Progress Educational Trust conference: Making the grade

The third session of the Progress Educational Trust's annual conference 'The Best Possible Start in Life: The Robust and Responsive Embryo' boasted a redoubtable roll-call of eminent clinicians and researchers as speakers. This being the case, I couldn't help wondering if the decision to limit such luminaries to ten minutes apiece was a wise one...[Read More]

Scientists discover new way to reverse genetic defects

Scientists have discovered a way to bypass the type of mutation that causes about a third of human genetic diseases. Experiments in yeast have shown how chemical modifications can allow a cell's machinery to ignore mistakes in DNA known as nonsense mutations...[Read More]

Gene discovery hints at why humans can talk

Scientists believe that they have found a gene that helps explain the fact that humans are the only animal that has developed speech. Subtle variations in the human version of the gene, known as FOXP2, appear to underpin the human development of language, according to recent research carried out by scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), US, and published in the journal Nature. When comparing the human and chimp version of FOXP2 the researchers discovered...[Read More]

Genes influence emotional memory

Neuroscientists in Switzerland have identified a gene that influences the recall of emotionally charged memories. Dominique de Quervain, and colleagues, at the University of Zurich published a study in Nature Neuroscience last week reporting that subjects with the gene variant ADRA2B performed better on recall tests for...[Read More]

Parkinson's disease gene link strengthened

US researchers have found that many cases of Parkinson's disease (PD) in certain ethnic groups could be triggered by a single faulty gene. In two separate studies, the scientists discovered that some patients with an Ashkenazi Jewish or Arabic background have a mutated version of the LRRK2 gene. The findings...[Read More]

Francis Crick, a founding father of genetics, has died

He has been described as 'the Charles Darwin of the 20th century' by Professor Steve Jones of University College London and as 'the dominant hero of the heroic age of molecular biology' by Professor Richard Dawkins of Oxford University. He was a Nobel prize winner, a Fellow of the Royal...[Read More]