Tag Archives: mRNA

New finding: Noncoding RNA is the agent of gene silencing

News: Cell Biology    October 18, 2010
This is news about research by Ingrid Grummt and colleagues at the German Cancer Research Center (Heidelberg, Germany) and their progress in discovering how instructions coded in DNA are correctly sequenced (silenced or activated). But first, an analogy: Way way back in the cave-person era of computing (say 1954), a ‘programmer’ would stand at a [...]
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New for epigenetics: Active pseudogenes and RNA as gene regulator

Impact: Cell Biology    June 28, 2010
How is it that the human genome, with about 23,000 protein coding genes, can produce such a complicated organism as the human being, when the laboratory flatworm (C. elegans, a relatively simple organism) has about 20,000 coding genes? It seems fairly obvious that there must be something else at work in more complex organisms that [...]
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Extending life with diet or insulin has trade-offs

News: Extending Lifespan    May 22, 2010
Over the last decade or so, two of the most promising avenues of research in gerontology (the study of aging) and the search for means of extending human life have been on the effects of restricting diet and the activity of the hormone insulin. Numerous studies have shown that caloric restriction (not starvation, but a [...]
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Genetic pause control

News: DNA Decoding    April 29, 2010
Did you know that the genetic production process (gene expression) can be paused? A few years ago, most geneticists didn’t know either, and now it appears that the ability to pause genetic expression is not limited to a handful of genes (as originally thought) and may be a general capability for cells at all stages [...]
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Stem cell epigenomic development mapped

News: Stem Cells    February 4, 2010
Completing the map of the human genome, back in 2000 and 2003, was a monumental task and a milestone on the road to understanding our genetics. Here’s another milestone: A map that shows in detail how the human genome is modified during embryonic development. Just completed and published by a team of researchers from the [...]
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