LRRK2 gene key to Parkinson's Disease, say experts
Researchers have uncovered a genetic mutation linked to the neurodegenerative condition, Parkinson's disease, which affects one in five hundred people in the UK, mainly over the age of 60....
Dr Lux Fatimathas was previously a Volunteer Writer at BioNews and the Editor of BioMed Central's online magazine Biome. She was previously Genetics Editor at BioNews and at the charity that publishes it, the Progress Educational Trust (PET). She has also worked as the Communications Editor at BioMed Central and as a Science Engagement Project Manager at the Public Engagement, Media and Grants Facility (now the Grants Engagement and Communications Facility) of the Medical Research Council's Clinical Sciences Centre. She has written for the Faculty of 1000, the New Science Journalism Project, the British Society for Cell Biology's Newsletter, and the journals General Physiology and Biophysics and Histology and Histopathology. Previously, she worked at the National University of Singapore's Mechanobiology Institute, where she was Managing Editor of the educational resource MBInfo. She also worked as a Research Fellow at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, a research institute of the Government of Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research, where her research involved using the zebrafish as a model for investigating skin development. She originally studied Neuroscience at University College London, and went on to obtain her PhD in Molecular Cell Biology at the Institute of Ophthalmology under the auspices of the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology's Graduate Programme. She is coauthor of a chapter in Nanomedicine and Cancer (buy this book from Amazon UK).
Researchers have uncovered a genetic mutation linked to the neurodegenerative condition, Parkinson's disease, which affects one in five hundred people in the UK, mainly over the age of 60....
US and Japanese researchers have converted white blood cells (WBC) into stem cells...
Testicular tissue from pre-pubescent boys has been successfully converted to sperm precursor cells. Belgian researchers isolated and froze immature testicular tissue from two pre-pubescent boys. The preserved tissue was thawed out and used to generate spermatogonial cells - an intermediate step towards producing sperm. These findings could potentially help pre-pubescent boys left infertile as a result of cancer treatment...
A human RNA-based gene therapy trial to combat HIV has passed the first safety test. US researchers modified human blood stem cells to make them resistant to the virus....
Researchers shouldn't feel obliged to disclose genetic information about study participants, a global survey of genetic researchers has found....
Cancer patients in the UK are to be treated with drugs specific to the genetic make-up of their individual tumours. A new initiative, to be launched by the NHS this autumn, will test the tumours of up to 6000 cancer patients a year for known genetic mutations....
The DNA of up to four million newborn babies is being stored in UK hospitals without proper parental consent....
For the first time artificial life has been created in a laboratory, in the form of a bacterium. US researchers have chemically synthesised the DNA of the simple bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides...
Two genes that help adapt the human body to high-altitude living have been identified by a study published in Science this month. The study may help scientists understand heart and lung disease where patients have decreased oxygen levels...
by Dr Lux Fatimathas and 1 others
Reprogrammed stem cells could reduce or even eliminate the need for animal testing, according to the scientist who first created them...
BioNews, published by the Progress Educational Trust (PET), provides news and comment on genetics, assisted conception, embryo/stem cell research and related areas.