It is now known that genetic variability accounts for 25% of susceptibility to the disease, but that variations in the sickle-cell gene contribute to only a fraction of that.
ECONOMIST: Genetics and infectious disease: The germ of an idea | The
With the help of Chiara Cirelli, who also works at the University of Wisconsin, Dr Tononi has created a mutant fruit fly that sleeps only two or three hours a night. (A normal fly sleeps between eight and 14 hours.) The mutation itself is in a gene for a nerve-cell protein of a type known as an ion channel.
Novartis is in final trials of a drug that may help the one-third of acute myeloid leukemia cases with a gene mutation that turns on cell-growth signals.
Correcting malfunctioning genes could perhaps cure diseases linked to a single gene, such as sickle-cell anemia.
Variations in the between-gene regions have been linked to sickle cell anemia and diabetes.
Genasense, which is used in combination with chemotherapy, works by targeting a key "cell suicide" gene called bcl-2 and then inducing cancer cells to kill themselves.
He found that once TGF-beta activated a cell, it triggered the CTGF gene to make its protein (see chart).
Early trials have shown promise in treating sickle-cell anaemia, a disease caused by a faulty haemoglobin gene.
Revealingly, the new gene, called neuregulin-1, turns out to be involved in brain cell "plasticity, " the rewiring process that enables learning.
The researchers were led to this idea when they scanned the stem-cell precursors of nerve cells with a device called a gene chip.
ECONOMIST: Brain development may be influenced by genetic parasites
One of the researchers, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, of University College, London, and the London School of Economics, has tried to do just that, by picking a popular suspect the gene that encodes the serotonin-transporter protein, a molecule that shuffles a brain messenger called serotonin through cell membranes and examining how variants of that gene affect levels of happiness.
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