A scientific breakthrough has expanded the way genetic information can be stored. STORY HIGHLIGHTS (CNN) -- All of life as we know it on Earth -- pigs, pandas, fish, bacteria and everything else -- has genetic information encoded in the same way, with the same biological alphabet. Now, for the first time, scientists have shown it is possible to alter that alphabet and still have a living organism that passes on the genetic information. They reported their findings in the journal Nature. "This is the first experimental demonstration that life can exist with information that's not coded the way nature does (it)," said Floyd Romesberg, associate professor of chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Medicine can greatly benefit from this discovery, Romesberg said. There's potential for better antibiotics and treatments for a slew of diseases for which drug development has been challenging, including cancers. The findings also suggest that DNA as we know it on Earth may not be the only solution to coding for life, Romesberg said. There may be other organisms elsewhere in space that use genetic letters we have never seen -- or that don't use DNA at all. "Is this alien life? … Continue reading →

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 9-May-2014 Contact: Donna Dubuc Donna.M.Dubuc@Dartmouth.edu 603-653-3615 The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth Researchers at Dartmouth's Norris Cotton Cancer Center have published results from a study in Cell Reports that discovers a new mechanism that distinguishes normal blood stem cells from blood cancers. "These findings constitute a significant advance toward the goal of killing leukemia cells without harming the body's normal blood stem cells which are often damaged by chemotherapy," said Patricia Ernst, PhD, co-director of the Cancer Mechanisms Program of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center and an associate professor in Genetics at the Geisel School of Medicine. The study focused on a pathway regulated by a gene called MLL1 (for Mixed Lineage Leukemia). Ernst served as principal investigator; Bibhu Mishra, PhD, as lead author. When the MLL1 gene is damaged, it can cause leukemia, which is a cancer of the blood, often occurring in very young patients. Researchers found that the normal version of the gene controls many other genes in a manner that maintains the production of blood cells. "This control becomes chaotic when the gene is damaged or 'broken' and that causes the normal blood cells to turn into leukemia," said Ernst. The researchers … Continue reading →

People who received the world's first stem cell treatment for strokes have shown measurable reductions in disability and handicap a year after the injection into their damaged brains. Some can move limbs and manage everyday tasks that were impossible before they received an injection of neural progenitor stem cells, which were clones of cells originally taken from the cortex of a donated fetus. Apart from physical rehabilitation, there are few treatments for people left severely disabled by a stroke. Demand for more options is high, with 800,000 new cases each year in the US and 150,000 in the UK. "We're encouraged, and it's a nice progressive piece of news," says Michael Hunt, the chief executive officer of ReNeuron, the company in Guildford, UK, that developed the treatment. "We must be circumspect, but we are seeing what seems to be a general trend towards improvement in a disparate group of patients," he says. ReNeuron presented its latest results on the first 11 patients on 7 May in Nice, France, at the 23rd European Stroke Conference. They build on interim findings released last year. The patients in the PISCES trial (Pilot Investigation of Stem Cells in Stroke) had all suffered their strokes … Continue reading →