Tag Archive for 'dna'

Stem Cell Culturing Breakthrough

For the first time, human embryonic stem cells have been cultured under chemically controlled conditions without the use of animal substances, which is essential for future clinical uses. The method has been developed by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and is presented in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

DNA Could be Backbone of Next-Generation Logic Chips

In a single day, a solitary grad student at a lab bench can produce more simple logic circuits than the world’s entire output of silicon chips in a month. So says a Duke University engineer, who believes that the next generation of these logic circuits at the heart of computers will be produced inexpensively in [...]

Toward Making the Blind See: Gene Therapy Restores Vision in Mice

Scientists from Buffalo, Cleveland, and Oklahoma City made a huge step toward making the blind see, and they did it by using a form of gene therapy that does not involve the use of modified viruses. In a research report published in the April 2010 print issue of The FASEB Journal, scientists describe how they [...]

Studies on Nutrients, Gene Expression Could Lead to Tailored Diets for Disease Prevention

Personal health recommendations and diets tailored to better prevent diseases may be in our future, just by focusing on genetics.  Researchers at Kansas State University recently published an academic journal article discussing the potential for nutrigenomics, a field that studies the effects of food on gene expression. The researchers discussed the possibility of using [...]

Scientists Find Key to Gene That Promotes Cancer Metastasis

The molecular machinery that switches on a gene known to cause breast cancer to spread and invade other organs has been identified by an international team led by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. The paper was published in Nature Cell Biology’s advanced online publication.

DNA Nanotechnology: ‘Magic Bullets’ Breakthrough Offers Promising Applications in Medicine

A team of McGill Chemistry Department researchers led by Dr. Hanadi Sleiman has achieved a major breakthrough in the development of nanotubes — tiny “magic bullets” that could one day deliver drugs to specific diseased cells. Sleiman explains that the research involves taking DNA out of its biological context. So rather than being used as [...]

Judge Invalidates Human Gene Patent

A federal judge struck down patents on two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. The decision, if upheld, could throw into doubt the patents covering thousands of human genes and reshape the law of intellectual property.  United States District Court Judge Robert W. Sweet issued the 152-page decision, which invalidated seven patents related to [...]

Jaw Bone Grown from Adult Stem Cells

A Columbia scientist has become the first to grow a complex, full-size bone from human adult stem cells.  Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, a professor of biomedical engineering at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, reports that her team grew a temporomandibular joint (TMJ) from stem cells derived from bone marrow. Her work is reported [...]

What Makes You Unique? Not Genes So Much as Surrounding Sequences

The key to human individuality may lie not in our genes, but in the sequences that surround and control them, according to new research by scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Yale University. The interaction of those sequences with a class of key proteins, called transcription factors, can vary significantly between two [...]

X Prize May Offer Millions for Stem Cell Breakthrough

The creators of the X Prize are pondering a new competition for cutting-edge scientists working in the stem cell field.