DNA, that marvelous, twisty molecule of life, has an alter ego, research at the University of Michigan and the University of California, Irvine reveals. On rare occasions, its building blocks “rock and roll,” deforming the familiar double helix into a different shape. The findings were published online Jan. 26 in the journal Nature. A short […]
New research from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), both in Toronto, Canada provides further clues as to why Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affects four times more males than females. The scientists discovered that males who carry specific alterations of DNA on the sole X-chromosome they […]
Gene variants associated with an increased risk for type-1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis may confer previously unknown benefits to their human carriers, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. As a result, the human race may have evolved in the recent past to be more susceptible, rather than less, to some complex diseases, […]
An international study led by University of Montreal scientists suggests family history may not be a good predictor of the presence of mutations predisposing to autism or schizophrenia. The findings show how new or de novo gene mutations – alterations of the cell’s DNA – play a role in these devastating conditions. Published in the […]
Together with colleagues from an international research group, autism researcher Christopher Gillberg of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and member of the Autism Genome Project (AGP) research group, has found in a new study that autism can be partially explained by abnormalities in certain genes. The group’s results could, in the long run, pave the […]
In one of the first efforts of its kind, UCLA researchers have taken mammalian genome maps, including human maps, one step further by showing not just the order in which genes fall in the genome but which genes actually interact. The findings, published in the August issue of the journal Genome Research, will help researchers […]
A new study focused on anxiety and brain activity pinpoints the brain regions that are relevant to developing childhood anxiety. Specifically, Kalin and colleagues demonstrated that increased brain activity in the amygdala and anterior hippocampus could predict anxious temperament in young primates. The findings, published in the August 12th edition of the journal Nature, may […]
The effects of smoking cigarettes on gene activity have been investigated in the largest study of its kind. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Medical Genomics studied white blood cells taken from 1,240 people to identify 323 unique genes whose expression levels were significantly correlated with smoking behavior. Check the end of this […]
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