Genetics & Molecular Biology

How Pluripotent Stem Cells Are Grown Affects Their Genetic Stability

Human pluripotent stem cells, which include both human embryonic stem cells(hESCs) and adult stem cells like induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), need large numbers for transplantation into patients but the process of translating their potential into ef ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 25 2015 - 4:29pm

Adult Stem Cell Transplants Reach 1 Million Worldwide- And Are Still Underused

It's been over 50 years since the first experimental use of adult stem cells- bone marrow transplants- began, and in that time over 1,000,000 hematopoietic stem cell (HSCT- cells isolated from the blood or bone marrow that can renew themselves and dif ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 27 2015 - 10:00am

Better Genes Mean Better Beans

New transcriptome data for underutilized legumes means underappreciated crops could soon become valuable tools in agriculture. Thousands of species belong to the legume family, the Fabaceae, yet only a few of them are used in mainstream agriculture. Dozens ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 27 2015 - 4:59pm

Immune Signatures Evidence That Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Is A Biological Illness

Researchers have identified distinct immune changes in patients diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, known medically as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) or systemic exertion intolerance disease. This is the first robust physical evidence that ME/CFS ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 3 2015 - 11:30am

New Treatment For The "Iron Overload Disease"

Hemochromatosis (HH) is the most common genetic disorder in the western world, and yet is barely known outside biology. In the US 1 in 9 people carry the mutation, though not necessarily the disease. ...

Article - Catarina Amorim - Mar 3 2015 - 2:23am

Epigenetics: Metabolic Disease Due To Your Grandmother

Low birth weight is indicative of various problems and fortunately modern science has made it possible for more low-birth weight babies than ever to thrive, survival is over 94 percent for children born in the third trimester of pregnancy. But low birth we ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 2 2015 - 10:13am

Mitochondrial 'Shield' That Helps Cancer Cells Survive Identified

Why can cancer cells be so resilient, even when faced with the onslaught of nearly toxic drug cocktails, radiation, and even our own immune system? A new research report appearing in the March 2015 issue of The FASEB Journal, shows that intermediate filam ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 7 2015 - 9:00am

Enzyme Modification Boosts Crop Yields

Enzymes are the workhorses of our bodies, they make biochemical reactions happen faster than they otherwise would and sometimes essential reactions would not happen at all without them.  The Rubisco enzyme, the most abundant protein on the planet, has one ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 3 2015 - 10:14am

New Hormone Mimics Effects Of Exercise, Protects Against Obesity

Scientists have discovered a new hormone that fights the weight gain caused by a high-fat Western diet and normalizes the metabolism- effects commonly associated with exercising. Hormones are molecules that act as the body's signals, triggering variou ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 3 2015 - 6:44pm

Regenerative Medicine: Cas9 Approach And Activating Genes On Demand

Gene expression, the process by which our DNA provides the recipe used to direct the synthesis of proteins and other molecules, is how we develop and survive. To-date, science has made breathtaking progress, studying one single gene at a time, but a new ap ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 4 2015 - 6:12pm