Genetic Engineering News and Research

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Research findings may help explain why drug treatments for addiction, depression are not always effective

New research may help explain why drug treatments for addiction and depression don't work for some patients. The conditions are linked to reward and aversion responses in the brain. Working in mice, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered brain pathways linked to reward and aversion behaviors are in such close proximity that they unintentionally could be activated at the same time.

3 Sep 2015

UCLA scientists develop promising new combination treatment for glioblastoma

UCLA scientists have developed a potentially promising new combination therapy for glioblastoma, the deadliest form of brain cancer.

2 Sep 2015

Bacterial litmus test provides low-cost method to measure blood micronutrients

A bacterium engineered to produce different pigments in response to varying levels of a micronutrient in blood samples could give health officials an inexpensive way to detect nutritional deficiencies in resource-limited areas of the world.

2 Sep 2015

Scientists closer to understanding how neurons are wired to form circuits in the eye

When we move our head, the whole visual world moves across our eyes. Yet we can still make out a bee buzzing by or a hawk flying overhead, thanks to unique cells in the eye called object motion sensors.

1 Sep 2015

Gene therapy restores visual function in mouse model of LCA1

Mice lacking the protein retGC1, which is deficient in humans suffering Leber congenital amaurosis-1 (LCA1), a disorder that causes severe visual impairment beginning in infancy, received gene therapy to replace retGC1 and showed fully restored visual function that persisted for at least 6 months.

1 Sep 2015

Scientists elucidate chemical process behind eosinophilic esophagitis

Scientists from the D'Or Institute of Research and Education, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the Yale University School of Medicine have elucidated the chemical process behind a mysterious gastrointestinal disease that is becoming more frequent every day: the eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), also known as the "asthma of the esophagus".

1 Sep 2015

KAIST scientists predict how biological circuits sustain rhythms

Our bodies have a variety of biological clocks that follow rhythms or oscillations with periods ranging from seconds to days. For example, our hearts beat every second, and cells divide periodically. The circadian clock located in the hypothalamus generates twenty-four hour rhythms, timing our sleep and hormone release.

29 Aug 2015

Cholinergic neurons in basal forebrain broadcast message throughout the cerebral cortex

When a large combat unit, widely dispersed in dense jungle, goes to battle, no single soldier knows precisely how his actions are affecting the unit's success or failure. But in modern armies, every soldier is connected via an audio link that can instantly receive broadcasts - reporting both positive and negative surprises - based on new intelligence. The real-time broadcasts enable dispersed troops to learn from these reports and can be critical since no solider has an overview of the entire unit's situation.

28 Aug 2015

Researchers find fatty acid deposits in brains of Alzheimer's patients

People with Alzheimer's disease have fat deposits in the brain. For the first time since the disease was described 109 years ago, researchers affiliated with the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM) have discovered accumulations of fat droplets in the brain of patients who died from the disease and have identified the nature of the fat.

28 Aug 2015

Variation in genetic mechanism increases fat storage and drives obesity

A specific gene region has long been suspected of contributing to obesity in humans but the precise mechanisms behind this were previously unclear. Now, researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard Medical School and other partners have been able to show that a single genetic alteration in this region reduces thermogenesis (fat burning), instead increasing lipid storage.

24 Aug 2015

Stanford University launches new professional education course

Imagine a world where health care is personalized, diseases are treated or even prevented before they become debilitating, and doctor's visits include regular reviews of individual genetic profiles. These are just some of the possibilities at the intersection of healthcare and genomics.

24 Aug 2015

Novel technique may lead to therapies for pain relief in individuals with intractable pain

A team of scientists at Kyoto University's Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) has developed a novel technique using tiny gold rods to target pain receptors.

24 Aug 2015

Researchers identify strategy to prevent adenoviruses from multiplying and causing sickness in humans

Using an animal model they developed, Saint Louis University and Utah State university researchers have identified a strategy that could keep a common group of viruses called adenoviruses from replicating and causing sickness in humans.

21 Aug 2015

Wyss Institute scientists develop improved blood-cleansing therapeutic device to treat sepsis

Last year, a Wyss Institute team of scientists described the development of a new device to treat sepsis that works by mimicking our spleen. It cleanses pathogens and toxins from blood circulating through a dialysis-like circuit. Now, the Wyss Institute team has developed an improved device that synergizes with conventional antibiotic therapies and that has been streamlined to better position it for near-term translation to the clinic.

21 Aug 2015

Researchers discover how aggressive cells can invade healthy tissue during tumour development

Researchers supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation have discovered how aggressive cells can invade healthy tissue during the earliest stage of tumour development. This opens up new ways of attacking cancer at its root.

20 Aug 2015

Energy-burning 'good' fat helps reduce weight gain, lower blood glucose levels in mice

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a novel way to engineer the growth and expansion of energy-burning "good" fat, and then found that this fat helped reduce weight gain and lower blood glucose levels in mice.

20 Aug 2015

Oncolytic virotherapy lends benefits to melanoma patients

Recent study published online by Melanoma Research journal indicates that melanoma patients would significantly benefit from prolonging the survival with oncolytic viroherapy treatment. The study revealed that the early stage melanoma patients treated with oncolytic medicine Rigvir were 4 to 6 times more likely to survive than those who following the current guidelines for the treatment of melanoma were only observed.

19 Aug 2015

Johns Hopkins scientists develop novel fish embryo technique to identify potential new treatments for diabetes

In experiments with 500,000 genetically engineered zebrafish embryos, Johns Hopkins scientists report they have developed a potentially better and more accurate way to screen for useful drugs, and they have used it to identify 24 drug candidates that increase the number of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.

19 Aug 2015

Bacteria in gut may be the cause of uveitis in the eye

The inflammatory eye disorder autoimmune uveitis occurs when a person's immune system goes awry, attacking proteins in the eye. What spurs this response is a mystery, but now a study on mice suggests that bacteria in the gut may provide a kind of training ground for immune cells to attack the eye.

19 Aug 2015

Nuclear process in the brain may play critical role in health and disease

Every brain cell has a nucleus, or a central command station. Scientists have shown that the passage of molecules through the nucleus of a star-shaped brain cell, called an astrocyte, may play a critical role in health and disease.

18 Aug 2015

Genetic Engineering News and Research

Research findings may help explain why drug treatments for addiction, depression are not always effective

UCLA scientists develop promising new combination treatment for glioblastoma

Bacterial litmus test provides low-cost method to measure blood micronutrients

Scientists closer to understanding how neurons are wired to form circuits in the eye

Gene therapy restores visual function in mouse model of LCA1

Scientists elucidate chemical process behind eosinophilic esophagitis

KAIST scientists predict how biological circuits sustain rhythms

Cholinergic neurons in basal forebrain broadcast message throughout the cerebral cortex

Researchers find fatty acid deposits in brains of Alzheimer's patients

Variation in genetic mechanism increases fat storage and drives obesity

Stanford University launches new professional education course

Novel technique may lead to therapies for pain relief in individuals with intractable pain

Researchers identify strategy to prevent adenoviruses from multiplying and causing sickness in humans

Wyss Institute scientists develop improved blood-cleansing therapeutic device to treat sepsis

Researchers discover how aggressive cells can invade healthy tissue during tumour development

Energy-burning 'good' fat helps reduce weight gain, lower blood glucose levels in mice

Oncolytic virotherapy lends benefits to melanoma patients

Johns Hopkins scientists develop novel fish embryo technique to identify potential new treatments for diabetes

Bacteria in gut may be the cause of uveitis in the eye

Nuclear process in the brain may play critical role in health and disease

eBook: Using iPSCs models for human disease research and drug discovery eBook

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