Genes News and Research

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Genomic factors may play a role in alcohol and tobacco use

Alcohol and smoking can be harmful, if not deadly. While the desire for these substances can be due to environmental cues, genomic factors also play an important role.

13 Aug 2007

Genetic engineering offers promising new approaches to improve dietary iron intake

Using selective plant breeding and genetic engineering could be used to reduce the incidence of iron deficiency worldwide by improving the quality of dietary iron, conclude authors of a Seminar in this week’s edition of The Lancet.

13 Aug 2007

New drug targets for multiple myeloma

Research investigators have identified molecular changes in multiple myeloma cells that activate an important biological pathway associated with cell growth and survival, thereby revealing potential new targets for drugs to treat this cancer.

13 Aug 2007

New cancer stem cells could aid breast cancer research

In some ways, certain tumors resemble bee colonies, says pathologist Tan Ince. Each cancer cell in the tumor plays a specific role, and just a fraction of the cells serve as "queens," possessing the unique ability to maintain themselves in an unspecialized state and seed new tumors. These cells can also divide and produce the "worker" cells that form the bulk of the tumor.

13 Aug 2007

Researchers discover how Bcl-3 protein stops inflammation

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine recently identified how a regulatory protein called Bcl-3 helps to control the body's inflammation response to infection by interfering a critical biochemical process called ubiquitination.

12 Aug 2007

New insights into cell division process

Which genes are passed on from mother to child is decided very early on during the maturation of the egg cell in the ovary.

12 Aug 2007

Antioxidant overload

Despite the popular notion that antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E, offer health-promoting benefits by protecting against damaging free radicals, a new study in the August 10 issue of the journal Cell reveals that, in fact, balance is the key.

12 Aug 2007

Chromatin remodeling complex connected to DNA damage control

When molecular disaster strikes, causing structural damage to DNA, players in two important pathways talk to each other to help contain the wreckage, scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in the August edition of Cell.

12 Aug 2007

Neuregulin 1 gene linked to schizophrenia

Scientists have provided new insight into how a gene is related to schizophrenia.

12 Aug 2007

Impaired energy production in heart muscle may underlie heart failure in some hypertensive patients

Many people with long-standing high blood pressure develop heart failure.

12 Aug 2007

New pathway for inflammation-induced cancer

A well-known inflammatory protein spawns an enzyme that inactivates two tumor-suppressing genes, ultimately triggering production of new blood vessels to nourish breast cancer cells, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in the August edition of the journal Cell .

11 Aug 2007

Gene regulation drives evolution

It is not just what's in your genes, it's how you turn them on that accounts for the difference between species , at least in yeast , according to a report by Yale researchers in this week's issue of Science.

11 Aug 2007

Gender differences in renal and other genes contributing to blood pressure

Many common diseases exhibit gender bias and gender differences have been observed in the development of high blood pressure (hypertension) and heart (cardiovascular) disease.

9 Aug 2007

Voluntary exercise induces sex-specific physiological cardiac remodeling

While cardiovascular disease occurs in both men and women, it does not affect them in the same way.

9 Aug 2007

World's largest respiratory health study launches next phase

The Tasmanian Longitudinal Health Study (TAHS), the world's largest and longest running respiratory health research study, is launching a new research phase focussing on the 21,000 brothers and sisters of the original sample.

8 Aug 2007

Scientists produce functioning neurons from human embryonic stem cells

Scientists with the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Medicine at UCLA were able to produce from human embryonic stem cells a highly pure, large quantity of functioning neurons that will allow them to create models of and study diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, prefrontal dementia and schizophrenia.

8 Aug 2007

Endothelial nitric oxide synthase gene linked to brain aneurysm formation

University of Cincinnati (UC) neurovascular researchers have identified a gene that, when suppressed or completely absent, may predispose a person to brain aneurysms.

8 Aug 2007

Bcl-3 protein regulates inflammation by blocking ubiquitination

8 Aug 2007

E. coli bacteria linked to Crohn's disease

A team of Cornell University scientists from the College of Veterinary Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences have discovered that a novel group of E. coli bacteria, containing genes similar to those described in uropathogenic and avian pathogenic E. coli and enteropathogenic bacteria such as salmonella, cholera, bubonic plague, is associated with intestinal inflammation in patients with Crohn's disease in their research paper published July 12 by the ISME Journal: Multidisciplinary Journal of Microbial Ecology.

8 Aug 2007