With a relatively minor genetic change, a new treatment developed by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University appears to stop replication of both flu viruses and the virus that causes Covid-19. Best of all, the treatment…
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Efficient, systematic genetic analysis helps dissect disease inheritance
Many genetic variants have been found to have a linkage with genetic diseases, but the understanding of their functional roles in causing diseases are still limited. An international research team, including a biomedical scientist from City University of Hong Kong…
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Could rotavirus vaccine platforms aid in the immunization campaign against SARS-CoV-2?
Rotavirus is a common diarrheal disease that affects young children. Live oral rotavirus vaccines have been used to reduce its incidence in many countries. However, with the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and amid focus on vaccines…
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Climate change may have contributed to the COVID-19 pandemic
Thought LeadersDr. Robert BeyerMarie Curie Research FellowPostdam Institute for Climate Impact Research In this interview, News-Medical speaks to Dr. Robert Beyer about his latest research that discovered that climate change may have contributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. What provoked your…
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Genetic study of Lewy body dementia supports ties to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases
In a study led by National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers, scientists found that five genes may play a critical role in determining whether a person will suffer from Lewy body dementia, a devastating disorder that riddles the brain with…
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Scientists study how a single gene alteration may have separated modern humans from extinct hominins
As a professor of pediatrics and cellular and molecular medicine at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, Alysson R. Muotri, PhD, has long studied how the brain develops and what goes wrong in neurological disorders. For almost as…
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Compound isolated from human sperm could treat genetic disorder
A newly discovered genetic condition caused by faulty protein synthesis which causes delayed development and learning difficulties could be treated by a compound originally isolated from human sperm, say scientists. The University of Manchester researchers, with collaborators from the UK,…
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Regulation of Gene Expression
Gene expression can be regulated by various cellular processes with the aim to control the amount and nature of the expressed genes. Expression of genes can be controlled with the help of regulatory proteins at numerous levels. These regulatory proteins…
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What are Viral Retroposons?
By Gillian D’Souza, MSc Retroposons are repetitive DNA fragments that are inserted into a host chromosome after reverse transcription from an RNA molecule. Credit: Katryna Kon/Shutterstock.com Retroposons that share structural similarities with retroviruses, such as the HIV virus, are called…
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Virulent Bacteriophages and the Lytic Cycle
Bacteriophages are a special type of virus that infect bacteria and have amazing structural and functional diversity. When a bacteriophage infects a bacterium, it can hijack the molecular machinery of the cell to make lots of progeny, and then burst,…
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