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Genetics is the study of genes and heredity. Heredity is the passing of genetic information and traits (such as eye color and an increased chance of getting a certain disease) from parents to offspring.
Penn Medicine researchers identify key molecular player in recurrent breast cancer

Penn Medicine researchers identify key molecular player in recurrent breast cancer

According to the American Cancer Society, nearly 40,000 women in the United States will succumb to breast cancer this year. Most of these women will die not from the primary tumor but rather tumor recurrence - the reappearance of the disease following treatment. [More]
Researchers identify genetic variants that can predispose children to dyslexia, language impairment

Researchers identify genetic variants that can predispose children to dyslexia, language impairment

A new study of the genetic origins of dyslexia and other learning disabilities could allow for earlier diagnoses and more successful interventions, according to researchers at Yale School of Medicine. Many students now are not diagnosed until high school, at which point treatments are less effective. [More]
HEXIM1 gene makes heart healthier, suppresses breast cancer metastasis

HEXIM1 gene makes heart healthier, suppresses breast cancer metastasis

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have found that a single gene poses a double threat to disease: Not only does it inhibit the growth and spread of breast tumors, but it also makes hearts healthier. [More]
Researchers discover TTC7A gene that causes multiple intestinal atresia in newborns

Researchers discover TTC7A gene that causes multiple intestinal atresia in newborns

Physicians and researchers from Sherbrooke, Montreal and Quebec City have conducted a study that has led to the discovery of a gene that causes multiple intestinal atresia (MIA), a rare and life-threatening hereditary disorder that affects newborns. [More]

Sequenom CMM completes build-out, validation of additional lab facility in Raleigh-Durham, NC

Sequenom, Inc., a life sciences company providing innovative genetic analysis solutions, today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, the Sequenom Center for Molecular Medicine, has completed the build-out and validation of an additional laboratory location in Raleigh-Durham, NC, and is now processing patient samples commercially. [More]
GSA selects five early career researchers as recipients of fall 2013 DeLill Nasser Award

GSA selects five early career researchers as recipients of fall 2013 DeLill Nasser Award

The Genetics Society of America is pleased to announce the selection of five early career researchers - one graduate student and four postdoctoral researchers - as recipients of a fall 2013 DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics. [More]
Drug development could be improved with stem cell technology, say researchers

Drug development could be improved with stem cell technology, say researchers

Drug development for a range of conditions could be improved with stem cell technology that helps doctors predict the safety and the effectiveness of potential treatments. [More]

Understanding Phelan-McDermid Syndrome

In the first prospective study of its kind, Seaver Autism Center researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai provide new evidence of the severity of intellectual, motor, and speech impairments in a subtype of autism called Phelan-McDermid Syndrome. [More]
Clinical trial underway for potential new treatment for type 1 diabetes

Clinical trial underway for potential new treatment for type 1 diabetes

A clinical trial is underway for a potential new treatment for type 1 diabetes that could eventually mean patients are able to reduce insulin treatment from several times a day to only once or twice a week. The new treatment is a direct result of research to understand the genetics of the disease. [More]
Prostate cancer and DNA: an interview with Dr. Jianfeng Xu, Wake Forest School of Medicine

Prostate cancer and DNA: an interview with Dr. Jianfeng Xu, Wake Forest School of Medicine

Prostate cancer development is associated with both inherited and acquired genetic alterations. More than 70 inherited genetic variants have been consistently identified in human DNA that may contribute to susceptibility or risk of prostate cancer. [More]
Obesity in pregnancy can program kids to develop metabolic problems

Obesity in pregnancy can program kids to develop metabolic problems

Scientists in Sydney, Australia, have discovered that obesity and type 2 diabetes in pregnancy can program children to develop metabolic problems later in life. The good news is, this legacy is not set in stone-if children of obese mothers are careful about what they eat, it can be overturned. [More]
Cedars-Sinai Graduate Program to award diplomas to six students

Cedars-Sinai Graduate Program to award diplomas to six students

The Cedars-Sinai Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences and Translational Medicine will award its first diplomas to six students during a commencement ceremony June 11. [More]

2013 World Stem Cell Report to be published as special supplement to journal Stem Cells and Development

The Genetics Policy Institute and Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers have announced that the 2013 World Stem Cell Report will be published as a special supplement to the peer-reviewed journal Stem Cells and Development. Dr. Graham Parker and Bernard Siegel will serve as Co-Editors-in-Chief, joined by Rosario Isasi (McGill University) as Managing Editor. [More]
Drug used to control Type II diabetes can help repair spinal cords of mice suffering from inherited disease

Drug used to control Type II diabetes can help repair spinal cords of mice suffering from inherited disease

A drug used to control Type II diabetes can help repair the spinal cords of mice suffering from the inherited disease adrenoleukodystrophy which, untreated, leads eventually to a paralysis, a vegetative state and death. [More]

Viewpoints: Will 'rate shock' grow?; Krugman says GOP spite is driving opposition to Medicaid expansion; Determining who owns genes

Any plausible health care reform, the various conservative alternatives to Obamacare included, would necessarily have losers as well as winners, and as far as potential losers go single young men with above-average incomes are not precisely the country's most disadvantaged demographic. If you think the current system is flawless, then I suppose any rate increase anywhere is a strike against health care reform. [More]

Genetic testing for cancer-causing mutations in affected families is very low, study finds

A new study of the use of genetic testing for cancer-causing mutations in affected families in France has found that its take-up is very low. [More]
Data emphasise need for comprehensive analysis of mtDNA in mitochondrial disease patients

Data emphasise need for comprehensive analysis of mtDNA in mitochondrial disease patients

French scientists have discovered that supposedly rare mutations in the mitochondria, the 'power plants' of human cells responsible for creating energy, account for more than 7% of patients with a mitochondrial disease manifesting itself as a respiratory deficiency. [More]

USC scientists unlock mystery of why new cases of Noonan Syndrome are so common

Scientists at USC have unlocked the mystery of why new cases of the genetic disease Noonan Syndrome are so common: a mutation that causes the disease disproportionately increases a normal father's production of sperm carrying the disease trait. [More]

New findings suggest development of pharmacological treatments for uterine leiomyomata

Uterine leiomyomata, or fibroids, are benign tumours that nevertheless affect the health of millions of women. They may cause, for instance, pain, bleeding and infertility. Fibroids are also the most common reason for a hysterectomy; for example, some 8,000 hysterectomies are made in Finland each year. [More]
Discovery of impaired molecular pathway may help treat children with leukemia

Discovery of impaired molecular pathway may help treat children with leukemia

Through genetic engineering of laboratory models, researchers at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center have uncovered a vulnerability in the way cancer cells diverge from normal regenerating cells that may help treat children with leukemia as reported in the journal PNAS on June 3, 2013. [More]