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Jelly  vision

Cheerleaders of genetic testing say the recent advances in gene-sequencing technology is ushering in the era of personalised medicine. Companies say the field will ultimately deliver customised risk assessments, diagnoses and treatments based on one’s genetic code. 

Already there are high-profile outfits. Navigenics charges €1,750 to analyse DNA to assess the risk of developing more than 20 diseases; while London’s Bridge Centre recently developed a technique to screen IVF embryos for 15,000 diseases – a genetic MOT for just €1,850.  

But the biology of how genetic variations actually lead to developing those diseases is still not properly understood. Which is why research into the mysterious green glow of a jellyfish that earned three scientists this year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry is so significant.  

Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien won the award for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein (GFP), which was first observed in 1962, in the crystal jellyfish that drift off the west coast of North America. Since then, the protein has become one of the most important tools in contemporary bioscience.  

Using GFP, researchers have developed ways to watch once invisible processes, like how cancer cells spread. The Nobel Foundation said GFP could help with research into nerve cell damage in diseases such as Alzheimer’s. In one experiment, researchers tagged nerve cells in a mouse’s brain with “a kaleidoscope of colors”, the foundation said. 

Clontech Laboratories, the first company to commercialise the GFP technology developed by Dr Chalfie, enabling GFP to be used in cell biology research, is offering “many fluorescent proteins that build upon the work of these three exceptional scientists, including the Fruit Fluorescent Proteins developed by Dr Tsien,” says Carol Lou, general manager of the US-Asian company 

Meanwhile, investment in companies researching nanochips and other technology that could provide fast, comprehensive and low-cost analysis of genomic information at the single-molecule level is booming – while steely nerved investors in other sectors turn to jelly.