Certain genes and proteins that promote growth and development of embryos also play a surprising role in sending chemical signals that help adults learn, remember, forget and perhaps become addicted, University of Utah biologists have discovered.
A hidden and never before recognized layer of information in the genetic code has been uncovered by a team of scientists at UCSF, thanks to a technique developed at UCSF called ribosome profiling, which enables the measurement of gene activity inside living cells.
A team of researchers led by scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College has designed what appears to be a powerful gene therapy strategy that can treat both beta-thalassemia disease and sickle cell anemia. They have also developed a test to predict patient response before treatment.
Now that the Supreme Court has remanded Association for Molecular Pathology et al. v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., et al. (AMP v. Myriad) to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for further consideration, AMP is optimistic that it will ultimately prevail in its lawsuit to invalidate patents on two genes that are known to cause breast cancer.
Researchers have identified genetic causes in nearly 1 in 5 patients who suffer a type of heart failure called dilated cardiomyopathy.
Researchers have devised a nanoscale sensor to electronically read the sequence of a single DNA molecule, a technique that is fast and inexpensive and could make DNA sequencing widely available.
Gene that encodes crucial pain receptor may be key to individualizing therapy for major health problem.
Working with genetically engineered mice and the genomes of thousands of people with schizophrenia, researchers at Johns Hopkins say they now better understand how both nature and nurture can affect one’s risks for schizophrenia and abnormal brain development in general.
Research on kidney stones in fruit flies may hold the key to developing a treatment that could someday stop the formation of kidney stones in humans, a team from Mayo Clinic and the University of Glasgow found.
A study led by Eric Courchesne, PhD, director of the Autism Center of Excellence at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has, for the first time, identified in young autism patients genetic mechanisms involved in abnormal early brain development and overgrowth that occurs in the disorder. The findings suggest novel genetic and molecular targets that could lead to discoveries of new prevention strategies and treatment for the disorder
The Lung Genomics Research Consortium – an alliance of scientists at five U.S. institutions – has published a new website that makes a broad range of genomic data on chronic lung disease available in a format specifically tailored to investigators’ needs.
Bioethicists at Johns Hopkins University are among experts calling for biobanks to shoulder the responsibility for reporting incidental findings of serious health conditions to research patients.
Research from a Kansas State University professor may make it easier to recover after spinal cord injury or to study neurological disorders. The research can greatly improve animal and human health by developing technology to advance cellular therapy and regenerative medicine.
Research done by Australian scientist Jack da Silva, PhD, and published in the March issue of the journal GENETICS, suggests that even in early infection, when the virus population is low and has reduced genetic variation, HIV rapidly evolves to evade immune defenses and treatment.
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have mapped the genetic evolution of cancer cells in seven patients with myelodysplastic syndromes who later died of leukemia, finding clues to suggest that targeted cancer drugs should be aimed at mutations that develop early in the disease.
Researchers have identified a set of genetic abnormalities in patients with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) that doctors can use to more accurately predict patients’ prognoses and select treatments that are most likely to benefit them. The study, led by investigators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, will be published in the March 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center discover first gene alteration associated with patient age and neuroblastoma outcome.
Researchers at the UCLA stem cell center and the departments of chemistry and biochemistry and pathology and laboratory medicine have identified, for the first time, a generic way to correct mutations in human mitochondrial DNA by targeting corrective RNAs, a finding with implications for treating a host of mitochondrial diseases.
A global team led by scientists from The Methodist Hospital Research Institute has identified more than 500 genes that may cause or contribute to the development of pancreatic cancer. This particularly deadly disease has a 1-in-20 survival rate after five years, largely because no effective genetic screening method exists for early detection.
Researchers presenting talks at the Genetics Society of America’s 53rd Annual Drosophila Research Conference in Chicago present new information on topics such ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T), a neurodegenerative disorder; Rett Syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder; and kidney stones, a common health ailment.
In the largest study of its kind, researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have discovered five new genetic mutations associated with Crohn’s disease in Jews of Eastern European descent, also known as Ashkenazi Jews.
Stem cells provide a recurring topic among the scientific presentations at the Genetics Society of America’s 53rd Annual Drosophila Research Conference, March 7-11 in Chicago. Specifically, researchers are trying to determine how, within organs, cells specialize while stem cells maintain tissues and enable them to repair damage and respond to stress or aging.
The Genetics Society of America’s 53rd Annual Drosophila Research Conference, March 7-11 at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, will showcase diverse efforts to understand basic biological processes through the easy-to-study fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, and other insects. Among the topics to be presented at the meeting are metabolism, aging, and monarch butterfly migration.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues from 11 other institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom have used two genome-wide association studies (GWAS) – one from the U.S. and one from the U.K. – to detect a novel set of genes found to be associated with epithelial ovarian cancer patient survival. The discovery could open the door to new therapies for treating epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), the most lethal kind of gynecologic malignancy.
Researchers have identified a gene that causes adult-onset primary cervical dystonia, an often-painful condition in which patients’ necks twist involuntarily. The discovery by a team from the Jacksonville, Fla., campus of Mayo Clinic and the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center sheds light on a movement disorder that physicians previously could seldom explain. Their research appears in the Annals of Neurology.
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are reaching out to patient advocacy groups and offering to decode the DNA of 99 patients with rare diseases to help find the genetic alterations responsible for their illnesses.
Researchers, led by scientists from Johns Hopkins, have found five previously unknown gene mutations believed to be associated with elevated blood platelet counts in African-Americans, findings they say could someday lead to the development of new drugs to help prevent coronary artery disease.
Indiana University biologists have found that specific types of RNA polymerase enzymes, the molecular machines that convert DNA into RNA, can differ in function based on variation in the parts -- in this case protein subunits -- used to assemble those machines.
For years, scientists have known that the genetic material called small RNA is key to our genetic makeup. But finding out what small RNA does hasn’t been easy. Now there's a way to turn off small RNAs and find out just how important they can be.
Research reveals new clues about cell function.
Using a Weizmann Institute method for determining the “family trees” of cells, a cross-disciplinary team of scientists was able to prove—and disprove—some ideas about the female mammal’s egg supply.
If you were to discover that a fundamental component of human biology has survived virtually intact for the past 25 million years, you’d be quite confident in saying that it is here to stay. Such is the case for a team of Whitehead Institute scientists, whose latest research on the evolution of the human Y chromosome confirms that the Y—despite arguments to the contrary—has a long, healthy future ahead of it.
In a step toward deciphering the “splicing code” of the human genome, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have comprehensively analyzed six of the more highly expressed RNA binding proteins collectively known as heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoparticle (hnRNP) proteins.
In 15 articles published this month in the Genetics Society of America journals, GENETICS and G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics, researchers present findings on a new resource, called the “Mouse Collaborative Cross,” a population of laboratory mouse lines that together mirror the genetic diversity of humans and offers the potential of studying traits and diseases of complex origins in a model system that better reflects human genetic diversity.
Genetic information provided by a large group of specially-designed mice could pave the way to faster human health discoveries and transform the ways people battle and prevent disease.
A team of scientists from Whitehead Institute and other institutions has shown for the first time how two long intergenic noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) in brewer’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) contribute to a location-dependent switch for the yeast FLO11 gene to toggle between active and inactive states. The mechanism of the FLO11 switch is one of only a handful that have been characterized in detail, and will serve as a model for how other ncRNAs operate.
Researchers at the Salk Institute have discovered a startling feature of early brain development that helps to explain how complex neuron wiring patterns are programmed using just a handful of critical genes. The findings, published February 3 in Cell, may help scientists develop new therapies for neurological disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and provide insight into certain cancers.
The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology is pleased to welcome J. Craig Venter as the keynote speaker at the opening session of ARVO 2012 on Sunday, May 6 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Venter’s presentation is entitled “From Reading to Writing the Genetic Code.”
Gene therapy for congenital blindness took another step forward, as researchers further improved vision in three adult patients previously treated in one eye. The patients were better able to see in dim light, with no adverse effects.
Scientists searching for the genomics version of the holy grail – more insight into predicting how an animal’s genes affect physical or behavioral traits – now have a reference manual that should speed gene discoveries in everything from pest control to personalized medicine.
University of Utah biologists found new evidence why mice, people and other vertebrate animals carry thousands of varieties of genes to make immune-system proteins named MHCs – even though some of those genes make us sick.
Researchers at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences evaluate some current methods to sequence individual genomes—a study that serves as a “stress test” of the efficacy of these practices.
Hormones shape our bodies, make us fertile, excite our most basic urges, and as scientists have known for years, they govern the behaviors that separate men from women. But how?
A team of scientists from the University of Utah and the University of California at San Francisco has discovered that the mutation of a gene encoding a ketone body transporter triggers accumulation of fat and other lipids in the livers of zebrafish.
Results from a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Children’s Oncology Group study pinpoint genetic basis for increased leukemia risk facing Hispanic children and provide new hope for closing survival gap.
Stress-induced genomic instability facilitates rapid cellular adaption in yeast.
UCLA researchers discovered that the leprosy pathogen Mycobacterium leprae was able to evade immune activity that is dependent on vitamin D, a natural hormone that plays an essential role in the body's fight against infections. A better understanding of how these pathogens can escape the immune system may be helpful in designing more effective therapies.
Researchers studying a rare, lethal childhood tumor of the brainstem discovered that nearly 80 percent of the tumors have mutations in genes not previously tied to cancer.
Using a combination of evolutionary biology and virology, scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have traced the birth of the ability of some HIV-related viruses to defeat a newly discovered cellular-defense system in primates.
Paper in The Lancet Neurology states intrapartum, postnatal conditions less of a factor than genetics.
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