This week scientists from the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle announced a multi-million dollar project to create a map of the human brain revealing the pattern of activity in some 20,000 genes. The four-year project, which builds on the earlier mouse brain map announced in...
RNA interference (RNAi), a genetic therapy with huge therapeutic potential across medicine, is back on track after a paper published in Nature this week. Research into the technique - which has garnered a Nobel prize and swathes of excitable column inches - suffered a setback last year when a...
Research published online in Nature last week has revealed new information about the structural and cellular complexity of the brain. It is hoped the research can be used to facilitate brain research all over the world. The Allen Brain Atlas is a web-based three dimensional map...
New research from 13 different research centres in Britain and the US has revealed an unsuspected amount of variation between each individual's DNA. The research, published simultaneously in the journals Nature, Nature Genetics and Genome Research gives a much more comprehensive picture of human genetic variation...
Two US scientists have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for discovering a fundamental mechanism which regulates the expression of genes, called RNA interference (RNAi). Andrew Fire of the Stanford School of Medicine and Craig Mello of the University of Massachusetts Medical School won a shared...
The first clinical trial based on a promising new technology called RNA interference (RNAi) has shown that it could soon be used to treat an eye disorder. The trial was designed to test the safety of the technique for treating a disease called wet age-related macular...
German researchers have used a novel gene therapy approach to reduce blood cholesterol levels in mice. The research, published in the journal Nature, uses RNA - a close chemical relative of DNA. The scientists, based at biotech firm Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in Kulbach, describe their study as 'a historic step forward' in...
The first patient in a gene therapy trial for Alzheimer's disease, 63-year-old Ron Shellady, was treated recently at Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago, US. The two-year study will assess the safety of the technique, on 6-12 participants with a mild to moderate form of the disease. The...
Embryo freezing is generally seen as a routine part of IVF and ICSI treatment. It offers many benefits, not least the fact that embryos left over from a fresh cycle can be stored for future use. This has implications for the patient's health and wellbeing - it avoids unnecessary gonadotrophin stimulation...
Two new studies published last week shed some light on the purpose of so-called 'junk' DNA - vast stretches of mammalian genomes that do not contain any genes, or serve any other obvious purpose. US researchers have showed that wiping out two huge chunks of the mouse genome appears to make...
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