Haydeh Payami helped uncover the genetic basis of Parkinson’s disease. Now, she hopes to find new ways to treat the disease by studying the gut microbiome.

George Church is at it again, this time using multiplex gene editing to create virus-proof cells, improve organ transplant success, and protect elephants.

Biofilms are home to millions of microbes, but disrupting their interactions could produce more effective antibiotics.

Scientists identify the genes responsible for bacteria-controlled sterility in arthropods.

Jumping genes in bdelloid rotifers are tamped down by DNA methylation performed by an enzyme pilfered from bacteria roughly 60 million years ago, a study finds.

Overturning previous studies, a peculiar protozoan mysteriously uses a DNA-markup system to take out the genetic trash.   

Image: Courtesy of Tim Elkins BRUTE FORCE: Remnant of an appressorium formed on Mylar. The appressorium produced a peg-like extension that penetrated the film, leaving a round hole. (Reprinted with permission, Annual Review of Microbiology, 50:491-512, 1996.) "The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with BLASTING, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish." Deuteronom

Researchers aim to unravel the molecular mechanisms by which a single genotype gives rise to diverse castes in eusocial organisms.

©Mehau Kulyk/Photo Researchers, IncToward the end of World War II, a German-imposed food embargo in western Holland – a densely populated area already suffering from scarce food supplies, ruined agricultural lands, and the onset of an unusually harsh winter – led to the death by starvation of some 30,000 people. Detailed birth records collected during that so-called Dutch Hunger Winter have provided scientists with useful data for analyzing the long-term health effects of prenat

The Human Genome SIDEBAR : Selected Suppliers of Software for Gene Discovery and Analysis Genetics has been an informational science since the elucidation of DNA's structure. Today's researchers say the field shifted to a more computational mode in 1990-the year that research groups began mapping genes to specific chromosomal sites for the Human Genome Project. "That year was pivotal, because it was then that the need to sequence significant amounts of DNA became compelling," says Richard Gib