Largest study to date on the genetics of blood proteins highlights new disease mechanisms and drug repurposing opportunities

Machine learning combined with genetic analysis is expected to enable a more targeted use of active substances in precision medicine

08-May-2026 - Involving a collaboration with 118 investigators contributing from 89 institutions, scientists from the and Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) and the Precision Healthcare University Research Institute (Queen Mary University of London) have led the world’s largest study on the genetic ...

Newly identified chronic pain circuit offers pathways to new treatments

07-Apr-2026 - A new map of a brain circuit specific to chronic pain suggests a promising route to treatment for theroughly 60 million Americans living with persistent pain, according to astudy published inNature. The study showed that silencing the specific cells that drive this circuit eased chronic pain ...

Genetically modified marmosets as a model for human deafness

A new primate model provides significant opportunities for future gene therapies

02-Apr-2026 - Why are some people unable to hear from birth, even though their inner ear appears intact? One possible cause lies in the so-called OTOF gene. It plays a central role in transmitting sound signals from the hair cells to the auditory nerve. Without this function, acoustic information does not ...

Evolution in Fast-Forward

How Thale Cress Adapts – or Goes Extinct

31-Mar-2026 - In an unprecedented field experiment, an international research team led by Goethe University Frankfurt, the University of California, Berkeley, and CNRS Montpellier investigated the evolutionary adaptation of thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) to a wide range of climates, from the Alps to the ...

A sedentary lifestyle accelerates biological ageing

Well-fed penguins live longer but age faster—much like modern humans

27-Mar-2026 - The consequences of a sedentary lifestyle are difficult to study in human trials. That is why an international research team, including the University of Hamburg, has now investigated them in king penguins. The result: While an abundant food supply in protected living conditions promotes rapid ...

The Writing On the Genes and the Tumor’s Power Grid

This year's Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prizes was awarded at Frankfurt's Paulskirche

17-Mar-2026 - For their discovery of genomic imprinting, developmental biologists Davor Solter and Azim Suranireceived the 2026 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, endowed with €120,000,at Frankfurt's Paulskirche. They discovered that we inherit some genes only in one active copy, determined by a ...

Cats and humans have a lot in common when it comes to cancer

Genome atlas created for cat cancer: New hope for better treatments for cats and humans

23-Feb-2026 - An international research team involving the Vetmeduni has created the largest genetic picture of cat cancer to date. To this end, 493 tumors from 13 different types of cancer were examined - together with healthy tissue from the same cats. The aim of the study was to find out which genetic ...

Beyond Mendel: Researchers call for a new understanding of genetics

A perspective article in Genetics argues for an experimental paradigm change to capture complex gene effects in combination with environment and genetic background

23-Feb-2026 - For more than a century, Mendelian genetics has shaped how we think about inheritance: one gene, one trait. It is a model that still echoes through textbooks—and one that is increasingly reaching its limits. In a perspective article published in the journal Genetics, an international group of ...

How damaged huntingtin proteins are broken down

Researchers have elucidated key steps in the ubiquitin tagging of the mutated huntingtin protein, providing hope for future therapies

09-Feb-2026 - There is no known cure for Huntington's disease. A genetic mutation creates harmful proteins that accumulate and cause the disease's typical symptoms. A team from the Department of Human Genetics at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, has now shown how targeted ubiquitin tagging at two positions in ...

First ancient human herpesvirus genomes document their deep history with humans

Genomic data confirm that certain human herpesviruses became part of the human genome thousands of years ago

07-Jan-2026 - For the first time, scientists have reconstructed ancient genomes of Human betaherpesvirus 6A and 6B (HHV-6A/B) from archaeological human remains more than two millennia old. The study, led by the University of Vienna and University of Tartu (Estonia) and published in Science Advances, confirms ...