Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a genetic test that can accurately predict whether the most common form of eye cancer will spread to other parts of the body, particularly the liver. In 459 patients with ocular melanoma at 12 centers in the United States and Canada, the researchers found the test could successfully classify tumors more than 97 pe... (read more)
Not a big fan of bacon or ham? Your genes might be behind it, a new study finds. Researchers found that 70 percent of participants had two functional copies of a gene linked to a particular odor receptor in the brain. This cellular receptor is attuned to a compound in male mammals called androstenone, which is also common in pork. In the study, 23 people were asked to smell pork. Those with either one or no function... (read more)
Results from the largest genetic study of glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness and vision loss worldwide, showed that two genetic variations are associated with primary open angle glaucoma (POAG), a common form of the disease. The identification of genes responsible for this disease is the first step toward the development of gene-based disease detection and treatment. About 2.2 million people in the U.S. h... (read more)
Pregnant women might now have one more good reason to watch their diet and exercise: A new study links autism and developmental delays in young children to metabolic conditions, like obesity and diabetes, in their mothers. The findings, published in Monday's edition of the journal Pediatrics, found that women who had diabetes or hypertension or were obese were 1.61 times as likely as healthy wo... (read more)
Teams of scientists working independently have for the first time identified several gene mutations that they agree sharply increase the chances that a child will develop autism. They have found further evidence that the risk increases with the age of the parents, particularly in fathers over age 35. The gene mutations are extremely rare and together account for a tiny fraction of autism cases — in these stud... (read more)
Susceptibility to post-traumatic stress disorder could be partially determined by gene variants, says a study. A US team looked at the DNA from 200 members of 12 families who survived the 1988 Armenian earthquake. It found those who carried two gene variants which affect the production of serotonin - which affects mood and behaviour - were more likely to display symptoms of PTSD. The research is publ... (read more)
Researchers have devised a nanoscale sensor to electronically read the sequence of a single DNA molecule, a technique that is fast and inexpensive and could make DNA sequencing widely available. The technique could lead to affordable personalized medicine, potentially revealing predispositions for afflictions such as cancer, diabetes or addiction. "There is a clear path to a workable, easily pr... (read more)
A biological clue to male baldness has been discovered, raising the prospect of a treatment to stop or even reverse thinning hair. In studies of bald men and laboratory mice, US scientists pinpointed a protein that triggers hair loss. Drugs that target the pathway are already in development, they report in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The research could lead to a cream to treat baldness. Most men s... (read more)
A team of Stanford researchers has unveiled the most detailed biological profile of a human being done so far: a peek at one man's genetic foundation, along with snapshots, taken dozens of times over the course of a year, of the millions of proteins and other molecules that are in constant flux in his body. In a stroke of shocking good luck - for the scientists, if not necessarily the patient - the profile s... (read more)
Researchers at University of California Santa Barbara, the University of Utah John Moran Eye Center, and the University of Iowa have discovered over 50 genes whose increased level of expression are linked to Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD). They went on to suggest that the top 20 of these genes could be considered predictors of a clinical AMD diagnosis. AM... (read more)
The RIKEN Center for Genomic Medicine is examining how drugs can be matched to a patient's genetic information through the study of single nucleotide polymorphisms. Taisei Mushiroda from the Laboratory for Pharmacogenetics explains... Drugs are not equally effective on all patients. A treatment that is dramatically effective on some patients can be ineffective on ot... (read more)
On the surface, it's simple: when night falls, our bodies get sleepy. But behind the scenes, a series of complex molecular events, controlled by our genes, is hard at work to make us groggy. Now, research suggests that a newly identified gene known as insomniac may play a role in keeping us asleep. By cloning and testing this gene in fruit flies, Rockefeller University researchers say they have d... (read more)
Although heart disease is the leading killer of women as well as of men, two heart disease patients out of every three are male, and heart disease strikes men 10 to 15 years earlier than it does women. No one really knows why. Now, a new study reports that part of the answer may lie on the Y chromosome, the one chromosome unique to men. In the study, published on Wednesday in The Lancet, researchers fo... (read more)
Scientists in the US have successfully made human brain cells in the lab that are an exact replica of genetically caused Parkinson's disease. The breakthrough means they can now see exactly how mutations in the parkin gene cause the disease in an estimated one in 10 patients with Parkinson's. And it offers a realistic model to test new treatments on - a hurdle that has blighted research efforts until... (read more)
A preference for fatty foods has a genetic basis, according to researchers, who discovered that people with certain forms of the CD36 gene may like high-fat foods more than those who have other forms of this gene. The results help explain why some people struggle when placed on a low-fat diet and may one day assist people in selecting diets that are easier for them to follow. The results also may help foo... (read more)
An innovative approach to genome screening has provided clues about rare mutations that may make people susceptible to brain aneurysms, predisposing them to brain bleeds, according to preliminary late-breaking research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2012. For the first time, scientists applied a process called whole exome sequencing to seek gene... (read more)
An international research team led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI MUHC) has made a major genetic breakthrough that could change the way pediatric cancers are treated in the future. The researchers identified two genetic mutations responsible for up to 40 per cent of glioblastomas in children -- a fatal cancer of the brain that is unresponsive to chemo and radiotherapy tr... (read more)
Cells trying to keep pace with constantly changing environmental conditions need to strike a fine balance between maintaining their genomic integrity and allowing enough genetic flexibility to adapt to inhospitable conditions. In their latest study, researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research were able to show that under stressful conditions yeast genomes become unstable, readily acquiring or lo... (read more)
The discovery by researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of a molecule that is key to malaria's 'invisibility cloak' will help to better understand how the parasite causes disease and escapes from the defences mounted by the immune system. The research team, led by Professor Alan Cowman from the institute's Infection and Immunity division, has identified one of the crucial molecules that instructs th... (read more)
Providing clues to deafness, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a gene that is required for proper development of the mouse inner ear. In humans, this gene, known as FGF20, is located in a portion of the genome that has been associated with inherited deafness in otherwise healthy families. "When we inactivated FGF20 in mice, we saw they were alive and heal... (read more)
The biologic and genetic mechanisms controlling the formation and function of the CCS are not well understood, but new research with mice shows that altered function of a gene called Tbx3 interferes with the development of the CCS and causes lethal arrhythmia. Arrhythmia is a potentially life-threatening problem with the rate or rhythm of the heartbeat, causing it to go too fast,... (read more)
Three new locations for Crohn's Disease genes have been uncovered by scientists at UCL using a novel gene mapping approach. The complex genetic and environmental causes of Crohn's Disease (CD) have long been difficult to untangle. CD, a type of Inflammatory Bowel Disease that affects about 100 to 150 people per 100,000 in Europe, is characterised by inflammation in the gastro... (read more)
A transparent cornea is essential for vision, which is why the eye has evolved to nourish the cornea without blood vessels. But for millions of people around the world, diseases of the eye or trauma spur the growth of blood vessels and can cause blindness. A new Northwestern Medicine study has identified a gene that plays a major role in maintaining clarity of the cornea in humans and mice -- and could... (read more)
Researchers have found a way to kill human cells hijacked by a genetic accelerator that puts cancer cells into overdrive: the Myc oncogene. The discovery reveals new drug targets for Myc-driven cancers, which tend to be particularly aggressive. The results are to be published online December 8 in Science. In its non-cancerous, healthy form, Myc oversees how genetic information is translated into proteins, ty... (read more)
Researchers at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) have identified the gene GATA 6 as responsible for epithelial cells -which group together and are static- losing adhesion and moving towards a new site. This process, which is common to developing organisms, is very similar to one that occurs in metastasis, when tumour cells escape from the original tumour and invade ... (read more)
Genetics, a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms.
Genetics deals with the molecular structure and function of genes, with gene behavior in the context of a cell or organism (e.g. dominance and epigenetics), with patterns of inheritance from parent to offspring, and with gene distribution, variation and change in populations. Given that genes are universal to living organisms, genetics can be applied to the study of all living systems, from viruses and bacteria, through plants (especially crops) and domestic animals, to humans (as in medical genetics).
The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding. However, the modern science of genetics, which seeks to understand the process of inheritance, only began with the work of Gregor Mendel in the mid-19th century. Although he did not know the physical basis for heredity, Mendel observed that organisms inherit traits via discrete units of inheritance, which are now called genes.
Genes correspond to regions within DNA, a molecule composed of a chain of four different types of nucleotides—the sequence of these nucleotides is the genetic information organisms inherit. DNA naturally occurs in a double stranded form, with nucleotides on each strand complementary to each other. Each strand can act as a template for creating a new partner strand. This is the physical method for making copies of genes that can be inherited.
The sequence of nucleotides in a gene is translated by cells to produce a chain of amino acids, creating proteins—the order of amino acids in a protein corresponds to the order of nucleotides in the gene. This relationship between nucleotide sequence and amino acid sequence is known as the genetic code. The amino acids in a protein determine how it folds into a three-dimensional shape; this structure is, in turn, responsible for the protein's function. Proteins carry out almost all the functions needed for cells to live. A change to the DNA in a gene can change a protein's amino acids, changing its shape and function: this can have a dramatic effect in the cell and on the organism as a whole.
Although genetics plays a large role in the appearance and behavior of organisms, it is the combination of genetics with what an organism experiences that determines the ultimate outcome. For example, while genes play a role in determining an organism's size, the nutrition and health it experiences after inception also have a large effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetics
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