Following a dna report in June on the financial hardships of a handicapped badminton player, two corporate groups have come forward to support him. Standing not-too-tall at 4 feet, but nevertheless with a high stature in the world of badminton, Mark Dharmai is now earing up to participate in a national championship in Bangalore in mid-September. Who are the good samaritans? Two private companies crowdfunding platform Catapooolt and communications firm MSL Group have said that they will sponsor Dharmai, the Bandra-based player who participated in the prestigious All-England Badminton tournament despite his poor financial condition. Both the companies have said that they will pool in resources to fund Dharmai's training, travel, accommodation and miscellaneous costs. How is it helping Dharmai? "I am now able to practice longer and better due to the professional coaches who are guiding me now," said Dharmai, who has been spending more than seven hours a day on the court these days. "After dna reported about me, I was approached by Catapooolt and MSL Group, who are helping me. The financial backing will help me focus on my game and prepare for next year's world tournament rather than worrying about money. dna has done a great … Continue reading →

With a featured publication in the Aug. 7 issue of Science, Montana State University researchers have made a significant contribution to the understanding of a new field of DNA research, with the acronym CRISPR, that holds enormous promise for fighting infectious diseases and genetic disorders. The MSU-led research provides the first detailed blueprint of a multi-subunit "molecular machinery" that bacteria use to detect and destroy invading viruses. "We generally think of bacteria as making us sick, but rarely do we consider what happens when the bacteria themselves get sick. Viruses that infect bacteria are the most abundant biological agents on the planet, outnumbering their bacterial hosts 10 to 1," said Blake Wiedenheft, senior author of the paper and assistant professor in MSU's Department of Microbiology and Immunology. "Bacteria have evolved sophisticated immune systems to fend off viruses. We now have a precise molecular blueprint of a surveillance machine that is critical for viral defense," Wiedenheft said. These immune systems rely on a repetitive piece of DNA in the bacterial genome called a CRISPR. CRISPR is an acronym that stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. These repetitive elements maintain a molecular memory of viral infection by inserting short segments … Continue reading →