Conducting the first large-scale, genome-wide analyses of ancient human remains from the Near East, an international team led by Harvard Medical School has illuminated the genetic identities and population dynamics of the world’s first farmers. The study reveals three genetically distinct farming populations living in the Near East at the dawn of agriculture 12,000 to 8,000 years ago: two newly…
A comprehensive investigation of the underlying genetic architecture of type 2 diabetes has unveiled the most detailed look at the genetic differences that heighten a person’s risk for disease development. The findings, published today in the journal Nature by an international team of more than 300 scientists led by the University of Oxford, the Broad Institute, and the University of…
A federal biosafety and ethics panel on Tuesday unanimously approved the first study in patients of the genome-editing technology CRISPR/Cas9, in an experiment that would use CRISPR to create genetically-altered immune cells to attack three kinds of cancer. The experiment, proposed by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania, still needs the approval of the medical centers where it would be…
People with cancer are often told by their doctors approximately how long they have to live, and how well they will respond to treatments, but what if there were a way to improve the accuracy of doctors’ predictions? A new method developed by UCLA scientists could eventually lead to a way to do just that, using data about patients’ genetic…
New research from an international team of evolutionary biologists, led by the University of Oxford, has used bacteria to show that acquiring duplicate copies of genes can provide a ‘template’ allowing organisms to develop new attributes from redundant copies of existing genes. The researchers allowed 380 populations of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria to evolve novel metabolic traits such as the ability…
Loyola University Chicago researchers are among the co-authors of a groundbreaking study that found humans have a higher metabolism rate than closely related primates, which enabled humans to evolve larger brains. The study, published in the journal Nature, found that humans also have a higher percentage of body fat, providing the energy reserves to fuel their faster metabolism. The findings…