Gene News and Research

Latest Gene News and Research

Lithium corrects radiation damage to brain in young cancer patients

A new study on mice, published online in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, on November 14, 2019, shows that the intermittent use of lithium, which is widely used to stabilize the mood in conditions such as bipolar disorder, can correct memory and learning losses due to radiation therapy to the brain in very young animals, even when the lithium is given long after the injury.

14 Nov 2019

Study sheds light on how Zika virus causes microcephaly in newborns

A new study led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine revealed how in utero Zika virus infection can lead to microcephaly in newborns. The team discovered that the Zika virus protein NS4A disrupts brain growth by hijacking a pathway that regulates the generation of new neurons.

14 Nov 2019

Dopamine D2 receptor modulates Wnt expression, controls cell proliferation

The dopamine D2 receptor has a previously unobserved role in modulating Wnt expression and control of cell proliferation, according to a new study from the George Washington University and the University of Pittsburgh.

14 Nov 2019

Promising method to identify aggressive breast cancers that will respond to immunotherapy

University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have discovered a promising method to identify aggressive breast cancer tumors that will respond to drugs that unleash the immune system against cancer.

14 Nov 2019

New computational model could help in the development of anti-cancer drugs

Researchers from the Faculty of Medicine and the Institute for Molecular Medicine at the University of Helsinki have developed a computational model, Combined Essentiality Scoring (CES) that enables accurate identification of essential genes in cancer cells for development of anti-cancer drugs.

14 Nov 2019

Blocking metastasis-promoting enzyme can prevent spread of breast cancer

In a breakthrough with important implications for the future of immunotherapy for breast cancer, UC San Francisco scientists have found that blocking the activity of a single enzyme can prevent a common type of breast cancer from spreading to distant organs.

14 Nov 2019

Cedars-Sinai surgeons detect and remove 25-pound cancerous ovarian tumor

Maria Robles Garcia was sure her uncomfortable abdominal symptoms weren't caused by irritable bowel syndrome or from being overweight, no matter that her local doctors repeatedly told her that was the case.

13 Nov 2019

Study shows potential of phage therapy to treat alcoholic liver disease

Bacteriophages (phages) are viruses that specifically destroy bacteria. In the early 20th century, researchers experimented with phages as a potential method for treating bacterial infections.

13 Nov 2019

Deterministic mechanoporation of cells en masse to cure cancer

What if you could cure cancer by re-engineering patients' cells to better target and destroy their own tumors? With the advent of powerful new cellular engineering technologies, this is no longer the stuff of science fiction.

13 Nov 2019

Caution: blood infections traced to probiotics

Probiotics aren’t harmless, says a new study published on November 7, 2019 in the journal Nature Medicine. In fact, some patients may be put at serious risk by the bacteria in probiotics. Doctors should weigh the risks of probiotics in severely ill or immunocompromised patients before prescribing them, as their benefits may be significantly smaller than the danger in such situations.

13 Nov 2019

Leukemia type B cell can transform into a macrophage through epigenetic changes

All the tissues of our body have the same DNA, but they perform very different functions and have very different aspects.

13 Nov 2019

Scientists find driver for more deadly prostate cancer

A transcription factor that aids neuron function also appears to enable a cell conversion in the prostate gland that can make an already recurrent cancer even more deadly, scientists say.

13 Nov 2019

Fresh light on why aggressive breast tumors form and how they can be treated

New research presented at the Society for Endocrinology annual conference in Brighton appears to identify novel methods of therapy for an aggressive type of breast cancer as well as uncovering potential causative factors. The focus of the study is to show how common chemicals present in our surroundings are possibly putting women at risk of a type of breast cancer called triple negative breast cancer (TNBC).

12 Nov 2019

Medical steroid use could push up diabetes risk

Glucocorticoids (GCs), or steroids, as they are popularly called, are often prescribed for their anti-inflammatory effects in a host of conditions including acute asthmatic attacks, allergies, and arthritis. However, are they doing good or harm?

12 Nov 2019

White blood cells control final moments of their death

La Trobe University researchers have revealed for the first time how white blood cells control the final moments of their death, helping their own removal from the human body.

12 Nov 2019

New approach may help kill Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Current treatment regimens for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis, are long, complex, and hard for people to sustain. Moreover, the bacteria often develop drug resistance, and many people harbor multi-drug-resistant strains. In 2018 alone, nearly 1.5 million people died from tuberculosis worldwide.

12 Nov 2019

Collaborative study shows sex-specific processes in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Recent studies have found a high genetic similarity of the psychiatric diseases schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, whose disease-specific changes in brain cells show an overlap of more than 70 percent.

12 Nov 2019

Protein that drives pancreatic cancer growth could be new treatment target

A protein that drives growth of pancreatic cancer, and which could be a target for new treatments, has been identified by researchers at the Crick.

12 Nov 2019

Fluorescent carbon dots can effectively detect calcium levels in cells

In hospitals, doctors often advise patients to take calcium supplements. But does the calcium get into the cells that need it? Until recently, it's been hard to tell.

12 Nov 2019

Rutgers researcher receives $600,000 grant to study chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey researcher Hossein Khiabanian, PhD, has received a $600,000 Translational Award from the V Foundation for Cancer Research to study chronic lymphocytic leukemia with the aim of developing research models that may help investigators better understand how CLL cells are influenced by new therapies.

11 Nov 2019