Junk DNA in birds may hold key to safe, efficient gene therapy

The recent approval of a CRISPR-Cas9 therapy for sickle cell disease demonstrates that gene editing tools can do a superb job of knocking out genes to cure hereditary disease. But it's still not possible to insert whole genes ...

Study finds clues to aging in 'junk' DNA

For decades, greater than 60% of the human genome was believed to be "junk DNA" that served little or no purpose in the course of human development. Recent research by Colorado State University is challenging this notion ...

New genes found that can arise 'from nothing'

The complexity of living organisms is encoded within their genes, but where do these genes come from? Researchers at the University of Helsinki resolved outstanding questions around the origin of small regulatory genes, and ...

Researchers discover new class of objects encoded within the genome

Despite progress in decoding the genome, scientists estimate that fully 95 percent of our DNA represents dark, unknown territory. In the October 1 issue of the journal Cell researchers at The Wistar Institute shed new light ...

Origins of genomic 'dark matter' discovered

A duo of scientists at Penn State University has achieved a major milestone in understanding how genomic "dark matter" originates. This "dark matter"—called non-coding RNA—does not contain the blueprint for making proteins ...

A cause of possible genetic problems in mitochondria is revealed

A group of researchers from the Andalusian Centre for Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine (CABIMER) has revealed the importance of eliminating any excess of defective products that might have accumulated in the mitochondria, ...

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