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Séguin, a research scientist in forest genomics with the Canadian Forest Service, inserted bacterial DNA into spruces that effectively made them immune to spruce budworm, a pest that can chew needles off tens of millions of hectares of trees in a single outbreak. While there is controversy over genetic engineering, some scientists say it could also help fight climate change by creating trees that grow bigger, faster, resist disease and can even turn carbon into a stable white powder that falls to the ground - in other words, trees that would be better at pulling carbon from the atmosphere.

Epigenomic fact sheet

Data visualization tool for pediatric cancer samples from patients.

Q/A format comprehensive fact sheet at student accessible reading level.

Many of the following lessons were developed by Geneticist-Educator Network of Alliances (GENA) teams and have been further adapted by ASHG for use in high school (or advanced middle school) life sciences classrooms. These are identified by GENA cohort in the database. However, we have expanded the database to also include lessons developed through other ASHG programs, such as the High School Workshop. All lessons are intended to follow the BSCS's 5E instructional model (Bybee, RW, et al., 2006).

Within a year, Stein's team had designed a clinical trial protocol that turned standard research practices around 180 degrees, launching what it now calls the Signature Clinical Trial Program. Instead of a patient traveling to one of several research sites, Novartis would send the investigational drugs to his or her local oncologist's office. Instead of testing hundreds or thousands of genetically unscreened patients, the company would accept only patients who had the genetic markers the drugs were supposed to target. Instead of waiting months, patients could access the treatments in two or three weeks. Instead of running a large-scale trial to investigate one or two questions, clinicians could conduct smaller, rapid proof-of-concept studies to quickly rule out the tumor types that don't respond to a study agent and identify other tumor types that are potentially treatable with the drug and worthy of further study.

A powerful tool called pVAAST that combines linkage analysis with case control association has been developed to help researchers and clinicians identify disease-causing mutations in families faster and more precisely than ever before. The researchers describe cases in which pVAAST (the pedigree Variant Annotation, Analysis and Search Tool) identified mutations in two families with separate diseases and a de novo or new variation in a 12-year-old who was the only one in his family to suffer from a mysterious and life threatening intestinal problem.

Current CRISPR-based screens often mutate the beginning of a gene, which sometimes results in the expression of a functional protein variant. To circumvent this problem, researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) designed CRISPR guide RNAs that would mutate the portion of a gene encoding a domain on the surface of the protein where a small molecule could bind to alter the protein's function. The team had previously identified such a binding pocket on the protein BRD4, and a small molecule inhibitor that binds in the pocket is an effective leukemia treatment.

By then, researchers had identified three genetic mutations that can be inherited and, if they are, cause a form of Alzheimer's called early onset because it strikes before age 65 and sometimes far earlier. Since 2004, Hornstein and all five of her siblings have been tested. Hornstein is the only one who doesn't carry PSEN1, one of the mutations.

The researchers isolated different subpopulations of human brain stem cells and precisely identified, which genes are active in which cell type. In doing so, they noticed the gene ARHGAP11B: it is only found in humans and in our closest relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisova-Humans, but not in chimpanzees. This gene manages to trigger brain stem cells to form a bigger pool of stem cells. In that way, during brain development more neurons can arise and the cerebrum can expand. The cerebrum is responsible for cognitive functions like speaking and thinking.