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Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys has become the 22nd person, three of whom have gone on to become Nobel Peace Prize winners, to receive the award.
He will receive the accolade on 14 April during the Edinburgh International Science Festival.
DNA profiling is now a major tool in solving crime, and the standard method of resolving paternity disputes.
The professor’s “eureka” moment came on the morning of 10 September 1984, when he went into his darkroom to develop an X-ray film from an experiment looking at highly variable bits of DNA.

The film threw up an unexpected result - every individual in the sample had a different bar code and could be identified with precision.
More than 30 million people worldwide have had a DNA profile.
Sir Alec, however, has said in the past that the practice of retaining DNA taken from innocent people in the UK raises serious issues.
While having no regrets over the development of the DNA profiling, Sir Alec does have strong reservations as to how authorities are using the information, particularly the long term storage of information on the English National DNA Database.
Speaking at a House of Commons home affairs select committee meeting earlier this year, Sir Alec said England and Wales should follow Scotland’s lead, where police only retain the DNA profiles of innocent people under specific circumstances, with those accused of sexual assaults having their profiles held for a maximum of five years.

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

Today’s big news in the DNA research field is the result of professor Renee Reijo Pera’s team at Stanford University: primitive human sperm and eggs and the germ cells that make them have been created from embryonic stem cells.

Media has gone wild over the news, rating it anything in between the ultimate infertility treatment to artificial parent-less child manufacturing.

Most scientists claim that this work is a way of getting closer to understanding what hides behind the miracle of a new human life being created and how genetic mutation and diseases form at their earlier stage.

The research of course aims at creating synthetic sperm and eggs in the laboratory as well, in order to allow men and women who make none to have their own genetic children. But this dream remains at least five years away.

“Our goal is to understand how you make eggs and sperm,” said professor Pera. “We know almost nothing about human reproductive development, and this gives us a new way to investigate it. The hope is some day to help those who are infertile.”

The big question is of course ethical.

Is the offspring of a synthetic cell actually someone’s child? Is it right to invest in these kind of studies in an over-populated world struck by disease and famine? Isn’t infertility Mother nature’s response to a non-suitable genetic layout?

Here at Swiss DNA Bank we believe that such delicate matters are very difficult to judge.

Personally I feel that if the synthetic egg or sperm derives from someone’s tissue, the bond between parent and child will be as legitimate and strong as the one that derives from natural conception. Couples who have no children should have the chance of fulfilling this core human need.

At the same time I understand those who are concerned with how scientific funding is invested. These studies are expensive in terms of money, time and number of experts working on the project.

But I guess that if we dig down to the bottom of the matter, we will eventually stumble into man’s freedom of choice. Choice of being a mother or a father, choice of dedicating one’s life to such studies, choice of seeking a better understanding of genetics and the functioning life itself.

Our DNA storage service has definitely nothing to do with how one ultimately decides to use his own cells. We just provide the freedom to store yourself as a whole.

Luca Boschin

COO Swiss DNA Bank

The beginning of this week left many Americans stranded without any sidekick support. More specifically, I’m talking about T-Mobile’s phone data backup failure.

“Sidekick” is a celebrity’s-pick telephone and e-mail device distributed by T-Mobile, brought to fame by a very-out-there advertising campaign which featured Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg and other big celeb names.

The data stored in these phones was actually remotely hosted by Microsoft’s servers, which means that users’ phonebooks, SMS, e-mails, etc.,  were not stored inside the phones themselves but rather, on cloud servers. Very convenient at first glance: you could have hundreds of names, numbers, addresses and messages handy without actually over-challenging your device. All you needed to retrieve data was an Internet connection.

But apparently, the servers crashed. And for some reason, still undisclosed, the backup servers crashed as well. Or at least someone forgot to press the “Save” button.

So, thousands of users woke up to a blank phone.

T-Mobile stated there is apparently nothing they can do to retrieve the lost data, and it is refunding a paltry $20 to those struck by the Web lightening.

What does that tell us?

It tells us that there is no such thing as a too-expensive or over-protected data backup system. Knowledge, information and contacts are some of our most precious assets and must be regarded as such.

This is why we here at Swiss DNA Bank never get tired of stressing the fundamental importance of safe and guaranteed backup.

The idea of the revolutionary storage of data forever came from my personal need to feel secure about information storage. I wanted to know that my memories and my biological mark were in a safe place that my heirs could access one day.

There are many other backup services out there. But where are their servers physically located? Who is managing them? What happens in case a disaster hits the storage location?

These are questions that we should ask ourselves when we put our data in someone else’s hands.

Can they provide you with straight answers and Swiss-quality assurances?

Well, we certainly can.

Luca Boschin

COO Swiss DNA Bank

As human genome sequencing becomes a hotter subject in today’s medical field, IBM just announced it will join the race to provide cheap DNA analysis.

Many specialized labs, companies and universities have been working on the project for years, and IBM seems to be a bit behind in the game, but tech journalists have gone wild over the news: PC World says that IBM will “expand the life span of humans,” while the New York Times’ John Markoff predicts that the company will cut the cost of DNA sequencing to under $100, “making a personal genome cheaper than a ticket to a Broadway play.”

The IBM approach to genome sequencing is based on passing strings of DNA through tiny holes, just a nanometer wide, drilled on semiconducting materials. Since DNA is charged, by applying a voltage they should be able to get the DNA through the holes. During this process the DNA reading should take place, even though IBM hasn’t yet said exactly how.

IBM has taken up quite a challenge since there are tens of companies ahead of it in the low-cost genome sequencing business. In their favor, we have to consider that DNA analysis is becoming more and more about storage and interpretation of a large quantity of data, an art that IBM has mastered. IBM is also painting this as a sort of exploratory project; a scientist there tells PC World that “We’re in a process in which we will have milestones … [over] three years. At the end of three years we will know if it’s feasible or not.”

In three years’ time this sector’s scene will be totally different from now. It is hard to predict who will win the low-cost challenge: at the Personal Genomes meeting in Cold Spring Harbor last month, sequencing pioneer George Church listed 17 competitors in the “ultra low-cost sequencing space”.