Genetic News and Research

RSS

Full year of treatment with pyrimethamine and sulfadiazine helps infants and children with toxoplasmosis

The first long-term study shows that treatment with pyrimethamine and sulfadiazine (two anti-parasitic drugs) during the first year of life leads to a lasting reduction in brain and eye damage for children with congenital toxoplasmosis.

16 May 2006

Discovery of two gene variants associated with increased risk for early heart attack

Scientists at University of California - San Francisco (UCSF), Celera Genomics and The Cleveland Clinic have discovered two gene variants associated with a significantly increased risk for early heart attack, or myocardial infarction (MI).

12 May 2006

Study holds promise for malarial susceptibility test

Cell and animal studies conducted jointly by scientists at Johns Hopkins, Yale and other institutions have uncovered at least one important contributor to the severe anemia that kills almost half of the 2 million people worldwide who die each year of malaria.

12 May 2006

Study sheds light on cancer susceptibility and disease involving bone-marrow failure

Defective protein production can occur in cells even when the genes controlling those proteins are normal, according to a new study to be published May 12 in Science.

12 May 2006

K55R polymorphism gene variation linked to coronary heart disease

New research at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, found that a common genetic variation makes some people more susceptible to coronary heart disease (CHD).

12 May 2006

Search for cancer genes unlikely to be successful

The hunt to find common genes that are associated with cancer is unlikely to be successful, say experts in this week's British Medical Journal.

11 May 2006

Ghrelin involved in development of diabetes

Ghrelin, a hormone long considered a key player in obesity, may instead take a major role in maintaining the balance between insulin and glucose and the development of diabetes, said Baylor College of Medicine researchers in a report in the current issue of the journal Cell Metabolism.

11 May 2006

Extension of embryo screening will help reduce serious illness

A fertility watchdog in Britain, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has given approval for the extension of embryo screening to cover a wider range of mutated genes, in the main those which raise the risk of cancer in later life.

11 May 2006

Researchers link novel mutated gene to mental retardation and imbalance syndrome

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a genetic cause for a form of pediatric brain malformation involving the cerebellum.

11 May 2006

Europe-wide study into the role of genetics and the environment in the development asthma

Previous investigations have fallen short of proving cause-effect due to the complexity of human genetics and varying lifestyles. But the EU-funded GABRIEL study has pooled the very best in the field from all over Europe and can draw on the latest genomic and environmental data and approaches.

11 May 2006

Gene amplification could guide treatment for high-risk breast cancer

A new study shows that breast cancer patients with an "amplification," or greater number of copies, of the TOP2A gene are 45% more likely than women who do not have this amplification to benefit from a longer course of anthracycline-based adjuvant chemotherapy.

11 May 2006

Mental activity leads to mental agility

Scientists have long known that brains need neural activity to mature and that sensory input is most important during a specific window of time called the "critical period" when the brain is primed for aggressive learning.

10 May 2006

Healthy habits and appropriate treatments help prevent stroke

Stroke is the third leading cause of death and a major source of disability in the United States. Every year about 700,000 people in the United States suffer a stroke, resulting in nearly 158,000 deaths.

10 May 2006

Neurons can produce Alzheimer's-linked apolipoprotein E

A question long debated among Alzheimer's disease researchers has been definitively answered by scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease in San Francisco.

10 May 2006

Promising chemo, therapeutic viruses, cutting-edge surgery debut at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center

Brain tumor specialists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center are poised on the brink of a new era.

10 May 2006

Scientists unlock more secrets of HIV and SARS

UK scientists have cracked one of the key biological processes used by viruses such as HIV and SARS when they replicate according to a paper published in the journal Nature tomorrow (11 May). Viruses are able to interfere with the host cell processes that our bodies use to replicate cells, and protein synthesis is often one of their targets.

10 May 2006