biochemistry, genetics & genomics

Paul Cohen of the Rockefeller University describes his study of thousands of people, finding that the energy-burning tissue is tied to a lower risk of for several diseases, including type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

The University of Oregon scientist studied the structure and function of chromatin, with the intent of designing new therapeutic tools.

Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna reprogrammed the bacterial immune response into one of the most popular tools for genetics and molecular biology.

Mitochondrial DNA and other factors place our ancestors in southern Africa 200,000 years ago.

Researchers could accurately detect life-threatening vascular complications in type 2 diabetes patients by analyzing hydroxymethylated cytosines in freely circulating DNA.

Scientists found they could sort mouse sperm prior to IVF by treating semen with a drug that selectively slows down X-bearing cells.

The tool weighs millions of variants to determine how susceptible a person is to becoming obese.

Genes inserted into the yeast genome produce the compounds CBD and THC in the microbes.

All life on Earth uses a genetic code based on four nucleotides. Now, scientists have created one with eight.

The same network of transcription factors may be responsible for both cleft palate and neural tube defects, according to a new study connecting mouse and human data.

Almost half of all patents relating to the genes of marine organisms belong to one large international corporation, BASF, a new study reveals.  

The adaptation gives better endurance to the Bajau people, known as sea nomads, by increasing spleen size and, in turn, boosting the number of oxygenated red blood cells when diving.  

Two studies examining the effects of parents’ ages on their offsprings’ telomere lengths come to opposite conclusions.  

Transcription and translation of DNA containing synthetic base pairs becomes a reality in living cells.

The 44-year-old patient has Hunter syndrome, which doctors hope to treat using zinc finger nucleases.

A tweaked Cas9 nuclease reduces off-target effects to levels below that of previous versions of the enzyme.

At Harvard University the chemical biologist looks for new metabolic pathways to investigate how gut bacteria interact with one another and their hosts.

A screen of human embryonic stem cell lines finds several that accumulated changes in the gene TP53, including aberrations commonly seen in cancer.

Scientists conducting a large-scale, comparative transcriptomics project have inadvertently highlighted widespread contamination in sequencing data.