News • Oncology
One cancer – many tumors
In studies on prostate cancer, scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) simultaneously investigated the genetic and epigenetic development of the tumors.
Genetics
A blood test for suicide?
Johns Hopkins researchers say they have discovered a chemical alteration in a single human gene linked to stress reactions that, if confirmed in larger studies, could give doctors a simple blood test to reliably predict a person’s risk of attempting suicide.
Oocyte modification
USA - Oocyte modification to eliminate inherited mitochondrial defects in a human embryo was the subject of a globally scrutinised Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hearing held in February.
A challenge for oncologists
‘The disease “cancer” is increasingly classified into sub-groups. Today, we are already dealing with a number of orphan diseases,’ says Professor Richard Greil MD, head of LIMCR at University Hospital Salzburg.
Article • 123
Earlier detection of Down’s syndrome
Down’s syndrome (also referred to as trisomy 21) is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of an extra copy of chromosome 21 in a person’s DNA. Current screening for Down’s syndrome and other trisomy conditions includes a combined test done between the 11th and 13th weeks of pregnancy.
Article • MEDICA 2013
Genetically targeted medicine forges ahead
Healthcare is undergoing a major change set to offer a real prospect of far more genetically targeted treatments, according a leading human geneticist Sir John Burn, Professor of Clinical Genetics at Newcastle University, England.
Do-it-yourself scientific testing
A British teenager, 17-year-old Fred Turner, has won a major accolade for building a DNA testing analyser in his own home for a few hundred euros.
From bad breath to cardiac infarction
More than half of Germany’s population aged between 18 and 74 years cannot show off a gapless set of teeth, and that’s similar in France and worse only in Poland, according to a 2012 study, which also investigated oral hygiene.
Russian cancer research team gains international funding
The international research project ‘The Definition of new types of tumours containing potential mutations sensitivity to drugs’ has begun in Petrov Research Institute of Oncology in St Petersburg, the oldest Russian oncology institute.