Connecting You to Tomorrow's Biotechnology Innovations
Scientists have developed a new drug compound that shows promise as a future treatment for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, an inherited, often painful neurodegenerative condition that affects nerves in the hands, arms, feet and legs. The researchers used the compound to treat the nerves of mice harboring the genetic defects that cause the disease. The new study, […]
Dopamine, a signaling chemical in the brain, has the lofty job of controlling emotions, moods, movements as well as sensations of pleasure and pain. Dysfunction of this critical neurotransmitter is the cause of a number of diseases, most notably, Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s disease is caused by the death of dopamine-producing cells and most theories of […]
An international research group, including scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, studying 520,000 people from around the world has identified 22 new genetic risk factors for stroke, tripling the number of gene regions known to affect stroke risk. The results show that stroke shares genetic influences with other vascular conditions, especially blood […]
Researchers at The Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have developed a test for urine, gathered during a routine procedure, to detect DNA mutations identified with urothelial cancers. UroSEEK uses urine samples to seek out mutations in 11 genes or the presence of abnormal numbers of chromosomes that would indicate the presence of DNA associated with bladder cancer […]
Photo caption: This microscopic image uses immunostaining to highlight the presence of TAZ/YAP (shown in green) in human malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors that grew from Schwann cells. The job of Schwann cells is to form the protective nerve sheath. The cell nuclei are shown in blue. The image is from a study by scientists […]
Genentech researchers have identified an enzyme that shifts pancreatic cancer cells to a more aggressive, drug-resistant state by epigenetically modifying the cells’ chromatin. The study, which will be published December 11 in the Journal of Cell Biology, suggests that targeting this enzyme could make pancreatic cancer cells more vulnerable to existing therapies that currently have only […]
Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers demonstrated that mice with ovarian cancer that received drugs to reactivate dormant genes along with other drugs that activate the immune system had a greater reduction of tumor burden and significantly longer survival than those that received any of the drugs alone. The study already spurred a clinical trial in […]
Blood-Based Cancer Tests Reveal Complex Genomic Landscape of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancers A new UC San Francisco–led study challenges the dogma in oncology that most cancers are caused by one dominant “driver” mutation that can be treated in isolation with a single targeted drug. Instead, the new research finds one of the world’s most deadly […]
The answer to regenerative medicine’s most compelling question — why some organisms can regenerate major body parts such as hearts and limbs while others, such as humans, cannot — may lie with the body’s innate immune system, according to a new study of heart regeneration in the axolotl, or Mexican salamander, an organism that takes […]
Immunotherapy drugs could help some breast cancer patients based on the genetic changes in their tumours, researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators find. Published today (13 September) in Cancer Research, scientists identify particular genetic changes in a DNA repair mechanism in breast cancer. The results open up the possibility to another […]
To accelerate the development of next-generation cancer therapies, the Gene Editing Institute of the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute at Christiana Care Health System has agreed to provide genetically modified cell lines to Analytical Biological Services, Inc. (ABS) of Wilmington, Delaware. Under a three-year agreement, the Gene Editing Institute will act as sole provider of gene editing services […]
FINDINGS A UCLA-led study of changes in gene activity in BRAF-mutated melanoma suggests these epigenomic alterations are not random but can explain how tumors are already developing resistance as they shrink in response to treatment with a powerful class of drugs called MAP kinase (MAPK)-targeted inhibitors. The discovery marks a potential milestone in the understanding […]
The malaria parasite’s success is owed to the stripping down of its genome to the bare essential genes, scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators have found. In the first ever large-scale study of malaria gene function, scientists analysed more than half of the genes in the parasite’s genome and found that […]
Immune cells with a general knack for recognizing and killing many types of infected or abnormal cells also can be engineered to hunt down cells with specific targets on them to treat cancer, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center report in the journal Leukemia. The team’s preclinical research shows that natural […]
A new drug shows promise in its ability to target one of the most common and sinister mutations of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center. The Fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3) gene mutation is a known predictor of […]
A team led by UCL and Cardiff University researchers has developed a novel measure of disease progression for Huntington’s disease, which enabled them to identify a genetic modifier associated with how rapidly the disease progresses. “We’ve identified a gene that could be a target for treating Huntington’s disease. While there’s currently no cure for the […]
For many patients, participating in gene therapy clinical trials isn’t an option because their immune system recognizes and fights the helpful virus used for treatment. Now, University of Florida Health and University of North Carolina researchers have found a solution that may allow it to evade the body’s normal immune response. The discovery, published May […]
A recent Danish study of children born to women with gestational diabetes, found that maternal daily consumption of artificially-sweetened beverages during pregnancy was associated with a higher body mass index score and increased risk of overweight/obesity at 7 years. Artificial sweeteners are widely replacing caloric sweeteners, due to the health concern related to sugar-sweetened beverages […]
A detour on the road to regenerative medicine for people with muscular disorders is figuring out how to coax muscle stem cells to fuse together and form functioning skeletal muscle tissues. A study published June 1 by Nature Communications reports scientists identify a new gene essential to this process, shedding new light on possible new […]
Roughly 2-3 percent of all people suffering from cancer have kidney cancer. The most common form of this disease is called clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). In roughly half of all patients with this disease, the tumor develops metastases and generally cannot be cured. New Mouse Model for Investigating Kidney Cancer The research of […]