Skip to content

Category Archives: News

Down’s syndrome = no cancer?

People with Down’s syndrome rarely get most kinds of cancer and U.S. researchers have nailed down one reason why — they have extra copies of a gene that helps keep tumors from feeding themselves. …. “One such gene is Down’s syndrome candidate region-1 (DSCR1, also known as RCAN1),” Harvard’s Sandra Ryeom and colleagues wrote. This […]

The origin of RNA

A fundamental but elusive step in the early evolution of life on Earth has been replicated in a laboratory. Researchers synthesized the basic ingredients of RNA, a molecule from which the simplest self-replicating structures are made. Until now, they couldn’t explain how these ingredients might have formed. …. No matter how they combined the ingredients […]

ACLU Challenges Gene Patents

Gene Patents Stifle Patient Access To Medical Care And Critical Research NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation, a not-for-profit organization affiliated with Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (PUBPAT), filed a lawsuit today charging that patents on two human genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer stifle research […]