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Scientists identify DNA variants linked with elevated risk of prostate cancer

Doctors have known for a long time that prostate cancer "runs in the family". Men with relatives who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer have an elevated risk of also developing this type of cancer. It was only last year that DKFZ scientists calculated that this risk rises with the number of affected direct family members and also depends on the relatives' age at outbreak of the disease.

13 Jul 2011

Article describes predictors of post-TBI psychiatric disorders

A history of psychiatric illness such as depression or anxiety before a traumatic brain injury (TBI), together with other risk factors, are strongly predictive of post-TBI psychiatric disorders, according to an article published in Journal of Neurotrauma, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

13 Jul 2011

Three factors contribute to systemic scleroderma-related work disability

Systemic scleroderma has slowed Tracy Zinn but it has not stopped her from working. Thanks in part to determination and an accommodating employer, Zinn is now in her 13th year as an account executive for a firm that produces educational software. But, many with the incapacitating disease are not as fortunate.

13 Jul 2011

Source BioScience receives NHS approval for automated cervical cancer screening technology

Source BioScience (LSE: SBS), the international diagnostics and genetic analysis business, is pleased to announce that the National Health Service Cancer Screening Programmes (“NHSCSP”) has approved the use of the BD FocalPoint “No Further Review” technology for cervical cancer screening in the UK. This is the only automated cervical screening technology which has been approved.

13 Jul 2011

UIC to begin STX209 clinical trial for treatment of autism spectrum disorders

An experimental drug to treat social withdrawal in children and young adults with autism is being studied in a clinical trial at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Institute for Juvenile Research.

13 Jul 2011

Men more likely to succumb to cancer

According to a new analysis of 36 different types of tumors and blood cancers that affect both sexes, men are more likely than women to get and die of cancer. The report shows that leukemia and cancers of the colon and rectum, pancreas, and liver killed about one and a half to two times as many men as women in the U.S. over a 30-year period. Lung cancer killed nearly two and a half times as many men during that time. According to the American Cancer Society men have about a 1 in 2 chance of developing cancer at some point in their lives, compared with women, who have a 1 in 3 chance.

13 Jul 2011

Researchers identify biomarker for familial risk of autism

Siblings of people with autism show a similar pattern of brain activity to that seen in people with autism when looking at emotional facial expressions. The University of Cambridge researchers identified the reduced activity in a part of the brain associated with empathy and argue it may be a 'biomarker' for a familial risk of autism.

13 Jul 2011

Two studies on childhood leukemia

A difficult-to-treat form of childhood leukemia relies on changes in the structure of DNA - so-called epigenetic changes - to wreak genomic havoc within white blood cells, according to one of two studies conducted by a research team at Children's Hospital Boston and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

12 Jul 2011

genOway acquires worldwide exclusive license for RMCE technology from bluebird bio for genetically modified rodents

genOway and bluebird bio report today genOway acquisition of an exclusive worldwide license for the RMCE technology (developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in the field of genetically modified rodents.

12 Jul 2011

AACR Conference on Frontiers in Basic Cancer Research to be held in San Francisco

For more than 100 years, the American Association for Cancer Research has been the premier leader in the basic science of cancer research.

12 Jul 2011

Hutchinson Center receives $20M NIH grant to eradicate HIV infection

Whether a stem cell transplant using an HIV-infected person's own genetically modified immune cells can become a cure for the disease is the focus of a new $20 million, five-year research grant award announced today by the National Institutes of Health to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

12 Jul 2011

Cancer Cell publishes Epizyme and collaborators' breakthrough research on MLL

Epizyme, Inc., a company leading the discovery and development of personalized therapeutics for genetically-defined cancer and rare disease patients, and its collaborators announced the publication in Cancer Cell of breakthrough research in the treatment of MLL-rearranged leukemia (MLL), a genetically-defined subset of acute lymphoblastic leukemia and acute myelogenous leukemia.

12 Jul 2011

Big news for ankylosing spondylitis sufferers

In a medical breakthrough, researchers from the University of Queensland have found that there is a possible genetic link in a specific painful form of arthritis, which fuses bones in the spine and pelvis.

12 Jul 2011

Drug resistant gonorrhea discovered

Japanese scientists have found a superbug strain of gonorrhea that’s resistant to all available antibiotics. This can pose a threat to public health worldwide, infectious disease experts say.

11 Jul 2011

Illumina, Sequenom sign three-year supply agreement

Sequenom, Inc., a life sciences company providing innovative genetic analysis solutions, today announced it has signed a three-year supply agreement with Illumina, Inc., a leading developer and manufacturer of life sciences tools for the large-scale analysis of genetic variation and function.

From Illumina, Inc. 11 Jul 2011

'The Aging Myth' achieves top rank in New York Times Best Seller List

In only its first week of bookstore sales, "The Aging Myth," by Joseph Chang, Ph.D., has already reached #2 on the New York Times Best Seller List for its frank look at aging and a scientific approach to understanding how to combat aging at the genetic level.

11 Jul 2011

Researchers identify new antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea strain

An international research team has discovered a strain of gonorrhea resistant to all currently available antibiotics. This new strain is likely to transform a common and once easily treatable infection into a global threat to public health.

11 Jul 2011

Scientists unravel how memories are 'read out' in fly brain

What happens if you cannot recall your memory correctly? You are able to associate and store the name and face of a person, yet you might be unable to remember them when you meet that person. In this example, the recall of the information is temporarily impaired. How such associative memories are "read out" in the brain remains one of the great mysteries of modern neurobiology.

11 Jul 2011

Nature journal publishes landmark genetic study of ovarian cancer

A University of Houston researcher is an author on a landmark multi-institutional genetic study of the most aggressive and common form of ovarian cancer that is published in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature.

11 Jul 2011

Scientists identify de novo mutations linked to schizophrenia

De novo mutations - genetic errors that are present in patients but not in their parents - are more frequent in schizophrenic patients than in normal individuals, according to an international group of scientists led by Dr. Guy A. Rouleau of the University of Montreal and CHU Sainte-Justine Hospital.

11 Jul 2011