Genetics News and Research

Latest Genetics News and Research

Avalon Pharmaceuticals announces results of AVN944 biomarker study

Avalon Pharmaceuticals has announced the results of an AVN944 biomarker study that utilized Avalon's proprietary AvalonRx technology to identify gene signatures that may be useful for patient stratification.

18 Apr 2007

Common misconception that diabetes is 'in the genes' for Indigenous people dispelled

The high rate of diabetes among indigenous people is not due to their genetic heritage, according to a recently published study.

17 Apr 2007

Single master gene crucial for nerve cell insulation

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have discovered how a defect in a single master gene disrupts the process by which several genes interact to create myelin, a fatty coating that covers nerve cells and increases the speed and reliability of their electrical signals.

17 Apr 2007

Predicting cancer risk in the long term

Every day, people make assumptions, educated and not, about their risk for developing cancer.

17 Apr 2007

Connection between cancer development and Darwinian evolution explored

Cancer is a natural consequence of human evolution. Our genes have not developed to give us long and happy lives.

17 Apr 2007

Study dispels myth that certain minority groups are genetically prone to diabetes

A study by U.S. and Australian researchers is helping dispel the 40-year-old "thrifty genotype theory," which purports that certain minority groups are genetically prone to diabetes.

17 Apr 2007

MS patients not receiving medications to slow disease progression

Neurologists at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center have found that many patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) are not taking or being prescribed drugs approved to treat the disease.

17 Apr 2007

Johns Hopkins develops pancreas cancer risk software tool

People with a family history of pancreas cancer now have a way to accurately predict their chance of carrying a gene for hereditary pancreas cancer and their lifetime risk of developing the disease.

17 Apr 2007

Expression Genetics completes phase I trial of lead drug candidate, EGEN-001

Expression Genetics, Inc., has announced the completion of a Phase I clinical study evaluating the Company's lead drug candidate, EGEN-001.

17 Apr 2007

Scientists find strong genetic link to Crohn's disease

An international team of scientists believe they have identified a number of genes that may indicate a pre-disposal to developing Crohn's disease and say their discovery confirms the suspicion that the inflammatory bowel ailment has a strong genetic link.

17 Apr 2007

Epigenetic factors that increase breast cancer risk

Women can encounter environmental factors that increase their risk of breast cancer at various periods of their physical development, beginning before birth and extending until menopause.

16 Apr 2007

Snake venom toxin as a treatment for prostate cancer

This certainly sounds unusual, but Dr. Son and colleagues report on the effectiveness of the snake venom toxin (SVT) Vipera lebetina turanica in the inhibition of androgen-independent prostate cancer (AICAP) in the February 2007 issue of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics .

16 Apr 2007

New genetic risk factors for Crohn's disease

An international research team , including investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Broad Institute of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has identified several novel genetic variations associated with the risk of Crohn's disease.

16 Apr 2007

New player in the development T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Leuven, Belgium -- Leukemia, or cancer of the bone marrow, strikes some 700 Belgians each year.

16 Apr 2007

New diagnostic technologies to predict and monitor cancer risks

Molecular messages and signals circulating in blood or contained in cells lining the airway can identify early stage cancer, according to research reported at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

16 Apr 2007

Health disparities in access to healthcare

Minority individuals are much more likely to develop and die from cancer than the general U.S. population.

16 Apr 2007

Astrocytes may contribute to Lou Gehrig's disease

Two papers by Columbia and Harvard researchers report for the first time that astrocytes (the most abundant non-neuronal cells in the central nervous system), which carry a mutated gene known to cause some cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease), induce motor neuron death.

16 Apr 2007