Dr Sarah Spain was previously a Volunteer Writer at BioNews, having originally joined the publication under the auspices of its writing scheme. She is a postdoctoral researcher in applied statistical genetics at King's College London's Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, where her research focuses on the determination of genetic risk factors for complex inflammatory diseases such as Crohn's disease, psoriasis and asthma. Previously she studied Molecular Biology at the University of Kent, then spent two years working in finance. She went on to obtain an MSc in Medical Molecular Biology at the University of Westminster, and a Cancer Research UK supported PhD at University College London, where she worked with Professor Ian Tomlinson on genetic susceptibility to bowel cancer. She is particularly interested in human genetic variation and the genetics of complex diseases.
A mutation in the largest human gene causes 25 percent of a type of inherited heart disease, according to scientists. The information could be incorporated into current genetic tests to provide early diagnosis and clinical intervention...
Researchers at Northwestern University, Chicago, USA, have reported that the injection of stem cells into heart tissue can significantly improve the symptoms of those with severe angina. They found that exercise tolerance was increased and the number of pain episodes was halved, compared to those not given the injections....
In the first direct measure of new mutation rates in humans, researchers have found that when parents pass their genes down to their children an average of 60 mutations are introduced into the genetic code during the process...
This week saw the culmination of an international effort to devise guidelines to strengthen and standardise the reporting of genetic risk prediction studies...
An international collaborative team, including Cancer Research UK scientists from the University of Dundee, has uncovered the genetic cause of a rare type of skin cancer. The condition called Ferguson-Smith disease, is also known as multiple self-healing squamous epithelioma (MSSE)...
A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has called into question a previously reported link between a gene variation and risk of depression. The study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and carried out by scientists from six US universities, was led by Dr Kathleen Merikangas from the NIMH Intramural Research program and Dr Neil Risch of the University of California, San Francisco....
A diet rich in steak and other red meat might hinder a man's chances of conceiving a child, say Spanish researchers. According to their study published in the journal 'Fertility and Sterility', a healthy antioxidant-rich diet might be the key to sperm quality and motility. Men who eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, in particular peppers, spinach and citrus fruits, have higher quality and faster swimming sperm....
A study by researchers at the University of British Columbia in Canada and published in the British Medical Journal has shown that individuals at risk of Huntington's disease (HD) are often discriminated against by insurance companies, and also by their own relatives and friends. They also found that this discrimination was based on family history of the disease rather than any genetic test results....
A team of scientists led by Professor Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California has combined stem cell technology and gene therapy to fix a genetic mutation in human cells grown in the laboratory. The researchers, who published their achievement in Nature, hope that this technique could one day be used to treat a number of inherited conditions in humans....
A team of researchers led by Dr Erika Sasaki at the Central Institute for Experimental Animals in Kawasaki, Japan has created monkeys that glow, by inserting a gene from jellyfish into their DNA. The research, published in the journal Nature, showed that the transgene was passed on...
Subscribe for free to what PET does best – informing you of the latest in fertility, genomics and embryo research.
