Genetics & Molecular Biology

IMP-1088: Finally, Progress Toward A Cure For The Common Cold?

There is no existing cure for the common cold. The reason is simple: it is caused by a family of viruses with hundreds of variants, making it nearly impossible to become immune to or vaccinate against all of them. On top of that, the viruses evolve rapidly ...

Article - News Staff - May 15 2018 - 4:20pm

500 Million Year Old Gene Could Mean A Path To New Treatments For Influenza, Arthritis- And You Can Help Name It

A gene called called C6orf106, or "C6", has existed for 500 million years, but understanding how it controls the production of proteins involved in infectious diseases, cancer and diabetes is only being understood more recently. The human genome ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 2 2018 - 1:44pm

30 Percent Of Indians Are Anemic- Switching From Rice (Or Bioengineering Better Stuff) Would Help

Starting in the 1960s, a Green Revolution in India led to a boom in rice and wheat production and that helped reduce hunger- but it meant demands on the water supply and pollution from fertilizer. When Indians have embraced modern technology more recently, ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 5 2018 - 4:54pm

Natural Fatty Acid As A Potential Anti-Inflammatory

Francisella tularensis bacteria are the cause of tularemia, a life-threatening disease spread to humans via contact with an infected animal or through the bite of a mosquito, tick or deer fly. The bacteria are able to suppress host inflammation when infec ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 9 2018 - 10:32am

Obese People Show DNA Methylation Related To Liver Disease

DNA methylation is a molecular process that helps enable our bodies to repair themselves, fight infection, and get rid of environmental toxins, but new research has shown one way it can go awry: Obesity.  Scholars identified how DNA methylation is associa ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 19 2018 - 10:00am

Groundcherries Are Just The Start: CRISPR May Popularize A Food Future You Haven't Heard Of Yet

Few people have heard of the groundcherry because during legacy days of agriculture, when foods had to be optimized for various regions as easily as possible, it fared poorly compared to other farming crops due to undesirable characteristics, like falling ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 1 2018 - 7:24pm

Meatable Can Make Beef From A Single Cell- If Activists Don't Kill The Company First

It takes a few years, a lot of grain and even more water to make a steer big enough to send to market- a company wants to get that process down to a few weeks.  ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 2 2018 - 7:55pm

Carboxylase Plus Gene Editing Leads To Unusual Antibiotic

A biosynthetic pathway in bacteria includes a a carboxylase enzyme which adds CO 2 to a precursor molecule, producing a highly unusual antibiotic called malonomycin. Unchecked antibiotic resistance could result in an estimated 10 million deaths every year ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 26 2018 - 6:31pm

Science 2.0 Explains: What Is RNAi?

In 8,000 B.C., when there were only about 10 million people on the entire planet, the boom and bust of famine and feast and wondering when the next meal would be was already a cultural concern.  And so agriculture was created. Mankind set out to do genetic ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 30 2018 - 12:20pm

With CRISPR, Let's Not Make The Cultural Mistakes Of Stem Cells All Over Again

When Dr. He Jiankui announced that he had used CRISPR to prevent future HIV infection in twin girls, there was outrage across the United States, but most of it had nothing to do with science. It was instead concern that a mad scientist with suspect ethics ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Dec 4 2018 - 2:53pm