DARIEN, IL - A new study of twins suggests that insomnia in childhood and adolescence is partially explained by genetic factors. Results show that clinically significant insomnia was moderately heritable at all stages of the longitudinal study. Genetic factors contributed to 33 to 38 percent of the insomnia ratings at the first two stages of the study, when participants had an average age of 8 to 10 years. The heritability of insomnia was 14 to 24 percent at the third and fourth follow-up points, when the average age of participants was 14 to 15 years. The remaining source of variance in the insomnia ratings was the non-shared environment, with no influence of shared, family-wide factors. Further analysis found that genetic influences around age 8 contributed to insomnia at all subsequent stages of development, and that new genetic influences came into play around the age of 10 years. "Insomnia in youth is moderately related to genetic factors, but the specific genetic factors may change with age," said study author Philip Gehrman, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. "We were most surprised by the fact that the genetic factors were not stable over … Continue reading →

MS Stem Cell Medication Therapy Shows Promise http://www.dailyrx.com/autologous-stem-cell-transplant-after-immunosuppressive-therapy-induced-3-year-remission-relapsing Many patients with relapsing-remitting MS ... By: dailyRx … Continue reading →

Contact Information Available for logged-in reporters only Newswise A powerful genome editing technology known as CRISPR has been used by researchers since 2012 to trim, disrupt, replace or add to sequences of an organisms DNA. Now, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine have shown that the system also precisely and efficiently alters human stem cells. In a recent online report on the work in Molecular Therapy, the Johns Hopkins team says the findings could streamline and speed efforts to modify and tailor human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) for use as treatments or in the development of model systems to study diseases and test drugs. Stem cell technology is quickly advancing, and we think that the days when we can use iPSCs for human therapy arent that far away, says Zhaohui Ye, Ph.D., an instructor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. This is one of the first studies to detail the use of CRISPR in human iPSCs, showcasing its potential in these cells. CRISPR originated from a microbial immune system that contains DNA segments known as clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. The engineered editing system makes use of an enzyme that nicks together DNA with a piece … Continue reading →