Lifeboat Foundation

The colorful Clownfish lives longer than 20 years in the aquarium. Researchers of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, in collaboration with the Leibniz Institute on Aging (FLI) in Jena, Germany, have investigated the genetics behind the longevity of clownfish. By sequencing the genome and comparing the sequences with other species, they were able to show, that the secret of this longevity lies in the mitochondria and lysosomes of the clownfish. Because it is uncomplicated to keep and breed clownfish, they represent an interesting new animal model for research on longevity. The results are now published in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.

Clownfish, famous because of the Disney movie “Finding Nemo,” are a bright orange-white-black colored fish with three vertical stripes, which occur in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans. Clownfish live in symbiotic relationship with sea anemone. They are reliant on sea anemone for shelter in their natural habitat, which offer protection for the fish with its tentacles. The Clownfish’s mucus protection prevents it from being stung by the tentacles of the sea anemone. Thanks to this survival strategy, clownfish have a lower mortality rate than other fishes and can grow quite old. Until now there was not much known about the lifespan of this interesting sea dweller.

Any night owls reading this will be familiar with the struggle of constantly trying to fit into a morning person’s world. And researchers might have finally identified the genetic typo that causes this social jetlag.

A 2017 study revealed that many people who stay up late and struggle to wake up in the morning aren’t lazy, their internal clock is simply genetically programmed to run between 2 and 2.5 hours slower than the rest of the population, thanks to a mutation in a body clock gene called CRY1.

“Carriers of the mutation have longer days than the planet gives them, so they are essentially playing catch-up for their entire lives,” said lead researcher Alina Patke from The Rockefeller University in New York.

Continue reading “Scientists Say They’ve Found The Annoying Gene Mutation That Turns Us Into Night Owls” »

By Michael Le Page

People with incurable melanomas and brain or breast cancers are to get injections of tumour-fighting viruses.

The trial will test the safety of a virus that has been engineered to shrink tumours – an approach that holds promise for a range of cancers, including deadly brain tumours.

Continue reading “Genetically modified virus may shrink incurable brain cancers” »

A special focus on rogue proteins may hold future promise in stopping the progression of nerve cell destruction in people who have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or frontotemporal dementia.

ALS, a rare but devastating disorder that’s also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, attacks the body’s nerve cells, resulting in progressive muscle weakness as the neurons degenerate over time. There is no cure. People with ALS eventually lose their strength and the ability to move their arms, legs and body.

About a third of those with ALS also develop frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a destruction of neurons in the brain that causes profound personality changes and disability. The two diseases are similar in both pathology and genetics. FTD tends to affect people earlier than Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia.

Continue reading “A new clue in the mystery of ALS, frontotemporal dementia” »

Researchers at Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine (RCIGM) have utilized a machine-learning process and clinical natural language processing (CNLP) to diagnose rare genetic diseases in record time. This new method is speeding answers to physicians caring for infants in intensive care and opening the door to increased use of genome sequencing as a first-line diagnostic test for babies with cryptic conditions.

“Some people call this artificial intelligence, we call it augmented intelligence,” said Stephen Kingsmore, MD, DSc, President and CEO of RCIGM. “Patient care will always begin and end with the doctor. By harnessing the power of technology, we can quickly and accurately determine the root cause of genetic diseases. We rapidly provide this critical information to intensive care physicians so they can focus on personalizing care for babies who are struggling to survive.”

A new study documenting the process was published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The workflow and research were led by the RCIGM team in collaboration with leading technology and data-science developers —Alexion, Clinithink, Diploid, Fabric Genomics and Illumina.

Continue reading “Researchers use machine-learning system to diagnose genetic diseases” »

BYU electrical engineering students have stumbled upon a very unconventional method that could speed up lab-on-a-chip disease diagnosis.

When someone goes to the hospital for a serious illness, if a bacterial infection is suspected, it can take up to three days to get results from a bacteria culture test. By then, it is often too late to adequately treat the infection, especially if the bacteria are resistant to common antibiotics.

BYU students are working on a project to diagnose antibiotic resistant bacteria, or superbugs, in less than an hour. Their method relies on extracting bacteria from a blood sample and then pulling DNA from that bacteria. If specific genetic codes indicating antibiotic resistance are present in the DNA, fluorescent molecules can be attached to these sites. Laser light can then be shined on the DNA samples and the molecules will light up.

Continue reading “Secret to lab-on-a-chip breakthrough: Matte black nail polish” »

Researchers are edging closer to a therapy for Angelman syndrome that involves injecting molecules that can edit genes into the fetal brain. They have already succeeded in mice and say the approach could eventually treat people with the syndrome.

The work is of high interest because a similar strategy could also work for other genetic conditions linked to autism.

But the prospect of injecting molecules into fetal brains poses ethical questions, experts caution.

Continue reading “Injecting CRISPR into fetal brain may correct autism mutations” »

But the practical challenges of breeding and maintaining unconventional lab animals persist.

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have created the largest simulation to date of an entire gene of DNA, a feat that required one billion atoms to model and will help researchers to better understand and develop cures for diseases like cancer.

“It is important to understand DNA at this level of detail because we want to understand precisely how genes turn on and off,” said Karissa Sanbonmatsu, a structural biologist at Los Alamos. “Knowing how this happens could unlock the secrets to how many diseases occur.”

Continue reading “Scientists create first billion-atom biomolecular simulation” »