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DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).

High blood pressure risk in African-Americans linked to genetics

National health records have shown that African-Americans are more prone to high blood pressure than Caucasians, but pinning down the roots of that difference has proven elusive. Now, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have narrowed down the search for genes that contribute to this difference in disease risk.

24 Jan 2005

NIH begins Phase 1 clinical trial of HIV vaccine candidate

GenVec announced today that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), has begun the second Phase 1 clinical trial in healthy adult volunteers of an HIV vaccine candidate jointly developed by the Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center (VRC), a part of NIAID, and GenVec.

19 Jan 2005

Elsevier to launch journal devoted to nanomedicine

Elsevier has announced plans to launch a peer-reviewed journal devoted to nanomedicine - the emerging science of using molecular machines to treat human disease. Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology, and Medicine, the official publication of the American Academy of Nanomedicine, will be published quarterly, with the first issue to appear in March 2005.

18 Jan 2005

Single gene mutation as the cause of around one in 25 cases of Parkinson’s disease worldwide

The studies suggest that the mutation, in a recently discovered gene called LRRK2, causes around 5% of inherited Parkinson’s cases and around 2% of isolated cases. Screening for the new mutation is likely to become a component of genetic testing for Parkinson’s disease in the near future.

17 Jan 2005

Study provides insight into strategies for telomere-based molecular cancer therapeutics

A new study published in the January issue of Cancer Cell provides exciting new information about how to boost the effectiveness of a promising cancer treatment that targets telomeres in an attempt to interfere with the ability of a cancer cell to continuously divide.

17 Jan 2005

Researchers attack cervical cancer

As more and more promising results of clinical trials on vaccination against human papillomaviruses are published, the more likely it becomes that an HPV vaccine will be the first licensed immunization against a sexually transmitted disease.

17 Jan 2005

Prototype needle-free drug and vaccine delivery device

Dr Mark Kendall, an Oxford University Research Lecturer in Engineering and Associate Director of the PowderJect Centre for Gene and Drug Delivery Research, has been named one of the top younger engineers in the country for his research into needle-free vaccine delivery technology.

17 Jan 2005

Scientists are a step closer to developing drug targets to treat fungal meningitis

Scientists are a step closer to developing drug targets to treat fungal meningitis -- the infection linked to at least three deaths on Vancouver Island -- thanks to the sequencing of two Cryptococcus genomes by an international team that included researchers at the University of British Columbia and the BC Cancer Agency's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre in Vancouver.

17 Jan 2005

Human Genome Project may have made traditional race-based measurements of human differences obsolete

New and sophisticated methods for studying the relationship between human genetic differences, the environment, health and behavior, all made possible by the completion of the Human Genome Project, have made traditional race-based measurements of human differences obsolete

17 Jan 2005

GenoMed files patent application on two genes linked to common cancers

GenoMed announced today that it has filed a patent application on two genes linked to common cancers. These are the first new disease genes the company has filed on since its multiple patent applications about ACE, a "master" disease gene.

17 Jan 2005

Scientists discover that microRNAs regulate thousands of human genes

For many years, DNA and proteins have been viewed as the real movers and shakers in genomic studies, with RNA seen as little more than a messenger that shuttles information between the two.

16 Jan 2005

Missing sequence of the human Y chromosome may contain genes controlling stature and tumor development

Scientists have reported in the journal Genome Research that they have successfully cloned and characterized a previously intractable DNA sequence: a 554-kilobase-pair genomic segment near the centromere of the human Y chromosome. This sequence contains eight putatively active genes that could be implicated in sex-associated height differences and gonadal tumor development.

16 Jan 2005

Using models to understand malaria

Malaria is one of the world's major killers. More than 500 million people live in epidemic regions and some 2 million - mostly children - die each year. And each year, drug resistance increases in the malarial parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, and the search for new treatments becomes more desperate.

12 Jan 2005

Plant research may help understand cancer

The development of cancer is a complex process with a number of different causes. The root problem is loss of control in the cell division process. A fundamental biological process, cell division can be studied in many organisms.

10 Jan 2005

Peginterferon alfa-2b produced sustained responses in patients with chronic hepatitis B

Results from a large international clinical study reported in this week's issue of The Lancet showed that peginterferon alfa-2b produced sustained responses in patients with chronic hepatitis B. The investigator-initiated study is the largest clinical trial to date with peginterferon alfa-2b therapy for chronic hepatitis B.

7 Jan 2005

Now significantly easier to search long stretches of DNA for genetic changes associated with disease

The researchers developed a method called direct genomic selection that accelerates the transition between family or population-based studies of disease inheritance patterns and identification of genetic variations that may contribute to disease.

6 Jan 2005

Processes shed light on how DNA recombination mechanisms are related

Peter W. Atkinson, a University of California, Riverside professor of entomology and member of the university’s Institute for Integrative Genome Biology, is part of a team that has linked the movement of small pieces of DNA, known as transposable elements, to a process called V(D)J recombination that produces the genetic diversity responsible for the production of antibodies.

6 Jan 2005

Herpes virus is everywhere and it's unavoidable

While not the first, the researchers report that this study uses the most sensitive techniques in a cross-sectional assessment performed to date of the presence of HSV-1 DNA in the eyes and mouths of healthy individuals, in terms of population size and total samples collected.

6 Jan 2005

Stem cells could reveal secrets of illness in later life

Mums to be have known for some time that what they eat when pregnant affects their unborn child but now scientists believe that the diet of our mothers during pregnancy may even affect our predisposition to illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure in late life.

5 Jan 2005

New genetic clues provide better understanding of epilepsy

Two specific areas in chromosome 7 and chromosome 16 have been associated with photosensitivity, an epilepsy-related trait, by a team of European scientists in the January issue of Human Molecular Genetics.

5 Jan 2005