Researchers have developed an injectable hydrogel that could help repair and prevent further damage to the heart muscle after a heart attack event.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,222
New Genes Can Form From ‘Jumping Gene Fusions
Some genes don’t stay in the same place in the genome. Sometimes called jumping genes or transposons, this genetic material can hop around and rearrange itself | Genetics And Genomics.
Some genetic sequences don’t stay in the same place in the genome. Sometimes called jumping genes or transposons, this genetic material can hop around and rearrange itself to create new sequences. Some transposons even encode for their own enzymes, and these co-called transposases can edit the genome by cutting sequences from one place and pasting them to another.
Reporting in Science, researchers have now suggested that transposable elements (TEs) can fuse with portions of existing genes that code for protein called exons, and get incorporated into genes in a process called exon shuffling to create novel genes that are functional, and express new proteins.
How to Detect Cancer Early: A Guide
Some really cool advances happening in cancer detection with things like liquid biopsies from companies like Grail and Thrive:
It’s important to detect cancer early to maximize longevity and survival rates. Here are cancer screening tests for 6 deadly cancers.
Whales and dolphins can resist cancer and their DNA reveals why
Now, Tejada-Martinez and her colleagues have studied the evolution of 1077 tumour suppressor genes (TSGs). In all, they compared the evolution of the genes in 15 mammalian species, including seven cetacean species.
Genes regulating DNA damage, tumour spread and the immune system were positively selected among the cetaceans. The team also found that cetaceans gained and lost TSGs at a rate 2.4 times higher than in other mammals.
It’s not like we’re gonna be taking whale genes and putting them into humans and making humans cancer resistant, says Lynch. But if you can find the genes that play a role in tumour suppression in other animals, and if you could figure out what they’re doing, maybe you can make a drug that mimics that for human treatment…
Decarbonizing US Energy: An Aggressive Market-Driven Model for Fusion Power Development
National Academies study says fusion can help decarbonize US energy, calls for public-private approach to pilot plant operation by 2035–40.
Electricity generated by fusion power plants could play an important role in decarbonizing the U.S. energy sector by mid-century, says a new consensus study report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which also lays out for the first time a set of technical, economic, and regulatory standards and a timeline for a U.S. fusion pilot plant that would begin producing energy in the 2035–40 time frame.
To achieve this key step toward commercialization, the report calls for an aggressive public-private effort to produce by 2028 a pilot plant design that can, when built, accommodate any of the developmental approaches seeking to realize fusion’s potential as a safe, carbon-free, on-demand energy source.
10 Breakthrough Technologies
This list marks 20 years since we began compiling an annual selection of the year’s most important technologies. Some, such as mRNA vaccines, are already changing our lives, while others are still a few years off. Below, you’ll find a brief description along with a link to a feature article that probes each technology in detail. We hope you’ll enjoy and explore—taken together, we believe this list represents a glimpse into our collective future.