Twins born in Australia have become the second-ever-identified pair of “semi-identical” twins, and the first to be detected before they were born. Such cases come about when twins receive 100% identical genes from their mother, but not from their father.
In September 2019, Anglia Ruskin University’s (ARU’s) Cambridge campus will begin the first year of its new – and currently unique in the UK – Data Scientist Degree Apprenticeship for the bioinformatics profession. Ahead of this, ARU and the Wellcome Sanger Institute have set up a “Lunch and Learn” panel event for hiring managers and talent acquisition specialists, looking at how they can best recruit and support top apprentices.
A neuron-optimised CRISPR-Cas9 activation system has been used by scientists to regulate genes in a rat brain for the first time. This technique could lead to researchers being able to probe genetic influences on brain health and disease in model organisms which more closely resemble humans.
New information from China has suggested that the twins recently created using CRISPR gene-editing technology to make them HIV-resistance could also develop genetically-enhanced brains.
Researchers from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) have determined a new way to deliver DNA editing tools so that the presence of their proteins in cells is reduced, in what they have called a “hit and run” approach.
Scientists have used synthetic nucleotides to double the traditional number of life’s building blocks to eight.
Roche is set to pay $4.3bn for the acquisition of Spark Therapeutics, a gene therapy company that will put the pharma giant ahead in one of the biggest growing markets around.
A combination of immunotherapy drug avelumab and targeted agent axitinib has been seen to increases progression-free survival in patients with metastatic kidney cancer, scientists from the Dana-Farber Institute have reported following a phase 3 clinical trial.
Sperm which lives longer before fertilising an egg produces more health children, Uppsala University and University of East Anglia (UEA) scientists have found.
The leading advisor for the UK science and technology (S&T) sectors has estimated that despite Brexit, Cambridge and Oxford’s S&T companies will require 2.5 million more square feet of lab and research space over the next five years, and are looking to accommodate 20,000 new R&D workers by 2023.
Esketamine, a Johnson & Johnson antidepressant based on the party drug ketamine, has received backing from an FDA independent advisory group.
Toxic antibody tisutumab vedotin (TV) has shown promise as a treatment for a number of types of advanced cancer. This “trojan horse” approach has now reached the stage of being tested on a wider variety of patients. Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust researchers tested the drug on 147 patients to evaluate potential benefits and side effects.
Genomics England, NHS England and The Royal Society are holding a scientific meeting at the Royal Society in Carlton House Terrace to celebrate the successful conclusion of the 100,000 Genomes Project, which was declared finished in December last year.
More errors occur in DNA replication during times of stress when resources are scares, scientists at the University of Toronto have found.
For the first time, scientists have changed human stem cells into functional insulin-producing cells in mice, potentially promising a breakthrough in treatment for those suffering from type 1 diabetes.
