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RNAi-based inhibitors for created for nearly every human and mouse gene - available to all genetic researchers

An international public-private research team led by scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard announced today the construction and availability of an extensive library of molecular reagents to silence most human and mouse genes.

28 Mar 2006

Tobacco plants being used to produce human albumin

Human serum albumin (HSA) is the intravenous protein most commonly used in the world for therapeutic ends. It is employed to stabilise blood volume and to avoid risk of a heart attack, its administration in operating theatres being almost a daily occurrence.

27 Mar 2006

Natural selection drives extremely rapid evolution in antiviral RNAi genes

There is now new evidence that animals in fact do an impressive job of keeping up in the ongoing evolutionary arms race between viruses and their hosts.

20 Mar 2006

A putative RNA-interference-based immune system in prokaryotes

Researchers have used computational methods to predict what could be a prokaryotic RNA-silencing mechanism similar to the eukaryotic RNA- interference system.

20 Mar 2006

Salmonella research provides clues to antibiotic development

Pathogens are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, causing problems for therapy. Doctors need to have antibiotics available that work in new kinds of ways.

19 Mar 2006

NHGRI announces comprehensive strategy to identify structural variation in human genome

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has announced its latest round of sequencing targets, with an emphasis on enhancing the understanding of how human genes function and how genomic differences between individuals influence the risk of health and disease.

19 Mar 2006

Link between genetic variation and outcome of antidepressant treatment

Whether depressed patients will respond to an antidepressant depends, in part, on which version of a gene they inherit, a study led by scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has discovered.

15 Mar 2006

Studying the gene-expression profiles of patients with colorectal cancer might help predict their response to chemotherapy

Studying the gene-expression profiles of patients with colorectal cancer might help predict their response to chemotherapy.

15 Mar 2006

Discovery in yeast opens door to new source of information on DNA damage, repair, and cancer

The discovery in yeast cells of a genetic network that guards against lethal DNA damage is a first step in the creation of a database of disease-causing combinations of mutated human genes, according to researchers at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine led by Jef. D. Boeke, Ph.D.

15 Mar 2006

A map of recent positive selection in the human genome

By scanning the entire human genome in search of genetic variations that may signal recent evolution, University of Chicago researchers found more than 700 genetic variants that may be targets of recent natural positive selection during the past 10,000 years of human evolution.

13 Mar 2006

A map of recent positive selection in the human genome

9 Mar 2006

New genome-wide map of miRNA-MRNA interactions

Researchers at New York University's Center for Comparative Functional Genomics and the University of California, Berkeley have used computational analyses to predict a genome-wide map of microRNA (miRNA) targets in the animal model organism, Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans).

9 Mar 2006

Newly identified biomarkers may help reverse the ageing process

Lotions and potions that promise to remove wrinkles and other effects of aging crowd cosmetics aisle shelves, but do these treatments really work?

7 Mar 2006

Global evolutionary map reveals new insights into our last common ancestor

In 1870 the German scientist Ernst Haeckel mapped the evolutionary relationships of plants and animals in the first 'tree of life'.

7 Mar 2006

Genome signature tagging used to quickly identify and distinguish between pathogens and harmless microbes

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new, high-throughput technique for identifying the many species of microorganisms living in an unknown "microbial community."

6 Mar 2006

$1 million of mesothelioma research funding

The Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation (MARF) has announced awards of almost $1 million in additional research funding aimed at curing mesothelioma.

24 Feb 2006

Cell growth and cell division genes identified

A recent study shows that hundreds of genes contribute to cell growth and cell division. For the first time these genes, many of which are potential contributors to cancer, have been mapped in a single systematic study.

23 Feb 2006

Removing a gene involved in repairing damaged DNA causes metabolic syndrome

Removing a gene involved in repairing damaged DNA causes mice to develop the metabolic syndrome, researchers at Oregon Health & Science University have discovered.

21 Feb 2006

Oddly shaped DNA can cause DNA breaks in mammalian cells

When otherwise normal DNA adopts an unusual shape called Z-DNA, it can lead to the kind of genetic instability associated with cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma, according to a study by researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

21 Feb 2006

Effects of cancer treatment among children of survivors

Can the high doses of chemotherapy and radiation that young cancer patients receive cause inherited health problems for their children? Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center member, John Boice, Sc.D., and an international team of colleagues have just been awarded a $4 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to try to find out.

21 Feb 2006