Lifeboat Foundation

Early language development is an important predictor of children’s later language, reading and learning skills. Moreover, language learning difficulties are related to neurodevelopmental conditions such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Children typically start to utter their first words between 10 and 15 months of age. At around two years of age, they may produce between 100–600 words, and understand many more. Each child embarks on its own developmental path of language learning, resulting in large individual differences. “Some variation in language development can be related to variation in the genetic code stored in our cells,” says senior researcher Beate St Pourcain, lead scientist on the study.

Because identical twins develop from a single fertilized egg, they have the same genome, the entire set of genetic material found in an organism. So, any differences between them, even in traits with a significant genetic component – say one develops heart disease and the other doesn’t – are due to their environments. This is known as epigenetics.

Genes in DNA are ‘expressed’ when they’re read and transcribed into RNA, which is then translated into proteins. It’s proteins that determine many of a cell’s characteristics and functions. Epigenetic changes can boost or silence the transcription of specific genes, ramping up or inhibiting associated protein production, but they don’t change the genome. These changes, which are reversible, can affect a person for their entire life and mediate a lifelong dialogue between genes and the environment.

Professor Nadeem Sarwar is Corporate Vice President, Co-Founder and Head, Transformational Prevention Unit, Novo Nordisk (https://www.novonordisk.com/partnerin…), Co-Chair UK Dementia Mission (a UK Government Ministerial appointment) and Honorary Professor, University of Edinburgh Medical School.

Professor Sarwar joined Novo Nordisk in June 2023 as Corporate Vice President, Co-Founder and Head of Novo Nordisk’s new Transformational Prevention Unit (TPU) whose mission is to increase obesity-free life years, so people live healthier and longer lives. To achieve this, the TPU is establishing an integrated ecosystem that will deliver science-first, empowering, and scalable commercial solutions that predict and pre-empt obesity and its consequences through innovative partnerships, with solutions intending to push the boundaries of what is possible with drugs, genomics, microbiome, digital health, and behavioral science.

Continue reading “Prof Nadeem Sarwar — Corporate VP, Co-Founder & Head, Transformational Prevention Unit, Novo Nordisk” »

Researchers from Australia and a private biotechnology firm in the US have successfully demonstrated the use of high-frequency radio waves to temporarily open up bacterial cell walls to introduce new genetic material into them.

High frequency radio waves are a far efficient method to add DNA to bacterial cells than conventional approaches such as heat shock.

They designed persistent epigenetic silencing.

Changes to chemical tags on DNA in mice dial down the activity of a gene without cuts to the genome.

Researchers at the University of Alberta have uncovered what they say has been the missing puzzle piece ever since the genetic code was first cracked.

The code is the universal set of rules that allow living organisms to follow genetic instructions found in DNA and RNA to build proteins. In new research, published in BMC Biology, the U of A team describes a unifying code that guides the binding of those proteins with lipids to form membranes—the wrapper around all cells and cell components.

“Sixty years ago, scientists started to work on how genes encode proteins, but that’s not the end of the story,” says biochemistry professor Michael Overduin, executive director of the National High Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Center. “Along with DNA, RNA and proteins, living cells require membranes. Without the membrane, it’s like you’ve got a house with no walls.”

The results of research led by scientists at the University of Exeter, and at King’s College London, suggests that young people could be spared from going blind by a new genetic risk tool that could also help predict patients who will progress to multiple sclerosis (MS) earlier, and get treatment started earlier. The study has shown for the first time that combining genetic risk for MS with demographic factors significantly improves MS risk prediction in people presenting with the eye disorder, which is called optic neuritis (ON).

Tasanee Braithwaite, MD, consultant ophthalmologist to the Medical Eye Unit at Guy’s and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust, and adjunct senior lecturer at King’s College London said, “As a doctor caring for many patients with optic neuritis, I’m excited by the possibility of translating this pilot research into front line clinical care in the near future. Whilst more research is needed, our study provides a strong signal that we could better identify patients at high risk of MS, perhaps enabling these people to have earlier MS treatment in the future. Whereas, if we could better identify people whose optic neuritis is very unlikely to result from MS, we could treat these people urgently to reduce irreversible vision loss and blindness.”

Braithwaite is senior author of the team’s published paper in Nature Communications, titled “Applying a genetic risk score model to enhance prediction of future multiple sclerosis diagnosis at first presentation with optic neuritis,” in which they concluded, “This study indicates that a combined model might enhance individual MS risk stratification, paving the way for precision-based ON treatment and earlier MS disease-modifying therapy.”

Watch some of the biggest names in physics debate the mysteries of the quantum and its future, including Roger Penrose, Sabine Hossenfelder, Avshalom Elitzur, Michio Kaku, Suchitra Sebastian, Priya Natarajan, Joscha Bach, Erik Verlinde, Hilary Lawson and Bjørn Ekeberg.

From string theory to quantum gravity and quantum computers, the quantum discourse is all the buzz in physics and beyond. But what is possible and what mere fantasy? Can we bring together relativity and quantum mechanics? Will we ever find a unified theory to explain our universe?

Continue reading “The quantum world: Dreams and delusions | Roger Penrose, Sabine Hossenfelder, Michio Kaku, and more!” »

One of the immune system’s primary roles is to detect and kill cells that have acquired cancerous mutations. However, some early-stage cancer cells manage to evade this surveillance and develop into more advanced tumors.

A new study from MIT and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has identified one strategy that helps these precancerous cells avoid immune detection. The researchers found that early in colon cancer development, cells that turn on a gene called SOX17 can become essentially invisible to the immune system.

If scientists could find a way to block SOX17 function or the pathway that it activates, this may offer a new way to treat early-stage cancers before they grow into larger tumors, the researchers say.