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DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).

Anticancer drugs can help plants to battle infection

Cancer-fighting drugs used on humans can help plants fight disease as well. That discovery, by two Washington State University plant pathologists, could help scientists develop new pathways for plants to battle infection, as revealed in a paper in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science.

14 Aug 2018

Powerful new microscope reveals inner workings of human cells with unprecedented clarity

Australia’s most advanced and powerful microscope, capable of visualizing down to the level of individual atoms, begins its working life today.

14 Aug 2018

New project aims to study growth of water-based microorganisms

In order to better understand and assess the quality of ground and spring water, state-of-the-art methods from the fields of molecular biology and microbiology, as well as chemical high-performance analytics are now developed.

14 Aug 2018

Scientists identify mutational signatures in ovarian cancer

Scientists have identified distinct patterns of genetic mutation among patients with ovarian cancer that could help them personalise treatment in the future.

14 Aug 2018

New method provides a 'big picture' of genetic influences on traits and diseases

Scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have developed a powerful method for characterizing the broad patterns of genetic contributions to traits and diseases. The new method provides a "big picture" of genetic influences that should be particularly helpful in designing future genetic studies and understanding potential for genetic risk prediction.

14 Aug 2018

Altered nitrogen metabolism may contribute to emergence of new cancer mutations

Nitrogen is a basic building block of all the body's proteins, RNA and DNA, so cancerous tumors are greedy for this element. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in collaboration with colleagues from the National Cancer Institute and elsewhere, have now shown that in many cancers, the patient's nitrogen metabolism is altered, producing detectable changes in the body fluids and contributing to the emergence of new mutations in cancerous tissue.

13 Aug 2018

New test predicts the risk of serious disease months before symptoms appear

Researchers have developed a new genetic test that can identify people who are at an increased risk of serious disease, long before they develop any symptoms.

13 Aug 2018

Researchers discover epigenetic mechanism underlying ischemic cardiomyopathy

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have shed light on an epigenetic reprogramming mechanism that underlies the development of ischemic cardiomyopathy.

13 Aug 2018

Reduced levels of chaperone protein may have implications for development of Parkinson’s disease

Reduced levels of a chaperone protein might have implications for the development and progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia, according to new research from investigators at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

10 Aug 2018

FDA approves first targeted RNA-based treatment for rare, fatal genetic disease

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Onpattro (patisiran) infusion for the treatment of peripheral nerve disease (polyneuropathy) caused by hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis (hATTR) in adult patients.

10 Aug 2018

Koala virus could provide clues to accumulated 'junk' DNA in the human genome

A koala virus could help researchers explain millions of years of accumulated ‘junk’ DNA in the human genome.

10 Aug 2018

Study yields new insights into why the system needs sleep

Sleep is essential for brain functionality and overall health but understanding how sleep delivers its beneficial effects remains largely unknown. In an article publishing on August 9 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, Shanaz Diessler and Maxime Jan at the University of Lausanne and the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (Switzerland), sleep researchers are exploring new and unbiased approaches that can take sleep to a systems level.

10 Aug 2018

Ability to detect RNA helps promote rapid growth, survival of fruit fly larvae

Fruit fly larvae can taste ribonucleosides, the building blocks of gene transcripts, according to a new study publishing on August 7 in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Hubert Amrein and Dushyant Mishra of Texas A&M Health Science Center and their colleagues.

10 Aug 2018

Using CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing to correct mutation responsible for sickle cell disease

Genome editing using the CRISPR-Cas9 system has tremendous promise for therapeutic correction of genetic errors in human cells. Prior to adoption as a medical therapeutic, safety concerns relating to off-target effects must be minimized to mitigate risks that may arise from the unintended action of this system at sites similar, but not identical, to the desired gene target site.

From Integrated DNA Technologies 10 Aug 2018

Researchers describe underlying mechanisms of congestive heart failure

Congestive heart failure is a terminal disease that affects nearly 6 million Americans. Yet its management is limited to symptomatic treatments because the causal mechanisms of congestive heart failure -- including its most common form, ischemic cardiomyopathy -- are not known.

10 Aug 2018

New approach identifies genes that help microbes to survive in the human gut

Trillions of tiny microbes and bacteria live in your gut, each with their own set of genes. These gut microbes can have both beneficial and harmful effects on your health, from protecting you against inflammation to causing life-threatening infections.

10 Aug 2018

New discovery could pave way for improved leukemia treatment

Previous research has revealed that patients with acute myeloid leukemia who also have a particular mutation in a gene called NPM1 have a higher rate of remission with chemotherapy. About one-third of leukemia patients possess this favorable mutation, but until now, how it helps improve outcomes has remained unknown.

9 Aug 2018

Study identifies key role of TLK1 and TLK2 enzymes in DNA replication

During cell growth, cells copy their DNA through a process called DNA replication. For this process to be accurate, the genetic and epigenetic information must be copied flawlessly.

9 Aug 2018

ETH scientists discover new cancer-specific molecular changes in tumor tissues

A research team led by Gunnar Raetsch, Professor of Biomedical Informatics at ETH Zurich, has evaluated the largest set of genetic data in cancer medicine: The Cancer Genome Atlas in the United States.

9 Aug 2018

Study finds false negatives in common tests used to determine ROS1 status in lung cancer

Drugs like crizotinib are used to treat patients with ROS1-positive lung cancer. But which patients are ROS1-positive? A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology shows that common laboratory tests used to determine ROS1 status all have inherent limitations that can lead to false-negative results.

9 Aug 2018