Genetics News and Research

RSS

Genetics is the study of genes and heredity. Heredity is the passing of genetic information and traits (such as eye color and an increased chance of getting a certain disease) from parents to offspring.

Multi-institutional project aims to deepen the understanding of a versatile bioenergy crop

Principal Investigator, Andrea Eveland, Ph.D., associate member at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, will lead a multi-institutional project to deepen the understanding of sorghum, a versatile bioenergy crop, and its response to drought.

6 Oct 2022

Genomics-informed pre-breeding strategy for wheat improvement

IPK Leibniz Institute was able to test its vast collection of old wheat varieties for their yield performance and resistance to yellow rust not only in the lab but also in field trials.

5 Oct 2022

Genome of the earliest common ancestor of all mammals identified

From a platypus to a blue whale, all living mammals today are derived from a single ancestor that existed around 180 million years ago. Although nothing much is known about this species, an international team of experts has now computationally rebuilt how its DNA is organized.

From The University of California, Davis 28 Sep 2022

Discovery of genes lending tolerance to sugarcane from pests, cold, and drought

Saccharum spontaneum, a species of wild sugarcane with exceptional resistance to biotic stresses like nematodes, fungi, bacteria, and other pests and diseases, as well as abiotic stresses like cold, drought, salinity, and nutritionally deficient soil, was the subject of a study at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil.

28 Sep 2022

Cryo-EM solves the decades-old mystery of bacterial movement

Scientists from the University of Virginia School of Medicine and their colleagues have discovered a decades-old mystery regarding how E. coli and other bacteria move.

28 Sep 2022

World's terrestrial plant, animal life could already be at greater risk from genetic diversity loss

Climate change and habitat destruction may have already caused the loss of more than one-tenth of the world's terrestrial genetic diversity, according to new research led by Carnegie's Moises Exposito-Alonso and published in Science.

23 Sep 2022

Chromosome restructuring suppresses meiotic recombination

The use of CRISPR/Cas (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) molecular scissors enables targeted editing, insertion, or suppression of genes in plants.

21 Sep 2022

Common genetic variants associated with beat synchronization identified

The first large-scale genomic study of musicality revealed 69 genetic variations linked with beat synchronization, which denotes the ability to move in time with the beat of the music.

From Vanderbilt University 20 Sep 2022

Researchers reveal key developmental difference between the brains of modern humans and Neanderthals

AZoLifesciences speaks to Dr. Anneline Pinson and Prof. Dr. Wieland B. Huttner from The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics about their latest research which found a greater neuron production in the frontal lobe during brain development in modern humans than Neanderthals, due to the change of a single amino acid in the protein TKTL1.

From The Max Planck Institute 20 Sep 2022

Research shows how developing sea anemones essentially 'exercise' to build their morphology

As humans, we know that an active lifestyle gives us some control over our form. When we hit the pavement, track our steps, and head to the gym, we can maintain muscle development and reduce body fat.

19 Sep 2022

Researchers analyze how clusters of molecules meet inside cells

A developing area studies how clusters of molecules gather inside of cells, similar to how oil droplets form and separate from the water in a vinaigrette.

From New York University (NYU) 15 Sep 2022

Human-specific gene involves in neocortical expansion during evolution

Great ape animal experiments have long been prohibited in Europe due to ethical concerns. An alternative to using animals in investigations is the use of organoids, which are three-dimensional cell structures that can be generated in the lab and are only a few millimeters in size.

From The Max Planck Institute 14 Sep 2022

Using the genomes of wild tomato relatives to improve tomato

The relatives of the wild tomato, Solanum habrochaites and S. galapagense, are crucial sources of germplasm in contemporary tomato breeding.

13 Sep 2022

Light-sensitive molecule can interpret moonlight to synchronize the reproductive cycles of marine life

How animals are able to interpret natural light sources to adjust their physiology and behaviour is poorly understood.

12 Sep 2022

Researchers propose a way to identify Chlamydia, a deadly bacterial disease

Chlamydia, the most common bacterial infection associated with sexually transmitted diseases, hides inside human cells using a cloaking mechanism to avoid detection and destruction.

9 Sep 2022

Studies on mice reveals the co-existence of gut bacteria and their hosts

According to scientists, the gut microbiome—a colony of bacteria that inhabits the digestive system—can be altered by the host body’s genes in addition to nutrition and environment.

From University of Bath 30 Aug 2022

New CRISPR RNA-guided Caspases could lead to promising antiviral and tissue engineering tools

New research from Cornell offers insights into a line of CRISPR systems, which could lead to promising antiviral and tissue engineering tools in animal and plants.

26 Aug 2022

The complex link between pancreatic malformations and the “dark genome”

For the first time, scientists at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) have discovered a DNA sequence that is essential for pancreatic development and function.

25 Aug 2022

Novel method maps all gene expression patterns to a single reference embryo

Years of work by Trinity College Dublin developmental biologists in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Edinburgh’s MRC Human Genetics Unit has resulted in an unparalleled resource that will help researchers assess how key genes control the differentiation of tissues and organs in developing embryos.

23 Aug 2022

Researchers face challenges with stem cell lines that carry major DNA damage

Stem cells are a type of cell that can be configured to transform into almost any sort of cell in the body. They are presently used in research on organ development as well as in the initial phases of embryo development.

15 Aug 2022