Genetics & Molecular Biology

From Breast Tissue To Beating Heart Cells: A Rare Source Of Pluripotent Stem Cells From Adult Tissue

Beating heart cells (cardiomyocytes) are often used as an empowering imagery to depict important scientific advances in stem cell technology; advances that enable scientists to harness human embryonic stem cells to regenerate tissues that cannot easily be ...

Article - Jennifer Wong - Mar 13 2013 - 9:25pm

Lazarus Project Recreates Extinct Australian Frog

The Lazarus Project team says they have been able to recover cell nuclei of the extinct gastric-brooding frog, Rheobatrachus silus, from tissues collected in the 1970s and kept for 40 years in a conventional deep freezer.  The genome of Rheobatrachus silu ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 15 2013 - 7:13pm

Whole Foods, GMO labeling, and the illusion of transparency

When Whole Foods announced it will require all of the products on its shelves to have their GMO contents labeled by 2018, the company framed it as an issue of transparency.  ”People have the right to know what is in their food,” said Whole Foods co-CEO Joh ...

Blog Post - Sarah Fecht - Mar 15 2013 - 7:16pm

SMIM1: Vel-Negative Blood Problem Explained

In the early 1950's, a 66-year-old woman with colon cancer received a blood transfusion- but she suffered a severe rejection of the transfused blood. When writing the case study, the medical journal Revue D'Hématologie identified her only as &qu ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 21 2013 - 5:00am

Wheat Genome Studies Shed Light On Its Domestication, Genetic Adaptation And Modification

Two manuscripts related to the ancestral wheat genomes of Triticum urartu and Aegilops tauschii   provide an unprecedented glimpse into the adaptation and domestication of wheat throughout the ages and shedding light on the biology of the world's pri ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 26 2013 - 11:50am

Lynch Syndrome Genetic Condition Linked To Prostate Cancer Risk

Men with Lynch syndrome, an inherited genetic condition linked to a higher risk of several types of cancer, face a higher lifetime risk of developing prostate cancer and appear to develop the disease at an earlier age, according to a new study. People wit ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 1 2013 - 12:28pm

Stem Cell Therapy: Leading Edge Medicine Or 21st Century Alchemy?

In 2013, stem cell therapy is touted as the future of medicine by proponents in Europe and Asia while scientists in America urge caution. Contrast that to a decade ago, when the concern was that American President George W. Bush was holding back progress b ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Apr 17 2013 - 12:32pm

How To Protect The Brain In Old Age (and Stop Alzheimer's)

Scientists in the UK, Portugal and Germany solved the structure of kynurenine 3-monooxygenase (KMO), a protein implicated in the neurodegeneration (destruction of nerve cells) seen in diseases associated with old age, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and ...

Article - Catarina Amorim - Apr 12 2013 - 10:33am

Transdifferentiation: Antibody Directly Transforms Bone Marrow Cells Into Brain Cells

Researchers have found a way to turn bone marrow stem cells directly into brain cells, bypassing current cumbersome techniques and bringing about the possibility of simpler and safer methods. Stem cell therapies derived from patients' own cells are w ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 22 2013 - 4:22pm

Brite: How Fat Cells Go From The Bad Kind To The Good Kind

Brown and white fat cells in a living organism can be converted from one cell type to the other, according to a study using mice as a model organism. ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 29 2013 - 9:38am