Life Science

From EurekAlert: An article in the recent issue of Family Process presents the family-centered model created to guide the psychological and social implications of genetic testing. The rapidly growing availability of genetic testing to learn about future disease risk poses a number of clinical and ethical dilemmas for patients, their families and healthcare professionals. "The need for a family-based approach ...

New findings about genetic factors controlling stem cell differentiation suggests that similar mechanisms may be involved in tumor formation. Research on adult stem cells found in the skin hints at a new class of genes, according to a study from investigators at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. These genes – dubbed pangenes – can both govern a stem ...

I know, I know. It’s an obsession. From EurekAlert. UCLA scientists have created a mechanism at the nanoscale to externally control the function and action of a protein. "We can switch a protein on and off, and while we have controlled a specific protein, we believe our approach will work with virtually any protein," said Giovanni Zocchi, assistant professor of ...

From New Scientist: In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, the eponymous subject keeps his youthful looks while the vagaries of age are visited upon his portrait in the attic. Now a digital version of Wilde’s idea is being developed to show you what you will look like in five years’ time if you take no exercise, eat too ...