Genetics & Molecular Biology

Beta-Defensin Gene Impacts Stress, Weight In Humans... And Fur Color In Dogs

A discovery about the genetics of coat color in dogs could help explain why humans come in different weights and vary in our abilities to cope with stress, a team led by researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine reports. The study, publis ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 30 2007 - 4:24pm

Not Emotional? It May Be In Your Genes

Some people just don't express emotions. It used to be considered strictly cultural, a society's image manifested in physical expectations, but now true inability to express emotions (alexithymia) is thought to be hereditary. The largest study so ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 13 2007 - 12:38pm

Monkey Stem Cells From Cloned Embryos- Humans Are Next...

Headlines last week reported that researchers successfully produced stem cells from cloned monkey embryos. Using a process that has become almost routine with mice, scientists can now make make primate embryonic stem cells that are genetically identical to ...

Article - Michael White - Nov 19 2007 - 10:29pm

Possible New Alzheimer’s Gene Identified

A variant of the gene CDC2 could possibly be used as a risk marker for Alzheimer’s disease. The gene variant is considerably more common among Alzheimer’s patients. This is shown in a dissertation from the Sahlgrenska Academy at Göteborg University in Swed ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 25 2007 - 11:30am

In Embryonic Stem Cells Gene Inactivation Can Have A Totally New Meaning

Embryonic stem cells (ESC) can both self-renew or differentiate into the many cells of the organism and it is crucial to understand the mechanism behind this capability if we want to use them in clinic. Developmental regulator genes are responsible for the ...

Article - Catarina Amorim - Nov 26 2007 - 4:54pm

VGF 'Exercise' Gene May Also Help With Depression

Boosting an exercise-related gene in the brain works as a powerful anti-depressant in mice—a finding that could lead to a new anti-depressant drug target, according to a Yale School of Medicine report in Nature Medicine. “The VGF exercise-related gene and ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 2 2007 - 4:29pm

Researchers: More Regulatory DNA, And Less Junk, Than Previously Believed

Surrounding the small islands of genes within the human genome is a vast sea of non-coding DNA. While most of this DNA is junk, some of it is used to help genes turn on and off. Hopkins researchers write in Genome Research that they have now found that reg ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 11 2007 - 6:57pm

Fish, Humans Share Common Skin Color Evolution, Says Study

When humans began to migrate out of Africa about 100,000 years ago, their skin color gradually changed to adapt to their new environments. And when the last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago, marine ancestors of ocean-dwelling stickleback fish experienc ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 14 2007 - 5:30am

Plant Geneticists Find Veritas In Vino: Genome Sequence Of Pinot Noir Grape Revealed

Viticulture, the growing of grapes Vitis vinifera, chiefly to make wine, is an ancient form of agriculture, dating as far back as the Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages. We have a detailed understanding of how nurture affects the qualities of a grape harvest ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 19 2007 - 12:30am

BDNF Gene Mutation Implicated In Obesity

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, close to one-third of the population in the United States is obese and another third is overweight. Excessive weight gain is elicited by alterations in energy balance, the finely modulated equili ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 27 2007 - 12:09pm