"Those of us who treat breast cancer every day are well aware that African-Americans just have a more aggressive breast cancer. Stage for stage, they do worse"

Biology and genetics - over and above socio-economic factors - appear to influence how black women fare after being diagnosed with breast cancer, U.S. researchers are reporting. via CBC News

"My message is you are wasting your money"

LONDON - Genetic tests to assess disease risk are proliferating but many are a waste of money and tell people little more than they would know from studying family history, medical experts said ... via Reuters

"This offers a unique opportunity to use molecular genetics to improve pigs' growth, leanness, feed conversion and meat quality for all breeds typically seen in the U.S."

Iowa State releases pig genetic market technology to producers Nov. 30, 2007 AMES, Iowa -- Genetic markers for growth, leanness and meat quality discovered at Iowa State University have been made available to ... via Ag Professional

Erratum: Splinkerette PCR for more efficient characterization of gene trap events

Nature Genetics 39, 1528 (2007). doi:10.1038/ng1207-1528

Author: Carsten Horn, Jens Hansen, Frank Schnütgen, Claudia Seisenberger, Thomas Floss, Markus Irgang, Silke De-Zolt, Wolfgang Wurst, Harald von Melchner & Patricia Ruiz Noppinger

"We're hoping this new roadmap will help us and others find more information about how these genes affect our health and well-being."

Scientists at Duke University have created the first map of imprinted genes throughout the human genome , and they say a modern-day Rosetta stone - ' a form of artificial intelligence called machine learning - ... via Huliq.com

See Figure 7 for evidence of the substructure within the Native American race. PLoS Genetics Vol. via Dienekes' Anthropology Blog

"Winning competitive awards such as these is especially challenging for early career researchers. Dr Aboobaker has done spectacularly well to have won two. This will give his important work on stem cells a real push."

The benefits of special grants designed to give talented new researchers a 'leg-up' on the career ladder are bearing fruit. via Huliq.com

"Such risk estimates are important for determining appropriate risk management strategies for the male members of families with germline mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2"

Male breast cancer accounts for less than 1 percent of all breast cancers in the U.S., and it is most common in men with a family history of the disease. via Science Daily

Two sides of the same coin

Nature Genetics 39, 1425 (2007). doi:10.1038/ng1207-1425

Authors: Andrea Gallavotti & Robert J Schmidt

Dramatically different mutant phenotypes usually reflect mutations in different genes, but this is not necessarily so, especially when microRNA regulation is involved. A beautiful example of this now comes from the discovery of the maize microRNA tasselseed4 and its target ids1/Tasselseed6, which uncovers a new facet in the control of inflorescence branching and sex determination in flowers.