ScienceBlog.com

Women who are at risk for breast cancer may also be at greater risk for heart disease, new research has found. The majority of women with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer have a mutated form of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, which normally suppress the growth of breast and ovarian tumours. Dr. Subodh Verma, a [...]

Stem cells are almost magical in their power. It is possible to turn stem cells into all other cell types of the body, including brain, heart and kidney. This is why they offer so much promise for the regeneration and repair of diseased and damaged organs. But the most powerful stem cells, those able to [...]

What did Thor Heyerdahl, Captain Ahab, and Odysseus have in common? They all may have shared a common variant of a gene for love of the sea. Researchers at Mystic University in Connecticut have identified a gene associated with seafaringness, according to an article to be published tomorrow in the journal Genetic Determinism Today. Patterns of [...]

LA JOLLA, CA — March 3, 2011 — Unexpected results from a Scripps Research Institute and ModGene, LLC study could completely alter scientists’ ideas about Alzheimer’s disease — pointing to the liver instead of the brain as the source of the “am…

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Using recent advances in genomics, researchers have uncovered a genetic pathway that affects the development of breast cancer, work that could help predict which patients are at risk of relapse for the disease.
By st…

A new study provides fascinating insight into the genetic basis of bipolar disorder, a highly heritable mood disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of mania and depression. The research, published by Cell Press online February 24 in the Americ…

A multinational study has identified a key gene mutation responsible for type 2 diabetes in nearly 10 percent of patients of white European ancestry.
The study, which originated in Italy and was validated at UCSF, found that defects in the HMGA1 g…

HOUSTON – Like a bounty hunter returning escapees to custody, a cancer-fighting gene converts organ cells that change into highly mobile stem cells back to their original, stationary state, researchers report online at Nature Cell Biology.
…

Despite innumerable studies on lung cancer, many aspects of the disease have yet to be understood, including the role played by the retinoblastoma-related protein Rb2/p130 in the evolution of the disease.
In a new study, researchers from the Sba…

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego say an evolutionary gene mutation that occurred in human millions of years ago and our subsequent inability to produce a specific kind o…

EAST LANSING, Mich. — There’s more than one way to silence gene activity, according to a Michigan State University researcher.
Downregulating activity is how healthy genes should shift out of their development cycle. The results, published in t…

As if the recent prediction that half of all Americans will have diabetes or pre-diabetes by the year 2020 isn’t alarming enough, a new genetic discovery published online in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) provides a disturbing explanation…

Scientists are eyeing a rare genetic glitch for clues to improved treatments for some people with schizophrenia — even though they found the mutation in only one third of 1 percent of patients.
In the study, funded in part by the National …

Scientists have published results that will forever change the way researchers view the interplay between gene expression, DNA replication and the prevention of DNA damage.
DNA damage, if not kept in check, can lead to many problems including can…

In a major advance for schizophrenia research, an international team of scientists led by the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and involving Trinity College Dublin researchers has identified a gene mutation strongly linked to s…

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers have developed a simple method of making short protein chains with spiral structures that can also dissolve in water, two desirable traits not often found together. Such structures could have applications as buildi…

February 22, 2011 — (BRONX, NY) — Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have developed an experimental vaccine that appears to protect against an increasingly common and particularly deadly form of pneumococc…

Although, in the majority of cases, the localized presence of Neisseria meningitidis in the throat has no consequence, it can sometimes lead to meningitis or septicaemia. The seriousness of these two infections is driving researchers from arou…

Amyloid-beta and tau protein deposits in the brain are characteristic features of Alzheimer disease. The effect on the hippocampus, the area of the brain that plays a central role in learning and memory, is particularly severe. However, it app…

Ebstein’s anomaly is a rare congenital valvular heart disease. Now, in patients with this disease, researchers of the Academic Medical Center Amsterdam in the Netherlands, the University of Newcastle, UK and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Me…