Genetics News and Research

Latest Genetics News and Research

Discovery of gene in Asian monkeys that blocks AIDS

Researchers at Harvard Medical School have identified a gene in Asian monkeys that may have evolved as a defense against lentiviruses, the group of viruses that includes HIV.

1 Mar 2008

Discovery of key molecular mechanism that may account for the development of cystic fibrosis

Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have identified a key molecular mechanism that may account for the development of cystic fibrosis, which about 1 in 3000 children are born with in the US every year.

1 Mar 2008

Zebrafish help understand hearing loss

A small striped fish is helping scientists understand what makes people susceptible to a common form of hearing loss, although, in this case, it's not the fish's ears that are of interest.

1 Mar 2008

Potential target to treat deadly bloodstream infections

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered a possible target to treat bloodstream bacterial infections.

28 Feb 2008

New genetic link to schizophrenia

Schizophrenia emerges from an altered pattern of brain development, and researchers continue to search for the genes that cause the brain to develop along a path that ultimately leads to schizophrenia.

28 Feb 2008

Gene expression differences between Europeans and Africans affect response to drugs, infections

Differences in gene expression levels between people of European versus African ancestry can affect how each group responds to certain drugs or fights off specific infections, report researchers from the University of Chicago Medical Center and the Expression Research Laboratory at Affymetrix Inc. of Santa Clara, CA.

28 Feb 2008

Blocking a signaling protein kills prostate cancer cells

Researchers at Jefferson's Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia have shown that they can effectively kill prostate cancer cells in both the laboratory and in experimental animal models by blocking a signaling protein that is key to the cancer's growth.

28 Feb 2008

Atypical protein kinase C stabilizes SRC-3 levels in breast cancer cells

A new study provides valuable insight into a previously undescribed mechanism that regulates a prominent cancer-associated protein.

28 Feb 2008

Understanding primate evolution could aid HIV research

Evolution moves in fits and starts, shaping species through random genetic mutations that can help them survive or even hasten their death.

28 Feb 2008

Springer launches 18,000 searchable online protocols in life sciences and biomedicine

Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) has announced the release of Springer Protocols, a protocol database of more than 18,000 searchable online protocols in life sciences and biomedicine.

28 Feb 2008

Discovery of family of genes linked to the development of liver cancer

An interdisciplinary team of researchers at Stony Brook University Medical Center has identified a family of genes linked to the development of liver cancer.

28 Feb 2008

Inverted DNA turns quiet developmental gene into a potent driver of t-cell lymphoma

A gene crucial for embryonic development can quickly become a potent cancer promoter in adult mice after a genetic misalignment, according to researchers from Fox Chase Cancer Center, causing white blood cells to become cancerous spontaneously.

28 Feb 2008

New view of human brainstem

A team of scientists from Princeton University has devised a new experimental technique that produces some of the best functional images ever taken of the human brainstem, the most primitive area of the brain.

28 Feb 2008

FDA approves Arcalyst for treatment of rare inflammatory syndromes

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a drug to help ease the suffering faced by those with certain chronic inflammatory diseases.

28 Feb 2008

Decline in cystic fibrosis since introduction of prenatal carrier screening

A brief report in the February 28, 2008, New England Journal of Medicine, led by researchers at the New England Newborn Screening Program (NENSP) of the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS), indicates a declining incidence of a genetic disease, providing what may be the first demonstration of a link between two independent population-based screening programs.

28 Feb 2008

Cause of effectiveness discovered for a cirrhosis treatment useful in 40 percent of patients

Scientists of the Center for Applied Medical Research (CIMA) of the University of Navarra have discovered the molecular mechanism responsible for the effectiveness of an existing treatment for primary biliary cirrhosis, which combines two substances in order to produce an effect that does not result from either substance separately.

28 Feb 2008

Hormones produced by the heart eliminate pancreatic cancer in mice

Hormones produced by the heart eliminated human pancreatic cancer in more than three-quarters of the mice treated with the hormones and eliminated human breast cancer in two-thirds of the mice, according to researcher David Vesely, a doctor at the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa and a professor at the University of South Florida (USF).

27 Feb 2008

Protein that stimulates blood vessel growth worsens ovarian cancer

A protein that stimulates blood vessel growth worsens ovarian cancer, but its production can be stifled by a tiny bit of RNA wrapped in a fatty nanoparticle, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reports in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

27 Feb 2008

New insight into the fundamentals of Parkinson's disease

A single change in a protein may play a role in whether someone develops Parkinson's disease, say University of Florida Genetics Institute researchers writing in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

27 Feb 2008

Soil-dwelling bacteria provide potential new antibiotics

MIT biologists have provoked soil-dwelling bacteria into producing a new type of antibiotic by pitting them against another strain of bacteria in a battle for survival.

27 Feb 2008