p53 is possibly the most important protein for maintaining cellular function. Losing it is synonymous with cancer.

Recent advances in modeling the human placenta, the least understood organ, may inform placental disorders like preeclampsia.

Life sciences took center stage virtually around the world June 26. President Bill Clinton, flanked on the left by Celera Genomics Group president J. Craig Venter and on the right by National Human Genome Research Institute director Francis S. Collins, announced the completion of "the first survey of the entire human genome."

Bacteria that live in the digestive tracts of animals may influence the adaptive trajectories of their hosts.

The COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. Biomedical innovation has rallied to address that pressing concern while continuing to tackle broader research challenges.

Photo: Ori Fragman, Hebrew University Hordeum spontaneum, the plant studied for BARE-1 retroelements. With genome sequences arriving almost as regularly as the morning paper, the public's attention is focused on genes--new genes to protect crops against pests; rogue genes that make bacteria resistant to antibiotics; faulty genes that, if fixed, could cure diseases such as muscular dystrophy. What many people don't realize is that genes account for only part of an organism's DNA, and in many c

  DOUBLE WINGS: An ultrabithorax mutant fly has a total duplication of the body segment that carries wings. Recent issues of The American Journal of Human Genetics have featured a newcomer: Drosophila melanogaster. The fruit fly is a frequent star of a series of review articles called "Insights From Model Systems." The insect's appearance in a human genetics journal is a telling sign that this model among model organisms, long used to decipher the general principles of inheritance

©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

A toothpick and a bit of chance shaped David Page’s career, which he has dedicated to understanding the mammalian Y chromosome and fetal germ cell development.

In eukaryotic genetics, the one-gene/one-protein concept has, for the most part, breathed its last. Researchers have rallied behind mechanisms such as alternative splicing, which may allow a lowly 30,000-gene genome to produce the dizzying variety of proteins that some believe is necessary to produce beings as complex as humans. Alternative splicing--the post-transcriptional editing process that can result in various mRNAs--was previously seen as an interesting but relatively uncommon sidesh