HUMAN genetic material, largely undamaged after 2,400 years, has been extracted from an Egyptian mummy and has been grown in the laboratory. The achievement is the most dramatic of a series of recent accomplishments using molecular biology to study links between modern and ancient life.
Details of the recovery of DNA from the mummy will be published Thursday in the scientific journal Nature. The achievement by Dr. Svante Paabo of University of Uppsala in Sweden, is believed to be the first in which DNA, the genetic material in all forms of life, has been resurrected and duplicated from an ancient human or from any other specimen of such antiquity.
The ability to reproduce DNA from such an ancient source is expected to be a powerful new aid to archeology and to the study of evolution.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE4DC1239F935A25757C0A963948260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=all
No comments:
Post a Comment