News Articles


Over 5000 prognostic genes identified in renal cancer

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Renal cancer affects mainly adults above age 60 and is more common in men than women. Although smoking, industrial chemicals and obesity have been suggested as risk factors, the underlying cause of renal cancer is often unknown. By using a systems level approach to analyze the renal cancer proteome based on clinical metadata and genome-wide transcriptomics data, 5968 genes were found to be associated with prognostic outcome...Read more


Cell Image of the Month - MAOA and mitochondrial disease

2018-02-20
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Often referred to as the "powerhouse of the cell", mitochondria are vitally important to you. The mitochondria contains its own DNA coding for 37 genes, while a vast majority of mitochondrial localizing genes are coded in the nuclear DNA. Dysfunction in these genes often cause extreme disorders and have shown to play key roles in diseases including but not limited to: cancers, optical atrophy, mental development, heart, liver and kidney disease, dementia and diabetes (Scharfe C. et al. 2009).

MAOA shown here is a mitochondrial protein and member of the Monoamine oxidase family of proteins. This family of proteins has been implicated in optic atrophy...Read more


GeneGini: a simple method for describing how cells work

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For more than 20 years, scientists have characterised the behaviour of cells in different circumstances by analysing the expression of their genes. This is typically done at the level of gene transcripts, and their collective expression (the 'expression profile') is known as the transcriptome. These methods are very powerful, but generate massive amounts of data (mammalian cells typically express some 20,000 gene transcripts). What is needed is a method that provides a simple summary of such data. A team from Manchester, together with colleagues from Sweden, has now come up with one...Read more