Leprosy genome tells story of human migrations, French researchers report in Science
A French genetics study comparing strains of leprosy-causing bacteria has revealed some surprises about how the pathogen evolved and how it was spread across the continents by human migrations. The research, led by scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, appears in the 13 May issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society. The findings indicate that t...Can our genes tell the story of our divergence?
Since humans and chimpanzees forged separate evolutionary paths some 5 million to 6 million years ago, we shed our hirsute coat and heavy brow, mastered bipedal locomotion, and acquired a knack for abstract thought while our next of kin learned to use tools, and developed the skills to construct tree-bound nests high above the forest floor. We differ by just a tad over 1% at the DNA sequence leve...Divergent life history shapes gene expression in brains of salmon
Scientists working with salmon have found that gene expression in the brain can differ significantly among members of a species with different life histories. Their study indicates that roughly 15 percent of Atlantic salmon genes show differential expression in males who migrate from their freshwater birthplaces to mature in oceans versus those who do not leave the freshwater environment to matur...Restaurant seafood prices since 1850s help plot marine harvests through history
Seafood prices collected from U.S. restaurant menus dating to the 1850s will help plot the shifting harvest of marine species, according to a study to be announced at Oceans Past a Census of Marine Life conference in Denmark on the History of Marine Animal Populations. Led by paleo-oceanographer Glenn Jones at Texas A&M University at Galveston, researchers are charting over 150 years o...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 Interference and Gene Silencing: History and Overview
May 20, 2002 Post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS), which was initially considered a bizarre phenomenon limited to petunias and a few other plant species, is now one of the hottest topics in molecular biology (<A href="#1">1 ). In the last few years, it has become clear that PTGS occurs in both plants...Carl Christensen says Marshfield Clinic's history gives it an IT edge
In the last decade, technology applied to medical records and other information has become hot enough to raise a new term, "medical informatics," to more common usage. At the <a href="http:...When its parts pull together, Wisconsin can tell a compelling economic story
MILWAUKEE If you ask visitors from Spain, Lithuania or Hong Kong what they know about Wisconsin, chances are good the answers will have something to do with beer, brats, cheese or the Green Bay Packers. But how much would they know about our biotechnology? Not much, if anything. However, its vital to Wisconsins economic future that people far outside our borders learn more about the sta...The Genesis of Gendicine: The Story Behind the First Gene Therapy
In this BioPharmInternational exclusiveinterview,SiBionosfounder relates thescience andmanufacture of hiscompanys innovativecancer therapy....Breast cancer in younger women strongly linked to family history
A recent study by researchers at St Mary's Hospital, Manchester, UK, has shown that family history of the disease is an important factor in women under 30 with breast cancer. A survey of a group of 99 women under 30 who had been diagnosed with breast cancer showed that a third of them had a strong history of either breast or ovarian cancer or both. Among those with a family history of can...FDA asks the doctors to take the patients’ dietary history before prescribing medication
FDA had issued a guideline called Pharmacogenomic Data Submissions for practicing physicians to check the //patients from suffering adverse effects of cocktails of drugs and diet. Pharmacogenomics is the procedure adopted by physicians to find out the patient’s profile of response to drugs and decide on the unique treatment option best suited to the patient’s requirement. These are bas...Three Sisters Have One Baby and Make History
These days Medical Science seems to create strange type of histories all the time. Now for the first time three sisters// have come together to produce a baby boy after one of them was left infertile after she had chemotherapy for cervical cancer. Recently an environmental assistant from Woolwich in southeast London was declared infertile and her twin sister offered her ovum ( or egg) a...Family history of alcoholism influences reaction to advice
A john Hopkins study reveals that women with a strong family history of alcoholism are more likely to ignore advice on caffeine consumption during pregnancy.//The above factor plus a serious caffeine habit were the hurdles to compliance. "Results of this study suggest that genetic vulnerability reflected in a family history of alcoholism may also be at the root of the inability to st...Soliris Effective in PNH Patients With History of Aplastic Anemia and Myelodysplastic Syndromes
- Analysis of Phase III Data Presented at ASCO - CHICAGO, June 04, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Investigatorsreported today that Soliris(TM) (eculizumab), a new treatment forparoxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) developed by AlexionPharmaceuticals, Inc. , is effective in patients diagnosed with PNHwho have a history of aplastic anemia (AA) or myelodysplasticsyndromes (MDS). Soliris...