Michael Specter writes for the New Yorker and discusses the question: Can we patent life? Excerpt: The intellectual and commercial bounty from that research has already been enormous, and it increases nearly every day, as we learn ways in which specific genes are associated with diseases—or with mechanisms that can prevent them. It took thousands of scientists and technicians more…
Researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel and Tulane University in New Orleans published a paper in the journal, Bone, describing the genetic link between fat and bone mass. The researchers aimed to determine the underlying mechanism of this osteocalcin link – whether it was purely environmental or had a genetic basis. They conducted the study on a European population…
An international team of genetic researchers led by Prof Merlin Crossley from the University of New South Wales has found the third and final missing piece in the genetic puzzle of an unusual form of haemophilia, known as haemophilia B Leyden, more than two decades after the first two pieces were discovered. The discovery, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics,…
A sleep deficit – even just a week’s worth – can have damaging effects on our genes, researchers said in a new study. Lack of adequate shut-eye had already been linked to conditions from heart disease and cognitive impairment to obesity. But sleep researcher Derk-Jan Dijk and his fellow researchers have delved into the molecular mechanisms behind the phenomenon, looking…
A 20-year-old Chinese geneticist who has been dubbed the nation’s “Bill Gates” is three months away from releasing the results of a groundbreaking but controversial study to identify the genetics behind high IQ in humans. The Wall Street Journal reports on the fascinating career of Zhao Bowen, a child prodigy in charge of the cognitive genetics lab at BGI, a private company…
Margaret Hawkins Abbott, a retired Johns Hopkins Medical School genetics researcher who investigated families with inherited conditions for nearly five decades, died of dementia complications Feb. 1 at Keswick Multi-Care Center. She was 89 and lived in Ruxton. “She was a Johns Hopkins institution,” said Dr. Jason Brandt, Johns Hopkins Medical School director of medical psychology and professor of psychiatry.…