Gene News and Research

Latest Gene News and Research

World's first fully reversible manipulation of the circadian clock

The Nagoya University Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules research team of Designated Associate Professor Tsuyoshi Hirota, Postdoctoral Fellow Simon Miller, Professor Kenichiro Itami and graduate student Tsuyoshi Oshima (Research Fellowship for Young Scientists, JSPS), in collaboration with the group of Professor Ben Feringa and Postdoctoral Fellow Dušan Kolarski of Groningen University in the Netherlands, have achieved a world first: fully reversible manipulation of the period of the circadian clock using light, by exchanging part of a compound with a light-activated switch.

25 Jan 2021

Stem cell based cell culture model to recapitulate important aspects of NAFLD

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a widespread condition in the Western World. Around 30% of the population have lipid droplets stored in their liver which diminish its function in the long term.

25 Jan 2021

New method can help identify potential anti-cancer drugs at a high pace

The enzymes in human cells known as histone deacetylases, or HDACs, are targets for a handful of anticancer drugs because of their ability to affect gene expression.

25 Jan 2021

Missing surface protein allows small cell lung cancer cells to hide from immune defenses

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) cells are missing a surface protein that triggers an immune response, allowing them to hide from one of the body's key cancer defenses, a new study led by UT Southwestern researchers suggests.

25 Jan 2021

COVID-19 diagnostic tests remain able to detect all published virus strains

Paris, France and Camberley, UK – 21 December 2020 – Novacyt (EURONEXT GROWTH: ALNOV; AIM: NCYT), an international specialist in clinical diagnostics, announces that following the detection of a new variant of COVID-19 by the UK’s COVID19 Genomics UK consortium, known as VUI-202012/01, the Company has carried out a detailed analysis of the mutations in this new variant and in all published COVID-19 strains to fully assess the reliability of its existing diagnostic tests.

From AFSBio 25 Jan 2021

Reduced expression of TBX15 in tumor tissue represents a prognostic biomarker for HCC patients

The cover for issue 52 of Oncotarget features Figure 1, "Volcano plots of DNA methylation in tumor tissues compared with nontumor tissue," published in "Reduction of T-Box 15 gene expression in tumor tissue is a prognostic biomarker for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma" by Morine, et al. which reported that the authors conducted a genome-wide analysis of DNA methylation of the tumor and non-tumor tissue of 15 patients with Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and revealed TBX15 was the most hypermethylated gene of the tumor.

25 Jan 2021

Transcriptional regulator BRD2 as a potential therapeutic target for COVID-19

A team of international scientists has demonstrated that therapeutic inhibition of a transcriptional regulator BRD2, required for the endogenous expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), can potentially suppress severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. The study is currently available on the bioRxiv* preprint server.

24 Jan 2021

Experts advise disaggregating data on COVID-19 patients by sex

Researchers at Yale University School of Medicine have highlighted the importance of ensuring studies of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) report data in a sex-disaggregated manner.

24 Jan 2021

New maintenance treatment for AML shows strong benefit for patients

Patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the most common form of acute leukemia in adults, that has gone into remission following initial chemotherapy remain in remission longer and have improved overall survival when they are given a pill form of the cancer drug azacitidine as a maintenance treatment, according to a randomized, international phase 3 clinical trial for which Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian are trial sites.

22 Jan 2021

UC research team uses zebrafish to study a gene mutation that causes congenital scoliosis

Popular in aquariums all over the world, the zebrafish is native to South Asia. But here in a Cincinnati Children's laboratory, the freshwater variant plays a vital role in scientific discovery.

22 Jan 2021

New project to investigate a promising drug target for treatment of schizophrenia

A partnership between the University of Oxford, Earlham Institute (EI), and global pharmaceutical companies Biogen Inc and Boehringer Ingelheim will investigate a promising new drug target for the treatment of schizophrenia.

22 Jan 2021

Combination therapy shows potential for treating lung cancer

Most lung cancers are of a type called non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). This type of cancer is relatively insensitive to chemotherapy, so NSCLC therapies are usually based on drug treatment.

22 Jan 2021

Novel neutralizing antibodies targeting SARS-CoV-2 N-terminal domain discovered

A new study by US-based researchers shows the presence of protective antibodies that target the N-terminal domain (NTD) of the spike instead of the spike receptor-binding domain (RBD).

22 Jan 2021

Researchers update automated computation tool for SARS-CoV-2 genome analysis

Researchers updated a previous version of an automated tool to include SARS-CoV-2 genome analysis. Genome analysis using the freely available software could help track the evolution of the virus and promptly identify variants that increase viral transmission or virulence.

22 Jan 2021

A traditional Chinese medicine could help treat COVID‐19 symptoms

A team of researchers in China – at Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine and Yunnan University of Chinese Medicine – recently explored the therapeutic properties of Yinqiao powder in treating COVID-19 symptoms. Their findings were recently published in Phytotherapy Research.

22 Jan 2021

Consuming caffeinated coffee can temporarily mitigate repercussions of reduced sleep

A new study exploring the impact of repeated sleep loss during a simulated working week has found that consuming caffeinated coffee during the day helps to minimize reductions in attention and cognitive function, compared to decaffeinated coffee.

22 Jan 2021

Genomic test has lower prognostic accuracy in minority patients with breast cancer

Black women have higher recurrence and mortality rates than non-Hispanic white women for certain types of breast cancer, according to a University of Illinois Chicago researcher's study published recently in JAMA Oncology.

22 Jan 2021

Researchers develop comprehensive framework to classify small-cell lung cancer

Researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have developed the first comprehensive framework to classify small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) into four unique subtypes, based on gene expression, and have identified potential therapeutic targets for each type in a study published today in Cancer Cell.

22 Jan 2021

Mitochondrial mutation linked to elevated diabetes risk in Japanese men

A new study of Type 2 diabetes in Japanese populations has uncovered a previously uncharacterized genetic variant that puts male carriers at greater risk for the disease, as well as the mechanism by which it does so.

21 Jan 2021

Study identifies nine specific genes associated with breast cancer risk

Breast cancer investigators in the Lambe Institute at NUI Galway have collaborated on a pivotal international study into breast cancer risk which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine today (Wednesday, 20 January).

21 Jan 2021