Researchers fully sequence the Y chromosome for the first time

30-Aug-2023 - What was once the final frontier of the human genome — the Y chromosome — has just been mapped out in its entirety. Led by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), a team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and many other organizations used ...

Unchartered territory in the human genome

18-Jul-2022 - An international consortium brings together 7,200 segments of the human genome that are virtually unexplored and presents a roadmap for integrating them into genome databases in “Nature Biotechnology”. They could hold information about what sets humans apart from other animals. When researchers ...

Researchers generate the first complete, gapless sequence of a human genome

“The complete blueprint is going to revolutionize the way we think about human genomic variation, disease and evolution”

04-Apr-2022 - Scientists have published the first complete, gapless sequence of a human genome, two decades after the Human Genome Project produced the first draft human genome sequence.According to researchers, having a complete, gap-free sequence of the roughly 3 billion bases (or “letters”) in our DNA is ...

Liver-on-a-chip, the ideal test environment for CRISPR

16-Oct-2018 - Two Arizona State University professors are among the first recipients ofSomatic Cell Genome Editing (SCGE) grants from the National Institutes of Health Common Fund. The $2,600,000, five-year grant will fund the first study of the genome editing technology CRISPR to be used on a "human liver ...

Genetic link discovered between circadian rhythms and mood disorders

20-Aug-2018 - Circadian rhythms are regular 24-hour variations in behaviour and activity that control many aspects of our lives, from hormone levels to sleeping and eating habits. In the largest ever genetic study of circadian rest-activity cycles in humans, scientists at the University of Glasgow have ...

Enigmatic gene critical for a healthy brain

19-Apr-2018 - Since the human genome was first sequenced in 2001, scientists have puzzled over swathes of our DNA that despite apparently lacking function are made into ribonucleic acid (RNA) by the cell. Why make RNA at all when it is not then used to make proteins, which perform fundamental biological tasks? ...

How the most common DNA mutation happens

05-Feb-2018 - Researchers describe how two normally mismatched bases in human DNA, guanine and thymine, are able to change shape in order to form an inconspicuous rung on the helical DNA "ladder." This allows them to survive by avoiding the body's natural defenses against genetic mutations. "When these two ...

The ghosts of HeLa

Some 30,000 biomedical publications report on misidentified cells

16-Oct-2017 - For decades, immortal cells such as the famous HeLa cells have been contaminating other cell cultures in the lab. As a result, scientific studies about certain cells are actually discussing other cells. Willem Halffman and Serge Horbach, researchers at Radboud University, found more than 30,000 ...

Virtual reality tool developed to untangle genes

25-Sep-2017 - Researchers from Oxford have been using virtual reality software to compile genetic data to create models which explain how genes are controlled within their natural chromosomal environments. The team from the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (WIMM) have been working in ...

Is the Alzheimer's gene the ring leader or the sidekick?

18-Sep-2017 - The notorious genetic marker of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, ApoE4, may not be a lone wolf. Researchers from USC and the University of Manchester have found that another gene, TOMM40, complicates the picture. Although ApoE4 plays a greater role in some types of aging-related ...