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The cause of most cases of pediatric leukemia is not known, as most sufferers do not display any risk factors for the disease. However scientists have begun to understand how certain changes in DNA can cause leukemia. Cancer can be caused by mutation oncogenes, the genes that control when cells divide. A translocation between chromosomes 2 and 22 causes almost all cases of childhood chronic myeloid leukemia and childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia. Other genetic mutations can be inherited, however most of the mutations that cause leukemia develop after birth. Environmental factors, when combined with a genetic predisposition for leukemia, may trigger the disease. However the cause of most pediatric leukemia remains unknown.

Washington University School of Medicine and St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital have teamed up to identify genetic mutations that cause pediatric cancer. There are over 600 patient's genes being analyzed. The tumor cells are compared to the patients healthy cells and the differences are recorded. The program is trying to identify a mutation that causes a healthy cell to turn into a cancerous one. This in turn can help scientists develop new treatments to help young cancer patients.

If a mutation occurs in a person's genes it can cause cancer. The future of cancer therapy is identifying and targeting these mutations. A trial at the University of Florida, known as NSCABP-FC-7 takes the genetic fingerprint of a patients DNA and gives them a personalized treatment based on the information. The idea is to move away from the traditional cytotoxic treatment, and towards less toxic personalized medicine. However, the toxicity of cancer drugs is decreasing due to technology's increasing ability to target and destroy specific cells, and not healthy cells. Washington University St. Louis as well as other institutions have become part of the study. Overall, the future of cancer treatment lies in targeted therapies and personalized medicine.

Researchers have created an assay that can analyze nucleotide sugar transporter functions in plants and characterize them. This assay can provide information that is very beneficial to the genetic engineering of plants. The information learned from the assay has already been used to change plants' biomass sugar composition. This sugar can be a very effective source of energy. The more sugar content the cell walls have, the more energy the plant will be able to provide. 

A woman with a solitary fibrous cancer, the cancer is only seen a couple hundred times a year, was enrolled MI-ONCOSEQ which led to the discovery of the mutation that causes this cancer. Researchers at University of Michigan ran the tumors genome and identified a mutations. The mutation was unusual, a fusion between two genes, NAB2 and STAT6. Normally mutation are identified because of the they are seen over and over again. However, in this woman's case, there were no known mutations, so scientists looked at what had changed. Then 51 other samples of solitary fibrous tumors were tested for the mutation; all of them tested positive for the mutation. The NAB2-STAT6 fusion may prove hard to treat with target therapy, but scientists may be able to disrupt its growth cycle which leads to this fusion. More research still needs to be done to determine ways in which the knowledge of this mutations can be applied, but for now it is a great start at tackling these rare tumors.

Materialists scientists have said that DNA stores all the information needed to create a human body. However, the Human Genome Project shows otherwise. The scientists working in the project found that humans have about 20,000 protein-coding genes. That is no where near enough storage to hold all the information needed to make a human being because people are so complex. This shows that genes alone can not fully explain inheritance. 

Reproduction is obviously a vital aspect of the human development. With a non-functioning fertility system future generations would be at a loss. Many problems could arise with infertility and ground-breaking research is finally being conducted. One of the important aspects of human reproduction is the use of hormones specifically FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone). This hormone is produced at the base of the brain stem and non-existing levels of FSH were recently associated with infertility. In order to regenerate these hormones a change has to be made in the FSHB subunit of the nucleotide. Infertility usually occurs after certain changes are made in the hormone levels and by redirecting the levels of hormones we may be able to alter the problems that arise during reproduction. It should also be noted that increases and decreases in the levels of FSH may have different effects depending on the gender of the patient. Current research estimates that the response of males to this therapy could positively effect nearly 45% of infertile men. Estimates could not be made for females as a result of insufficient research.