A change in the sequence of DNA. Mutations occurring in genes may prevent them from working properly, which might result in disease (a genetic condition). Mutations occur naturally at a low rate, but can also be induced by radiation and some chemicals.
Older fathers produce children with a much higher risk of developing schizophrenia. Researchers point to 'strong evidence' that men, like women, have a 'biological clock' when it comes to having children, challenging commonly held beliefs that while older women risk having babies with birth defects, men can safely father children...
The UK Government has been told by the Wellcome Trust, the world's biggest biomedical charity, to pay for research facilities for British scientists or Britain will be relegated from the research 'Premier League'. The trust seems to be showing that it is tired of 'making up shortfalls' in state investment...
German scientists at the University of Wurzburg believe that they have found the gene responsible for an inherited form of schizophrenia. There have been many previous claims about genes linked to schizophrenia and other behavioural disorders, but this is believed to be the first genuine genetic basis to the disease...
The decision by the Genetics and Insurance Committee (GAIC) last week to approve the use of genetic test results for Huntington's disease in assessing life insurance applications re-ignited a public debate about the dark side of advances in genetic science. According to the Daily Mail, Britain now leads the world...
Scientists have identified an altered version of a gene that leads to infertility in female sheep when present in two copies. But in a single copy, the same genetic mutation appears to increase fertility, causing the birth of non-identical twins or triplets. The researchers, based at the University of Otego...
A single gene mutation on the male Y-chromosome may have given Homo sapiens the gift of the gab, according to Professor Tim Crow of Oxford University. A single genetic change may have triggered changes in the way the brain 'wires up', eventually producing human language, he told the Observer newspaper...
A ten year international collaboration led by three British cancer charities is homing in on a gene involved in testicular cancer, known as TGCT1. Testicular germ-cell cancer is the commonest cancer among young men in Western Europe and its incidence is on the increase worldwide. Men who inherit the mutant...
Scientists at the Royal Ottawa Hospital in Canada have made claims that they have identified a 'suicide gene', a gene that may predispose certain people to commit suicide. Those who carry the mutated gene are said to be more than twice as likely to kill themselves than those without the...
Genetically altered mice that can live a third longer than average have thrown light on the mechanisms of ageing. Italian scientists produced the mice by removing a gene that appears to control how the body repairs chemical damage. Research in organisms such as worms, yeast and flies has shown a...
The Wellcome Trust is to fund a £10m Cancer Genome Project to detect genes that are mutated in human cancers and release that information to a public database. The project will be based at the Sanger Centre near Cambridge which forms a part of the international Human Genome Project - a...
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