In a recent study, Columbia researchers described a new mouse model featuring a combination of genetic and environmental risk factors that can trigger the compulsive restriction of food intake seen in patients with anorexia nervosa.
Today, GE Ventures and Mayo Clinic announced the launch of Vitruvian Networks, Inc., an independent platform company committed to accelerating access to cell and gene therapies through advanced, cloud-ready software systems and manufacturing services.
Genetic attribution lessened stereotypical judgements of homosexuality, gay marriage.
Reporting in the journal Molecular Cell, the scientists determined that one prominent long non-coding RNA may be a “red herring,” with no evident biological role to play—whereas the DNA from which it originates does perform an important function, as an “enhancer” that stimulates the expression of an important protein-coding gene nearby.
Researchers have shed new light on how the structure of regulatory sequences in DNA is packaged in a cell. This work has implications for better understanding the role that gene sequences called enhancers play within our DNA for governing gene activity.
Sequencing the genomes of hundreds of strains of the wine yeast S. cerevisiae has revealed little genetic diversity and high levels of inbreeding. In many cases, yeast strains sold by different companies were almost genetically identical. The results, published in the April issue of G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics, a publication of the Genetics Society of America, suggest that winemakers attempting to develop improved wine yeasts will need to look to creating hybrids with more exotic strains.
How our billion-year-old cousin, baker's yeast, can reveal -- more reliably than leading algorithms -- whether a genetic mutation is actually harmful.
23andMe, Inc., the leading personal genetics company, today announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has funded a promising new study by scientists at 23andMe that could help alleviate some of the existing disparities in genetic research between people of European ancestry and people of African, Latino and Asian ancestry.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center has entered into a strategic research agreement with Celgene Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company based in Summit, New Jersey.
Using high-speed DNA sequencing tools, pediatric researchers have identified a new syndrome that causes intellectual disability (ID). Drawing on knowledge of the causative gene mutation, the scientists’ cell studies suggest that an amino acid supplement may offer a targeted treatment for children with this condition.
Wistar announces the appointment of Kavitha Sarma, Ph.D., as assistant professor in Wistar’s Gene Expression and Regulation Program.
In a new study published in Scientific Reports, scientists at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have successfully characterized the mutational landscapes of glycosylation-associated genes in colon cancer, identifying three glycosyltransferases as significant mutational targets in CRC.
The first largescale study of ancient DNA from early American people has confirmed the devastating impact of European colonisation on the Indigenous American populations of the time.
Every cell in the body has two genomes, one from the mother and one from the father. Until now, researchers have lacked the tools to examine -- in a single cell –the exact readout from each genome to make RNA. Using a new technology that allows researchers to do just that, an interdisciplinary team examined a rare disease in which these two genomes are expressed differently throughout the body, even sometimes in the same organ.
Two invasive species of tumbleweed have hybridized to create a new species of tumbleweed that University of California, Riverside researchers found has dramatically expanded its geographic range in California in just a decade.
Researchers have identified a common variant in a non-coding RNA that may contribute to the intestinal inflammation that occurs in people with celiac disease. The findings point to a possible new risk factor for developing celiac disease in people with celiac disease risk genes.
In Angewandte Chemie International Ed., DOE Joint Genome Institute and Yale University researchers report that microorganisms recognize multiple codons for selenocysteine. The finding builds on studies indicating that an organism’s genetic vocabulary is not as constrained as had been long held.
A protein once thought to be of little consequence has been found to be a central player in processes ranging from male fertility to early embryonic development, according to a study published in the March 31 online issue of Cell by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.
Two professors from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have each been awarded a two-year, $150,000 Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award by the March of Dimes Foundation.
New research from The Wistar Institute has pinpointed a single variant in a gene that is only found in Africans and African Americans, which makes cancer resistant to cell death and may contribute to increased cancer risk.
The endangered southern resident killer whales of Puget Sound could soon get their own personal health records following a meeting of wildlife health experts being held March 28-29 in Seattle.
Cornell University researchers have found evidence of a genetic variation – called an allele – that has evolved in populations that have historically favored vegetarian diets, such as in India, Africa and parts of East Asia. They also discovered a different version of this gene adapted to a marine diet discovered among the Inuit in Greenland, who mainly consume seafood.
Assistant professor Javier Apfeld plumbs the cellular mechanisms driving the aging process in worms, uncovering insights that could increase our own longevity.
Genes are not destiny in determining whether a person will suffer from depression, reports a new study. Nurture can override nature. When rats genetically bred for depression received the equivalent of rat “psychotherapy,” their depressed behavior was alleviated. And, after the depressed rats had the therapy, some of their blood biomarkers for depression changed to non-depressed levels.
Scientists may learn a lot about autism from studying a group of people who don’t have the disorder. Joanne Ruthsatz,is one of the first researchers to have uncovered the link between prodigy and autism.
It turns out that the rigid "line in the sand" over which the human sex chromosomes---the Y and X--- go to avoid crossing over is a bit blurrier than previously thought. Contrary to the current scientific consensus, Arizona State University assistant professor Melissa Wilson Sayres has led a research team that has shown that X and Y DNA swapping may occur much more often. And this promiscuous swapping, may in turn, aid in our understanding of human history and diversity, health and disease, as well as blur rigid chromosomal interpretations of sexual identity.
Like humans, fruit flies sleep at night, caffeine affects their sleep, and if they get a lousy night’s sleep it can affect their memory performance. But what can they tell us about the connection between sleep deprivation and metabolic disorders like diabetes and obesity? A lot, according to a new study that is the first to identify that a conserved gene — translin — works as a modulator of sleep in response to metabolic changes.
The types of gene mutations that contribute to autism are more diverse than previously thought, report researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine in the March 24 online issue of The American Journal of Human Genetics. The findings, they say, represent a significant advance in efforts to unravel the genetic basis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
This study has helped determine that UBE3A gene loss specifically from GABAergic neurons is what’s critical for seizures in Angelman patients. But UBE3A loss from other neuron types may drive other phenotypes associated with the condition.
Using cryo-electron microscopy, Berkeley Lab scientist Eva Nogales and her team have made a breakthrough in our understanding of how our molecular machinery finds the right DNA to copy for making proteins, showing with unprecedented detail the role of a powerhouse transcription factor known as TFIID. The study was published this week in Nature.
Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease (CMT) is a family of inherited disorders of the peripheral nervous system, affecting approximately one in 2,500 Americans. Its most common iteration, CMT1, comes in many forms, most of which have to date been linked to a small set of causative genes. New research from the department of Neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia recently spanned the globe to uncover a new genetic cause of CMT1. Their findings are published online this week in Brain.
Pediatric researchers have found that rare genetic changes strongly increase the likelihood that a child will have higher bone density, but only in girls. Because childhood and adolescence are critical periods for bone formation, these gene variants play an important role in increasing bone strength and reducing vulnerability to fractures later in a woman’s life.
The Hemophilia and Thrombosis Treatment Center at UC San Diego Health has joined a nationwide clinical trial testing a potential gene therapy that may one day provide a better and long-lasting treatment for people with hemophilia B.
A fungal disease that poses a serious threat to cacao plants - the source of chocolate - reproduces clonally, Purdue University researchers find.
An international team used an amplification technique to sequence the genomes of two divergent Plasmodium malaria species from miniscule volumes of chimpanzee blood to find clues about the evolution and pathogenicity of Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest malaria parasite that affects people. Understanding the origins of emerging diseases – and more established disease agents -- is critical to gauge future human infection risks and find new treatment and prevention approaches.
Think your DNA is all human? Think again. And a new discovery suggests it’s even less human than scientists previously thought. Nineteen new pieces of non-human DNA -- left by viruses that first infected our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago -- have just been found, lurking between our own genes.
The island fox has made a remarkable comeback from the brink of extinction, with three of six populations on their way to becoming the fastest mammal recovered under the Endangered Species Act. But new Colorado State University-led research uncovers a hidden danger to the future viability of some island fox populations.
Demonstrating the potential of precision medicine, an international study based at UT Southwestern Medical Center used next-generation DNA sequencing technology to identify more than 1,000 gene variants that affect susceptibility to systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
For the first time, researchers at the Stowers Institute have mapped where recombination occurs across the whole genome of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster after a single round of meiosis.
Residents of the remote equatorial islands of Melanesia share fragments of genetic code with two extinct human species. That’s the key finding of a new study published March 17 in the journal Science. An international team contributed to the research, which compared the DNA sequences of 35 modern people living on islands off the coast of New Guinea with DNA drawn from two early human species: Denisovans, whose remains were found in Siberia, and Neandertals, first discovered in Germany. “Substantial amounts of Neandertal and Denisovan DNA can now be robustly identified in the genomes of present-day Melanesians, allowing new insights into human evolutionary history,” they wrote. “As genome-scale data from worldwide populations continues to accumulate, a nearly complete catalog of surviving archaic lineages may soon be within reach.”
Scientists have long sought an efficient method for targeting RNA— intermediary genetic material that carries the genetic code from the cell’s nucleus to protein-making machinery — in living cells. Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have now achieved this by applying the popular DNA-editing technique CRISPR-Cas9 to RNA. The study is published March 17 in Cell.
A new study published in Physiological Genomics suggests that the brain shows signs of aging earlier than old age. The study found that the microglia cells—the immune cells of the brain—in middle-aged mice already showed altered activity seen in microglia from older mice.
The most common immune disorder, common variable immunodeficiency disorder (CVID), is notoriously difficult to diagnose early, before serious complications develop. Genetic analysis of six families from across the U.S. and Europe has revealed that mutations in IKAROS, known for its central role in immune cell development, define a new class of CVID. Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the results open the door to personalized health care tailored to patients with this disorder.
Research from Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey examining difficult to treat tumors through genomic profiling shows that tumors with alterations in a signaling pathway responsible for cell regulation may respond to targeted therapy regardless of where the tumor originated in the body.
A University of Houston researcher and his team have discovered an important link between alcohol and breast cancer by identifying a cancer-causing gene triggered by alcohol.
Our brains are marvels of connectivity, packed with cells that continually communicate with one another. This communication occurs across synapses, the transit points where chemicals called neurotransmitters leap from one neuron to another, allowing us to think, to learn and to remember. Researchers have known that these synapses often need a boost to send information across neuronal divides.
Scientists from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and The New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute (NYSCF) have succeeded in generating a new type of embryonic stem cell that carries a single copy of the human genome, instead of the two copies typically found in normal stem cells. The scientists reported their findings today in the journal Nature.
Human use of copper dating back to the Bronze Age has shaped the evolution of bacteria, leading to bugs that are highly resistant to the metal’s antibacterial properties.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers are leading a multicenter genetic study of prostate cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa to try to find new information about the genetic etiology of prostate cancer.
A study led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) shows that genome-wide molecular profiling of kidney biopsies may be a key to catching organ rejection before it’s too late.
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