Duke University Medical Center and National Cancer Institute scientists have discovered that a novel genetic alteration – a second copy of an entire gene – is a cause of familial chordoma, an uncommon form of cancer arising in bones and frequently affecting the nervous system.

Breast cancer therapy that’s customized for each patient’s personal genetic makeup is one step closer to reality, thanks to a new use for crime-lab technology pioneered at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI). A team led by Petr Starostik, MD, chief of RPCI’s Clinical Molecular Diagnostics lab, is using CSI-type methods to multiply the reliability of [...]

Scientists have identified how a protein enables sections of so-called junk DNA to be cut and pasted within genetic code – a finding which could speed development of gene therapies.
The study by researchers at the University of Edinburgh sheds light on the process, known as DNA transposition, in which shifted genes have a significant effect [...]

Three out of ten women who undergo polar body diagnosis go on to have a child. The extensive technique of polar body analysis (PBA) is described by researchers in reproductive medicine at Lübeck in an article in the current edition of Deutsches Artzeblatt International, in which they present three successful cases and one failure (Dtsch [...]

Researchers of the University of Granada (Spain) have used a technique consisting of the induction of neuronal degeneration neuronal for intense light exposure in the mouse’s retina that will be helpful for the study of retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a group of hereditary diseases which lead to blindness and affect more than one million persons a [...]