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Archive for the ‘genetics’ category: Page 97

Aug 8, 2023

How a Common Fungus Can Alter the Lungs to Suit Itself

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

There are many microbes in our environment; many are harmless, some perform important functions, and some may pose a threat. Aspergillus fumigatus, for example, is a fungus that can be often be found in soil, as well as decaying organic matter; it has a crucial role in recycling carbon and nitrogen on our planet. A. fumigatus is also widely distributed in the air, so on average, people probably inhale a few hundred spores of A. fumigatus every day. This fungus is highly adaptive, and it can also evade weakened immune defenses in immunocompromised individuals to cause lung infections, called Aspergillosis. There are limited treatment options for this disease, and it’s difficult to treat effectively.

Scientists have now analyzed genetic data from about 250 strains of this fungus, and data from 40 Aspergillosis patients that characterized the lung microbiomes of these individuals. This showed that when people are infected with A. fumigatus, the composition of their lung microbiome begins to change dramatically. The findings have been reported in Nature Communications.

Aug 8, 2023

Genome editing in the spotlight: genetic disorder carriers’ views shape the conversation

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Study explores perspectives on the applications of somatic genome editing.

Aug 8, 2023

Stability analysis of a model gene network links aging, stress resistance and negligible senescence

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, life extension

The naked mole rat lives much longer than iI’s than other members of its species. Can it’s ability to repair DNA and fold proteins be employed in Humans to extend our lifespan?


Several animal species are considered to exhibit what is called negligible senescence, i.e. they do not show signs of functional decline or any increase of mortality with age. Recent studies in naked mole rat and long-lived sea urchins showed that these species do not alter their gene-expression profiles with age as much as other organisms do. This is consistent with exceptional endurance of naked mole rat tissues to various genotoxic stresses. We conjectured, therefore, that the lifelong transcriptional stability of an organism may be a key determinant of longevity. We analyzed the stability of a simple genetic-network model and found that under most common circumstances, such a gene network is inherently unstable. Over a time it undergoes an exponential accumulation of gene-regulation deviations leading to death.

Aug 8, 2023

How muscle cells deteriorate with age, hampering recovery from injury

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics, life extension

A team at Nottingham Trent University analyzed the full set of more than 11,000 gene transcripts inside muscle cells, finding that the ‘development pathways’—the different ways in which genes work together to regenerate muscle—become weakened in aged cells.

The study may help to shed some light on why take longer to recover from as we age. The study is published in the Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine.

The researchers developed a new approach to examine in vitro in the laboratory to enable them to observe the different molecular mechanisms that drive aging.

Aug 7, 2023

CAR T Cells Could Change the Face of Autoimmune Therapy

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Cellular therapies like chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells could represent a promising new avenue by which to treat autoimmune diseases, according to a recent review article. The authors cautioned, however, that most of the research testing CAR-based therapies has been in very early-stage trials.

CAR T cells are human cells that have been genetically modified to express a synthetic receptor, The cells have been used successfully as a therapy in several types of cancer, such as large B-cell lymphoma and multiple myeloma.


Manipulating T cells to target cancer cells has worked to treat some cancers. Researchers are investigating whether the same approach might be used to curb the dysregulated immune response that underlies autoimmune disease.

Continue reading “CAR T Cells Could Change the Face of Autoimmune Therapy” »

Aug 7, 2023

New Vaccine Technology Controls Malaria

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Malaria is a possibly fatal disease caused by a parasite transferred by mosquitos to humans. Common symptoms include fever, chills, and flu-like traits. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), around 2,000 cases of malaria are diagnosed in the United States per year. The diagnosis is common in individuals coming back from Africa or Asia. On a global scale, about 700,000 people die from malaria, and most are children. However, death from malaria can usually be prevented with early detection and proper medical care. Researchers are trying to proactively target malaria by developing a new vaccine using genetic material.

Researchers from the Victoria University of Wellington’s Ferrier Research Institute, the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, and the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity have all worked together to develop a vaccine that can effectively stimulate cells in the immune system against malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium. The vaccine, described in Nature Immunology, is designed to generate resident memory cells in the liver to combat Plasmodium. Resident memory cells are a type of immune cell that reside in tissues throughout the body to target invading pathogens that enter those tissues.

The vaccine is made with messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), as opposed to peptides or proteins. The difference between the two is the type of material delivered by the vaccine. Peptide-based vaccines use peptides from the virus to elicit an immune response. Alternatively, mRNA vaccines use mRNA extracted from the virus. In this study, the researchers originally used a peptide-based vaccine but recently found mRNA improves the activation of resident immune cells to kill malaria-based pathogens. The treatment result was significant between the two types of vaccines because the peptide-based vaccine had small fragments of protein and could not stimulate the immune system effectively, while the mRNA could encode for an entire malaria protein.

Aug 6, 2023

First CRISPR’d cockroaches open door to other gene-edited insects

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

It’s now easier for scientists to create gene-edited insects thanks to a new technique called “direct parental CRISPR.”

Aug 6, 2023

Tryptophan + Niacin: No Additive Effect On NAD, Relative To Niacin Alone

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

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Continue reading “Tryptophan + Niacin: No Additive Effect On NAD, Relative To Niacin Alone” »

Aug 5, 2023

Science Saturday: Mayo Clinic scientists cracking the genetic code of disease-causing bacterial species to improve patient outcomes

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, health, science

Mayo Clinic scientists are building an expansive library of DNA blueprints of disease-causing bacterial species. The unique collection of genomic sequences is serving as a reference database to help doctors provide rapid and precise diagnoses and pinpoint targeted treatments to potentially improve patient outcomes.

The vast data set is also being studied by researchers in an effort to develop new individualized treatments to combat bacteria-related diseases.

Bacterial infections were linked to more than 7 million global deaths in 2019. Of those, nearly 1.3 million were the direct result of drug-resistant bacteria, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Aug 5, 2023

Dopamine Neurons More Diverse than Previously Thought

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, neuroscience

Dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter that can provide an intense feeling of reward. It has been a long-standing assumption that most, if not all, dopamine neurons solely respond to rewards or reward-predicting cues. However, a study in mice led by researchers at Northwestern University reveals dopamine may also control movements. The researchers uncovered that one genetic subtype fires when the body moves and that these neurons do not respond to rewards at all.

The findings are published in Nature Neuroscience in an article titled, “Unique functional responses differentially map onto genetic subtypes of dopamine neurons,” and shed new light on the brain which may lead to new research on Parkinson’s disease, which is characterized by the loss of dopamine neurons yet affects the motor system.

“Dopamine neurons are characterized by their response to unexpected rewards, but they also fire during movement and aversive stimuli,” the researchers wrote. “Dopamine neuron diversity has been observed based on molecular expression profiles; however, whether different functions map onto such genetic subtypes remains unclear. In this study, we established that three genetic dopamine subtypes within the substantia nigra pars compacta, characterized by the expression of Slc17a6 (Vglut2), Calb1, and Anxa1, each have a unique set of responses to rewards, aversive stimuli, and accelerations and decelerations, and these signaling patterns are highly correlated between somas and axons within subtypes.”

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