Monthly Archives: August 2017

CRISPR/Cas9 ants — designed to lose their ability to use pheromones to communicate

Posted on August 30, 2017 by DWN

Gene-editing using the new CRISPR/Cas9 technology will be useful for genetic engineering of agricultural animals, farm crops, creation of lab animal knockout lines, AND (eventually) clinical medicine (to remove deleterious Mendelian-trait disorders early in utero). These two papers extend the … Continue reading →

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One variant of MUC7 gene appears to have originated in an unknown ancestor before Modern-Human/Neanderthal divergence

Posted on August 28, 2017 by DWN

There are at least 20 mucin genes (MUC) in human and mouse genomes, dispersed onto 11 different chromosomal locations. There are two clusters of four MUC genes, three clusters of two MUC genes, and the remaining six (including MUC7 on … Continue reading →

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Researchers Announce Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough

Posted on August 28, 2017 by DWN

THIS news could be BIG –– for all clean energy enthusiastics. Researchers Announce Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough By Irina Slav – Aug 27, 2017 Fusion For years (with the exception of hydrogen bombs), nuclear fusion for the benefit of humankind was … Continue reading →

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Reply Reply All Forward Move Delete Close Previous Item Next Item Close Culture-induced recurrent epigenetic aberrations in human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs)

Posted on August 27, 2017 by DWN

After fertilization of the ovum by a sperm, the fertilized egg is called the “zygote” and progresses from one cell to two cells, to four, eight, sixteen, etc. At least through the first 16 cells, these cells are called “totipotent” … Continue reading →

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Human CYP alleles/haplotypes nomenclature

Posted on August 25, 2017 by DWN

For those of you interested in the number of alleles and/or the naming of a particular allele or haplotype of cytochrome P450 genes relevant to clinical pharmacology and toxicology, I refer you to the latest news [see attached pdf file] … Continue reading →

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Changing the P-value from 0.05 to 0.005 — especially for the social and biomedical sciences

Posted on August 22, 2017 by DWN

Recently there has been a great deal of controversy over the inability to reproduce published data — especially in fields such as the social and biomedical sciences. Now, a group of 72 prominent researchers [see attached article] is proposing one … Continue reading →

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The sense of smell has an impact on metabolic health and obesity

Posted on August 22, 2017 by DWN

Obesity reflects an imbalance between food (energy) intake and exercise (energy) output. Regulation of this whole-body energy homeostasis relies on an intricate balance between food intake and energy expenditure. This balance requires the coordinated response of peripheral and central neuronal … Continue reading →

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Disease model discovery — from 3,328 knockouts by The International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium

Posted on August 16, 2017 by DWN

Any of you who are working on human disease models in transgenic mice will be interested to read this article [attached]. With its extensive tool kit for genome modification and capacity for recapitulating human disease –– the laboratory mouse is … Continue reading →

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Genotype-covariate interaction-effects and the heritabillity of adult body mass index (BMI), a multifactorial trait

Posted on August 14, 2017 by DWN

Obesity is a worldwide epidemic, with major health and economic costs. Clearly, obesity is a multifactorial trait –– reflecting the contributions of hundreds if not thousands of genes (DNA sequence differences, the genotype), plus epigenetic effects (DNA-methylation, RNA-interference, histone modifications, … Continue reading →

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Ancient evolutionary selection for alleles at a GDF5 enhancer that influences human height and osteoarthritis risk

Posted on August 14, 2017 by DWN

In terms of gene-environment interactions, we’ve shared many examples in which the environment (diet, climate, and geographic region) has exerted strong selective forces, over time, to change the phenotype (trait). In the case of the attached study (and editorial), the … Continue reading →

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