A single mutation may have caused gross anatomical changes that spurred human evolution

A TELLING EXPRESSION:© 2002 ElsevierExpression patterns for 7 and 20 genes that were selected as discriminators of relapse versus continuous complete remission (CCR) for two types of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, T-ALL and hyperdiploid >50 ALL. (from E-.J. Yeoh et al., Cancer Cell 1:133–43, 2002.)Countless things can go wrong in the complicated cell division process. Checkpoints fail, genomic instability increases, and when anarchy reigns, cancers spread. In trying to assess what is d

Compiled by Brendan MaherWhen the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization chose to dedicate 2004 as the International Year of Rice, it set as a theme, "rice is life," and with good reason. Rice supplies 20% of the world's nutritional energy and is a staple food for more than half the population. In some Southeast Asian countries, it contributes more than 50% of dietary energy. Nearly 1 billion households in Asia, Africa and the Americas depend on rice for employment and livelihood; and

Mad cow and memory: Prion-like proteins proposed to regulate neuronal plasticity

Plants for Pain Click to view enlarged diagram (PDF, 255K) Painkillers have a small family tree. Most of the used, and sometimes abused, pain medications available have roots in either the willow tree or the poppy. Aspirin, originally derived from willow bark or other plant extracts, works on the same molecular pathways as medications with more recent origins, including the crop of highly targeted COX-2 inhibitors. And researchers time and again returned to the opium poppy to derive e

Click to view enlarged diagrams (172K) Cell-cycle cameras recently recorded a troubling scene. Investigators had taken away genes thought to control cell-cycle progression, a central force in growth and development and cancer, but some mice and cell lines grew anyway (see A Cell-Cycle Couple Loses Its Luster). At the perceived time of the incident--the mitotic transition from G1 to S phase-- putative primary players such as cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) were not at the scene. Now, private

Adapted from image by I.I. Gottesman ©2001  GENES AND MORE: The risks of developing schizophrenia over a lifetime to the relatives of schizophrenia sufferers accord with a largely genetic explanation. Yet with 48% concordance for identical twins, environmental factors may play a role. It's a scary thought that one could develop a debilitating mental illness such as schizophrenia as easily as catching a cold. Well, it's more complicated than that, say advocates of the so-called infec

Rockefeller's Robert G. Roeder, Imperial College's Marc Feldmann and Ravinder N. Maini are other winners

Stored in the human genome, perhaps, is the record of human evolution and existence on this planet. Many say, however, that this history and the benefits it may unfold for human health cannot be found in the single, essentially complete human sequence--99.9% similar to any other human sequence. It's the 0.1% difference that should tell the tale--not only of migration, war, technological achievement, and conquest--but also of the differences that confer susceptibility to complex, multigenic dis

©Eye of Science/Photo Researchers Yeast is the oldest domesticated microbe. Its potable fermentation products have sparked feuds, ended wars, instigated romance, and wrecked many a morning after. The organism's mark on science is no less notable. In the 1950s, mapping 26 genes was a challenge. Fifty years later, researchers have identified all 6,000, and they have extracted from this single-celled organism clues to the workings of all eukaryotic life. Scientists know more about cell cycle

Erica P. Johnson The dark side of the moon is a misnomer. Light reaches la luna's entire surface, but one half is unviewable from Earth. The human genome, the now essentially decoded1 map of life, likewise has a light side--the genes encoding mRNA and protein--and a dark side, which is coming into view for the first time. The dark side encompasses more than its opposite: The majority of the genome comprises intronic regions, stretches of repeat sequence, and other assorted gibberish that has a

Front Page Saving Tabby; C35 Expression as a Cancer Marker?; Interdisciplinary Research Saving Tabby Reprinted with permission from Nature © online April 7, 2003 Researchers in Switzerland reversed a genetic developmental defect in mice by injecting their pregnant mothers with a recombinant protein. These smaller-than-normal patients, so-called Tabby mice, lack specialized hairs, teeth, and sweat glands. Both Tabby and its human counterpart of this disease, an X-linked form