Today marks the fifth international Rare Disease Day, an annual event aiming to raise awareness for rare diseases and improve access to treatment and support for individuals with rare diseases and their families. On this day, the theme is "Solidarity" and hundreds of patient organisations from over 40 countries worldwide are involved in awareness-raising activities… Read more »
The meta-genome is a 21st century concept, being first used in the year 2000 to describe a genetic library constructed from a mixture of soil micro–organisms. Further exploration of the genetic composition, function and expression of mixed microbial communities has accelerated at a dramatic pace, driven by the economy and ease with which next-generation sequence… Read more »
There is a nursery rhyme that goes: “Big fleas have little fleas Upon their backs to bite ’em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, And so ad infinitum.” A fine natural illustration of this principle can be found in the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum, which is infected by a bacterial endosymbiont Hamiltonella defensa, which is… Read more »
Mark Jobling chooses to dedicate his column in Investigative Genetics this month to the 120th anniversary later this year of the birth of J.B.S. Haldane, a pioneer of theoretical genetics. As a paradigm to Haldane’s own academic experiences, Jobling compares his son’s recent departure to university, entering the same institution as Haldane exactly 100 years… Read more »
The term epigenetics was coined by Conrad Waddington in 1939, and recent advances in next generation sequencing technologies are now allowing genome-wide analyses of epigenetic regulation. A groundbreaking discovery in the field has been that a maternal or paternal allele of an autosomal gene can be randomly silenced, in a process termed random monoallelic expression… Read more »
Two influenza research papers remain suspended in press since the US government’s request for their redaction, made on the recommendation of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) late last year. Were this to be upheld, it would be an unprecedented example of censorship of the scientific literature, justified as a necessary measure to… Read more »
1Monocotyledons comprise around 56,000 flowering plants, contained within various divergent lineages. The true grasses, Poaceae are the most economically important monocotyledons (including grains, sugar canes and bamboo), and have a morphologically distinct form of inflorescence, 1-40 flowers which are collected into evolutionarily novel structures known as grass spikelets. In EvoDevo last week, new research published… Read more »
On an occasional basis, I bring to the attention of Retrovirology readers, publications of interest in other journals. Recently Mineki Saito wrote the following to me. Please go to the indicated link to view these HTLV papers. "Last year, Prof Charles Bangham, Dr Pooja Jain, Dr Kunihiro Tsukasaki and myself planned to publish a HTLV-1… Read more »
Launched recently under the expert leadership of Editor-in-Chief Professor Shengdi Chen from Ruijin Hospital at Shanghai Jiaotong University in China, Translational Neurodegeneration creates a new interface between the fields of basic, translational, and clinical research into neurodegenerative diseases. Supported by a well respected international Editorial Board, who cover Parkinson’s disease and movement disorders, Alzheimer’s disease and… Read more »
Altered glucose metabolism of tumor cells was first noted by Otto Warburg in the 1920s. In later years, the discovery of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes transformed our understanding of cancer, but left metabolism neglected. Now recent advances show that many oncogenes drive cancer by altering metabolic pathways, leading to an explosion of research. It… Read more »