If we don’t take out the trash regularly, our homes become unpleasant and even a danger to our health. The same applies to our cells: If excess proteins and strands of genetic material aren’t removed, the cell and ultimately the entire organism can fall ill. For instance, scientists suspect there is a connection between Alzheimer’s … Read more
Scientists have developed a technique to rapidly and reliably detect genetic changes in malaria parasites in Ghana, using just a gaming laptop and portable MinION sequencer from Oxford Nanopore. Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and University of Ghana were able to demonstrate for the first time that end-to-end, real-time pathogen monitoring from clinical blood … Read more
Today, Wednesday 22 November, the government announced its support for the Rare Therapies Launch Pad, a new programme that will develop a pathway for children with rare conditions to access individualized therapies. The programme’s first project will explore the use of individualized therapies known as antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) to treat children with ultra-rare and life-threatening … Read more
In a review published in the journal Communications Biology, researchers in the United States of America described the potential role and benefits of externally fermented foods in triggering the expansion of the hominid brain. They further discussed the explanatory power of their “external fermentation hypothesis” and surveyed relevant food practices across human cultures. Image Credit: Busker909 / … Read more
A new research paper was published in Oncotarget’s Volume 14 on October 4, 2023, entitled, “Determination of genetic predisposition to early breast cancer in women of Kazakh ethnicity.” Breast cancer (BC) is the most common type of cancer among women in Kazakhstan. To date, little data are available on the spectrum of genetic variation in … Read more
In a recent systematic review published in the journal Advances in Nutrition, researchers investigated the associations between nut consumption and fertility outcomes in human adults. Literature from four online scientific databases was collated and subjected to a meta-analysis. Following the full-text screening, four publications comprising 875 participants were included. Study findings revealed that consuming ≥ … Read more
Treating cancer is becoming increasingly complex, but also offers more and more possibilities. After all, the better a tumor’s biology and genetic features are understood, the more treatment approaches there are. To be able to offer patients personalized therapies tailored to their disease, laborious and time-consuming analysis and interpretation of various data is required. Researchers … Read more
5.2% of the global population carry hemoglobin abnormalities, resulting in 300,000 to 400,000 children born with severe hemoglobinopathies annually. Thalassemia, a hereditary hemoglobinopathy, occurs in 4.4 out of every 10,000 live births, and is prevalent in Mediterranean coastal areas, Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and southern China. To facilitate greater understanding of thalassemia, a … Read more
A special kind of genetic test that helps determine the best antidepressant for patients with moderate-to-severe depression could generate substantive health system savings and greatly improve patient outcomes, according to new research from the University of British Columbia. The study, published today in CMAJ, shows that in B.C. alone, implementing pharmacogenomic testing could save the … Read more
In a recent review published in Gene Therapy, a group of authors explored the progress and persistent hurdles in gene therapy for inherited blood disorders, malignancies via chimeric antigen receptors (CAR)-T cells, and varied diseases treated with in vivo adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors, addressing the transformative cures and the economic and manufacturing complexities involved. Study: … Read more