Discover the Science of Health
Today is Rare Disease Day 2015, an international advocacy day to focus on the daily lives of patients, families and caregivers who are living with a rare disease. Rare disease communities have been responsible for the reinvention of many aspects of our healthcare system are truly paving the way for precision medicine.
Researchers from Saarland University and Siemens Healthcare report that a new blood test can accurately discriminate between healthy people and patients with Alzheimer’s disease. It’s hoped the non-invasive and relatively cheap test could one day help with diagnosis. The research is published in the open access journal Genome Biology [2].
Long stretches of DNA once considered inert “dark matter” of the genome — the over 98% of DNA that doesn’t code for proteins — appear to be uniquely active in a part of the brain known to control the body’s 24-hour cycle, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The findings appear in the August 14th edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [1].
In February, the Faculty of 1000 (F1000) launched F1000 Research, an innovative, new open access publishing program for biology and medicine. Last week, F1000 announced the publication of F1000 Research’s first few articles [1].
Foundation Medicine is one of 10 biomedicine companies included in Technology Review’s 50 Most Innovative Companies (TR50) for 2012 [1].
