GCB News

Eight students from five universities spent eight weeks of their summer at Duke University as part of the Summer Scholars Program in Genome Sciences and Medicine for Underrepresented Minority Underclassmen. They presented their research findings in a poster presentation on July 2. 

In a paper published in Nature, a cancer-like mutation was linked to cerebral cavernous malformations (CCMs), a condition in which blood vessels in the brain are formed abnormally. Currently, the condition can only be treated by means of surgery however the discovery of the mutation has the potential to develop novel therapeutic strategies.

Here are summaries of a selection of the papers published by GCB faculty in May 2021:

CANCER

Ashley Chi and team explored the connection between low-carbohydrate diets and androgen deprivation therapy, which is the standard, first line treatment for metastatic prostate cancer. Read more 

The 2021 Summer Scholars Program in Genome Sciences and Medicine for Underrepresented Minority Underclassmen begins May 11 and will run through July 2.

We are welcoming eight underrepresented minority students, some who were deferred from last year’s canceled program, to work in GCB labs. These students come from Duke, North Carolina Central University, Tufts University, Agnes Scott College, and Winston Salem State University.

A new $8 million NIH grant seeks to uncover more clues into what genes increase the risk of developing schizophrenia.

Greg Crawford, Charlie Gersbach, Tim Reddy and Raluca Gordân have teamed up with Patrick Sullivan, Yun Li, Michael Love, and Paola Giusti-Rodriguez at UNC Chapel Hill and Flora Vaccarino at Yale University to narrow down areas of the genome previously marked relevant to schizophrenia risk.

“Schizophrenia is incredibly complex at every level,” Sullivan said, “from DNA to its clinical manifestations.”

Here are summaries of a selection of the papers published by GCB faculty in April 2021:

AGING

Using data from the Dunedin Longitudal Study, Avshalom Caspi and Terrie Moffitt were part of a team that explored possible links between one known biomarker, distributed integrity of brain white matter, and two intervention targets at midlife to explore structural brain decline and increased risk for dementia in older adults. Read more

The Sequencing and Genomic Technologies (SGT) Core Facility has a new instrument on its bench. It might not look like much --  a small box just over a foot tall and less than a foot wide with a small door on the top and an even smaller screen on the front – but the Tapestri Platform by MissionBio is anything but weak.