Phenotype News and Research

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Protein-misfolding accelerates yeast evolution

Under stress, yeast cells can unleash a remarkable mechanism based on protein-misfolding that gives them new characteristics without requiring genetic mutations.

28 Nov 2008

Discovery of mechanism linking serotonin with regulation of food intake

Genetic mouse models have provided surprising insight into mechanisms linking serotoninergic compounds with the regulation of feeding behavior and body weight.

26 Nov 2008

Scientists find cells reorganize shape to fit situation

Flip open any biology textbook and you're bound to see a complicated diagram of the inner workings of a cell, with its internal scaffolding, the cytoskeleton, and how it maintains a cell's shape.

24 Nov 2008

NEI releases complete data from age-related eye disease study

The National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announces the release of more than 10 years of data collected during the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS), which looked at the progression of age-related macular degeneration and age-related cataract in 4,757 adults aged 55 to 80.

10 Nov 2008

Maternal obesity can program fetal brain to induce adult-onset obesity

Researchers at the University at Buffalo have found that fetuses of obese mother rats were programmed in utero to develop obesity in adulthood.

5 Nov 2008

Maternal obesity can program fetal brain to induce adult-onset obesity

Researchers at the University at Buffalo have found that fetuses of obese mother rats were programmed in utero to develop obesity in adulthood.

4 Nov 2008

Just one mutated SMAD4 allele is enough to cause cancer

Tumour suppressor genes do not necessarily require both alleles to be knocked out before disease phenotypes are expressed.

4 Nov 2008

New clinical study will help doctors assess abnormal bleeding

How do you know if you bleed normally? Scientists at The Rockefeller University Hospital's Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) aim to answer that question more definitively with the launch of an assessment tool designed to help physicians and researchers more accurately determine what is inside and outside the normal range of bleeding symptoms.

3 Nov 2008

Respiratory syncytial virus may hide in the lungs, lead to asthma

Conventional wisdom has been that respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) - a common virus that causes infection in the lungs - comes and goes in children without any long lasting impact.

27 Oct 2008

Discovery provides model for Alzheimer's breakthrough

Sydney researchers have made a major breakthrough that will lead to a greater understanding of the causes of and treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.

24 Sep 2008

CDC MMR/autism study - wrong questions asked, wrong children studied, wrong conclusions NAA says

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study released today claims there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. The National Autism Association (NAA) says this study does nothing to dispel the growing public concern over a vaccine-autism connection and raises several questions concerning design and methodology.

4 Sep 2008

CDC MMR/autism study - wrong questions asked, wrong children studied, wrong conclusions NAA says

4 Sep 2008

Oxidative stress: mechanism of cell death clarified

Dr. Marcus Conrad of the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology and Tumor Genetics at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen has decrypted the molecular mechanism through which the death of cells is caused by oxidative stress.

3 Sep 2008

Genetic testing for sudden cardiac death

Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD) is a major contributor to mortality in industrialized nations, affecting around 500,000 individuals annually in the Western World, and causing more deaths than AIDS, lung and breast cancer and stroke together.

31 Aug 2008

Cancer signatures uncovered

A new systematic analysis of the relationship between the neoplastic and developmental transcriptome provides an outline of trends in cancer gene expression. The research, published recently in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology, describes how cancers can be divided into three groups distinguished by disparate developmental signatures.

17 Aug 2008

A snooze button for the circadian clock

We may use the snooze button to fine-tune our sleep cycles, but our cells have a far more meticulous and refined system. Humans, and most other organisms, have 24-hour rhythms that are regulated by a precise molecular clock that ticks inside every cell.

13 Aug 2008

Selective face processing abnormalities in parents of autistic children

Some parents of children with autism evaluate facial expressions differently than the rest of us - and in a way that is strikingly similar to autistic patients themselves, according to new research by psychiatrist Dr. Joe Piven of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and neuroscientist Ralph Adolphs, Ph.D., of the California Institute of Technology.

17 Jul 2008

Gene discovery could help answer basic questions of upright walking

What are the genes implicated in upright walking of humans? The discovery of four families in which some members only walk on all fours (quadrupedality) may help us understand how humans, unlike other primates, are able to walk for long periods on only two legs, a scientist will tell the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics tomorrow (Monday 2 June).

1 Jun 2008

Yerkes researchers develop first transgenic nonhuman primate model of Huntington's disease

In the first study of its kind, researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, in collaboration with researchers from the Department of Human Genetics at Emory's School of Medicine, have developed the first transgenic nonhuman primate model of Huntington's disease (HD), one of the most devastating human neurodegenerative diseases.

22 May 2008

Mapping of prostate cancer genes opens the door to new treatments

Genetic changes during the initiation and progression of prostate cancer have eluded scientists to date. Now for the first time researchers have identified a specific gene expression profile of prostate cancer stem cells, with important implications for future treatments.

19 May 2008