A team spanning Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University, Texas Children’s Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has developed a new way to sequence genomes, which can assemble the genome of an organism, entirely from scratch, dramatically cheaper and faster. While there is much excitement about the so-called “$1000 genome” in medicine, when a doctor orders the…
Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) have gained new insight into the genetic and neuronal circuit mechanisms that may contribute to impaired sociability in some forms of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Led by Matthew P. Anderson, MD, PhD, Director of Neuropathology at BIDMC, the scientists determined how a gene linked to one common form of autism works in a…
Researchers at the University of Alberta have developed a new method of controlling biology at the cellular level using light. The tool—called a photocleavable protein—breaks into two pieces when exposed to light, allowing scientists to study and manipulate activity inside cells in new and different ways. “By shining light into the cell, we can cause the photocleavable protein to break,…
Ever wonder how much of your height you inherited from your parents? A large-scale genetic study published recently in the journal Nature is helping shed some light on the factors that determine whether a person grows to be 6-feet-1 or 5-feet-2. While scientists already had a good idea of the most common genetic factors that contribute to height, the new findings…
Using a novel form of gene therapy, scientists from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital have managed to restore partial hearing and balance in mice born with a genetic condition that affects both. The new model overcomes a long-standing barrier to accessing hair cells, the delicate sensors in the inner ear that capture sound and head movement and convert them…
CRISPR/Cas9, a powerful genome editing tool, is showing promise for efficient correction of disease-causing mutations. For the first time, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a dual gene therapy approach to deliver key components of a CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene targeting system to mice to treat hemophilia B. This disorder is also called factor…