The Human Genome Project - 30

 

Nature Reviews Genetics

@NatureRevGenet

· Aug 10

The Human Genome Project changed everything https://rdcu.be/b6aIY #Comment by Richard A. Gibbs

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Human Embryos Edition

Scientists Edited Human Embryos in the Lab, and It Was a Disaster The experiment raises major safety concerns for gene-edited babies Emily Mullin5 min read

Diabetes 2: 318 new risk loci f

Nature Genetics

@NatureGenet

·

Jun 15

Discovery of 318 new risk loci for type 2 diabetes and related vascular outcomes among 1.4 million participants in a multi-ancestry meta-analysis (Vujkovic et al.) https://go.nature.com/3e2QmYc

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stem-cell treatment

Heart muscle derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (pictured) is being trialed in people. (Thomas Deerinck, NCMIR/SPL)

New stem-cell treatment for heart disease Nature reveals that two men in China are the first people in the world to receive an experimental heart-disease treatment based on ‘reprogrammed’ stem cells. In January, a similar approach achieved a world first when sheets of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells were grafted onto a patient’s heart. This time, the iPS cells were injected right into the organ. No results have been published yet, so researchers not involved in the work have cautioned that there is no way to confirm whether the treatment works. But the cardiac surgeon who performed the procedures says both men are doing well one year on. Nature | 7 min read

COVID-19 Mutation

How Coronavirus Mutates and Spreads The virus has mutated. But that doesn’t mean it’s getting deadlier. By Jonathan Corum and Carl Zimm

CIVID-19 and Genetics

Could genetics explain why some COVID-19 patients fare worse than others?

By Nicoletta Lanese - Staff Writer 4 hours ago

 
 
 
 
 

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(Image: © Shutterstock)

Certain genetic differences might separate people who fall severely ill with COVID-19 from those who contract the infection but hardly develop a cough, a new preliminary study suggests. 

The research is still in its early days, though, experts say.

The immune system can react to viruses thanks, in part, to specific genes that help cells spot unfamiliar bugs when they enter the body. The genes, known as human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes, contain instructions to build proteins that bind to bits of a pathogen; those proteins serve as warning flags to alert immune cells. The immune cells, once trained to recognize these bits, jumpstart the process of building antibodies to target and destroy the invasive germ.