FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Yes, Scientists Have Sequenced the Entire Human Genome, But They’re Not Done Yet The human genome, from end to end, has been sequenced, meaning scientists worldwide have identified most of the nearly 20,000 protein-coding genes. However, an international group of scientists notes there’s more work to be done. The scientists point out that even though we have nearly converged on the identities of the 20,000 genes, the genes can be cut and spliced to create approximately 100,000 proteins, and gene experts are far from agreement on what those 100,000 proteins are. The group, which convened last fall at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, has now ...

New York, NY [October 11, 2023]—Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the University of California San Diego have been awarded an $8.5 million grant to create a data integration hub aimed at accelerating novel therapeutics and cures for diseases within initiatives supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Common Fund. NIH Common Fund programs are large-scale projects designed to collect cutting-edge biomedical research data from human cells, tissues, and patients to rapidly ...

Wine quality is notorious for varying from year to year, but what makes for a “good year”? In a paper publishing October 11 in the journal iScience, researchers show that weather plays an important role in determining wine quality. By analyzing 50 years’ worth of wine critic scores from the Bordeaux wine region in relation to that year’s weather, the researchers showed that higher quality wine is made in years with warmer temperatures, higher winter rainfall, and earlier, shorter ...

High Mountain Asia (HMA), encompassing the Tibetan Plateau and the surrounding Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and Himalayan ranges, harbors the world's third-largest amount of glacial ice. It is the source of more than 10 major Asian rivers and vital water resources for nearly 2 billion people. Recent decades have witnessed a dipolar trend in HMA precipitation, characterized by an increase in the north but a decrease in the southeast. These changes have significant implications for water resource security and ecological equilibrium in both local ...

The study, published today in Nature, reports the sighting of two ice giant exoplanets colliding around a sun-like star, creating a blaze of light and plumes of dust. Its findings show the bright heat afterglow and resulting dust cloud, which moved in front of the parent star dimming it over time. The international team of astronomers was formed after an enthusiast viewed the light curve of the star and noticed something strange. It showed the system doubled in brightness at infrared wavelengths some three years before the star started to fade in visible light. Co-lead author Dr Matthew Kenworthy, from Leiden University, ...

People with early Alzheimer’s disease have difficulty turning when walking, according to a new study using virtual reality led by UCL researchers. The study, published in Current Biology, used a computational model to further explore the intricacies of navigational errors previously observed in Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers, led by Professor Neil Burgess and colleagues in the Space and Memory group* at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, grouped participants into three categories: healthy younger participants (31 total), healthy elderly participants (36 total) and patients with mild cognitive impairment (43 total). They then asked ...

About The Study: The findings of this study of nearly 13,000 veterans with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer suggest that differences in outcomes by race and ethnicity exist. In addition, Black and Hispanic men may have considerably improved outcomes when treated in an equal-access setting.  Authors: Kelli M. Rasmussen, M.S., of the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.37272) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including ...

About The Study: Survivors of adolescent and young adult cancer had high rates of perceiving increased infertility risk but frequently overestimated or underestimated their risk in this study that included 785 participants. These findings suggest that counseling on infertility risk throughout survivorship may reduce misalignment between perceptions and actual risk, decrease fertility-related psychological distress, and inform family planning decisions.  Authors: H. Irene Su, M.D., M.S.C.E., ...

Researchers have developed a method that can reveal the location of errors in quantum computers, making them up to ten times easier to correct. This will significantly accelerate progress towards large-scale quantum computers capable of tackling the world’s most challenging computational problems, the researchers said. Led by Princeton University’s Jeff Thompson, the team demonstrated a way to identify when errors occur in quantum computers more easily than ever before. This is a new direction for research ...

PHILADELPHIA – Women and those from racial and ethnic groups underrepresented in medicine (URiM) not only occupy few leadership roles in surgical departments but also tend to be clustered into certain leadership roles, according to a new analysis led by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. These clusters of roles include vice chairs of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) or wellness, where the promotion path to department chair is unclear. The report was published today in JAMA Surgery and led by ...

At a glance: New AI tool called EVEscape uses evolutionary and biological information to predict how a virus could change to escape the immune system.   The tool successfully predicted the most concerning new variants that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers say the tool can help inform the development of vaccines and therapies for SARS-CoV-2 and other rapidly mutating viruses. The COVID-19 pandemic seemed like a never-ending parade of SARS-CoV-2 variants, each equipped with new ways to evade the immune system, leaving the world bracing for what would come next. But what if there were a way to make predictions ...

Imagine researchers exploring a dark room with a flashlight, only able to clearly identify what falls within that single beam. When it comes to microbial communities, scientists have historically been unable to see beyond the beam — worse, they didn’t even know how big the room is. A new study published online October 11, 2023 in Nature highlights the vast array of functional diversity of microbes through a novel approach to better understand microbial communities by looking at protein function within them. The work was led by a team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy ...

【Research Study】 1. Background   Multiomics3 analysis that integrates different layers of profiles altogether is challenging, since the number of variables in profile substantially differ from each other. For instance, gene expression profile and genomic DNA methylation profile are often analyzed together, however, there are only tens of thousands of genes, whereas the number of DNA methylation sites are as many as tens of millions. The numbers differ one thousand times and the number ...

University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have obtained new insights into how African-American and Hispanic-American people’s genes influence their ability to use Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids for good health. The findings are an important step toward “precision nutrition” – where a diet tailored to exactly what our bodies need can help us live longer, healthier lives. Omega-3 and Omega-6 are “healthy fats.” We can get them from foods, but many people also take ...

Genalive, a leading clinical laboratory in Saudi Arabia, has passed an audit organized by the College of American Clinical Pathologists (CAP), demonstrating its excellence in clinical laboratory testing and management practices. Genalive officially opened in June 2023, equipped with high-throughput sequencing platforms, advanced bioinformatics pipelines, AI-driven analytical tools and staffed by a team of experienced medical professionals and technicians. Genalive is a joint venture between BGI Almanahil Health for Medical Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of BGI Genomics, and Tibbiyah Holding, a renowned Saudi healthcare ...

An international team of scientists has identified nearly a dozen genes that contribute to calcium buildup in our coronary arteries that can lead to life-threatening coronary artery disease, a condition responsible for up to one in four deaths in the United States. Doctors may be able to target these genes with existing medications – or possibly even nutritional supplements – to slow or halt the disease’s progression. “By sharing valuable genotype and phenotype datasets collected over many years, our team was able to uncover new genes that may foreshadow clinical coronary artery disease,” said researcher Clint L. Miller, PhD, of ...

While scientific advances are made daily, foundational breakthroughs are rare and require exceptional researchers with unique points of view and questions, plus the necessary means to explore those ideas. One such researcher, Harold H. Flor, became a seminal figure in the study of plant pathology after developing the gene-for-gene concept in the mid-1900s. The gene-for-gene concept (namely, for each gene governing the host response, there is a corresponding gene in the pathogen) still stands as one of the most significant contributions to plant pathology—forever changing how scientists approach plant-microbe interactions and, more specifically, the molecular mechanisms ...

SAN ANTONIO — October 11, 2023 —Southwest Research Institute has been selected to receive a $1.5 million contract from the U.S Department of Energy to evaluate the safety and efficiency of a full-scale compressor system for hydrogen-natural gas blends containing up to 20 percent hydrogen by volume. SwRI will collaborate with the Gas Machinery Research Council (GMRC) on this project. “Hydrogen has been recognized as a viable alternative to natural gas fuel,” said SwRI Senior Research Analyst Sarah Simons. “However, a pure hydrogen stream is not compatible with existing energy transport infrastructure because hydrogen and natural gas have ...

Recent developments in neuroscience and brain-inspired artificial intelligence have opened up new possibilities in understanding intelligence. Now, a research team led by Tianzi Jiang at the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has outlined the key components and properties of an innovative platform called the Digital Twin Brain, which could bridge the gap between biological and artificial intelligence and provide new insights into both. This research was published Sept. 22 in Intelligent Computing, a Science Partner Journal. Network structure is something that biological and artificial intelligence have in common. Since the brain consists ...

A groundbreaking study, led by Professor Kyemyung Park and his research team in the Graduate School of Health Science and Technology and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UNIST has shed light on the intricate mechanism behind the immune system’s ability to differentiate between self and non-self antigens. Their research, published in the esteemed journal Trends in Immunology, presents a novel quantitative framework that could pave the way for predictive models in immune-related disease treatment response. The immune system is a complex network of cells and molecules that defends ...

Researchers from Texas Christian University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and University of Georgia published a new Journal of Marketing article that examines the consumer trend towards minimalist packaging in consumable products. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Symbolically Simple: How Simple Packaging Design Influences Willingness to Pay for Consumable Products” and is authored by Lan Anh N. Ton, Rosanna K. Smith, and Julio Sevilla. Designing products is both an ...

Both elegant and fierce, killer whales are some of the oceans’ top predators, but even they can be exposed to environmental pollution. Now, in the largest study to date on North Atlantic killer whales, researchers in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology report the levels of legacy and emerging pollutants in 162 individuals’ blubber. The animals’ diet, rather than location, greatly impacted contaminant levels and potential health risks — information that’s helpful to conservation efforts. As the largest member of the dolphin family, killer whales, also known as orcas, are ...

Because metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) — highly porous metal complexes — are so structurally and chemically diverse, they could be used for many applications, such as drug delivery and environmental clean-up. But researchers still need to get a better understanding of how they function, especially when embedded in polymers. Reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, researchers have now developed and characterized nitric oxide (NO)-storing MOFs embedded in a thin film with novel antibacterial potential. Studying ...

AUSTRALIA, Sydney – October 11, 2023 – Western Sydney University’s NICM Health Research Institute has led a world-first clinical trial in Australia that offers new hope in the treatment of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) among older people. The trial’s results, published in Alzheimer's and Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment and Disease Monitoring, a journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, signal the efficacy and safety of Sailuotong (SLT), a novel herbal extract, as a potential treatment for MCI.  Trial ...

Lack of rainfall is not the only measure of drought. New UC Riverside research shows that despite a series of storms, the impact of drought can persist in streams and rivers for up to 3.5 years. There are two measures of drought in streams. One measure is the total water level, which is impacted by snowmelt and rainfall. Many researchers examine this measurement. Another measure is baseflow, which is the portion of streamflow fed by groundwater. Fewer researchers examine baseflow droughts, and there was not previously an accurate way to measure them. Because baseflow is strongly tied to groundwater, and because the ...