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Link.

Strep Bacteria DNA Sequenced At OU Research Could Help Fight Several Diseases OKLAHOMA CITY, 5:27 p.m. CDT April 9, 2001 -- Researchers at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center have taken a step toward stopping the bacterium that causes strep throat and other infections in millions of Americans each year.

Scienctists mapped the genetic code of streptococcus pyogenes, also known as group A strep.

"It knows us very well," molecular biologist Dr. Joseph Feretti told Eyewitness News 5's Kathy King. "Now, we've been able to determine all of its genetic make up. We know its complete blueprint."

The single, circular chromosome containing the bacterium's genetic material contains more than 1.8 million DNA base pairs.

Other researchers around the world are already using the information to work on antibiotics and new vaccines for the many diseases that group A strep causes, including scarlet fever, impetigo, rheumatic fever, toxic-shock syndrome and flesh-eating disease.

"The organism has lots of different ways that it can cause diseases," Feretti said. "Some them are direct toxins, and some of them are proteins that cuase immunological reactions in our body."

Feretti said that OU does more genome research on bacteria than any other university in the world. The research on strep A, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health, will be published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[Sheeple Note - Dr. Feretti is the man that runs the OUHSC campus.]

-- Anonymous, April 09, 2001

Answers

We already know that every single medication we take to fight off some disease or disorder has very serious side effects. Sometimes the side effects are worse than what it was trying to cure. We can only wonder what the side effects of experimenting with human genes will produce, and who will be the test subjects during the failed attempts?

-- Anonymous, April 09, 2001