genome

By sequencing the genome of a mouse with cancer, researchers at the School of Medicine have uncovered mutations that also drive cancer in humans.

Scientists have decoded the DNA of the parasitic worm that causes trichinosis, a disease linked to eating raw or undercooked pork or carnivorous wild game animals, such as bear and walrus.

An international team of scientists, led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has decoded the DNA of a Sumatran orangutan. With this genome as a reference, the scientists then sequenced the genomes of five additional Sumatran and five Bornean orangutans, they report in the journal Nature.

Decoding the DNA of a woman who died of acute myeloid leukemia has led Washington University researchers to a gene that they found to be commonly altered in many patients who died quickly of the disease.

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have scanned the entire genome of mice for genes that help build photoreceptors, the light-sensing cells of the eye. The results have already helped researchers identify the gene that causes a form of retinitis pigmentosa, a type of inherited blindness in humans.

Scientists have sequenced the genome of the colonial alga, Volvox carteri, the journal Science announced. While the photosynthesizing colonial algae is fascinating in itself, knowing its genome may also help scientists engineer algae able to produce economic biofuels.

When she was a child “in the land Down Under,” Camilla Whittington’s dad decided it would be fun for them to go look for platypuses. These animals, found only in Australia, are technically mammals, yet they are like no other mammals around – sure, like all mammals, they produce milk for their babies, but they also lay eggs and have a bill like birds do, and, most oddly, the males shoot venom from spurs in their hind legs that causes pain even the strongest painkillers can’t alleviate.  

As part of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP), scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and their colleagues have decoded the genomes of 178 microbes from the human body, they report in the journal Science.

Using powerful DNA sequencing technology to decode the genomes of cancer patients, scientists at the School of Medicine are getting an unprecedented look at the genetic basis of a highly lethal breast cancer that disproportionately affects younger women and those who are African-American, they report in the journal Nature.

Nearly all animals make sounds instinctively, but baby songbirds learn to sing in virtually the same way human infants learn to speak: by imitating a parent. Now, an international team of scientists, led by the School of Medicine, has decoded the genome of a songbird — the Australian zebra finch — to reveal intriguing clues about the genetic basis and evolution of vocal learning.