There are some genes that can promote cancer; they are sometimes called oncogenes, and in tumor cells, mutations are often found in these genes. When they are functioning normally, oncogenes are often ...

Despite progress in defining functional elements of noncoding DNA, it is still not fully understood. UCLA researchers, using an experiment that elucidated the function of tens of thousands of ...

With a PhD in Genetics and Genomics, Niki Spahich channels her infectious disease research and science communication experiences into her role as the manager of The Scientist's Creative Services team.

(L to R) Co-first author Jackson Mobley, PhD, corresponding author Daniel Savic, PhD, and co-first author Kashi Raj Bhattarai, PhD, all of the St. Jude Department of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical ...

The non-coding genome, once dismissed as "junk DNA", is now recognized as a fundamental regulator of gene expression and a key player in understanding complex diseases. Following the landmark ...

The emergence of new genes is a central driver of evolutionary innovation. While mechanisms such as duplication and horizontal gene transfer have been widely studied, de novo gene birth represents a ...

Genes contain instructions for making proteins, and a central dogma of biology is that this information flows from DNA to RNA to proteins. But only two percent of the human genome actually encodes ...

While the large proportion of our genome that does not instruct our cells to form proteins has been harder to study than protein-coding genes, it has been shown to have vital physiological functions.

Butterfly wing patterns have a basic plan to them, which is manipulated by non-coding regulatory DNA to create the diversity of wings seen in different species, according to new research. The study, ...

Much of the "junk" DNA in Drosophila shows signs of either negative or positive selection, according to a study in this week's Nature. An analysis by Peter Andolfatto of the University of California, ...