Hospital’s pioneering gene therapy aims to free patients of blood disease. Is a cure at hand?

by Lisa M. Krieger, The Mercury News Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Born with a deadly blood disease, Clint and Alissa Finlayson’s adopted daughters—Ada, nine, and Lily, 12—are the first patients…

Innocent Faces of Fentanyl: Opioid Use Linked to Distinct Birth Anomalies

Summary: Researchers have identified a potential new syndrome in babies born to mothers who used fentanyl during pregnancy. The infants displayed distinctive facial features, small heads, short stature, and various…

DOT1L gene variants associated with a new neurological disorder

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain A study from the laboratory of Dr. Hugo J. Bellen, a distinguished service professor at Baylor College of Medicine and a principal investigator at the Jan…

Most accurate test to date developed to measure biological aging

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A team of European researchers has developed a new test that can accurately measure biological aging in a clinical setting. The discovery was made while studying…

Is Inflammation in Childhood A Mechanistic Link to Neurodevelopmental Disorders?

Summary: Scientists unveiled a potentially transformative link between early childhood inflammation and the subsequent development of neurodevelopmental disorders, through a pioneering study that utilizes single-cell genomics. By examining brain tissues…

Protein Deficiency Reveals Evidence Fragile X Develops Before Birth

Summary: Researchers shifted the paradigm around Fragile X syndrome (FXS), the leading form of inherited intellectual disability, by uncovering its developmental origins pre-birth through the role of FMRP, a protein.…

Researchers study nearly 1,000 fertility attempts hoping to improve IVF

Credit: Christian Ottolini By genetically testing nearly 1,000 embryos, scientists have provided the most detailed analysis of embryo fate following human in vitro fertilization. Nearly half the embryos studied underwent…

Study finds protein p53 regulates learning, memory and sociability in mice

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology led by Professor Nien-Pei Tsai (right) and Kwan Young Lee have established the protein p53 as…

Researchers uncover ‘circular logic’ of RNAs in Parkinson’s disease

Scherzer and colleagues laser-captured neurons from 190 frozen postmortem human brain samples, including some non-neuronal cells for comparison. Then, they used ultra-deep, total RNA sequencing to study the exact sequences…

Syphilis transmission networks and antimicrobial resistance in England uncovered using genomics

Photomicrograph of skin biopsy showing secondary syphilis. Spirochete organisms are stained bright red by the Treponema pallidum immunohistochemical stain. 400x magnification. Credit: Jerad M. Gardner, MD, CC BY-SA 4.0 ,…