Feature Channels: Genetics

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Findings represent a significant advance in understanding the causes of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

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1) Differences could explain the higher rates of prostate cancer and mortality. 2) Understanding differences could lead to specialized treatment.

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Researchers have developed a new method to sequence and analyze the dark matter of life—the genomes of thousands of bacteria species previously beyond scientists’ reach, from microorganisms that produce antibiotics and biofuels to microbes living in the human body.

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A new study found that genes involved in creating different sexes, life stages and castes of fire ants and honeybees evolved more rapidly than genes not involved in these processes. The fast-evolving genes also exhibited elevated rates of evolution before they were recruited for development.

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This study of more than 50,000 adults ages 18 and older provides new molecular evidence that 11 DNA regions in the human genome have strong association with these diseases, including six regions not previously observed.

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A unique study shows the progress of soybean breeding for improved animal nutrition.

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A study by epidemiologists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and colleagues suggests that a high intake of calcium causes prostate cancer among African-American men who are genetically good absorbers of the mineral.

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A "hidden" code linked to the DNA of plants allows them to develop and pass down new biological traits far more rapidly than previously thought, according to the findings of a groundbreaking study by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

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A new paper, building on recent advances in sequencing capability, now reports the complete genomes of 17 different strains of mice, creating an unparalleled genetic resource that will aid studies ranging from human disease to evolution.

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Scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have uncovered a previously unknown fail-safe (compensatory) pathway that potentially protects the brain and other organs from genetic and environmental threats. The discovery could provide new ways to diminish the negative consequences of genetic mutations and environmental toxins that cause neurological diseases and other maladies.

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In the quest to understand genomes—how they’re built, how they’re organized and what makes them work—a team of Johns Hopkins researchers has engineered from scratch a computer-designed yeast chromosome and incorporated into their creation a new system that lets scientists intentionally rearrange the yeast’s genetic material. A report of their work appears September 14 as an Advance Online Publication in the journal Nature.

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Scientists have deciphered the genome of a bacterium implicated as a key player in regulating the immune system of mice. The genomic analysis provides the first glimpse of its unusually sparse genetic blueprint and offers hints about how it may activate a powerful immune response that protects mice from infection but also spurs harmful inflammation.

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An enzyme that appears to play a role in controlling the brain's response to nicotine and alcohol in mice might be a promising target for a drug that simultaneously would treat nicotine addiction and alcohol abuse in people, according to a study by researchers at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center, affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco.

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Toxin proteins are genetically engineered into our food because they kill insects by perforating body cell walls, and Professor Rikard Blunck of the University of Montreal’s Group for the study of membrane proteins (GÉPROM) has detected the molecular mechanism involved.

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Dana-Farber researchers successfully disrupted the function of the gene MYC by tampering with the gene's "on" switch and growth signals in multiple myeloma cells, offering promising strategy for treating myeloma and other cancers driven by the MYC gene.

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A large team of international researchers have identified a new genetic cause of inherited Parkinson’s disease that they say may be related to the inability of brain cells to handle biological stress.

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Thousands of scientists around the world are working on AMPK but the McMaster team is the first to demonstrate its essential role in exercise. Their research appears in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University report in the September 4 online edition of Nature Medicine that they have developed a tuberculosis (TB) vaccine candidate that proved both potent and safe in animal studies. According to the World Health Organization, TB kills an estimated 1.7 million people each year and infects one out of three people around the globe. With drug-resistant strains spreading, a vaccine for preventing TB is urgently needed.

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Although several genes have been linked to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), it is still unknown how they cause this progressive neurodegenerative disease. In a new study, Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have demonstrated that two ALS-associated genes work in tandem to support the long-term survival of motor neurons. The findings were published in the September 1 online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

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Two Kansas State University researchers have been collaborating on an international project involving genomes of Arabidopsis thaliana, a model plant species that can offer insights into other plants. Their collaborative work, titled "Multiple reference genomes and transcriptomes for Arabidopsis thaliana," appears online in the journal Nature.

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A new saliva test can measure the amount of potential carcinogens stuck to a person’s DNA — interfering with the action of genes involved in health and disease — and could lead to a commercial test to help determine risks for cancer and other diseases, scientists reported here today during the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

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It's all about the grandkids! That's what a team led by an Indiana University biologist has learned about promiscuous female birds and why they mate outside their social pair.

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An international team of researchers led by neuroscientists at Mayo Clinic in Florida has found a genetic variation they say protects against Parkinson’s disease.

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Employing technology that reads the entire DNA code, researchers led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute and the Technical University of Denmark have pinpointed the source of a cholera outbreak in Haiti that killed more than 6,000 people and sickened 300,000.

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An international team of researchers believes it has identified the wild yeast that, in the age of sail, apparently traveled more than 7,000 miles to make a fortuitous microbial match that today underpins the $250 billion a year lager beer industry.

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Researchers at NYU School of Medicine have discovered the cellular mechanisms that normally generate chromosomal breaks in bacteria such as E. coli. The study’s findings are published in the August 18 issue of the journal Cell.

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Leaders in biomedical education at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine are calling for a radical new approach to post-graduate training in the life sciences to address significant challenges, including an avalanche of new discoveries in the last decade and the need to transcend traditional departmental boundaries to understand biological processes at multiple levels.

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New genetic evidence presented by a team led by Indiana University biology doctoral graduate Benjamin Blackman confirms the eastern United States as the single geographic domestication site of modern sunflowers.

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Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have devised a gene therapy cocktail that has the potential to treat some inherited diseases associated with “misfolded” proteins.

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In a new study published in the August 16th issue of Developmental Cell, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center identified a molecular mechanism that guarantees that new blood vessels form in the right place and with the proper abundance.

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Do you run when you should stay? Are you afraid of all the wrong things? An enzyme deficiency might be to blame, reveals new research in mice by scientists at the University of Southern California.

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An international team of scientists has identified 29 new genetic variants linked to multiple sclerosis, providing key insights into the biology of an important and very debilitating neurological disease.

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Combining the expertise of several different labs, University of Iowa researchers have found a new genetic cause of the blinding eye disease retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and, in the process, discovered an entirely new version of the message that codes for the affected protein.

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Whitehead Institute researchers have discovered how yeast cells protect themselves against a novel type of chromosome fragility that occurs in repeated DNA during meiosis—the cell division that produces spores in fungi or eggs and sperm in plants and animals.

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By working with individuals suffering from a severe disorder that causes sensory neurons to degenerate, researchers at the University of Montreal Hospital and CHU Sainte-Justine Hospital have discovered how a specific genetic mutation causes their patients’ condition, which in turn has revealed more information about the mechanisms in our bodies which enable us to sense pain.

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A new national collaboration of asthma genetics researchers has revealed a novel gene associated with the disease in African-Americans, and study confirmed the significance of four gene associations reported by a European asthma genetics study.

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Baltimore, MD; Boston and Cambridge MA; Pittsburgh, PA; and Houston, TX . Thurs. July 28, 2011 -- Powerful new technologies that zoom in on the connections between human genes and diseases have illuminated the landscape of cancer, singling out changes in tumor DNA that drive the development of certain types of malignancies such as melanoma or ovarian cancer.

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A Kansas State University genomicist is hoping an old potato chip slogan -- "betcha can't eat just one" -- will become the mindset of researchers when it comes to sequencing insect genomes.

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The states should develop clear and open policies regarding retention and research uses of dried blood spot specimens left over from newborn screening, according to a new set of "recommendations for national guidance" published in Genetics in Medicine, the official peer-reviewed journal of The American College of Medical Genetics. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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A team led by the University of Maryland School of Medicine Institute for Genome Sciences unraveled the genomic code of the E. coli that caused the German outbreak that began in May.

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Using human breast cancer cells and the protein that causes fireflies to glow, a Johns Hopkins team has shed light on why some breast cancer cells become resistant to the anticancer effects of the drug tamoxifen. The key is a discovery of two genetic “dimmer switches” that apparently control how a breast cancer gene responds to the female hormone estrogen.

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A substantial number of people with eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa have a chronic course. They are severely underweight and have a high likelihood of dying from malnutrition. No treatment has been found that helps people who are chronically ill. Now, a new study sheds light on the reason that some people have poor outcome.

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A molecular technique originally developed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has taken one step closer to becoming a treatment for the devastating genetic disease Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

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An international study, based on a doctoral thesis conducted at the University of Haifa, has discovered how a newly discovered gene played a central role in the transition of aquatic plants to land plants – a process that led to life on land as we know it today.

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A GWAS found two genetic variations that predict which patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma are likely to develop radiation-induced second cancers years after treatment. This could help physicians reduce the risks for susceptible patients. Younger patients and those who receive more radiation are most at risk.

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Stem cell researchers at UCLA have generated the first genome-wide mapping of a DNA modification called 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) in embryonic stem cells, and discovered that it is predominantly found in genes that are turned on, or active.

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Researchers seeking rare gene variants in ADHD found that one patient had causative mutations in an unrelated disorder. The finding has implications about how to best return such information to research subjects.

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A team of researchers from the University of Utah and Brigham Young University has developed a mouse model of focal dermal hypoplasia, a rare human birth defect that causes serious skin abnormalities and other medical problems. This animal model not only provides insight into studying the cause of focal dermal hypoplasia (FDH), but also offers a novel way to study a signaling pathway that is crucial for embryonic development.

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Some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals and is found exclusively in people outside Africa.

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Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center say there are at least 70 genetic mutations involved in the formation of colon cancer, far more than scientists previously thought.