is currently working on.

To make our job as fast and efficient as possible, we decided to follow our passion for human knowledge and experience and we have been looking up to the work done by the field’s word leaders.

Our favorite is Wolfram Alpha’s Mathematica project. This amazing software developed by Wolfram research, one of the world’s most respected software companies—as well as a powerhouse of scientific and technical innovation.

Mathematica is, to put it simply, a problem-solving tool, a computation system containing a mind blowing number of data that can provide solutions to such fields as engineering, biotechnology, medicine, finance, statistics, science and many others.

Imagine a software you can install on your computer, containing what we like to call the Human Experience Encyclopedia, which is able to answer your questions based on what others before us have seen, done and learned.

Work in progress. We’ll keep you posted.

Luca Boschin

COO Swiss DNA Bank