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New tool reveals mutations that cause HIV-drug resistance

Protease inhibitor drugs are one of the major weapons in the fight against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but their effectiveness is limited as the virus mutates and develops resistance to the drugs over time.

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

Environmental factors play a critical role in development of autism

A study published this week again confirms that environmental factors play a critical role in the development of autism. Genetic Heritability and Shared Environmental Factors Among Twin Pairs With Autism, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), provides further confirmation that genes alone cannot explain the exponential rise in autism rates over the past two decades.

11 Jul 2011

Combination therapy shows promise against HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer

Adding Afinitor to Herceptin, the main treatment for HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, helps some women with disease that has been resistant to previous Herceptin-based therapies, according to a study led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

11 Jul 2011

MicroOCT technology can reveal cellular features of coronary artery disease

Researchers at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have developed a one-micrometer-resolution version of the intravascular imaging technology optical coherence tomography (OCT) that can reveal cellular and subcellular features of coronary artery disease.

11 Jul 2011

Researchers discover how genetic mutations cause rare human diseases

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and in Michigan, North Carolina and Spain have discovered how genetic mutations cause a number of rare human diseases, which include Meckel syndrome, Joubert syndrome and several other disorders.

11 Jul 2011

New genetic research on Ankylosing Spondylitis

The team of researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Queensland, Oxford, Texas and Toronto, used a technique called genome-wide association where millions of genetic markers are measured in thousands of people that have the disease and thousands of healthy individuals.

11 Jul 2011

Scientists convert brain cells into cardiomyocytes

For the past decade, researchers have tried to reprogram the identity of all kinds of cell types. Heart cells are one of the most sought-after cells in regenerative medicine because researchers anticipate that they may help to repair injured hearts by replacing lost tissue.

11 Jul 2011

New genetic clues about ankylosing spondylitis

A study involving over 5,000 people living with the joint disorder ankylosing spondylitis has identified a series of genetic variants associated with increased susceptibility to the condition as well as providing new clues to how the condition may be treated in the future.

11 Jul 2011

Research targets malignant glioma stem cells

Cleveland Clinic researchers have identified a cellular pathway that cancer stem cells use to promote tumor growth in malignant glioma, an aggressive brain tumor.

11 Jul 2011

New strategy can prevent onset of E. coli related illness

The recent outbreak of E. coli infection in Germany has put a potentially fatal bacterium back on everyone's radar screen. While some researchers are looking for a better way to treat the disease, professor Debora Foster of the Department of Chemistry and Biology at Ryerson University is taking a different approach.

11 Jul 2011

Scientists discover seven new gene variants that increase risk of prostate cancer

Cancer Research UK-funded scientists have taken a further step to identifying men at a greater risk of prostate cancer with the discovery of seven new variants in the human genome that increase the chances of developing the disease.

11 Jul 2011

Scientists probe 'atlastin,' a protein linked to hereditary spastic paraplegia

New research from Rice University and Italy's Eugenio Medea Scientific Institute is yielding clues about hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP), a group of inherited neurological disorders that affect about 20,000 people in the United States.

11 Jul 2011

'Plasticity' genes make it harder to form new memories about unfamiliar topics

Scientists have shed light on why it is easier to learn about things related to what we already know than it is to learn about unfamiliar things, according to a new study.

8 Jul 2011

Common cell pathway could lead to new treatments for autoimmune diseases and cancer

A discovery by University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers about a how a common cell pathway that helps regulate cell survival and production is turned on could lead to new treatments for autoimmune diseases and cancer.

8 Jul 2011

Emotional reactions in human body may prompt introspection and promote moral choices

The human brain may simulate physical sensations to prompt introspection, capitalizing on moments of high emotion to promote moral behavior, according to a USC researcher.

8 Jul 2011

Scientists discover mechanism that enables developing cancer cells to sustain abnormal growth

Scripps Research Institute scientists have discovered a basic mechanism that can enable developing cancer cells to sustain abnormal growth. The finding is expected to lead to the targeting of this mechanism with drugs and diagnostic techniques.

8 Jul 2011

Primary function of sex is not to promote diversity, but to maintain a species' identity

Biology textbooks maintain that the main function of sex is to promote genetic diversity. But Henry Heng, Ph.D., associate professor in WSU's Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, says that's not the case.

8 Jul 2011

Extensive genomic, transcriptional diversity identified through massively parallel DNA and RNA sequencing

In a paper published in the online edition of Nature Genetics on July 3, 2011, sequencing specialists at Axeq Technologies, and scientists from Macrogen Inc., Genomic Medicine Institute at Seoul National University, Psoma Therapeutics Inc., Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School reported the discovery of a wide range of novel genetic variants based on the deep sequencing of 18 genomes and 17 transcriptomes of unrelated Korean individuals.

8 Jul 2011