Anosmia News and Research

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Monell Center receives NIH grant to develop clinical tool that can predict anosmia

Monell Center scientist Kai Zhao, PhD, is principal investigator on a $1.5M 4-year grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, part of the National Institutes of Health, to further develop clinical methodology that can predict the path of air flow through a person's nasal passages.

23 Jan 2015

Monell Center announces advocacy program to identify biological causes of smell loss

On Anosmia Awareness Day, the Monell Center announces "A Sense of Hope: The Monell Anosmia Project," a three-year $1.5M fundraising campaign to support a research and advocacy program focused on anosmia, the loss of the sense of smell.

4 Mar 2014

Better ways to combat mosquitoes

In an advance toward providing mosquito-plagued people, pets and livestock with an invisibility cloak against these blood-sucking insects, scientists today described discovery of substances that occur naturally on human skin and block mosquitoes’ ability to smell and target their victims.

11 Sep 2013

Mutations in Ggamma13 gene may contribute to certain forms of smell disorders in humans

Researchers at the Monell Center and collaborators have identified a protein that is critical to the ability of mammals to smell. Mice engineered to be lacking the Ggamma13 protein in their olfactory receptors were functionally anosmic - unable to smell.

7 May 2013

Study: Neural-crest stem cells also play a key role in building olfactory sensory neurons

When our noses pick up a scent, whether the aroma of a sweet rose or the sweat of a stranger at the gym, two types of sensory neurons are at work in sensing that odor or pheromone.

26 Mar 2013

Gene therapy approach restores ability to smell in mouse model of congenital anosmia

Scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health have restored the ability to smell in a mouse model of a human genetic disorder that causes congenital anosmia-the inability to smell from birth. The approach uses gene therapy to regrow cilia, cell structures that are essential for olfactory function.

3 Sep 2012

Scientists restore sense of smell in mice through gene therapy

Scientists have restored the sense of smell in mice through gene therapy for the first time -- a hopeful sign for people who can't smell anything from birth or lose it due to disease.

3 Sep 2012

Potential PD biomarkers identified for sleep behavior disorder

Concomitant olfaction abnormality and increased substantia nigra echogenicity may be preclinical manifestations of parkinsonism in patients with idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder, research suggests.

3 Aug 2012

23andMe identifies seven SNPs associated with breast size

Using data from its unique online research platform, 23andMe, a leading personal genetics company, has identified seven single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) significantly associated with breast size, including three SNPs also correlated with breast cancer in a genome-wide association study (GWAS) now published online in BMC Medical Genetics.

4 Jul 2012

Six novel genetic associations for early onset male pattern baldness

Using data from its unique online research platform, 23andMe, a leading personal genetics company, has contributed to the finding of six novel genetic associations for early onset male pattern baldness (androgenetic alopecia) in a genome-wide association study now published online in the journal PLoS Genetics.

20 Jun 2012

Colonic tissue may help predict Parkinson's disease

Two studies by neurological researchers at Rush University Medical Center suggest that, in the future, colonic tissue obtained during either colonoscopy or flexible sigmoidoscopy may be used to predict who will develop Parkinson's disease, a neurodegenerative disorder of aging that that leads to progressive deterioration of motor function due to loss of neurons in the brain that produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter essential to executing movement.

16 May 2012

Five significant genetic associations for hypothyroidism found

Using its unique online research platform, 23andMe, a leading personal genetics company, has found five significant genetic associations for hypothyroidism in the largest known genome-wide association study of hypothyroidism conducted to date. The details of the study are now available online in the journal PLoS ONE.

9 Apr 2012

Scientists discover genetic trigger that makes stem cells differentiate in nose epithelia

University of California, Berkeley, neuroscientists have discovered a genetic trigger that makes the nose renew its smell sensors, providing hope for new therapies for people who have lost their sense of smell due to trauma or old age.

8 Dec 2011

23andMe project aims at validating highly scalable pharmacogenomics research

23andMe has launched a project funded by the National Institutes of Health which is aimed at validating 23andMe's highly-scalable platform for pharmacogenomics research. The company received $190,000 in stimulus funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for "Web-based Phenotyping for Genome-Wide Association Studies of Drug Response" from NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute.

17 Dec 2010

Study shows humans have ability to track odors

Though humans may never match the tracking ability of dogs, we apparently have the ability to sniff out and locate odors, according to a new study by scientists from the University of California, Berkeley.

29 Aug 2005

Patients with asthma have a higher incidence of nasal polyposis, nasal congestion, and olfactory disturbances

Some 37 million Americans suffer from sinusitis; some of those patients are unfortunate enough to also have asthma, an inflammatory disease of the lungs characterized by reversible airway obstruction.

18 Sep 2004

Researchers have discovered that many people with Bardet-Biedl syndrome can't detect odors

Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that many people with Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS), a rare, complex condition marked by an array of seemingly unconnected symptoms, including obesity, learning difficulties, eye problems and asthma, also have another, previously unreported problem

23 Aug 2004