Rite

Gene Therapy Cures Inherited Liver Disease In Rats

A single dose of gene-virus combination cured rats of a inherited liver disease in which lack of a gene causes the accumulation of bilirubin –which, untreated, results in jaundice and brain damage, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a report in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences. "This is the first time this disease (Crigler-Najjar syndrome) has been complete...

Genetic therapy reverses nervous system damage in animal model of inherited human disease

By injecting a therapeutic gene directly into the brain, researchers have treated a naturally occurring genetic disease in cats. This is the first genetic disease affecting the central nervous system to be successfully treated in an animal larger than mice and rats. If this approach can be successfully applied to humans, say the researchers, it might one day treat an entire class of diseases call...

Tendency to hair loss inherited from the mother

It begins with receding hairlines, the forehead becomes higher, the hair at the back of the man's head gets thinner and thinner. Every second man suffers from greater or lesser hair loss. There are hardly any successful counter-measures ?despite an enormous range of obscure lotions and tinctures. It has long been suspected that hereditary factors are important in causing hair loss. However...

Gene therapy cures inherited liver disease in rats

A single dose of gene-virus combination cured rats of a inherited liver disease in which lack of a gene causes the accumulation of bilirubin –which, untreated, results in jaundice and brain damage, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a report in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences. "This is the first time this disease (Crigler-Najjar syndrome) has been complet...

Defective Gene Linked to Two Inherited Immune Deficiencies

Defects in a single gene can result in two immune system disorders that leave affected individuals vulnerable to frequent or unusually severe infections, according to new findings reported in the August issue of Nature Genetics. The discovery may lead to new diagnostic tests for these two inherited conditions ?immunoglobulin A (IgA) deficiency and common variable immunodeficiency (CVID). Currentl...

Finding rewrites the evolutionary history of the origin of potatoes

Humans have cultivated potatoes for millennia, but there has been great controversy about the ubiquitous vegetable's origins. This week, writing in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, a team led by a USDA potato taxonomist stationed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has for the first time demonstrated a single origin in southern Peru for the cultivated potato. The s...

RNA splicing occurs in nerve-cell dendrites

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered that nerve-cell dendrites have the capacity to splice messenger RNA (pre-mRNA), a process once believed to only take place in the nucleus of cells. By uncovering this capability in dendrites, the investigators hope to relate this capacity to memory and learning, as well as cognitive dysfunction. Senior author...

New Therapeutic Target Identified In Inherited Brain Tumor Disorder

With preliminary results from a study in Botswana, Harvard School of Public Health researchers have found that people with HIV-1 subtype C in resource-poor settings, who receive antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, can achieve comparable results to those in the developed world. A fully supported health care delivery system and infrastructure help ensure this success, according to data published in Novem...

Cell therapy slows progression of an inherited neurological disease; Improves motor skills in mice

In an important discovery, scientists have demonstrated that the progression of a type of genetic brain disease is slowed and symptoms are improved in mice that received cell transplants. , may have implications for developing new therapies for metachromatic leukodystrophy, or MLD, a fatal, relatively rare...

Relic of life in that Martian meteorite? A fresh look

Since the mid-1990s a great debate has raged over whether organic compounds and tiny globules of carbonate minerals imbedded in the Martian meteorite Allan Hills 84001 were processed by living creatures from the Red Planet. The materials have been under intense scrutiny ever since. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory, with colleagues,1 have taken a fresh look a...

West Australian fossil find rewrites land mammal evolution

A fossil fish discovered in the West Australian Kimberley has been identified as the missing clue in vertebrate evolution, rewriting a century-old theory on how the first land animals evolved. Monash University PhD students Mr Erich Fitzgerald and Mr Tim Holland were part of the research team, led by Museum Victoria's Head of Science Dr John Long, that made the spectacular discovery by stu...

Tiny bones rewrite textbooks

Small but remarkable fossils found in New Zealand will prompt a major rewrite of prehistory textbooks, showing for the first time that the so-called "land of birds" was once home to mammals as well. The tiny fossilised bones - part of a jaw and a leg - belonged to a unique, mouse-sized land animal unlike any other mammal known. They were unearthed from the rich St Bathans fossil bed, in th...

Origin of inherited pain disorder pinpointed

The genetic basis for a rare inherited disorder that causes severe burning pain with no warning has been pinpointed by researchers. They found that paroxysmal extreme pain disorder (PEPD) is caused by specific mutations in porelike sodium channels in peripheral nerve cells—a discovery that they said emphasizes the role of such channel disorders in inflammatory pain. Such findings of abnormal func...

Early-stage immune system control of HIV may depend on inherited factors

How well an individual's immune system controls HIV during the earliest phases of infection appears to depend on both the specific versions of key immune-system molecules called HLA Class I that have been inherited, as well as on the fragments of viral protein those molecules display to the T lymphocytes that usually destroy infected cells. In a report in the November issue of PLOS Medicine, res...

Researchers discover inherited mutation for leukemia

The study shows that the inherited mutation greatly reduces the gene's protective activity. Furthermore, a second kind of change occurs later that turns the gene off altogether, leading to leukemia. This latter...