In the US a murderer is claiming his crime was the tragic consequence of being born a killer.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization released a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius regarding the potentially harmful recommendations of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society in its Report on Gene Patents and Licensing Practices and Their Impact on Patient Access to Genetic Tests.

Certain people carry a genetic variant that could shave three or four years off their life, according to a new study.

The team analyzed more than 500,000 genetic variations across the entire human genome to identify the variants which are located near a gene called TERC.

There remains a lack of consensus amongst the medical and scientific communities about any cancer risk from low level radiation, particularly low-dose radiation delivered from computed tomography scans.

When Annie Brown's daughter, Isabel, was a month old, her pediatrician asked Brown and her husband to sit down because he had some bad news to tell them: Isabel carried a gene that put her at risk for cystic fibrosis.

Groundbreaking research done at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University's School of Biological Sciences could lead to the development of more potent drugs or a vaccine for malaria, which is transmitted to humans by infected mosquitoes and kills up to three million people each year.

In a study to be presented today at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting, in Chicago, researchers will unveil findings that show that it is not cost effective to screen for spinal muscular atrophy.

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay : Incidents of serious child abuse in the United States decreased by 26 percent between 1993 and 2006, and other forms of physical abuse dropped by 15 percent, a federal government study says.

New evidence that genetics play a significant role in some premature births may help explain why a woman can do everything right and still give birth too soon.

Together with colleagues in Barcelona, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have generated a complete map of the areas of the genome that control which genes are "turned on" or "off." The discovery, made in pancreatic islet cells, opens new avenues for understanding the genetic basis of type 2 diabetes and other common ...

Patents on two human genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer should be declared invalid because they stifle the free flow of information and hamper research, lawyers told a New York judge on Tuesday.

Johns Hopkins scientists believe they may have figured out how genetic snippets called microRNAs are able to shut down the production of some proteins.

Shawn Helbig, 27, who has Fragile X syndrome, visits Emory University's Department of Human... Shawn Helbig, 27, who has Fragile X syndrome, visits Emory University's Department of Human Genetics, where he is taking part in a clinical trial to find a treatment for the genetic condition, Thursday, Jan.

In the new Swedish-Finnish study, published in Nature Genetics , the researchers identified five loci that predispose to an SLE -related disease in Nova Scotia duck tolling retrievers.

Scientists have found a striking similarity in the DNA that enables some bats and dolphins to echolocate.

Tags Abstract A brief history of human genetics and genomics is provided, comparing recent progress in those fields with that in pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics, which are subsets of genetics and genomics, respectively.

In a major step toward commercialization of a promising therapeutic treatment , Oak Ridge National Laboratory contractor UT-Battelle announced at a signing ceremony here today that it has exclusively licensed patents on inventions based on the Nell-1 gene to NellOne Therapeutics, Inc.

Researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have performed the first complete genomic sequencing of a brain cancer cell line, a discovery that may lead to personalized treatments based on the unique biological signature of an individual's cancer and a finding that may unveil new molecular targets for which more effective and less ...

Scientists have identified a gene family that plays a key role in one of the earliest stages of development in which an embryo distinguishes its left side from the right and determines how organs should be positioned within the body.