Don't expect genome breakthroughs yet, expert says

WASHINGTON: Scientists should dial down expectations about breakthroughs from mapping the human genome because it will take years to make sense of all the information, a leader of the mapping project says.

Ten years after the first full sequence of the human genome was published, medicine has not been transformed -- and no one should have expected that, argues Dr. Eric Green of the National Human Genome Research Institute.

"Genomics is an information science and we now have information overload," Green said in a telephone interview. "Our ability to generate that information has outpaced our ability to analyze it."

While scientists have gathered "vaults of information," he said, "That doesn't mean that we will cure people or we will change clinical practice in the next 10 years."

But Green predicts the study of the human genome, called genomics, will eventually pay off in a big way.

He and other experts wrote about the 10th anniversary of the sequencing in the journals Nature and Science this week.

"Although genomics has already begun to improve diagnostics and treatments in a few circumstances, profound improvements in the effectiveness of healthcare cannot realistically be expected for many years," Green and colleague Mark Guyer wrote in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

INFORMATION OVERLOAD

Green said the technology allowing researchers to sequence the genome and read all the little bits of code -- the A, C, T, G sequences that are the building blocks of DNA and of life -- have deluged scientists with information.

Companies such as Illumina, Life Technologies Corp and Roche are bringing the price of sequencing down and adding to the information overload.

"It is because the technology advanced so quickly is why we found ourselves in this 'problem,'" Green said.

It will take a decade to absorb this information, apply it to people and to diseases and to change treatment, he said.

"It's not that there won't be highlights and accomplishments and home runs," Green said. "I can point to things that genomics has changed in healthcare."

For example, a test called Oncotype DX made by Genomic Health Inc can identify breast cancer patients unlikely to be helped by chemotherapy.

"In the next decade what we are going to learn about cancer is going to change oncology," Green predicted.

Their 2011 "vision for genomics" for the next 10 years, Green and Guyer said, will mean going back to the basics -- using the DNA code to learn more about human biology.

Using studies that look at a patient's entire genetic code to try to find causes for diseases, scientists have already found hundreds of new genes they had no idea were involved in disease.

Green and Guyer give Crohn's disease, marked by constant bowel irritation, as an example. It has been a mystery to doctors, but genome studies have now linked dozens of genes to the condition. Identifying a gene that causes symptoms can help drug companies design a treatment.

Obama finally quits smoking

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has finally kicked his craving for the odd cigarette -- and his wife Michelle is "very proud" the former puffer-in-chief can look his kids in the eye and say he doesn't smoke.

Obama's struggle to beat his addiction has been a subject of inordinate fascination for the US press, throughout his barnstorming 2008 campaign and in the first two years of his presidency.

But First Lady Michelle Obama told reporters Tuesday that the president had not had a drag for about a year and said she was "very proud" he had succeeded in what had been a "personal challenge for him," USA Today reported.

Michelle Obama said she had not repeatedly bugged Obama about quitting -- all while doing one of the world's most stressful jobs.

"When somebody's doing the right thing, you don't mess with them," she said according to USA Today, adding that Obama had finally stopped lighting up because he wanted to tell his daughters Malia and Sasha he did not smoke.

The first lady was talking to reporters to mark the anniversary of her "Let's Move" campaign to end childhood obesity.

Obama had been urged by his doctor in February last year to stop smoking for good after his first health check-up as president, when he was otherwise found to be in "excellent health" and "fit for duty."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that several of Obama's closest aides had joined the president in his effort to wean himself off tobacco, and added he was sure the first lady's influence had helped.

Space telescope spots odd new solar system

WASHINGTON: Astronomers have spotted a strange new solar system with small "puffy" planets packed in close orbit to their sun.

And an orbiting space telescope has pointed scientists to more than 1,200 other possible exoplanets -- planets outside our own solar system -- the space agency NASA said on Wednesday.

The solar system discovery, published in the journal Nature, is mystifying astronomers for the time being and illustrates just how much variety is possible in the universe.

The team at NASA and a range of universities has named the system Kepler-11, after the orbiting Kepler space telescope that spotted it.

"One of the most striking features about the Kepler-11 system is how close the orbits of the planets are to one another," they wrote in their report.

The star resembles Earth's own sun. But five of the planets orbiting it are packed into a space equivalent to the distance between Mercury and Venus in our own solar system.

And they are bigger and puffier than the rocky inner planets of our solar system, Earth, Venus, Mars and Mercury, the scientists said. However, they are some of the smallest exoplanets ever seen.

"They are much more closely packed ... than any other planetary systems known, including our own," said Jack Lissauer, a scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in California.

"It is clear that such planets need not resemble the Earth in any way," Jonathan Fortney of the University of California, Santa Cruz, added in a telephone briefing. "The low-mass planets in the Kepler-11 system appear to be more like small Neptunes than giant Earths."

Neptune, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus are the giant gassy planets that orbit beyond Mars.

LOOKING FOR LIFE

Astronomers have now found more than 500 exoplanets. Most are giant, because they are so far away that only the biggest are detectable.

Kepler, launched in March 2009, is measuring the light from 150,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus and Lyrae. The hope is to find planets about the size and composition of Earth, inside the so-called habitable zone, where it is warm enough for liquid water to exist but not too hot for life.

"We have found over twelve hundred candidate planets -- that's more than all the people have found so far in history," William Borucki of Ames Research Center told a separate news briefing.

"Now, these are candidates, but most of them, I'm convinced, will be confirmed as planets in the coming months and years."

No telescope is powerful enough to directly visualize a planet orbiting another star. Instead, scientists use indirect means to find them.

Kepler measures the light coming from a star. A planet passing in front of the star as it orbits will dim this light just slightly. The researchers can then compute the planet's size and how quickly it is orbiting from this information.

In the latest discovery, the flickering light suggests a system of at least six planets, spinning rapidly around the star. One is orbiting farther out than the other five but they all appear to be made mostly of gas and orbiting in a very flat, circular plane.

Obama for free, fair Tunisia elections

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Friday called for free and fair elections in Tunisia and praised the courage and dignity of its people after the toppling of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

"I condemn and deplore the use of violence against citizens peacefully voicing their opinion in Tunisia, and I applaud the courage and dignity of the Tunisian people," Obama said in a statement.

"The United States stands with the entire international community in bearing witness to this brave and determined struggle for the universal rights that we must all uphold, and we will long remember the images of the Tunisian people seeking to make their voices heard.

"I urge all parties to maintain calm and avoid violence, and call on the Tunisian government to respect human rights, and to hold free and fair elections in the near future that reflect the true will and aspirations of the Tunisian people."

Earlier, Ben Ali fled Tunisia in a dramatic end to his 23 years in power following a wave of social protests in which dozens of people have been reported killed.

Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi announced that he had taken over as interim president, vowed to enact social and political reforms, said fresh elections would be held within six months.

Obama argued "that each nation gives life to the principle of democracy in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people.

"Countries that respect the universal rights of their people are stronger and more successful than those that do not," he said.

"I have no doubt that Tunisia's future will be brighter if it is guided by the voices of the Tunisian people."

The United States was a longstanding ally of the anti-Islamist Ben Ali, although it occasionally irritated him with criticism of his human rights record.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States hoped to work with Tunisians during the transition.

"We are committed to helping the people and government bring peace and stability to their country and we hope that they will work together to build a stronger, more democratic society that respects the rights of all people," Clinton said.

Clinton stepped up calls on Arab leaders to reform during a trip this week to the region. At a forum in Qatar, she warned that the region's "foundations are sinking into the sand."

During the trip, "I heard people everywhere yearning for economic opportunity, political participation and the chance to build a better future," she said.

"Young people especially need to have a meaningful role in the decisions that shape their lives. Addressing these concerns will be challenging, but the United States stands ready to help," Clinton said.

John Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the flight of Ben Ali "will resonate far beyond Tunisia?s borders."

The Massachusetts senator said that Middle Eastern countries have some of the world's youngest populations, who "yearn for a future free of political repression, corruption and economic stagnation."

Kerry urged regional leaders to improve governance, focus on job creation and "demonstrate to the generation now coming of age that they will have better opportunities tomorrow than they do today."