JANE KIRK/ENVIRONMENT CANADA
NEWS OF THE WEEK
Analysis of lake sediment, sectioned from 3-inchdiameter cores, enabled Canadian researchers to construct a history of PAH levels near oil sands operations.
LAKE DATA REVEAL OIL SANDS IMPACTS ENVIRONMENT: Oil production is dispersing carcinogenic hydrocarbons across northern Alberta, study shows
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EW MEASUREMENTS on the ecological impact
of Canadian oil sands mining and processing operations have provided the first clear evidence that concentrations of toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are on the rise in the wilderness environment of northern Alberta. The findings may lead to tighter oil sands emissions controls on PAHs, mercury, CO2, and other pollutants. Using a combination of radioisotope dating and mass spectrometry to analyze sediment layers in core samples from six small lakes, researchers say they have recorded levels of anthracenes, pyrenes, and dibenzothiophenes up to 23 times greater than natural background levels, and they are rising (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1217675110). Scant environmental monitoring data have been collected in northern Alberta since commercial extraction and processing operations began there in
GENETIC ACQUISITIONS DIAGNOSTICS: Illumina asserts its independence by acquiring two companies
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LLUMINA IS MOVING ON. The genetic analysis
firm, no longer the target of a takeover by Roche, is acquiring two other California-based companies: diagnostics provider Verinata Health and sequencingtechnology firm Moleculo. Last year, Illumina rejected a $6.8 billion takeover bid from Roche, the Swiss drug and diagnostics giant, and said it would expand on its own instead. The deal for Verinata, the larger of the two purchases, continues a push by research tool firms into clinical diagnostic markets. To buy Verinata, Illumina will pay $350 million up front and up to another $100 million in milestone payments through 2015. Verinata sells a noninvasive prenatal test, called Verifi, that uses maternal blood to test for several fetal chromosomal abnormalities. Illumina expects the SHUTTERSTOCK
Verinata’s Verifi test looks for genetic abnormalities, such as the extra chromosome 21 that causes Down syndrome.
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the 1960s. The study was carried out by Joshua Kurek and John P. Smol of Queens University, in Kingston, Ontario, along with colleagues from Environment Canada. “This study is significant in showing that the increase in PAHs has occurred almost in lockstep with increased oil sands production,” says David W. Schindler, an ecologist at the University of Alberta whose group studies oil sands pollutants. Oil companies, government agencies, academic scientists, and environmental groups have been striving to find a balance in tracking and controlling emissions from the lucrative oil sands that is acceptable to all parties. An industry-funded monitoring program began in 1997, and so far it has reported that levels of PAHs and other pollutants have not risen significantly above natural background levels. However, some scientists and environmental groups have criticized the program for not being sufficiently rigorous. A separate Canadian government-sponsored monitoring program was created last year to address that concern. The microgram amounts of PAHs per gram of sample detected in the new study are lower than those found in urbanized areas, which are impacted by vehicle emissions and coal power plants, Schindler explains. “But it is clear that if tighter controls on PAH emissions are not imposed, the lake sediments will be approaching Canadian guidelines for toxicity soon,” he says.—STEVE RITTER
market for such tests to exceed $600 million this year. Verinata was founded in 2002 and has a “comprehensive intellectual property portfolio,” Illumina says. In 2011, Verinata signed a three-year agreement to use Illumina’s sequencing instruments in commercializing the Verifi test. The two companies also collaborated to receive regulatory approval for the testing service, which Verinata launched in May 2012 and conducts at its Redwood City, Calif., clinical lab. Meanwhile, technology from two-year-old Moleculo increases Illumina’s genome-sequencing capabilities through longer sequence read lengths at high levels of accuracy. Both Verinata and Moleculo have connections to the lab of sequencing pioneer and serial entrepreneur Stephen R. Quake, a professor of bioengineering at Stanford University. Illumina expanded in the chromosomal testing area when it acquired BlueGnome in September 2012. Its decision to buy further into prenatal diagnostics is a “bold move,” says Mizuho Securities USA stock analyst Peter Lawson. By being a provider in the fast-growing molecular diagnostics area, he adds, Illumina will transition some of its business away from the competitive and high-risk life sciences tools market. Two days after Illumina announced the Verinata deal, instrumentation and lab services company PerkinElmer said it would be a partner for the sale and marketing of the Verifi test in the U.S.—ANN THAYER
JANUARY 14, 2013
