Newest Posts
The Infant Airway Microbiome Linked to Childhood Asthma
By Shivani Kamal, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, ’17 Author’s Note: “I am pursing a career in pediatrics and wanted to familiarize myself with new research regarding health and development of children. I was amazed at the advancements of medical technology which allow us to understand diseases and create potential cures, previously never thought possible. My purpose […]
A Breakthrough in Breast Cancer Treatment
Exciting, new gene therapy treatments for breast cancer are on the verge of making a breakthrough. With proper funding, these procedures could reduce the need for the surgical removal of organs. By Rayan Kaakati, Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior Being born female automatically enters one in a game of Russian roulette: About 1 in 8 women […]
Viruses and the Global Metabolic Pathway
By Oyang Teng, Biological Sciences ’14 Microbes are the planetary engineers of the biogeochemical cycles that sustain all life on earth. At the molecular scale, the biological turnover of such key elements as hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, iron and sulfur depends on the enzymatic transfer of electrons from reduced (electron-donating) to oxidized (electron-accepting) forms of these […]
Arabidopsis – Model Organism
By John Tran, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology ’14 Have you ever wanted to learn more about the plant model organism? Plants have many unique properties that make them especially important to all aspects of life. They provide oxygen, food, and energy, so you could imagine that there are many cellular and molecular processes that are […]
Is your spit making you fat?
One of the central pursuits of modern human genetics is to move beyond genomic correlation. That is, to demonstrate experimentally why a specific genetic variant may be associated with a disease. New work in Nature Genetics from an international team lead by Philippe Froguel at Imperial College in London does just this – demonstrating an […]
Viral Evolution
By Mubasher Ahmed, Genetics ‘15 Viral evolution is an emerging field in biology that has great implications for human health. T7 is a phage virus, meaning it infects bacteria, and is a powerful model system in evolutionary virology. In a recent experiment, a team of biologists sought to understand the degree to which genetic elements […]
Origin of the Y Chromosome
By Marisa Sanchez, Molecular and Cellular Biology ‘15 The genomes of male and female mammals differ by one chromosome. The Y chromosome is only present in males, and is responsible for initiating the physiological and morphological differences between the sexes. This has not always been the case though; at one point, the X and Y […]
Stop Looking for the Drug. Look at the Genes – Bulletproof Anti-doping Test
By Isra Uz-Zaman, Genetics ’14 Cheating in sports in not a new phenomenon. In the modern era, numerous athletes participate in blood doping by injecting erythropoietin (EPO) into their blood to increase the amount of red blood cells and thus improve their athletic performance. EPO is a protein hormone produced by the kidney which stimulates […]
Prenatal Exposures and Risk for Chronic Diseases Later in Life
By Marisa Sanchez, Genetics ’15 Most people know that poor diet, lack of exercise, and smoking as an adult can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) and Type II diabetes. However, research over the past couple of decades has shown that risk for CVD and type II diabetes could begin as early as […]
Genome-Wide Association Identifies Genes Linked to Autism
By Ashley Chang, Genetics ’15 Biostatisticians led by Knut Wittkowski at Rockefeller University Hospital have employed new methods of genome-wide association studies to identify genes that they believe to be associated with autism. The researchers compared genomes of patients with varying degrees of autism to healthy patients and were able to identify genetic variations that […]