One key to developing a treatment for Huntington’s disease (HD), according to many researchers, involves the challenging task of reducing the expression of the patient’s mutated copy of the huntingtin gene (HTT) while leaving the wild type copy untouched. A collaborative project between Sangamo Therapeutics and the CHDI foundation, a…

Scientists at Uppsala University in Sweden studying two of the most likely antimicrobial resistance mechanisms have shed light on the ability of bacteria to use random, noncoding DNA sequences to generate de novo genes that express antibiotic-hindering peptides. In one mechanism, new genes with novel functions arise from existing genes,…

Scientists have known that the same class of bacteria (Streptomyces) that has provided many of our antibiotics can be found not only in soil but also on insects. Cameron Currie, PhD, a University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison professor of bacteriology, has shown that some of these insect-associated microbes provide their hosts with…

Diets containing berries and pomegranates are believed to have potentially manifold benefits to human health, and scientists in India and the U.S. have now demonstrated in mice how one pomegranate-derived metabolite that is produced by microorganisms residing naturally in the gut can help to protect against and reduce the severity…

Identifying novel diagnostic and therapeutic targets is critical to combating a complex, heterogeneous disease such as cancer. Now, investigators at Johns Hopkins have just identified a protein involved in cell proliferation and the development of new blood vessels that could serve as a marker for the early detection of colorectal…

Researchers say they have taken a step closer to better understanding how the gut microbiome is formed, changes over time, and is affected by disturbances like antibiotics.  Published June 21 in Molecular Systems Biology, a study (“Deciphering Microbial Interactions in Synthetic Human Gut Microbiome Communities”) by a team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison…

Microbiotica said today it will use its precision metagenomics microbiome platform in an up-to-$534 million-plus multi-year partnership with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, to discover, develop and commercialize microbiome-based biomarkers and therapies for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Microbiotica, a Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute spinout, said the platform allows…

A new version of the gene-editing tool CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) has been developed by a research team led by Feng Zhang, Ph.D., which says its ability to target and edit RNA presents several advantages over its familiar DNA-editing counterpart. Zhang, of the Broad Institute of MIT…

A new version of the gene-editing tool CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) has been developed by a research team led by Feng Zhang, Ph.D., which says its ability to target and edit RNA presents several advantages over its familiar DNA-editing counterpart. Dr. Zhang, of the Broad Institute of…

It's no secret human biology is complex. But a team of researchers at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research recently added yet another head-scratcher to the list. The researchers noted that when the function of one tumor supressor gene was lost a tumor will grow faster, but if the function…

An adapted CRISPR protein that targets RNA can serve as a rapid, inexpensive, and sensitive diagnostic tool say researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, the Institute for Medical Engineering & Science at MIT, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically…

A research team led by Huimin Zhao, Ph.D., a chemical and biomolecular engineering professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, reports that they have now unlocked new potential formerly hidden in silent genes, using CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology. Dr. Zhao and colleagues, including researchers from Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology,…

The influence that the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has had on modern molecular biology is nothing short of remarkable. This technique, which is akin to molecular photocopying, has been the centerpiece of everything from the OJ Simpson Trial to the completion of the Human Genome Project. Clinical laboratories use this…

Cell-replacement therapies that depend on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) inspire hope and fear—hope that cells derived from iPSCs will actualize regenerative medicine; fear that the very same cells will bring cancer-causing mutations to patients. The fear lingers even though several studies have already suggested that iPSCs can be considered…