| |
| News Around World |
| |
| New research approaches by researchers at Purdue University which has allowed them to rapidly identify the gene responsible for high sodium levels in certain plants have the potential to be applied in the study of a wide variety of other important plant properties. The approach, a combination of a variety of techniques, new and old, is potentially capable of showing genetic differences among samples in much shorter periods, and even show the origins of such variation.
|
| A breakthrough from an international team of scientists from the US and Japan has been reported to have been successful in engineering cows that are free from proteins that may cause mad cow disease. The gene responsible to making these proteins, known as prions, have been “knocked out” and thus preventing it from being expressed even being exposed to “bad” prions. The research has been lauded as a step forward in animal biotechnology that may benefit consumers. However, before the beef can reach the market, the animals have to be approved by the Food Drug Administration.
|
Researchers at the University
of California, San Diego and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research
have finally solved two mysteries regarding genomic inheritance, which
has been elusive to scientists since its inception and description
in the 1800s. The molecular nature of the chromosome spindle connection,
a critical component of genetic inheritance during cell division has
finally been identified in a protein group which actually forms such
a connection while pulling apart the two replicas of a genome. |
| Genetically Altered Cells May help Artificial Skin Fight Infection |
One major problem of artificial skin grafts for patients with severe burns are bacterial infection during the initial grafting period, when skin is most susceptible to such infections. Researchers at the University of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Shriners Hospital for Children have successfully overcome this problem through genetically modified skin that may help fight off such potentially lethal infections. The genetically altered product is capable of producing higher levels of human beta defensin 4 which aids it in killing more bacteria than normal skin cells.
|
| |
|
| |