A team led by Carles Lalueza-Fox, a researcher at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, studied a dried blood sample stored in a gourd that supposedly was kept as a souvenir from the execution of the French King Louis XVI by guillotine in 1793.

STAFF | OCTOBER 25TH, 2010

A European work has shown that valproic acid, a drug used for epilepsy, is effective in treating a minority neurodegenerative disease: the Adrenoleukodystrophy linked to the X chromosome. The outcome of the investigation has been reported in the electronic journal 'Human Molecular Genetics’.

Staff |11 March 2010

Why viral infection susceptibility varies amongst individuals? Italian researchers at the Scientific Institute for Recovery and Cure (IRCCS), the University of Milan and the Politecnico di Milano have unlocked the mystery, and their work could lead to novel treatments to fight infection. The results of their study, funded in part by the EU, have been published in 'PLoS Genetics'.

A.R. | 3 march 2010

A team of French researchers from Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Institut de Genomique Fonctionnelle and the Institute de Recherche pour le Développement has discovered that in a species of African mice the normal chromosome that determines sex is reversed. The results of the study, which will throw light on how sex determination works in mammals, have been published in the journal 'Proceedings of the Royal Society B'.

A.R. | 26 February 2010