The Human Dynasty

People with schizophrenia bear an “increased burden” of rare deletions and duplications of genetic material, genome-wide, say researchers. Although many of us have these changes in our genetic material, they are about 15 percent more frequent in people with schizophrenia. The researchers also discovered two large areas of chromosomal deletions that confer a great deal of risk for the disorder and confirmed involvement of a third previously reported area.

Researchers have found that mature, specialized cells naturally regress to serve as a kind of de facto stem cell during the fruit-fly life cycle.

Harvard and Columbia scientists have for the first time used a new technique to transform an ALS patient’s skin cells into motor neurons, a process that may be used in the future to create tailor-made cells to treat the debilitating disease.

(New York Stem Cell Foundation) The New York Stem Cell Foundation funded breakthrough ALS stem cell research conducted by Dr. Kevin Eggan of HSCI and his team, published today in the online edition of Science.

(PROJECT A.L.S.) A team of researchers in a collaboration catalyzed by the Project A.L.S. has demonstrated that pluripotent stem cells generated from a patient with ALS

(Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Limited) Researchers at New Zealand-based fruit science company HortResearch and listed New Zealand biotech company Genesis Research and Development Corporation Limited have released the world’s most extensive collection of kiwi fruit DNA sequences. The release comprises over 130,000 kiwi fruit gene sequences from active genes in the plant; genes that govern such characteristics as flavor, color, shape, vitamin content and aspects of fruit development such as ripening and storage life.

(Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) Researchers have used a drug to achieve normal levels of blood sugar in animals genetically engineered to have abnormally high insulin levels. If this approach succeeds in humans, it could become an innovative medicine for children with congenital hyperinsulinism, a rare but potentially devastating genetic disease in which insulin levels become dangerously high. There is currently no effective medical treatment for children with the most common type of congenital hyperinsulinism.

(Syracuse University) While humans obtain iron primarily through the food they eat, bacteria have evolved complex and diverse mechanisms to allow them access to iron. A Syracuse University research team led by Robert Doyle, discovered that some bacteria are equipped with a gene that enables them to harvest iron from their environment or human host in a unique and energy efficient manner. Doyle’s discovery could provide researchers with new ways to target such diseases as tuberculosis.

(University of Michigan Health System) Researchers have pinpointed a gene mutation that accounts for a previously unidentified form of hearing loss. University of Michigan and other scientists found the same mutation in two unrelated families, indicating the mutation may be ancient and not particularly rare. Future research may find that it affects others who have an unexplained family history of hearing loss. Genes are likely involved in as many as 50 percent of people with hearing loss.

Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have discovered that microRNAs — molecular workhorses that regulate gene expression — are released by cancer cells and circulate in the blood, which gives them the potential to become a new class of biomarkers to detect cancer at its earliest stages.