Recent quotes:

Schizophrenia: 30 genes under suspicion -- ScienceDaily

Alex Schier's team has now identified 30 genes in these regions and has been able to show that they have concrete effects on the structure and function of the brain as well as on various behavioral patterns. "Of the 132 suspects, we were ultimately able to establish a more precise perpetrator profile for 30 genes," said Schier. "One of the perpetrators is the transcription factor znf536, which controls the development of the forebrain. This brain region influences our social behavior and the processing of stress." The research team not only deciphered the function of the individual genes, but also generated an atlas of all genes with their respective consequences for the brain
#prediction #DNA #psychosis #dtc-gt - sciencedaily.com

Genomics could better match treatments to pancreatic cancer patients -- ScienceDaily

"Every pancreatic cancer is different, and performing molecular profiling of each patient's tumor could help determine the best treatment options," said lead author Aatur Singhi, M.D., Ph.D., surgical pathologist at UPMC and assistant professor of pathology at Pitt. "Rather than blindly giving patients the same chemotherapy, we want to tailor a patient's chemo to their tumor type. A one-size-fits-all approach isn't going to work. Therefore, we would like to make molecular profiling standard-of-care for patients with pancreatic cancer."
#digiceuticals #cancer #docbots #dtc-gt - sciencedaily.com

The shifting model in clinical diagnostics: how next-generation sequencing and families are altering the way rare diseases are discovered, studied, and treated | Genetics in Medicine

Until very recently, the fragmented distribution of patients across institutions hindered the discovery of new rare diseases. Clinicians working with a single, isolated patient could steadily eliminate known disorders but do little more. Families would seek clinicians with the longest history and largest clinic volume to increase their chances of finding a second case, but what does a physician do when N = 1 or if the phenotype is inconsistent across patients? These challenges are driving an increase in the use of NGS. Yet this technological advance presents new challenges of its own. Perhaps the most daunting, in our opinion, is the inability to share sequencing data quickly and universally. Standards and bioinformatic tools are needed that allow for a national repository where families or scientists can bring clinical results and NGS data for comparison. This challenge can be circumvented by tools already created for and by the Internet and social media.
#medicalindustrialcomplex #DNA #social-media #digiceuticals #big-data #citizen-medicine #dtc-gt - nature.com