Google Inc. and Autism Speaks, a major autism research foundation, plan to announce on Tuesday a deal in which the Internet giant will house the sequencing of 10,000 complete genomes and other clinical data of children with autism and their siblings and parents. The hope of those involved is to accelerate research on the developmental disorder. Studying genes has been…
A little over a year ago, Bordenstein, a biologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and his then-graduate student, Robert Brucker, mated two incompatible species of wasp in the lab, creating a hardy hybrid that lived when most others died. Normally, when members of two related species of parasitic wasps in the genus Nasonia, N. giraulti and N. longicornis, mate…
Patrick Allard, Assistant Professor in the Institute for Society and Genetics and the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, was awarded a prestigious Hellman Fellowship for the 2014-15 academic year. The Hellman Fellows program was established through the kind generosity of the Hellman Fellows Fund to help promising assistant professors with their research and creative endeavors.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have mapped the transmission network of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in San Diego. The mapping of HIV infections, which used genetic sequencing, allowed researchers to predictively model the likelihood of new HIV transmissions and identify persons at greatest risk for transmitting the virus. The findings are published online in…
Courts may soon face the challenge of determining whether genetics can be linked to criminal behavior. The “my genes made me do it” defense is not solely reserved for Law and Order SVU. At least, not for long. As science continues to tell us more and more about genetics, geneticists and medical ethicists believe it’s only a matter of time…
The young lemur named Eugenius started to get sick. Very sick. He was lethargic, losing weight and suffering from diarrhea. Duke Lemur Center veterinarians soon pinpointed the cause of his illness: Eugenius tested positive for Cryptosporidium, a microscopic intestinal parasite known to affect people, pets, livestock and wildlife worldwide. In humans, thousands of cases of Cryptosporidium are reported in the…