Tatiana Schlossberg, the youngest granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy, recently revealed she was diagnosed with terminal acute myeloid leukemia (AML) due to a rare genetic anomaly. In a personal essay published Saturday in The New Yorker, the 35-year-old mother of two wrote that she has an inversion of chromosome 3, which significantly worsens AML survival rates. AML … Read more
A hidden genetic mutation could predict a man’s likelihood of developing dementia. That’s according to an Australian study led by Monash and Curtin Universities, which analyzed the medical data of thousands of Australians and Americans. Men who had a certain variant in the haemochromatosis (HFE) gene — which regulates iron levels in the body — were found to be … Read more
Check out this adorable Tennessee kitten with not two, but four ears. This little ear-resistible feline, named Audio due to his built-in surround-sound speakers, is estimated to be nearly 9 weeks old and weighs just over 2 pounds. “This is an extremely rare genetic mutation and is completely harmless,” said True Rescue, the Mount Juliet animal shelter, which took the cat … Read more
Parkinson’s disease researchers say they have discovered a genetic mutation in a small protein that could produce new treatments for the degenerative brain disorder. The relatively rare variant is primarily found in people of European descent — those who have it are half as likely to develop the disease. “Our data highlights the biological effects … Read more
Bird flu is back with a vengeance. Medical experts have discovered that one variant of the avian flu virus, dubbed H3N8, has undergone several mutations and can now cause more severe infections. Additionally, the H3N8 virus — which is endemic among poultry farms throughout China — is transmissible by airborne droplets between animals that have … Read more
A new study may have solved a mystery surrounding Crohn’s disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease in which immune defenses meant to attack invading microbes instead mistakenly target the body’s own digestive tract. Norovirus, a common infection that causes vomiting and diarrhea, is one of several viruses and bacteria thought to trigger disease onset … Read more