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.
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...
Doctors at University College hospital in London are to treat three families with a history of inherited cancer by carrying out genetic tests on embryos during standard in vitro fertilisation. Joy Delhanty, the professor of human genetics who is leading the research, is working on the simplest of inherited cancers...
New treatments for infertile men mean there is a greater risk of the cystic fibrosis mutation being passed on to resulting children, according to Dr Keith A Jarvi of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto at an American Medical Association briefing last week. Jarvi and colleagues, whose findings are published in...
The past month in Japan has seen a significant growth in the number of projects involved in genomic and other DNA research. This renewed effort comes in the wake of the government's attempts to commercialise biotechnology research and expand Japan's biotechnology market 25-fold over the next ten years. Commentators...
Cloned animals could suffer from serious genetic defects, according to a paper published in the Lancet. The authors report that a calf cloned from an adult cell may have died because of errors in its genetic reprogramming. Although there have been many reports of clones dying during or shortly after...
DNA chip technology is a growing industry that could revolutionise disease diagnosis. Current laboratory techniques for detecting genetic mutations responsible for disease are both time-consuming and expensive, whereas, a DNA chip - once developed - should only take minutes or, at most, hours to detect the gene mutations at the root of...
New research published in the journal Nature has increased scientists' understanding of how mutations in the presenilin gene increases the risk of developing inherited, early-onset Alzheimer's disease. About 40% of people with this inherited form of Alzheimer's have a mutation in the presenilin genes which predisposes them to the accumulation...
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