Genetics News and Research

Latest Genetics News and Research

Colorectal cancer gene found

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine researchers published a study in the March 7th issue of The American Journal of Human Genetics identifying the hereditary components of colorectal cancer (CRC.)

10 Mar 2008

Integrin beta3 protein yields clues to autism

Many children with autism have elevated blood levels of serotonin - a chemical with strong links to mood and anxiety.

6 Mar 2008

Curing cancer with natural products - a case for shamans and herb women?

Not at all, for many chemotherapies to fight cancer applied in modern medicine are natural products or were developed on the basis of natural substances. Thus, taxanes used in prostate and breast cancer treatment are made from yew trees. The popular periwinkle plant, which grows along the ground of many front yards, is the source of vinca alkaloids that are effective, for example, against malignant lymphomas. The modern anti-cancer drugs topotecan and irinotecan are derived from a constituent of the Chinese Happy Tree.

6 Mar 2008

How much and how often people drink influences mortality risk

How much and how often people drink - not just the average amount of alcohol they consume over time - independently influence the risk of death from several causes, according to a new study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

6 Mar 2008

Researchers discover molecular pathway in blood vessels that controls blood pressure and vascular function

University of Iowa researchers have identified a molecular pathway in blood vessels that controls blood pressure and vascular function and may help explain why certain drugs for type II diabetes also appear to lower patients' blood pressure.

6 Mar 2008

New potential drug target for atherosclerosis

A nuclear receptor protein, known for controlling the ability of cells to burn fat, also exerts powerful anti-inflammatory effects in arteries, suppressing atherosclerosis in mice prone to developing the harmful plaques, according to new research by scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Harvard School of Public Health.

6 Mar 2008

Discovery of gene abnormality that causes the fatal paralysis, motor neuron disease

In a world first, University of Sydney researchers from the ANZAC Research Institute at Concord Hospital, in collaboration with colleagues at Kings College London, have found a new gene abnormality that causes the fatal paralysis, motor neuron disease (MND).

6 Mar 2008

Molecular alliance that sustains embryonic stem cell state

One of the four ingredients in the genetic recipe that scientists in Japan and the U.S. followed last year to persuade human skin cells to revert to an embryonic stem cell state, is dispensable in ES cells, thanks to the presence of a molecular alliance between a specific group of key proteins known as transcription factors, a research team led by the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) reports in the current issue of Nature Cell Biology.

6 Mar 2008

Prader-Willi syndrome - new genetic clues

A new mouse model for a genetic cause of obesity has been developed by scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.

6 Mar 2008

Alcohol may increase blood pressure to a much greater extent than previously thought

Previous observational studies have reported that heavy alcohol intake is a risk factor for hypertension but such studies may be confounded by factors such as diet, smoking, exercise levels and socio-economic position.

6 Mar 2008

Genetic mutations involved in IGF-I signaling pathway influence life span

Mutations in genes governing an important cell-signaling pathway influence human longevity, scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have found.

6 Mar 2008

Children of alcoholics: different brain regions effect who may or may not develop alcohol problems

Although children of alcoholics (COAs) have a greater risk of developing alcohol-use disorders (AUDs), not all COAs will develop AUDs.

6 Mar 2008

Rimonabant weight-loss drug might fight alcoholic fatty liver

The cannabinoid receptors best known for delivering the psychological effects of marijuana also explain the connection between chronic alcohol use and a buildup of fat in the liver, according to a report in the March issue of Cell Metabolism, a publication of Cell Press.

6 Mar 2008

Protein within neurons in the amygdala controls development of alcohol withdrawal symptoms and drinking behaviors

Doctors may one day be able to control alcohol addiction by manipulating the molecular events in the brain that underlie anxiety associated with alcohol withdrawal, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine and the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center report in the March 5 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

6 Mar 2008

Biologists discover parochial bacterial viruses

Biologists examining ecosystems similar to those that existed on Earth more than 3 billion years ago have made a surprising discovery: Viruses that infect bacteria are sometimes parochial and unrelated to their counterparts in other regions of the globe.

6 Mar 2008