Scientists improve DNA transfer in gene therapy

Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, cystic fibrosis and many other fatal human diseases are hereditary. Many cancers and cardiovascular diseases are also caused by genetic defects. Gene therapy is a promising possibility ...

Using networks to understand tissue-specific gene regulation

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital have discerned that different tissue functions arise from a core biological machinery that is largely shared across tissues, rather than from their own individual regulators. In ...

Matchmaking with consequences

Most human tumours have one thing in common: They harbour drastically increased amounts of the so-called Myc proteins. Animal experiments show that such high Myc concentrations contribute to causing cancer. But Myc proteins ...

Plant cells survive but stop dividing upon DNA damage

The cell cycle is the system through which a cell grows and divides. It is also how a cell passes its DNA to its progeny and is why the cell cycle ceases if the DNA is damaged, as otherwise it risks passing this damage to ...

Scientists use CRISPR technology to change flower colour

In a world-first, Japanese scientists have used the revolutionary CRISPR, or CRISPR/Cas9, genome- editing tool to change flower colour in an ornamental plant. Researchers from the University of Tsukuba, the National Agriculture ...

How the genome sets its functional micro-architecture

The genes that are involved in the development of the fetus are activated in different tissues and at different times. Their expression is carefully regulated by so-called "enhancer sequences", which are often located far ...

'Decoding' gene regulation

Researchers at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna as well as at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna have discovered an entirely ...

Genetic molecular mechanisms of neural development identified

Neural development is an extremely complex and highly orchestrated process, involving genetic cascades during which dozens of genes are activated at specific times and places. Polycomb-group (PcG) proteins play an important ...

Gene transfer optimization

Controlled gene transfer into different target cells by means of specific surface markers is significantly more efficient than gene transfer without this assistance. Gene therapies using lentiviral transfer of genetic information ...

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