Mutation News and Research

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Lab on a microfluidic chip for the GP's surgery

If doctors were able to conduct efficient genetic analysis at the point of care, using inexpensive, portable equipment, it would revolutionise disease detection and treatment. European researchers are close to enabling this revolution.

2 Dec 2008

Advance in K-Ras-mutated cancer research

A team of cancer researchers from several Boston academic medical centers has discovered a potential treatment for a group of tumors that have resisted previous targeted therapy approaches.

30 Nov 2008

Protein-misfolding accelerates yeast evolution

Under stress, yeast cells can unleash a remarkable mechanism based on protein-misfolding that gives them new characteristics without requiring genetic mutations.

28 Nov 2008

Discovery of new way in which epigenetic information is inherited

Hereditary information flows from parents to offspring not just through DNA but also through the millions of proteins and other molecules that cling to it.

28 Nov 2008

Researchers identify a potentially universal mechanism of aging

Like our current financial crisis, the aging process might also be a product excessive deregulation.

26 Nov 2008

Mouse model of prion disease mimics diverse symptoms of human disorder

A comprehensive mouse model of inherited prion disease exhibits cognitive, motor, and neurophysiological deficits that bear a striking resemblance to the symptoms experienced by patients with the human version of "mad cow disease," Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).

26 Nov 2008

Defective calcium metabolism in nerve cells contributes to neurological disorder

Defective calcium metabolism in nerve cells may play a major role in a fatal genetic neurological disorder that resembles Huntington's disease, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found in a mouse study.

26 Nov 2008

Scribble protein found to be an important regulator of breast cancer

In breast tissue, cells lining the breast's ducts have a certain shape that is required to maintain both organ structure and function.

26 Nov 2008

Gut found to exert control over bone

When it comes to remodeling our bones-an ongoing process of break down and renewal that goes on throughout adulthood--researchers have new evidence that our guts play a surprisingly important role.

26 Nov 2008

Researchers discover how brain cells can survive a stroke

Brain researchers at the University of Oslo in Norway have penetrated deeply into the innermost secrets of the brain to find out how brain cells can survive a stroke.

26 Nov 2008

Scientists reconstruct bat variant of SARS coronavirus

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Vanderbilt University Medical Center have synthetically reconstructed the bat variant of the SARS coronavirus (CoV) that caused the SARS epidemic of 2003.

25 Nov 2008

Researchers urge physicians to test for fragile X gene mutations in patients of all ages

Writing in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association , UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute researchers urge physicians to test for mutations of the fragile X gene in patients of all ages.

25 Nov 2008

$2.7 million boosts effort to create the big view of cancer

Many scientists like to discuss how each form of cancer is a distinct disease with its own causes and its own treatments. But researcher Hartmut "Hucky" Land, Ph.D., takes the opposite approach: He is hunting for the most basic rules that all cancers share to make good cells go bad.

25 Nov 2008

Researchers develop new strategy for broad spectrum anti-viral drugs

Bavituximab, an anti-viral drug developed by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers, shows promise as a new strategy to fight viral diseases, including potential bioterrorism agents.

24 Nov 2008

Foxm1 gene mutation may cause immature lungs in newborns

Scientists have identified a gene critical to lung maturation in newborns and the production of surfactant, which lines lung tissues and prevents the lungs from collapsing.

24 Nov 2008

Prion switching in response to environmental stress

If you have had a hard day at work, you may change your eating habits, perhaps favoring comfort food, but you don't suddenly develop the ability to eat the plate and cutlery.

24 Nov 2008

New vaccine principle delivers stronger and faster immune response

A new vaccine principle is being developed by scientists at the University of Copenhagen which - if it works to its full expected potential - could help to save millions of lives and revolutionise current vaccine technology.

24 Nov 2008

Researchers shed new light on genetics of Parkinson's

A new study by Narendra et al. suggests that Parkin, the product of the Parkinson's disease-related gene Park2, prompts neuronal survival by clearing the cell of its damaged mitochondria.

24 Nov 2008

New hope for lung disease pulmonary alveolar proteinosis

A tale of two sisters has helped researchers solve a medical mystery and discover a familial genetic mutation that causes an inherited form of the lung disease Pulmonary Alveolar Proteinosis (PAP).

24 Nov 2008

Major discovery in the control of bad cholesterol

A study performed by the team of Dr. Nabil G. Seidah, Director of the Biochemical Neuroendocrinology Research Unit at the IRCM, shows for the very first time that the degradation by PCSK9 of the LDLR receptor, which is responsible for removing the bad cholesterol (LDL-cholesterol) from the bloodstream, may be inhibited by a third protein, annexin A2.

24 Nov 2008