HIV: Newly Discovered Component Could Lead to More Effective Drugs

Scientists from the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and University College London - both in the United Kingdom - have uncovered key components of HIV, which they believe could lead to new approaches for drugs to fight the infection.

HIV weakens a person's immune system by destroying important cells that fight disease and infection. Only certain body fluids - blood, semen, rectal fluids, vaginal fluids, and breast milk - from a person who has HIV can transmit HIV.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 1.2 million people are living with HIV in the United States. Although there is no cure for HIV infection, improved treatments allow people living with HIV to slow the virus' progression and stay relatively healthy for several years.

HIV is a part of a subtype of viruses called retroviruses, which means that the virus is composed of RNA - instead of normal DNA - and has the unique property of transcribing RNA into DNA after entering a cell.

Read more: HIV: Newly Discovered Component Could Lead to More Effective Drugs

Findings from the research could lead to future drugs that can enter human cells and block the pores
from within.

Source: medicalnewstoday

Next-Generation Sequencing and the Future of IVF

Medical laboratories play a vital role in helping patients achieve success with assisted reproductive technologies (ART) such as in vitro fertilization (IVF). Recent advances in genetic screening such as next generation sequencing (NGS) are revolutionizing how IVF will be performed in the future. NGS can sequence DNA and RNA more quickly than ever before. New applications like these technologies are raising hopes for improved IVF success rates to help patients achieve their dreams of building a family.

Preimplantation genetic screening

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates, one in eight couples have trouble achieving or sustaining a pregnancy, and approximately 7.4 million women in the United States have received help for infertility. The use of ART has doubled over the past decade.

Read more: Next-Generation Sequencing and the Future of IVF

Source: mlo-online

MCQ 9. A Nucleoside is a Structural Subunit of Nucleic Acids

MCQ 9. A nucleoside is a structural subunit of nucleic acids that are the heredity-controlling components of all living cells.

What does it consist of?

a. Nitrogenous base
b. Purine or pyrimidine base + sugar
c. Purine or pyrimidine base + phosphorous
d. Purine or pyrimidine base + sugar + phosphorous

e. Purine + pyrimidine base + sugar + phosphorous

Answers

Written in Blood

A tour of evolving strategies for identifying circulating disease biomarkers

Blood is the only tissue that makes contact with every organ in the body. Theoretically, probing the DNA, RNA, vesicles, and cellular debris it carries could help diagnose or monitor conditions from placental disorders to Alzheimer’s disease.

The first application of this approach was prenatal genetic screening—which analyzes fragments of fetal DNA in an expectant mother’s blood—available to clinicians since October 2011. So far, these tests have largely focused on identifying chromosomal abnormalities such as Down syndrome. But expanding their utility to monitoring other circulating biomarkers, such as RNA and the contents of membrane-bound microvesicles and exosomes, is on the rise.

Read more: Written in Blood

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Source: theScientist