Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have, for the first time, taken chimpanzee and bonobo skin cells and turned them into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), a type of cell that has the ability to form any other cell or tissue in the body. Mouse iPSCs were created in 2006 by Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto…
A biological clock capable of determining how old different human tissues and cells are has been discovered by a team of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles. The findings, published in Genome Biology, show how the UCLA team created the internal clock using a naturally occurring process that alters DNA. The preliminary results may shed light on cancer…
In June 2007, James Watson, a co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, went to Houston to pick up his genome. At a ceremonial press conference at Baylor College of Medicine, scientists handed the 79-year-old Nobel Prize-winner a DVD on which they had recorded a highly accurate reading of all the DNA nestled in the nucleus of each of his cells.…
Researchers at the University of Aveiro in Portugal are developing DNA barcode tags that can be harmlessly applied to a wide variety of products, even foods or liquids. Each tag is a unique combination of DNA base pairs that attach to most surfaces, and can later be collected, amplified, and sequenced. The power of this technique lies in the uncountable…
Not long ago, researchers had thought it was rare for the cells in a single healthy person to differ genetically in a significant way. But scientists are finding that it’s quite common for an individual to have multiple genomes. Some people, for example, have groups of cells with mutations that are not found in the rest of the body. Some…
U.S. geneticists last week began examining the promise and risks of sequencing every newborn’s genome. DNA sequencing could improve the accuracy of state newborn screening programs that test babies’ blood for biochemical markers for several dozen rare disorders. And genome testing could potentially look for all 7000 or so diseases caused by defects in single genes. But newborn genome testing…