heath care

Scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Sema4, and collaborating institutions published results of an in-depth, multi-omics approach to characterizing the immune component of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). These results provide new insights into the biologic networks involved in IBD with potential to identify new targets and eventually novel interventions for the treatment of patients living with IBD. The article appeared online in  Nature Genetics . In the United States, some 3 million adults are diagnosed with IBD, which includes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis and is associated with immune and inflammation mechanisms. Previous genome-wide association studies to detect the genetic source of this condition turned up more than 200 genes, but those explain just a small fraction of IBD cases. For this study, scientists used a wide variety of data -- including DNA variation, gene expression, regulatory elements, and clinical information -- gathered ...

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a new approach to the "reprogramming" of ordinary adult cells into stem cells. In a study published in an Advance Online paper in  Nature Biotechnology , the TSRI scientists screened a library of 100 million antibodies and found several that can help reprogram mature skin-like cells into stem cells known as induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs). Making IPSCs from more mature types of cells normally involves the insertions of four transcription factor genes into the DNA of those cells. The antibodies identified by the scientists can be applied to mature cells -- where they bind to proteins on the cell surface -- as a substitute for three of the standard transcription factor gene-insertions. "This result suggests that ultimately we might be able to make IPSCs without putting anything in the cell nucleus, which potentially means that these stem cells will have fewer mutations and overall better propert...