Daily Human Digest
Every day, the staff of the Genetic Literacy Project scours the Web for stories on a range of human genetics issues, including gene editing, regulations and bioethics, gene therapy, epigenetics, personal genomics, evolution, ancestry and artificial intelligence. We publish excerpts of those stories and encourage our readers to visit the original publications for the complete stories.
Rewiring DNA circuitry could help treat asthma
Reprogramming asthma-promoting immune cells in mice diminishes airway damage and inflammation, and could potentially lead to new treatments for people ...
North Texas man among first to try stem cells for heart failure
Rayes suffers from congestive heart failure, a condition caused by a heart so weak it can't effectively pump blood through ...
Sweat glands grown from newly identified stem cells
To date, few fundamentals have been known about the most common gland in the body, the sweat glands that are ...
More genes pegged to Osteoarthritis
A large genome-wide association study has identified eight new loci that confer susceptibility to osteoarthritis, researchers reported ...
Transgenic technique to ‘eliminate’ a specific neural circuit of the brain in primates
In the brains of humans and non-human primates, over 100 billion nerve cells build up complicated neural circuits and produce ...
The black is a better athlete?
Michael Johnson, the 4-time Olympic Gold Medal winning sprinter, is standing by his assertion that black athletes have a "speed ...
Scientists tie DNA repair to key cell signaling network
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers have found a surprising connection between a key DNA-repair process and a ...
Common diabetes drug promotes development of brain stem cells
Researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) have found that metformin, a drug commonly used to treat Type II ...
Genetic weakness to cancer found to be reversible
The cause and effect relationships between these mechanisms are easier to delineate than the cellular action of either carcinogens or ...
The genetic legacy of “Jewish Catholics”
At the time of the expulsion of 1492, Sephardi Jewry comprised the vast majority of world Jewry, totaling about 400,000 ...
Cancer, data and the fallacy of the $1000 genome
Here’s Mark’s key message: The time of the $1000 genome meme is over. It served us well for years – ...
Organ printing from stem cells
Tissue engineering is bringing together advances from stem cell biology, microfluidics, robotics, and 3-D cell culture to develop novel products ...
Update on gene therapy
Researchers at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) published proof-of-principle results showing a role for telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) ...
Genetic screening of embryos to be allowed
The Swiss government has agreed that embryos created via in vitro fertilisation (IVF) can, under strict conditions, be screened for ...
Stem cells may cure liver failure
A way to revive failed livers through stem cells could be available within the next few years as clinical tests ...
Regulation of telomerase in stem cells and cancer cells
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg have gained important insights for stem cell research ...
FDA critical of stem-cell firm
The Sugar Land company involved in Gov. Rick Perry's unlicensed adult stem-cell procedure is rife with basic manufacturing problems, according ...
Researcher hunts for sickle cell anemia cure with gene targeting, stem cells
Halfway around the world in India, Sivaprakash Ramalingam had heard of Johns Hopkins researchers using a promising new technique for ...
Genetic breakthrough could spell end to supermarket tomatoes that taste like mush
A new discovery from partners at UC Davis and Cornell University reveals that the same genes that account for the ...
Genetic variant is linked to obesity and insulin resistance
A large study in people at risk of diabetes has found a direct association between the presence of a small ...
Stem cells can beat back diabetes
University of British Columbia scientists, in collaboration with an industry partner, have successfully reversed diabetes in mice using stem cells, ...
Targeted gene therapy enhances treatment for Pompe disease
Gene therapy to replace the protein missing in Pompe disease can be effective if the patient's immune system does not ...
Human model of Huntington’s disease created from skin’s stem cells
An international consortium of Huntington’s disease experts, including several from the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center at ...
Can GMOs save us from climate change?
Malnutrition and starvation are problems that occur all over the world, primarily in developing countries. In coming years, as climate ...
First farmers: 7,000 year old caveman bones found
Spanish researchers have discovered the complete mitochondrial DNA of an individual that lived 7000 years ago. This discovery is the ...
New cancer stem cell mechanism identified
Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London have uncovered a link between two genes which shows how stem cells could ...
Fetal tests spur legal battle
Genetic tests that analyze fetal DNA from a pregnant woman's blood are arriving in a rush, but the commercialization of ...
