Mental health is of utmost importance in academia, especially given one’s cumulative experiences and history. Coming from a unique background, Human Biology and Society student, Joseph Nguyen, brings to light the importance of mental health as he highlights the effects of intergenerational trauma within the Southeast Asian American community. “I discovered in my freshman year that these aren’t the only…
Written by Mary Emily O’Hara for intomore.com [Excerpt]: “In plain English, the federal government is proposing reclassifying transgender people’s legal sex back to the sex assigned at birth. And if that sex at birth was listed wrong or left unclear, the government wants to put people through genetic testing to ensure a sort of “gender purity,” as it were. The…
If you or a family member received a consumer genetic testing kit as a holiday gift, you probably weren’t alone. Sales of at-home DNA testing kits reportedly soared in 2017, as people sought clues to their ancestry or future health. Some genetic-testing companies encouraged the purchase of kits as holiday gifts — even offering free gift wrapping. However, the results from…
Most of us learned in high school biology that genetics can sometimes be incredibly simple. Some physical traits are the result of an easy equation containing a pair of parents’ genes. One trait—blue eyes, for example—results from recessive genes, but only if no dominant gene—the one to thank for brown eyes—shows up to take a stand. Parents each pass on two…
In a new study, MIT researchers have developed nanoparticles that can deliver the CRISPR genome-editing system and specifically modify genes in mice. The team used nanoparticles to carry the CRISPR components, eliminating the need to use viruses for delivery. “What’s really exciting here is that we’ve shown you can make a nanoparticle that can be used to permanently and specifically edit…
Researchers in the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Biochemistry have discovered that a cellular pump known to move drugs like antibiotics out of E. coli bacteria has the potential to bring them in as well, opening new lines of research into combating the bacteria. The discovery could rewrite almost 50 years of thinking about how these types of transporters function in the…