Monthly Archives: July 2017

This kind of study was what I (as Director of the new Center for Environmental Genetics) had envisioned in the early-1990s that Iain Cartwright and Bob Bornschein might be able to carry out: To find genetic differences is sensitivity of … Continue reading →

Data from human populations worldwide suggest there has been a substantial decline in male fertility during the past several decades. For example, a comprehensive analysis in the year 2000, of data from >100 studies in Western countries, showed evidence of … Continue reading →

Attached is the latest in a series of publications by Ed Calabrese, clarifying how the erroneous Linear No-Threshold (LNT) Model had become entrenched in all laboratory-animal chronic cancer and toxicity studies performed during the past 5-6 decades. This story strikes … Continue reading →

The most recent evolutionary relative of Homo sapiens –– Homo neanderthalensis –– represents a lineage associated with archeological samples (e.g., tools, pigments) suggesting substantial cognitive achievements, and is typically contrasted with anatomically-modern humans by particular cranial features known from fossil … Continue reading →

Multifactorial traits (e.g. height, weight, blood pressure, schizophrenia, cancer, serum LDL levels, etc.) reflect the contributions of hundreds if not thousands of genes (DNA-sequence variants), plus epigenetic effects (e.g. DNA-methylation, RNA-interference, histone modifications, chromatin remodeling), plus environmental effects (i.e. adverse … Continue reading →

In school textbooks, “Neanderthals” (Homo neaderthalensis) have been described as “ancestors of modern humans (Homo sapiens)”, or as “a separate line living geographically in close proximity to Homo sapiens, but not interbreeding”. In recent years, however, things have become increasingly … Continue reading →

Multifactorial traits (e.g. height, weight, blood pressure, schizophrenia, cancer, serum LDL levels, etc.) reflect the contributions of hundreds if not thousands of genes (DNA-sequence variants), plus epigenetic effects (e.g. DNA-methylation, RNA-interference, histone modifications, chromatin remodeling), plus environmental effects (i.e. adverse … Continue reading →

As these GEITP emails have often described, genome-wide association studies, GWAS (most of which began to be published in 2oo6 and more recently) are studies to attempt to find a genotype (DNA genes or genetic loci) that is statistically significantly … Continue reading →

This is a great example of gene-environment interactions. Copy number variations (CNVs) represent a category of duplication or deletion event that affects a considerable number of base-pairs (i.e. a segment of the DNA). CNVs are common in all kingdoms –– … Continue reading →

The experimental design of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) is now 10 years old, and Peter Visscher and coworkers [attached] review the remarkable range of discoveries that it has facilitated in: population and complex-trait genetics, the biology of diseases, and translation … Continue reading →