Monthly Archives: August 2020

Human Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) Summer NewsLetter 2020

Summer newsletter 2020 28 Aug 2020 Fewer changes, other species, and no more dates – the new HGNC guidelines have been released! We are delighted to announce that we have published a comment article about updates to our nomenclature guidelines. … Continue reading

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Rethinking the timing of the populating of the Americas

The Great Human Diaspora (i.e. “migration of Homo sapiens across the planet, originating originally in Southeast Africa”) has been a part of our evolution theme, often discussed in these GEITP pages. Today’s topic is “peopling of the Americas.” For many … Continue reading

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The tuatara genome reveals ancient features of amniote evolution

Evolution of vertebrates (all animals having a spine) is a common topic for these GEITP pages. The tuatara is a land vertebrate — unique to New Zealand. Because these GEITP pages had NEVER before heard of this animal, it was … Continue reading

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Using Fungi to Clean up Contaminated Soil

There are thousands of toxic waste dump sites, throughout the U.S. — especially located near industrial regions of the country. Mother Nature has her own ability and rate of efficiency to clean up these dump sites, but remediation by particular … Continue reading

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With COVID, When Can Schools Re-Open?

As a pediatrician, I’ve seen plenty of cases of Kawaskai disease during my clinical years in the 1960s-70s-80s. —D July 21, 2020 With COVID, When Can Schools Re-Open? Every school year, children catch illnesses at school, and so do teachers … Continue reading

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Advances in Technologies for Therapeutic messenger RNA (mRNA) Delivery

As a follow-up to an earlier GEITP email about “mRNA delivery, attempting to create vaccine production,” this excellent review [see attached] is very thorough and complete. 😊 Current clinical efforts include development of vaccines, protein replacement therapies, and treatment of … Continue reading

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Advances in Technologies for Therapeutic messenger RNA (mRNA) Delivery

As a follow-up to an earlier GEITP email about “mRNA delivery, attempting to create vaccine production,” this excellent review [see attached] is very thorough and complete. 😊 Current clinical efforts include development of vaccines, protein replacement therapies, and treatment of … Continue reading

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COVID Immune Responses Explained

This interview — with immunologist Dr. Akiko Iwasaki — seems to these GEITP pages to be a very worthwhile update on COVID-19, possible mechanisms of its infection, possible vaccines, and gender/age/genetic differences in response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Therefore (warning: … Continue reading

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A Systematic Literature Review of Whole Exome and Genome Sequencing Population Studies of Genetic Susceptibility to Cancer

This extensive review [see attached] describes the use of both whole-exome sequencing [WES; i.e. protein-coding genes only; spanning ~30 Mb (megabases, million bases)], plus whole-genome sequencing (WGS; 30,000+ Mb, i.e. the entire haploid genome). The application of NGS technologies has … Continue reading

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Why and when was lactase persistence (LP) selected for? Insights from Central Asian herders and ancient DNA ..

To answer your question, Doron, the authors simply raised a philosophical (perhaps anthropomorphic?) question that cannot be answered, i.e. why Mother Nature has chosen this (genetic) form of evolutionary adaptation (for most northern Europeans) — instead of the “simpler” (at … Continue reading

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