Three decades have passed since gene therapy pioneer William W. Hauswirth, Ph.D., and his colleagues at the University of Florida began work on a virus that could safely deliver corrective genes into living animals.

Scientists studying how immune cells are regulated in healthy individuals, have made a key discovery in understanding why tumours may go undetected by the immune system and remain untreated by the body’s own natural defences. The findings, published online this week (between 19 - 23 November) by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could lead to new treatments for tumours.

A collaboration between researchers in Switzerland, the UK and France has led to the solution of the first crystal structure of a member of the Rhesus protein family and thereby shed new light on a group of proteins of great importance in human transfusion medicine. The UK group was led by Professor Mike Merrick in the Department of Molecular Microbiology at the John Innes Centre.

A new article appearing in American Journal of Transplantation describes a revolutionary technique for more clearly identifying the possibility of organ rejection in kidney transplants. The technique, which uses a microarray or “Gene Chip,” a process of examining DNA sequences, defines how major causes of organ disease leading to rejection share similar disturbances in gene behavior. The study is the first to show how gene sets, as opposed to single genes, can be used for diagnosis of rejection in individual patients, and offers new insight into the mechanisms of these gene changes.

Human embryos that get too much or too little retinoic acid, a derivative of Vitamin A, can develop into babies with birth defects. New research published this week in the open-access journal PLoS Biology shows for the first time how embryonic cells may regulate levels of retinoic acid, providing insight into how retinoic acid signaling interacts with other key developmental signals to control development of the brain, limbs, and many other tissues in embryos.

MIT researchers have identified a family of proteins key to the formation of the communication networks critical for normal brain function. Their research could lead to new treatments for brain injury and disease.

Sexy dads produce sexy sons, in the insect world at least. While scientists already knew that specific attractive traits, from cricket choruses to peacocks’ tails, are passed on to their offspring, the heritability of attractiveness as a whole is more contentious. Now, new research by the University of Exeter, published today (20 November) in Current Biology, shows that attractiveness is hereditary.

Women's bodies and medical needs are vastly different than men's way beyond their reproductive systems. Women wake sooner from anesthesia, have less familiar symptoms of cardiovascular disease and are more likely to suffer from depression and sleep problems-- just to name a few of the differences.