Database Will Integrate Data from Clinical Testing Labs & Literature
This week, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched a new database known as ClinVar, which will make physicians’ jobs much easier. The NIH…
Genome
The Most Comprehensive Catalog of Human Genome Variations
An international team of more than 1,000 scientists participated in a new study showing an integrated map of genetic variation from 1,092 human genomes. A…
Genome Studies Indicate That “Junk” DNA Holds Clues to Common Diseases
Twelve years after the first draft of the human genome was published, back in 2000, geneticists have discovered that very few diseases are linked to…
Genome Study Links Paternal Age to Conditions Such As Autism
J.B.S. Haldane proposed in the 1930s that children might inherit more mutations from their fathers than their mothers. This year, thanks to whole-genome sequencing of…
A Step Toward Developing Sight-Saving Gene Therapy
Using exome sequencing, a team of scientists have discovered the human gene that causes a relatively rare but devastating type of early-onset blindness, providing an…
Genomic Analysis of Colon Cancer Reveals New Potential Drug Targets
A new genome-scale analysis to characterize somatic alterations in colorectal carcinoma is the largest analysis of its kind, involving more than 150 researchers at dozens…
Molecular and Statistical Tools Analyze Complex Differences between Genomes
To better understand the human genome and its variability from person to person, scientists at Harvard Medical School developed a set of molecular and statistical…
New Algorithm Speeds Up Genome Sequencing
By developing a way to mathematically represent the genomes of different species, or of different individuals within a species, such that the overlapping data is…
Bonobo Genome Completed, Differs from Humans by 1.3 Percent
Biologists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have completed the sequencing and analysis of the genome of the bonobo, finding that the bonobo…
HMP Maps the Healthy Human Microbiome
With microbes outnumbering human cells by 10 to 1, the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) Consortium looks at how these microorganisms coexist with their human hosts…
The Tomato Genomics Consortium Sequences the Tomato Genome
The Tomato Genomics Consortium fully sequenced the genome of the tomato, Solanum lycopersicu. They report in the Journal Nature that tomatoes possess some 35,000 genes…
Study Finds ‘Rare’ Genetic Variants Aren’t So Rare
While studying base pairs of human genomes from over 14,000 people, researchers discovered a dramatically higher rate than they expected of rare genetic variants, finding…
Cdt1 Protein Has a Role in DNA Replication and Mitosis
Newly published research from biochemists at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine describes how a protein that is required for DNA replication, Cdt1,…
Stickleback Fish Used Pre-Existing Genes to Go from Saltwater to Freshwater Environments
New research pinpoints to certain mutations that may have helped the stickleback, a tiny armored fish, to evolve quickly between saltwater and freshwater forms. Since…
Faster and Cheaper Genomics Technique Ready for Takeoff
A new genomics technique developed at Cornell University is roughly 50 times cheaper than comparable methods. The cost effectiveness of this new method, called Genotyping-by-sequencing…
3-D Image Shows How DNA Packs Itself into a “Fractal Globule”
A new imaging technique is giving scientists their first three-dimensional view of the human genome and how DNA is packed inside cells. Research has shown…
A Quest to Map Brain Connections and Understand Connectomes
Neuroscientists are studying the connections between the billions of neurons in the brain and believe they hold the key to our memories, personality and even…
Researchers Complete Genome Sequence of a Denisovan Human Finger Bone
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have completed the genome sequence of a Denisovan human finger bone that was discovered in Denisova…