Fairfax, VA, USA. Environmental chemicals have been implicated in adverse development of fetal testis in humans and animals, as well as elevated levels of testicular cancer.

A comparison of breast milk samples from Denmark and Finland shows the clear differences in prevalence between closely related countries.

The findings are published in the International Journal of Andrology, which covers the male health specialty that deals with problems in the male reproductive system and unique male urological issues.

Environmental endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are commonly found in fatty foods, paints, plasticizers, pesticides, and the byproducts of industrial processes, and in recent studies an association has been shown between some of these agents and male reproductive problems.

Bioinformatics applies information technology (IT) to molecular biology. Paulien Hogeweg coined the term in 1978.

The rapid development of genomic and other molecular research technologies have combined with IT to produce very large quantities of complex data and information.

Bioinformatics exploits this situation by the development and application of computationally intensive techniques (e.g., data mining, and machine learning algorithms).

The field entails theory development, the creation and advancement of algorithms, computational and statistical techniques, and databases to solve formal and practical problems that arise when managing and analyzing biological data.

Bioinformatics was applied in the creation and maintenance of a biological information database at the beginning of genomic investigations (e.g., nucleotide and amino acid sequences). Database development involved technical design issues and development of complex new interfaces, enabling data submissions and access.

Common activities include mapping and analyzing DNA and protein sequences, gene finding and genome assembly, protein structure alignment and prediction, aligning different DNA and protein sequences for comparison, creating and viewing 3-D models of protein structures, and modeling evolutionary interrelationships.

Software tools range from simple command-line access to more complex graphical programs and standalone web-services available from various bioinformatics companies or public institutions.

The tool best-known among biologists may be BLAST, one of a number of generally available programs for doing sequence alignment. An algorithm determines the similarity of arbitrary sequences against other sequences (from curated databases of protein or DNA sequences).

The US National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) provides a popular web-based implementation that searches their databases.

Current initiatives, such as SATé from the University of Texas at Austin have further extended the speed, accuracy, and detail obtained from such searches.

There has been a worldwide increase in testicular cancer in recent years, but the cause remains unknown.

• In some countries, such as Denmark the prevalence of this disease and other male reproductive disorders, including poor semen quality and congenital genital abnormalities is conspicuously high;
  
  
• while in Finland, a similarly industrialized Nordic country, the incidences of these disorders are markedly lower.
  
  
• In the UK, almost 2,000 men are diagnosed with testicular cancer every year, and
  
  
• in the US this number is over 8,000.

The incidence rates for testicular cancer vary widely around the globe; however, the reasons behind the observed trends remain largely unexplained.

With so many chemicals, the scientists used sophisticated, bioinformatics tools to interpret the complex data, and the results showed a clear distinction between the countries. [cf. Sidebar]

"We were very surprised to find that some EDC levels, including some dioxins, PCBs and some pesticides, were significantly higher in Denmark than in Finland," said Professor Niels Skakkebaek, a senior member of the research team, based at the University Department of Growth and Reproduction, Rigshospitalet (The Kingdom's Hospital, Denmark).

"Our findings reinforce the view that environmental exposure to EDCs may explain some of the temporal and between-country differences in incidence of male reproductive disorders."

"In spite of the findings, I would strongly urge women, including Danish mothers, to continue with breast feeding, which has many beneficial effects for the child," added Skakkebaek.

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TS-Si is dedicated to the acceptance, medical treatment, and legal protection of individuals correcting the misalignment of their brains and their anatomical sex, while supporting their transition into society as hormonally reconstituted and surgically corrected citizens.

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