Lifeboat Foundation

Oops, duh, Eureka… shouted Archimedes… Or something.

Corn leaves are teaming with bacteria communities (the leaf “microbiome”) that influence plant health and performance, and scientists are still figuring out how. A team of scientists led by Dr. Jason Wallace recently published a study in the open access Phytobiomes Journal that advances what we know about these bacterial communities by investigating their relationships with corn genetics. According to Dr. Wallace, “the end-goal of all this research is to understand how crops interact with their microbial communities so we can harness them to make agriculture more productive and sustainable.”

In one of the largest and most diverse leaf microbe studies to date, the team monitored the active bacteria on the leaves of 300 diverse lines of corn growing in a common environment. They were especially interested to see how corn genes affected bacteria and found there was little relationship between the two — in fact, the bacteria were much more affected by the environment, although genetics still had a small role.

This is an interesting discovery that “breeding probably isn’t the best way to address this,” Dr. Wallace says. Instead, “the leaf community is probably better changed through farmer management.” That is, farmers should be able to change growing practices to enhance their current crops rather than seek out new plant varieties.

Using genetic and survey data gathered from individuals via the UK Biobank, 23andMe, and the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, they set out to see if any of the genes, or gene variants, were associated with depression either alone or when combined with an environmental factor like childhood trauma or socioeconomic diversity.

A new study assessing data from 620,000 individuals found that the 18 most highly-studied candidate genes for depression are no more associated with depression than randomly chosen genes.

Research out of the University of Colorado Boulder has dashed research into a potential link between certain genes and depression. The conclusion follows an analysis of both survey and genetic data from more than half a million people, which found that 18 candidate genes and random genes were equally associated with cases of depression.

The new study, which was recently published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, looked at 18 highly-studied ‘candidate genes,’ each of which had previously been studied in association with depression a minimum of 10 times. The results were called “a little bit stunning” by study senior author Matthew Keller.

According to the study, these 18 candidate genes weren’t associated with depression more than other randomly chosen genes. Past research into the genes that had indicated a link between the two were called false positives, though the researchers caution that this doesn’t mean depression isn’t heritable.

Continue reading “Depression genes debunked: analysis dashes highly studied link” »

Wang and his colleagues found that many cancers that get switched into overdrive and boost tumor growth have jumping genes that function as a kind of stealthy “on switch.” These cryptic switches can force a gene to be turned on all the time, even though it should be off.

Mistakes in DNA are known to drive cancer growth. But a new study, from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, heavily implicates a genetic phenomenon commonly known as “jumping genes” in the growth of tumors.

The study is published March 29 in the journal Nature Genetics.

Continue reading “‘Jumping genes’ drive many cancers” »

NUI Galway will lead a new €13 million SFI Centre for Research Training in Genomics Data Science. The new Centre will train a generation of 100 highly skilled PhD graduates to harness the collective potential of genomics and data science to have transformative scientific, economic and societal impacts.

Announced recently by Minister Heather Humphreys TD Minister for Business, Enterprise, and Innovation, and Minister of State for Training, Skills, Innovation, Research and Development, John Halligan TD and Science Foundation Ireland, the Centre will be led by NUI Galway and will involve partners from UCD, TCD, RCSI and UCC.

A genome is an organisms complete set of DNA or genetic material and it contains all of the information needed to build and maintain that organism. Genomics is the branch of science that studies genomes to see how they direct the growth and function of cells and organisms and it is a key area of fundamental science with real-world impacts in areas from human health to agriculture and food production. In recent years the field of genomics has undergone a revolution, driven by new technologies that generate data on an enormous scale. In order to make sense of the large and complex datasets arising from analysis of genomes, we require highly trained data scientists, who can turn this data into useful information that can increase scientific understanding and enable us to harness the power of genomics to drive innovation and create real-world solutions.

Continue reading “NUI Galway to Lead €13 Million SFI Centre for Research Training in Genomics Data Science” »

Arthritis is usually painful. So is the surgery to fix it, at least in the immediate aftermath. So when a 66-year old woman at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, Scotland, told doctors that her severely arthritic hand felt fine both before and after her operation, they were suspicious. The joint of her thumb was so severely deteriorated that she could hardly use it—how could that not hurt?

So they sent her to see teams specializing in pain genetics at University College London and the University of Oxford. Those researchers took DNA samples from both her and some of her family members and uncovered her secret: a tiny mutation in a newly-discovered gene. They recently published their results in the British Journal of Anaesthesia.

This minuscule deletion is inside something called a pseudogene, which is a partial copy of a fully functioning gene inserted elsewhere in the genome. Pseudogenes don’t always have a function—sometimes they’re just junk DNA—but some of them have residual functionality leftover from the original gene’s purpose.

Continue reading “This woman’s genetic mutation shields her from pain and anxiety” »

The marriage of these two technologies can only mean something great is in store.