Recent research by a collaborative research network including researchers in Spain and the UK has found 25 genes that seem to be responsible for making humans the primates with the longest life spans (sometimes going up to 120 years). These genes show parallel mutations in genes related to wound healing, blood coagulation and cardiovascular disorders […]
Educational attainment, the years a person spends within the education system, generates interest among scientists because statistical analysis shows that there is a relationship between that value and different aspects of life including income when adults, state of health and even life expectancy. Geneticists analyze trends that can explain variations within a population by exploring […]
The haploid human genome contains approximately 3,000,000,000 base pairs of DNA packaged into 23 chromosomes. Most cells in the body, except for eggs and sperm, are diploid, with 23 pairs of chromosomes. That makes a total of 6,000,000,000 base pairs of DNA per cell that, if they were to be put in a straight line […]
Sometimes, scientists give very good news, and in 2017 we have had one of these occasions. Boys suffering from X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (X-ALD), a devastating neurodegenerative disease, have been cured with gene therapy. The STARBEAM study was performed by an international team headed by David A. Williams from the Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts (USA), and […]
How does the Zika virus cause microcephaly? Why do some people develop schizophrenia or mental disease while others don’t? Is our sexual orientation hardwired in our genes? As seemingly unrelated as these questions might sound, they can all be addressed using the same scientific tool: twin siblings. Nancy Segal (Boston, 1951) has been chasing twins […]
The number of genes linked to autism has not stopped growing in the last decade. Although there are hundreds of variants that are more frequent in people who are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) than in the general population, there are sixty genes that have a clearer linkage and could help build the genetic […]
Almost every one of our body cells bears in its nucleus about 2 meters of DNA containing the genes that shape our being. All that, roughly 20.000 protein-coding genes, regulatory and unknown-function sequences, tightly packed inside a structure that has a volume of only a few cubic micrometres. How this huge amount of material is […]
Like father like son. We have all heard it one time or another. The layman explanation to hereditary characters. Whether the cause is genetic inheritance or the effect of growing up in a certain environment, is quite something else. When talking about the origin of intelligence, there are always discussions. Even though there is undoubtedly […]
Unless you’ve been sitting in a cave for the last couple of years, you have probably heard about the new great promise of gene therapy: the gene editing CRISPR system. This new addition to the molecular biology toolbox is groundbreaking for what it implies. It does not simply “force in” a healthy copy of whichever […]
When we talk about nucleic acids we generally think of DNA and RNA that code for proteins, and when we talk about brain cells we tend to think of neurons and their nerve impulse transmission. However, it is not news that the functions of both non-coding genetic material and non-transmitting cells in the brain are […]