• Prof. Yardena Samuels and her team at the Weizmann Institute of Science have found a tumor suppressor gene, RASA2, that drives a particularly deadly form of melanoma as well as regulates a key protein, RAS, that is a major oncogene. The discovery is “highly likely to have direct clinical relevance.”
University of Utah scientists deciphered maternal genetic material from two babies buried together at an Alaskan campsite 11,500 years ago. They found the infants had different mothers and were the northernmost known kin to two lineages of Native Americans found farther south throughout North and South America. The study supports the theory that Native Americans descended from people who migrated from Asia to the Bering land bridge, then spent up to 10,000 years there before moving rapidly into the Americas beginning at least 15,000 years ago.
Research on the genetic factors contributing to neuropathic pain has been hindered by the lack of a standard approach to assessing its clinical characteristics or “phenotype.” Now, a report from an expert panel published in the journal PAIN® presents a consensus approach to assessing the phenotype of neuropathic pain. The journal is the official publication of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) and is published by Wolters Kluwer.
Muscular dystrophy, which affects approximately 250,000 people in the U.S., occurs when damaged muscle tissue is replaced with fibrous, fatty or bony tissue and loses function. For years, scientists have searched for a way to successfully treat the most common form of the disease, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), which primarily affects boys. Now, a team of University of Missouri researchers have successfully treated dogs with DMD and say that human clinical trials are being planned in the next few years.
Rapid DNA, a newly commercialized technology developed by DHS S&T, addresses greatly expedites DNA testing to accurately verify family relationships.
Wake Forest University biology professors and students use tomatoes from campus garden to teach high schools students about genetic diversity.
According to a large study of dog DNA from around the world, the first domestic dog originated in Central Asia around 15,000 years ago.
SBP researchers combine publicly available cancer databases to identify new genes associated with cancer
New findings on juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML) by researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) and collaborators at other institutions were published online Oct. 12 by the medical journal Nature Genetics.
A new genetic discovery could help scientists understand exactly how one X chromosome in each cell of a female's body gets "silenced" – and perhaps lead to better treatment for X-linked diseases.
A new study by University at Buffalo researchers marks a step toward understanding the Huntingtin protein (Htt) is responsible for Huntington's disease. The research shows that Htt controls the movement of precious cargo traveling up and down neurons, the cells that form the core of the nervous system in animals.
Researchers in the Epilepsy Genetics Program of the Krembil Neuroscience Centre have discovered a gene mutation that increases the risk of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) in patients with mild forms of the disease.
Scientists at Whitehead Institute and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have for the first time identified the universe of genes in the human genome essential for the survival and proliferation of human cell lines or cultured human cells.Their findings and the materials they developed in conducting the research will not only serve as invaluable resources for the global research community but should also have application in the discovery of drug-targetable genetic vulnerabilities in a variety of human cancers.
Findings reveal a key role of the BET protein family in the regulation of selected genes that control normal development and function of nerve cells
Nobel Laureate Dr. Robert J. Lefkowitz presented his latest research towards developing pharmacological applications for G-protein-coupled receptors (GCPRs) at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM) today.
Few primary care physicians would order genetic testing or refer a child to a genetics specialist as a first step when they see children with developmental delays.
23andMe, Inc., the leading personal genetics company, today announced it has raised $115 million in a Series E financing led by Fidelity Management & Research Company.
A study led by Indiana University biologist Patricia Foster and colleagues has found that forces in the external environment and oxidation are the greatest threats to an organism’s ability to repair damage to its own DNA.
Gene therapy preserved vision in a study involving dogs with naturally occurring, late-stage retinitis pigmentosa, according to research funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The findings contribute to the groundwork needed to move gene therapy forward into clinical trials for people with the blinding eye disorder, for which there is currently no cure.
The Association of American Cancer Institutes will present the AACI Distinguished Scientist Award to Lewis Cantley, PhD, on October 26, during the 2015 AACI/CCAF Annual Meeting, in Washington, DC.
In what they say was a lucky and unexpected finding, researchers at Johns Hopkins say they’ve discovered that male fruit flies lay down an odorant, or pheromone, that not only attracts females to lay eggs nearby, but also guides males and females searching for food. The discovery, they say, offers clues about how flies, and probably other creatures, navigate complex environments and use odors to guide important behavioral decisions.
Scientists have more precisely calculated heritability--the influence of underlying genes--in 9 autoimmune diseases that begin in childhood. The research may strengthen risk assessment for associated autoimmune disorders.
In this study the researchers show that there is something apart from DNA that plays an important role in inheritance in general, and could determine whether a father’s children and grandchildren will be healthy or not.
The Cancer Genome Atlas Network of researchers analyzed hundreds of breast cancer samples to reveal genetic drivers of invasive lobular carcinoma, the second most commonly diagnosed invasive form of breast cancer.
Building on previous work from The Cancer Genome Atlas Project, a team of researchers has identified genetic features that define a sub-type of breast cancer known as invasive lobular carcinoma using a genome-wide approach. “The results provide new insight into both breast tumor biology and therapeutic options,” says the study’s co-lead author Michael L. Gatza, PhD, who recently joined Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey from University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, where he conducted this work.
Wheat is vulnerable. Among the most damaging diseases that affect wheat crops across the world are rusts. These parasites cannot grow without infecting a host plant, and are responsible for some of the greatest destructions of crops in human history. Breeders have recently released a cultivar of winter wheat – TAM 305 – that is resistant to many of the rust fungi.
A new ISU study of sorghum explores the genetics of heterosis, the process by which hybrid plants perform better than the parent varieties used to create them.
Kansas State University wheat scientists have completed the first study of a chromosome in a tertiary gene pool and have called it a breakthrough in exploring wheat wild relatives for future crop improvement.
A multi-institutional team led by scientists at the Indiana University School of Medicine have discovered an immune system gene associated with higher rates of amyloid plaque buildup in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients and older adults at risk for the disease.
Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed a novel mouse model for the vision disorder Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), and found that they can use gene therapy to improve visual function in the mice. LHON is one of many diseases tied to gene mutations that damage the tiny energy factories that power our cells, called mitochondria.
he whimsically named sonic hedgehog gene, best known for controlling embryonic development, also maintains the normal physiological state and repair process of an adult healthy lung, if damaged.
Ludwig Cancer Research scientist Bing Ren has been tapped to play a key role in a major initiative launched by the US National Institutes of Health—a 4D Nucleome Program that will transform how we read and interpret the genome. The program is slated to receive $120 million over the next five years, depending on future appropriations and reviews of progress.
Under its new 4D Nucleome Program, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Common Fund has awarded three grants totaling more than $30 million over five years to multidisciplinary teams of researchers at University of California, San Diego.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say that hepatic fibrosis, which involves scarring of the liver that can result in dysfunction and, in severe cases, cirrhosis and cancer, may be as much a consequence of genetics as environmental factors.
When researchers at the University of Georgia examined the genome of several different snake species, they found something surprising. Embedded in reptiles’ genetic code was DNA that, in most animals, controls the development and growth of limbs. Now, they’ve found an explanation.
After eight years of analysis, scientists from around the world have completed an unprecedented project to delineate a wide spectrum of human genetic variation. This enormous catalog of data, known as the 1000 Genomes Project, will yield insights for decades. Scientists from the University of Maryland School of Medicine played a key role in the consortium, and co-authored two papers published this week about the effort in the current issue of the journal Nature.
Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have uncovered a significant—and potentially treatable—relationship between a chemical that helps transmit signals in the brain and genetic mutations present in a subset of individuals with autism spectrum disorder.
A sensitive new toxicity test developed at the university of Utah detected impaired reproduction in mice caused by genetic mutations that had seemed harmless when studied by developmental techniques.
A new test detects virtually any virus that infects people and animals, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where the technology was developed.
Wheat farmers have reason to celebrate, as the Canadian Triticum Applied Genomics (CTAG2) project is about to step up its contribution to the global effort to decipher the wheat genome, led by the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC). The expected outcome is a new generation of wheat cultivars with higher yields and better resistance to stresses.
UCSF-led scientists completed a proof-of-principle study on a real-time blood test based on DNA sequencing that can be used to rapidly diagnose Ebola and other acute infections.
Whitehead Institute researchers have developed a tool that allows scientists to monitor changes in DNA methylation over time in individual cells. Certain diseases, including cancer, cause changes in DNA methylation patterns, and the ability to document these alterations could aid in the development of novel therapies.
Scientists from UC San Francisco describe capturing and studying individual metastatic cells from human breast cancer tumors implanted into mice as the cells escaped into the blood stream and began to form tumors elsewhere in the body.
Scientists at The Ohio State University Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute have identified a new genetic cause for congenital heart arrhythmia. The mechanism is due to defects in the regulation of the primary sodium channel, which controls the flow of sodium ions across the heart cell membrane.
University of Adelaide researchers have uncovered the role played by a gene which suppresses the development of cancer.
How is individualized medicine working? Let us count the ways.
A first draft of the “tree of life” for the roughly 2.3 million named species of animals, plants, fungi and microbes has been released, and two University of Michigan biologists played a key role in its creation.
A team of geneticists led by Prof. Đurđica Ugarković of the Croatian Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI) have for the first time proved that satellite DNA plays an important regulatory role in how organisms adapt to stressful changes in their environment. These results could in the future help scientists explain how an organism successfully survives stress. The study was published in the leading genetic journal PLoS Genetics.
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