At the end of more than three years, New York City's Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) identified 58 percent of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack victims, thanks to innovative genetic analysis techniques, intergovernmental and family cooperation and the perseverance of dedicated forensic scientists, according to a recent book by Dr. Robert C. Shaler, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and director of the forensics science major program at Penn State.

In the January issue of the journal Genome Research, two teams of scientists describe a widespread phenomenon in the human genome called transcription-induced chimerism (TIC), where two adjacent genes produce a single, fused RNA transcript. The work has implications for drug development, as well as for understanding mechanisms underlying gene evolution, transcription regulation, and genomic organization.

Victorian Breast Cancer Research Consortium scientists from The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, using a mouse model, have discovered the rare stem cell that drives the formation of all breast tissue. This discovery lays an important foundation for understanding how normal breast tissue develops. The identification of the breast stem cell is also likely to provide clues about how breast cancer develops and how rogue cells evade current therapies.

Scientists at Northwestern University have determined the molecular structure of a viral protein, the parainfluenza virus 5 fusion (F) protein. The parainfluenza virus 5 is part of a family of viruses (paramyxoviruses) that causes everything from pneumonia, croup and bronchiolitis to cold-like illness and is responsible for many hospitalizations and deaths each year. The results will be published Jan. 5 by the journal Nature.

Researchers from the University of Chicago have uncovered an important mechanism used by the developing brain to pattern nerve connections in the part of the brain that interprets visual signals. In the process, they have provided the first experimental evidence for a decades-old model of how nerve cells establish distant connections in a way that can consistently relay spatial information.

Scientists from the University of Queensland report in the journal Genome Research that large segments of the human genome are conspicuously devoid of ubiquitous mobile DNA elements called transposons. The locations of these regions are highly conserved among mammalian species and are enriched in genes crucial for the regulation of developmental processes.

Scientists may have found a way to keep a protein "watchdog" on high alert to stop hereditary cancers from overrunning our bodies - if they can keep it on a leash of just the right length.

The cholesterol-lowering medications called statins do not appear to reduce the incidence of cancer or cancer deaths, according to a meta-analysis of previous studies in the January 4 issue of JAMA.