Gene News and Research

Latest Gene News and Research

Scientists help uncover evolutionary history of TAS2R38 bitter taste receptor gene

Long the bane of picky eaters everywhere, broccoli's taste is not just a matter of having a cultured palate; some people can easily taste a bitter compound in the vegetable that others have difficulty detecting. Now a team of Penn researchers has helped uncover the evolutionary history of one of the genes responsible for this trait.

7 Dec 2011

New NHGRI funding plan sharpens focus of Genome Sequencing Program on medical apps

A new funding plan by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) sharpens the focus of its flagship Genome Sequencing Program on medical applications. In addition to continuing on-going studies, the four-year, $416 million plan launches new efforts to find causes of rare inherited diseases and accelerate the use of genome sequence information in the medical care of patients.

7 Dec 2011

Researchers discover new tick-borne infection

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg's Sahlgrenska Academy have discovered a brand new tick-borne infection. Since the discovery, eight cases have been described around the world, three of them in the Gothenburg area, Sweden.

7 Dec 2011

Report shows how mutant gene influences lipid metabolism

People who carry a malfunctioning copy of a particular gene are especially good at clearing fat from their systems. The report in the December Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, shows how the mutant gene influences metabolism in this way.

7 Dec 2011

MorphoSys unveils next-generation antibody technology Ylanthia

MorphoSys AG today unveiled its next-generation antibody technology Ylanthia®. The technology was presented to an audience of specialists at the 2011 Antibody Engineering and Antibody Therapeutics Conference in San Diego. MorphoSys expects Ylanthia to set new standards for therapeutic antibody generation in the pharmaceutical industry over the next decade and beyond. Commercial application will commence in 2012.

6 Dec 2011

EMBL-EBI, BBSRC welcome UK funding announcement on behalf of life science community

The European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) warmly welcome today's announcement from the UK Government of a £75 million commitment from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills' Large Facilities Capital Fund (LFCF) for the ELIXIR research infrastructure.

6 Dec 2011

Early stress of separation from biological parent impacts gene expression

Children who experience the stress of separation at birth from biological parents and are brought up in orphanages undergo biological consequences such as changes in their genome functioning, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in a new study.

6 Dec 2011

Obesity maybe passed down from fathers to kids: Study

Australian researchers have found that the sperm of overweight fathers appears to carry a molecular signal that causes their offspring to inherit obesity. This may be more severe in female children and males they add.

5 Dec 2011

Genetic variation predicts survival chances of ovarian cancer

Yale Cancer Center researchers have shown that a tiny genetic variation predicts chances of survival and response to treatment for patients with ovarian cancer.

5 Dec 2011

P-Rex1 gene plays a key role in the spread of malignant melanoma

SCIENTISTS in Glasgow have made an important discovery in the fight against malignant melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer.

5 Dec 2011

Moffitt investigators to participate with 16 oral and 50 posters presentations at 53rd ASH meeting

When the American Society of Hematology convenes its 53rd Annual Meeting and Exposition on Dec. 10-13 in San Diego, Calif., researchers from Moffitt Cancer Center will break a new record for Moffitt participants with one plenary presentation, 16 oral presentations and more than 50 poster presentations on new research results in a variety of meeting programs that focus on blood cancer basic science and clinical applications, including bone marrow transplantation and clinical trials results.

5 Dec 2011

Scientists discover new candidate gene for Dravet syndrome

Dravet syndrome is a severe genetic epilepsy that appears early in life. About 75 percent of cases can be attributed to mutations in the SCN1A gene encoding the sodium channel NaV1.1. The remaining patients with this syndrome are without a definitive molecular genetic diagnosis. Research presented today at the American Epilepsy Society's 65th Annual Meeting has found a non-SCN1A candidate gene and suggests that Dravet syndrome may be caused by any one of a number of yet unidentified genes.

5 Dec 2011

CPEB4 protein plays a crucial role in cancer progression

A study by researchers Ra-l M-ndez, ICREA Research Professor at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and Pilar Navarro at the IMIM (Institut de Recerca Hospital del Mar, Barcelona) describes a new reprogramming mechanism for the expression of genes responsible for turning a healthy cell into a tumor cell.

5 Dec 2011

Researchers identify ADHD gene variants involved in glutamate signaling

Pediatric researchers analyzing genetic influences in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have found alterations in specific genes involved in important brain signaling pathways. The study raises the possibility that drugs acting on those pathways might offer a new treatment option for patients with ADHD who have those gene variants—potentially, half a million U.S. children.

5 Dec 2011

Researchers uncover binding pocket of 'functional significance' in Ras oncoprotein

A drug discovery team at Genentech, Inc., has uncovered a chink in the molecular armor of Ras, the most commonly occurring oncogene, which is a gene that when mutated has the potential of causing cancer in humans.

5 Dec 2011

U-M scientists generate Dravet-derived neurons

Scientists investigating the fundamental cause of Dravet syndrome, a severe childhood epilepsy, have reprogrammed fibroblasts, a type of skin cell, from Dravet patients and generated patient-specific neurons.

5 Dec 2011

Promising new agent against sarcomas affecting children

MK 1775, a small, selective inhibitor molecule, has been found to be active against many sarcomas when tested by researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla. Their findings, recently appearing in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, published by the American Association for Cancer Research, suggest that a badly needed new agent against sarcomas - especially sarcomas affecting children - may be at hand.

3 Dec 2011

MK 1775 shows promise against sarcomas

MK 1775, a small, selective inhibitor molecule, has been found to be active against many sarcomas when tested by researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla.

3 Dec 2011

ASH recognizes abstract presenters at 53rd annual meeting in San Diego

The American Society of Hematology (ASH) recognizes the following abstract presenters at the 53rd ASH annual meeting in San Diego, CA, with the highest scoring abstracts in the categories of undergraduate student, medical student, graduate student, resident physician, and postdoctoral fellow.

2 Dec 2011

New method reveals complete set of aberrant signaling pathways that give rise to cancers

One major obstacle in the fight against cancer is that anticancer drugs often affect normal cells in addition to tumor cells, resulting in significant side effects. Yet research into development of less harmful treatments geared toward the targeting of specific cancer-causing mechanisms is hampered by lack of knowledge of the molecular pathways that drive cancers in individual patients.

2 Dec 2011