News by Subject Biology

A cutting-edge technique called cellular barcoding has been used to tag, track and pinpoint cells responsible for the spread of breast cancer from the main tumour into the blood and other organs. Dr Delphine Merino, Dr Tom Weber, Professor Jane Visvader, Professor Geoffrey Lindeman and Dr Shalin Naik led the highly collaborative research that involved breast cancer biologists, clinician scientists, biotechnologists and computational experts at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.

Like going from a pinhole camera to a Polaroid, a significant mathematical update to the formula for a popular bioinformatics data visualization method will allow researchers to develop snapshots of single-cell gene expression not only several times faster but also at much higher-resolution. Published in Nature Methods, this innovation by Yale mathematicians will reduce the rendering time of a million-point single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) data set from over three hours down to just fifteen minutes.

Setbacks in drug trials aiming to raise HDL have led researchers to reassess the particle's effects on heart health. A study in the Journal of Lipid Research combining proteomics and mouse genetics may help researchers understand researchers understand the proteins in the particle, how they get there and how they determine HDL function.

The study of natural toxins and their derivatives may help in the development of medicines to treat diseases like cancer and osteoarthritis, says coordinator of the Center of Excellence in New Target Discovery.

A newly discovered ribosomal DNA (rDNA) clock can be used to accurately determine an individual's chronological and biological age, according to research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The ribosomal clock is a novel biomarker of aging based on the rDNA, a segment of the genome that has previously been mechanistically linked to aging.

Underlying genetic variation in the immune systems of rabbits allowed them to rapidly evolve genetic resistance to the myxoma virus, a deadly rabbit pathogen introduced into Europe and Australia during the 1950s, according to a new study.

For the first time ever, researchers are comprehensively sequencing the human immune system, which is billions of times larger than the human genome. In a new study published in Nature from the Human Vaccines Project, scientists have sequenced a key part of this vast and mysterious system -- the genes encoding the circulating B cell receptor repertoire.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Down syndrome is the most common birth defect, occurring once in every 700 births. However, traditional noninvasive prenatal tests for the condition are unreliable or carry risks for the mother and fetus. Now, researchers have developed a sensitive new biosensor that could someday be used to detect fetal Down syndrome DNA in pregnant women's blood. They report their results in the ACS journal Nano Letters.

Genomics fails to diagnose up to half of patients who are tested. German scientists tackled the problem in a recent study in the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics. Using a new neutrophil proteome database they made genetic diagnoses for children with severe congenital neutropenia whom typical sequencing had failed.