Brain-Belly Connection: Gut Health May Influence Likelihood of Developing Alzheimer’s

UNLV study pinpoints 10 bacterial groups associated with Alzheimer’s disease, provides new insights into the relationship between gut makeup and dementia.

Van Andel Institute, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to lead genome center under $140M NIH initiative

Van Andel Institute’s Hui Shen, Ph.D., and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis’s Ting Wang, Ph.D., will co-lead a collaborative project supported by the Somatic Mosaicism across Human Tissues (SMaHT) Network, a new $140 million National Institutes of Health-led effort to better understand the genetic differences between individual cells and tissues in the body.

Discovering Unique Microbes Made Easy with DOE Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase)

The Department of Energy Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase) recently released a suite of features and a protocol for performing sophisticated microbiome analysis that can accelerate research in microbial ecology. KBase helps researchers understand which organisms live in an environment and how they interact. The tool’s new features reduce the time required to process sequencing data and characterize genomes and help scientists collaboratively analyze genomics data and build research communities.

Ancient DNA paints genetic portrait of Andes civilisations

An international team of researchers including the University of Adelaide, has completed the first large-scale study of DNA belonging to ancient humans of the central Andes in South America and found early genetic differences between groups of nearby regions, and surprising genetic continuity over thousands of years.

In the study, published in the journal Cell, researchers analysed the DNA of 89 ancient humans who lived in the central Andes between 500 and 9,000 years ago, and compared it with the genetic diversity of present day occupants, to shed light on the genetic changes over time.