Short strands of genetic material called microRNA have implications for human health – but they could also revolutionize species identification, and perhaps even allow monitoring of wildlife health. Here’s how they work and the potential they offer.
Many great discoveries and inventions spring from basic research. That’s particularly true for medicine, but also for many other research areas.
Scientists are on the hunt for treatments for diseases that have been deemed incurable.
Last week, the Hungarian Katalin Karikó and the American Drew Weissman were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their research into the mRNA-technology applied to develop the vaccines used to combat Covid-19. But what exactly is mRNA technology?
The use of stem cells now makes it possible for us to cultivate so-called organoids, such as tiny versions of a liver, heart or small intestine, in the lab. These micro-organs can then be connected to a microchip that simulates the body’s biological processes. This ‘organ-on-a-chip’ technology opens the door to previously undreamt-of research possibilities.
Researchers have discovered a new method of activating enzymes that may make it possible to repair proteins that have been damaged as a result of hereditary diseases, such as some types of skin cancer.
Lung cancer is one of the most dangerous forms of cancer. Treatments are available, but they are demanding on patients and less than 30 percent survive. But mRNA technology is offering new hope for higher survival rates because treatments target the malignant cells in an entirely new way.
Researchers at NTNU have managed to restore muscle function in older mice with muscle loss using advanced gene therapy. The hope is that this method might eventually be used on humans to prevent severe loss of muscle mass.
Countless potentially useful enzymes are hidden all around us. NTNU researchers have developed a new method that could help us find them.
After conducting the largest study on osteoarthritis in the world, researchers are now on track to develop a medicine that can slow it down.
For the first time, raw data on Norwegian coronavirus genes will be freely available through the open gene bank ENA.
France covered up the consequences of their nuclear tests in the Pacific. As many as 110 000 people may have been exposed to radioactive fallout above the assumed safe levels.
The culprit behind a large number of cancerous tumours is known to be a certain protein. Now for the first time, research shows that the same protein is the cause of several rare brain syndromes.
The Anders Jahre’s Award for Medical Research for young researchers is awarded this year to Professor Barbara van Loon at NTNU. Several previous winners of the main prize have since received the Nobel Prize in Medicine. This includes May-Britt and Edvard Moser at NTNU.
It’s been 20 years since the first draft sequence of the human genome was published in the journals Nature and Science. The result led then-President Bill Clinton to state that we are now learning the language in which life was written, and that “doctors will increasingly be able to cure diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes, and cancer by attacking their genetic roots.”
Sequencing 30 000 genes has changed the world, but in a different way than expected.
Even the best chef can make mistakes – even when using the recipes (genes) from the “cookbook of life” — DNA. A new discovery as to how cells repair their DNA may have implications for the future drug development.
Data from 1.2 million people reveal how tobacco and alcohol use may be linked to your genes and to various diseases.
An enzyme that normally repairs damaged DNA may be the key to a new treatment for inflammatory diseases.
Back in the 1970s, a Norwegian family was found to have abnormally high red blood cell counts. Thirty-five years later, researchers succeeded in solving the mystery, thanks to new analytical methods and the latest developments in genetic engineering – and a chance meeting with a Swiss scientist.
A treatment that kills the cancer cells in one fell swoop, without causing the patient to feel sick from the medication’s side effects? That’s the goal of new personalized cancer therapies that are being developed across the globe, including at NTNU.
Lots of children grow out of their ADHD symptoms. Parents believe children are more physically active than they really are. Sad children are easily overlooked and don’t get the help they need in the preschool years. Some children gain more weight than others – which can solely be explained by children’s eating behaviour.
A mother’s risk of getting preeclampsia, a potentially life-threatening illness associated with pregnancy, can be linked in some cases to genes from her foetus.
An enzyme found in many bacteria, including the bacterium that gives us strep throat, has given mankind a cheap and effective tool with which to edit our own genes. This technology, called CRISPR, is also being used to understand how the immune system responds to a viral attack.
