05/11/2004: 
Technologica
Research team finds genetic blueprint
from Queensland Courier-Mail
An idea which could turn out to be the biggest breakthrough in genetics in 50 years was announced yesterday by Brisbane and American scientists.
Team members believe they have stumbled across segments of DNA which lay out the instructions for turning trillions of different proteins and other molecules into people.
Identical segments were found in the DNA of rats and mice, adding weight to the theory that the segments were an instruction manual for building any mammal.
Very similar pieces of DNA were found in chickens and fish, suggesting the instruction manual has remained virtually unchanged in every animal with a backbone despite 400 million years of evolution.
The discovery could shed light on why attempts to correct rare genetic disorders failed and why some people were more at risk from complex diseases like heart attacks and obesity.
Professor Mattick's team at the University of Queensland published the discovery in yesterday's edition of the journal Science in collaboration with a team at the University of California.
Professor Mattick said because the new sequences were the same in mice, rats and people, they appeared to be vital for life.
"The fact evolution has not tampered with them one little bit suggests very strongly that they are absolutely essential," he said. "We know they don't make proteins, they make another type of molecule called RNA.
"The mystery is what are they for, how do they work and why are they so fiercely conserved (unchanged)?"
While he downplayed the significance of the breakthrough, if the theory was correct some scientists would rank it as the most important insight into genetics since the structure of DNA was discovered in 1953.
