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Researchers describe important step toward gene therapy for patients with Sandhoff disease

Babies with the rare, deadly genetic disorder Sandhoff disease begin to miss developmental milestones just months after birth. Lacking muscle tone, they never learn to sit up, develop heads too large to lift and eventually suffer uncontrollable seizures. There is no cure.

22 Feb 2018

Research consortium develops first 3D computer model of metabolic processes

An international research consortium developed, with significant involvement of Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine scientists, the first computer model to include 3D in the representation of human metabolic processes.

22 Feb 2018

Researchers discover new regulator of the immune system

Academy Professor Riitta Lahesmaa's research group from Turku Centre for Biotechnology of the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University, Finland, has discovered a new regulator of the immune system, a key factor that controls development of regulatory T cells.

22 Feb 2018

Antibiotic-producing bacterium releases more metabolites than assumed

The bacterium Streptomyces chartreusis is an antibiotic-producing bacterium that releases more metabolites into the surrounding medium than scientists assumed based on the analysis of the genome. Many of the substances are likely released to mediate interactions with its environment.

21 Feb 2018

Penn study sheds new light on immune cell identity

Almost all cells in the human body have identical DNA sequences, yet there are 200-plus cell types with different sizes, shapes, and chemical compositions. Determining what parts of the genome are read to make protein and which are silenced is orchestrated by proteins called transcription factors.

21 Feb 2018

Researchers discover five new genetic changes that may increase pancreatic cancer risk

In what is believed to be the largest pancreatic cancer genome-wide association study to date, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and the National Cancer Institute, and collaborators from over 80 other institutions worldwide discovered changes to five new regions in the human genome that may increase the risk of pancreatic cancer.

21 Feb 2018

Cutting either carbs or fats shaves off excess weight in the same proportion, study reveals

New evidence from a study at the Stanford University School of Medicine might dismay those who have chosen sides in the low-fat versus low-carb diet debate.

21 Feb 2018

Researchers discover new weakness in sleeping sickness parasites

Trypanosomes are single-celled parasites that cause diseases such as human African sleeping sickness and Nagana in animals. But they are also used in basic research as a model system to study fundamental biological questions.

21 Feb 2018

Benson Hill Biosystems granted patent for novel genome editing system

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted Benson Hill Biosystems Patent No. 9,896,696 related to CRISPR 3.0 Cms1 genome editing nucleases, further expanding the company's suite of genomics tools to accelerate crop performance improvements.

20 Feb 2018

Scientists uncover genetic cause behind typhoid's antibiotic resistance

The genetic cause behind a strain of typhoid's resistance to five classes of antibiotics has been uncovered by scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and their collaborators at Public Health England and Aga Khan University, Pakistan.

20 Feb 2018

Father's age can affect offspring lifespan, mice study shows

How does the father's age at conception affect his children? Researchers at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease and fellow scientists have studied this question in mice.

20 Feb 2018

Researchers identify fifteen genes that determine our facial features

Researchers from KU Leuven and the universities of Pittsburgh, Stanford, and Penn State have identified fifteen genes that determine our facial features. The findings were published in Nature Genetics.

19 Feb 2018

Liquid biopsies could be used as new predictive marker for metastatic TNBC

A clinically relevant "liquid biopsy" test can be used to profile cancer genomes from blood and predict survival outcomes for patients with metastatic triple negative breast cancer, according to new research published by a multi-institutional team of researchers with The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center -- Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

19 Feb 2018

Gene editing tool used to detect cancer

Researchers have developed a DNA detection system that can detect the presence of bacterial and viral DNA, which could be a valuable diagnostic tool for a range of disorders.

16 Feb 2018

Study reveals how carbohydrate-restricted diet improves metabolism

New details about how a carbohydrate-restricted diet improves metabolism were revealed in a study published today, which could lead to improved treatments for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

15 Feb 2018

Pioneering research could provide novel insight into how genomic information is read

Pioneering new research could offer a fascinating new insight into how genomic information is read. The human genome contains thousands of genes, but to get the information from a gene requires it to be copied.

13 Feb 2018

Hints to aging lurk in fruit flies’ germline stem cells

Little hints of immortality are lurking in the stem cells of fruit flies. Stem cells that produce sperm use a genetic trick to stay perpetually young across generations, researchers at the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute have discovered. Certain sections of the fruit fly genome get shorter with age. But remarkably, some reproductive cells can repair the shrinkage, the researchers report in the journal eLife.

13 Feb 2018