http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Researchers have identified genetic risk factors that may accelerate a teen's progression to becoming a lifelong heavy smoker. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-genetics-smokers.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:00:01 EST news283614819 A study of young twins in Malawi, in sub-Saharan Africa, finds that bacteria living in the intestine are an underlying cause of a form of severe acute childhood malnutrition. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-gut-microbes-root-severe-malnutrition.html Medical research Wed, 30 Jan 2013 17:46:27 EST news278790376 Duke researchers are looking to genomic technologies – not the isolation of bacteria or viruses – to quickly detect and diagnose infectious diseases such as the flu and staph. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-genomic-response-infection-earlier-accurate.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Wed, 09 Jan 2013 17:00:09 EST news276961186 Doctors have known for many years that patients with fragile X syndrome, the most common form of inherited intellectual disability, are often also diagnosed with autism. But little has been known about how the two diagnoses are related. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-fragile-protein-linked-genes-involved.html Genetics Wed, 12 Dec 2012 13:00:07 EST news274534172 (Medical Xpress)—Many antibiotics can lose their ability to kill bacteria – Duke University bioengineers believe they can explain one of the reasons why. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-mechanism-antibiotic-tolerance.html Medical research Fri, 19 Oct 2012 07:27:45 EST news269850459 The locations of millions of DNA 'switches' that dictate how, when, and where in the body different genes turn on and off have been identified by a research team led by the University of Washington in Seattle. Genes make up only 2 percent of the human genome and were easy to spot, but the on/off switches controlling those genes were encrypted within the remaining 98 percent of the genome. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-encode-millions-dna-power-human.html Genetics Wed, 05 Sep 2012 13:00:04 EST news266059005 Researchers at the University of Washington have determined that the majority of genetic changes associated with more than 400 common diseases and clinical traits affect the genome's regulatory circuitry. These are the regions of DNA that contain instructions dictating when and where genes are switched on or off. Most of these changes affect circuits that are active during early human development, when body tissues are most vulnerable. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-encode-disease-hidden-genome-circuitry.html Genetics Wed, 05 Sep 2012 13:00:01 EST news266059353 Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have identified 26 species of bacteria in the human gut microbiota that appear to be linked to obesity and related metabolic complications. These include insulin resistance, high blood sugar levels, increased blood pressure and high cholesterol, known collectively as "the metabolic syndrome," which significantly increases an individual's risk of developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-gut-bacteria-linked-obesity-metabolic.html Overweight and Obesity Wed, 15 Aug 2012 17:00:07 EST news264263246 Researchers at Duke University Medical Center may finally have discovered why people with sickle cell disease get milder cases of malaria than individuals who have normal red blood cells. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-team-genetic-material-blood-cells.html Medical research Wed, 15 Aug 2012 12:00:04 EST news264250216 A new study by an international team of scientists led by researchers from the Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and CosmosIDTM Inc., College Park, have found two distinct strains of cholera bacteria may have contributed to the 2010 Haitian cholera outbreak. The team published its results June 18, 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-distinct-strains-haitian-cholera-outbreak.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 18 Jun 2012 15:00:01 EST news259239580 Researchers at Duke University and the National Institutes of Health have found a way to calm the fears of anxious mice with a drug that alters their brain chemistry. They've also found that human genetic differences related to the same brain chemistry influence how well people cope with fear and stress. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-brain-chemistry-easily.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 12 Jun 2012 04:00:06 EST news258658375 Scientists have successfully sequenced the genome of a baby in the womb without tapping its protective fluid sac. This non-invasive approach to obtaining the fetal genome is reported in the June 6 issue of Science Translational Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-baby-genome-deciphered-prenatally-parents.html Genetics Wed, 06 Jun 2012 14:00:02 EST news258208291 One-letter switches in the DNA code occur much more frequently in human genomes than anticipated, but are often only found in one or a few individuals. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-abundance-rare-dna-population-explosion.html Pediatrics Thu, 17 May 2012 14:00:06 EST news256449677 Children who have experienced violence might really be older than their years. The DNA of 10-year-olds who experienced violence in their young lives has been found to show wear and tear normally associated with aging, a Duke University study has found. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-violence-kids-dna.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 24 Apr 2012 07:31:53 EST news254471500 A team of researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have identified a new mechanism by which colon cancer develops. By focusing on segments of DNA located between genes, or so-called "junk DNA," the team has discovered a set of master switches, i.e., gene enhancer elements, that turn "on and off" key genes whose altered expression is defining for colon cancers. They have coined the term Variant Enhancer Loci or "VELs," to describe these master switches. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-breakthrough-master-colon-cancer.html Genetics Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:00:01 EST news253445292 For the first time, researchers have analyzed the multitude of microorganisms residing in the human gut as a complex, integrated biological system, rather than a set of separate species. Their approach has revealed patterns that correspond with excess body weight. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-gut-microbe-networks-differ-norm.html Medical research Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:43:40 EST news245429006 Scientists at the BC Cancer Agency, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, and the University of British Columbia are excited over a discovery made while studying rare tumour types. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-gene-links-rare-unrelated-cancers.html Cancer Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:30:39 EST news243711026 Fifty years after participating in studies of pentosuria, an inherited disorder once mistaken for diabetes, 15 families again welcomed medical geneticists into their lives. Their willingness to have their DNA analyzed with advanced genomics technologies has solved a mystery more than a hundred years old. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-modern-genetics-age-old-garrod-fourth.html Genetics Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:02:18 EST news239295728 Why do some folks who take every precaution still get the flu, while others never even get the sniffles? http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-wide-gap-immune-responses-people.html Genetics Thu, 25 Aug 2011 17:49:41 EST news233513320 Scientists at the BC Cancer Agency in British Columbia, Canada and their U.S. collaborators have identified a number of new genetic mutations involved in non-Hodgkin lymphoma, or NHL. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-genetic-mutations-non-hodgkin-lymphoma.html Cancer Thu, 28 Jul 2011 04:17:46 EST news231045427 A team led by University of Maryland School of Medicine Institute for Genome Sciences researchers has unraveled the genomic code of the E. coli bacterium that caused the ongoing deadly outbreak in Germany that began in May 2011. To date, 53 people have died in the outbreak that has sickened thousand in Germany, Sweden and the U.S. The paper, published July 27 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), describes how researchers around the globe worked together to use cutting edge technology to sequence and analyze the genomics of E. coli samples from the outbreak as well as closely related strains in a matter of days. They combined those findings with their knowledge of the biology and evolution of the bacteria to learn more about the outbreak. The analysis occurred rapidly enough to inform the physicians treating people who were infected, and assisted epidemiologists as they raced to trace the source of the pathogen. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-code-german-coli-outbreak.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Wed, 27 Jul 2011 17:00:10 EST news231001256 Laboratory research has always been limited in terms of what conclusions scientists can safely extrapolate from animal experiments to the human population as a whole. Many promising findings in mice have not held up under further experimentation, in part because laboratory animals, bred from a limited genetic foundation, don't provide a good representation of how genetic diversity manifests in the broader human population. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-mouse-genome-dilemma.html Genetics Sun, 29 May 2011 13:00:01 EST news225886978