Gene News and Research

Latest Gene News and Research

Researchers adopt new technique to inhibit cancer growth

One of the difficulties of fighting cancer is that drugs often hit other non-cancerous cells, causing patients to get sick. But what if researchers could sneak cancer-fighting particles into just the cancer cells?

17 Feb 2010

Special issue reviews current state of science in fetal therapy

Repairing birth defects in the womb. Inserting a tiny laser into the mother's uterus to seal off an abnormal blood flow and save fetal twins. Advancing the science that may allow doctors to deliver cells or DNA to treat sickle cell anemia and other genetic diseases before birth.

17 Feb 2010

Researchers use model organism to test new therapies for retinal degeneration

Research by Johns Hopkins sensory biologists studying fruit flies, has revealed a critical step in fly vision. Humans with problems in this same step suffer retinal dystrophies, which manifest as visual defects ranging from mild visual impairments to complete blindness.

16 Feb 2010

Effects of eco-toxicology on Zebra fish

Rasoul Nourizadeh-Lillabadi has shown that zebra fish can be used as models in order to study the effects of eco-toxicology on fish indigenous to Norway. The toxic substances used in the research project come from water effluent from the offshore industry and from organic material that had accumulated in the liver of burbot fish in the lakes of Mjøsa and Losna.

16 Feb 2010

Researchers find new risk factor for early-onset dementia

Examining brain tissue from over 500 individuals in 11 countries, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and colleagues found a new risk factor for the second-most-common cause of early-onset dementia after Alzheimer's disease.

16 Feb 2010

Clive Svendsen to receive American Academy of Neurology Sheila Essey Award for his research on ALS

Clive Svendsen, Ph.D., director of the Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute, is receiving the American Academy of Neurology Sheila Essey Award for his research on ALS (amyothrophic lateral sclerosis).

16 Feb 2010

Study: Common underlying mechanism causes complex defects in brain development and function

A new study reveals that a common underlying mechanism is shared by a group of previously unrelated disorders which all cause complex defects in brain development and function. Rett syndrome (RTT), Cornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS) and Alpha-Thalassemia mental Retardation, X-linked syndrome (ATR-X) have each been linked with distinct abnormalities in chromatin, the spools of proteins and DNA that make up chromosomes and control how genetic information is read in a cell.

16 Feb 2010

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia awarded two grants to research into cellular therapies for blood disorders

The new decade may herald an era of cell therapy -- treating human diseases by delivering highly specific beneficial cells. In the wake of an NIH decision late last year permitting federally funded researchers to use new lines of human embryonic stem cells, the door has opened more widely to stem cell research.

16 Feb 2010

Stem cells intentionally cut and then repair their own DNA to develop new tissues

A new study from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) and the University of Ottawa suggests that stem cells intentionally break their own DNA as a way of regulating tissue development. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), could dramatically change how researchers think about tissue development, stem cells and cancer.

15 Feb 2010

Allele-specific DNA methylation a widespread phenomenon, reveals IoP study

Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP), King's College London, have identified numerous novel regions of the genome where the chemical modifications involved in controlling gene expression are influenced by either genetic variation or the parental origin of that particular stretch of DNA. This contradicts previous assumptions that epigenetic signals are generally equal across both copies of a given region of the genome, except at a small number of known imprinted genes.

15 Feb 2010

Researchers identify defective signaling pathway that contributes to the severity of cystic fibrosis

In a study that could lead to new therapeutic targets for patients with the cystic fibrosis, a research team from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has identified a defective signaling pathway that contributes to disease severity.

15 Feb 2010

SRC-3 gene sends signal to cell membrane to promote cell motility

The master gene called SRC-3 (steroid receptor coactivator 3) not only enhances estrogen-dependent growth of cancer cells by activating and encouraging the transcription of a genetic message into a protein, it also sends a signal to the cell membrane to promote cell motility or movement - a key element of cancer spread or metastasis, said Baylor College of Medicine (www.bcm.edu) researchers and collaborators in a report that appears in the current issue of the journal Molecular Cell.

15 Feb 2010

Researchers describe the structure of ToxT that controls virulent nature of Vibrio cholerae

In a new study, Dartmouth researchers describe the structure of a protein called ToxT that controls the virulent nature of Vibrio cholerae, the bacteria that causes cholera. Buried within ToxT, the researchers were surprised to find a fatty acid that appears to inhibit ToxT, which prevents the bacteria from causing cholera.

14 Feb 2010

New research finds sensory cortex develops late in fragile X syndrome defect

Why do people with fragile X syndrome, a genetic defect that is the best-known cause of autism and inherited mental retardation, recoil from hugs and physical touch - even from their parents?

12 Feb 2010

New project to unravel secret lives of cancer cells may help produce new cancer therapies

A team of scientists from Princeton University and The Cancer Institute of New Jersey has embarked on a major new project to unravel the secret lives of cancer cells that go dormant and self-cannibalize to survive periods of stress. The work may help produce new cancer therapies to stem changes that render cancer cells dangerous and resistant to treatment.

12 Feb 2010

IBM, VLSCI scientists to use Blue Gene supercomputer to study human disease

IBM today announced a Research collaboratory in Melbourne, Australia, where scientists from the Victorian Life Sciences Computational Initiative at the University of Melbourne and the IBM Research Computational Biology Center will use high performance computing – including IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer – to study human disease.

12 Feb 2010

CapitalBio officially joins Roche NimbleGen CSP Program

Roche NimbleGen announced today that Beijing-based genomic services provider CapitalBio has officially joined the Roche NimbleGen Certified Service Provider (CSP) Program.

12 Feb 2010

Researchers discover cancer gene in ancestral metazoan

To find the causes for cancer, biochemists and developmental biologists at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, retraced the function of an important human cancer gene 600 million years back in time. For the first time, they have identified the oncogene myc in a fresh water polyp and they have shown that this oncogene has similar biochemical functions in ancestral metazoan and in humans.

12 Feb 2010

New screening system developed to discover molecules that block HCV life cycle

A newly designed system of identifying molecules for treating hepatitis C should enable scientists to discover novel and effective therapies for the dangerous and difficult-to-cure disease of the liver, says Zhilei Chen, a Texas A&M University assistant professor of chemical engineering who helped develop the screening system.

12 Feb 2010

Scientists uncover new gene that could help save sight of patients with inherited blindness

The international research team led by the University of Leeds found that the TSPAN12 gene is faulty in patients with a disease known as FEVR (Familial Exudative Vitreoretinopathy), which affects the development of the eye.

12 Feb 2010

Gene News and Research

Latest Gene News and Research

Researchers adopt new technique to inhibit cancer growth

Special issue reviews current state of science in fetal therapy

Researchers use model organism to test new therapies for retinal degeneration

Effects of eco-toxicology on Zebra fish

Researchers find new risk factor for early-onset dementia

Clive Svendsen to receive American Academy of Neurology Sheila Essey Award for his research on ALS

Study: Common underlying mechanism causes complex defects in brain development and function

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia awarded two grants to research into cellular therapies for blood disorders

Stem cells intentionally cut and then repair their own DNA to develop new tissues

Allele-specific DNA methylation a widespread phenomenon, reveals IoP study

Researchers identify defective signaling pathway that contributes to the severity of cystic fibrosis

SRC-3 gene sends signal to cell membrane to promote cell motility

Researchers describe the structure of ToxT that controls virulent nature of Vibrio cholerae

New research finds sensory cortex develops late in fragile X syndrome defect

New project to unravel secret lives of cancer cells may help produce new cancer therapies

IBM, VLSCI scientists to use Blue Gene supercomputer to study human disease

CapitalBio officially joins Roche NimbleGen CSP Program

Researchers discover cancer gene in ancestral metazoan

New screening system developed to discover molecules that block HCV life cycle

Scientists uncover new gene that could help save sight of patients with inherited blindness

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