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Our genomes are peppered with DNA segments called retrotransposons that can move from place to place. When unleashed, some can kill nerves and promote inflammation — a discovery that may inspire treatments for neurodegeneration.
How dangerous is it? Where did it come from? H5N1 influenza’s origins stretch back to the 1990s, and key events paved the way for the outbreak we’re seeing today.
Can genetically modified animals help ease the shortage of organs? After years of research into xenotransplantation, the field is at a turning point — yet risks and ethical issues remain.
Picture your body: It’s a collection of cells carrying thousands of DNA errors accrued over a lifetime — many harmless, some bad, and at least a few that may be good for you.
One class of drugs has already found success in treating the painful, disorienting and common attacks. Excitement is building about a slew of additional drug targets.
Population and animal studies suggested it could treat cancer, but the clinical trials were a bust. Here’s what happened and what potential may remain.
With the first medical therapy approved and systems like CRISPR-Cas showing up in complex cells, there’s a lot going on in the genome editing field. Here’s our primer.
Polygenic risk scores — a patient’s chance, based on tiny DNA variants, of developing cardiovascular disease, breast cancer and more — are coming to clinics. But there are kinks to iron out and accuracy remains an issue.
Amyloid plaque can build up in body organs other than the brain. The resulting diseases — AL amyloidosis, ATTR amyloidosis and more — cause much suffering.
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