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CRISPRed Exosomes Correct Rett Syndrome Communication Breakdown
CRISPR continues to be big news. Condemnation of the gene editing technology was swift late last year when a researcher in China claimed to have used it to doctor the genomes of twin girls to enable...
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6 Types of Exercise That Counter Inherited Obesity Risk
Exercise is a key component of any weight-loss plan, but it’s especially important for people who’ve inherited a tendency to easily put on pounds. Results of a study published in the August issue of...
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RIP Kary Mullis, Father of PCR
When the name Kary Mullis popped up in my news feed on Monday, I was excited to read what I thought would be an update on the renegade inventor I’d met years ago at a small biotech gathering in San...
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Retiring the Single Gay Gene Hypothesis
The once-prevailing concept of a sole “gay gene” dictating sexual orientation has been put to rest in a powerhouse study published today in Science. The work illustrates the nature of science: evolving...
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Celebrating the Pioneering Experiments in Genetics
It seems that lately everything in genetics, which has morphed into genomics, is big, big, big. Data on half a million people represented in the UK Biobank are highlighting genome regions associated...
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A Child’s Shattered Chromosomes Illustrate the Value of Supportive Therapies
To a trained eye, the chromosome chart (karyotype) above has 4 irregularities, circled in red. They’re chromosome pairs of uneven size. The chromosomes represent genetic material missing or extra, but...
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Gene Therapy Update: Remembering Jesse Gelsinger
Like the mythological phoenix bird, gene therapy has risen from the ashes and is spreading its wings. September 17 marked 20 years since the death of 19-year-old Jesse Gelsinger in a gene therapy...
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A New Meaning for Strip Steak: Making Red Meat Safer to Eat
Despite the rising popularity of plant-based burgers like the Impossible and Beyond, plenty of people still like the real deal. Many studies have linked eating red meat (beef, pork, and lamb) to...
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Breast Cancer Genetic Testing for All Women?
“I have no family history of breast cancer,” says the woman in a public service announcement stressing the importance of mammograms for all women. “No one in my family had breast cancer. Not one. But I...
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When the Target Isn’t Really the Target: One Way Cancer Drugs Fall Out of...
Ninety-seven percent of potential new cancer drugs never make it to market, dropping out of clinical trials when they don’t meet measures of safety or efficacy. “Why that is, we don’t really know. But...
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The Peaceable Genomes of Pumpkins
Anyone who’s tossed a pumpkin onto the lawn after Halloween to discover vines snaking along the ground the next summer knows how easy it is to grow the plant. Pumpkins have an intriguing history and...
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FDA Scrutinizes Fecal Transplants
On Monday November 5, officials at the FDA listened for three hours to arguments for and against “fecal microbiota transplants” – mostly for. Speakers reported that the procedure has saved thousands of...
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Camel Milk and Autism: Connecting the Genetic Dots
After reading Christina Adams’s new book Camel Crazy: A Quest for Miracles in the Mysterious World of Camels (New World Library), I may have a new favorite animal (sorry, cats and hippos). Most of us...
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Family with Two Rare Syndromes Reveals Immunity Glitch
Members of a three-generation family in France who suffer from widespread infections and fragile skin, joints, bones, and blood vessels share an underlying and unexpected immune system glitch,...
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5,700-Year-Old Lola, Her Genome Sequenced from Gum, Joins Other Named Forebears
About 5,700 years ago in southern Denmark, a woman enjoyed a meal of hazelnuts and duck, then chewed gum made from the boiled, tar-like gunk of birch bark. Pieces of DNA extracted from the ancient gum...
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FDA Approvals in 2019 Reflect Eclectic Ways to Treat Genetic Disease
It was a good year for new treatments for genetic diseases! Of the 44 FDA approvals of new drugs, 8 were for 6 single-gene diseases: DMD, beta thalassemia, cystic fibrosis, a form of amyloidosis, and...
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Will New Knowledge of Gender Identity Genomics Counter Discrimination?
If legislation being developed by State Rep. Ginny Ehrhart, (R-Powder Springs, Georgia) goes forward, a physician who provides surgery or hormones to assist a transgender individual age 18 or under in...
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How Breast Cancer Reunited Six High School Friends
Four of the six of us from my high school inner circle have had breast cancer over the past two years. And that has me wondering. Did a shared environmental exposure, stamped onto our shared Ashkenazi...
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The Wuhan Coronavirus Inspires a Look Back at the Discovery of Viruses
I’m astonished at the speed with which geneticists and epidemiologists are zeroing in on the Wuhan coronavirus. Nomenclature is still up in the air. The first name, “2019-nCoV” for “novel coronavirus...
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New View of the Brink of Cancer May Validate Preventive Mastectomy
Women who have prophylactic mastectomies to stay ahead of a BRCA2 mutation may have made a wise choice, according to findings of a study just published in Science Advances. I’m amazed at the bravery of...
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