Cambridge scientists critique research that concluded the disease is no longer a threat to the species’ survival Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Cambridge researchers have challenged a previous study finding that a facial cancer that devastated the Tasmanian devil population was on the decline. Devil facial tumour disease, a fatal cancer spread through biting and sharing of food, first emerged in the 1980s. The spread of DFTD led to the species being listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2008. Sign up for Guard ..read more

Creating visually distinctive plants likely to become important as more weed-like crops are grown for food Genetically engineering crops to be colourful could help farmers produce food without pesticides, as it would make it easier to spot weeds, scientists have said. This will be increasingly important as hardy, climate-resistant “weeds” are grown for food in the future, the authors have written in their report published in the journal Trends in Plant Science ..read more

China’s He Jiankui, who used Crispr to edit genome, says he is working on genetic diseases and suggests human embryo gene editing will one day be accepted A Chinese scientist who was imprisoned for his role in creating the world’s first genetically edited babies says he has returned to his laboratory to work on the treatment of Alzheimer’s and other genetic diseases. In an interview with a Japanese newspaper, He Jiankui said he had resumed research on human embryo genome editing, despite the controversy over the ethics of artificially rewriting genes, which some critics predicted would lead to ..read more

Procedure could overcome common forms of infertility and help people have children who share their DNA Scientists are a step closer to making IVF eggs from patients’ skin cells after adapting the procedure that created Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, more than two decades ago. The work raises the prospect of older women being able to have children who share their DNA, and to overcome common forms of infertility caused by a woman’s eggs becoming damaged by disease or cancer treatment ..read more

I developed DNA barcoding in my back yard using a UV light and a white sheet to collect the moths of my childhood. I believe it could help discover all life on the planet As a child, I used to roam the countryside collecting moths and butterflies on the edge of the Great Lakes in Canada. It was as idyllic as it sounds: by day, I would scour the fields and forests for butterflies. At night, I would leave a white sheet and UV light in my back yard, rising at 5am to inspect the harvest of moths. By the time I was an adult, I could identify about 700 butterfly and moth species by sight, decipherin ..read more

Researcher who established the value of genetics for understanding psychiatric conditions Peter McGuffin, who has died aged 74, showed the importance of trying to establish how genetic and non-genetic factors act together to predispose people to psychiatric disorders: so-called gene-environment interplay. He was also one of the first to see the potential of the DNA revolution for understanding psychiatric disorders, and his work laid the foundations for the application of genomics to psychiatry. It used to be assumed that depression could be divided into two forms: one the result of adverse ci ..read more

The company pointed at people who ‘failed to update their passwords’ as sensitive data was offered for sale on forums Three years ago, a man in Florida named JL decided, on a whim, to send a tube of his spit to the genetic testing site 23andMe in exchange for an ancestry report. JL, like millions of other 23andMe participants before him, says he was often asked about his ethnicity and craved a deeper insight into his identity. He said he was surprised by the diversity of his test results, which showed he had some Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. JL said he didn’t think much about the results until h ..read more

Exclusive: Researchers find mutations that are more common in men with African ancestry after DNA analysis Scientists have discovered genetic mutations that could help explain why Black men are at higher risk of developing prostate cancer than those of other ethnicities. The findings could lead to a test to identify those at greatest risk of developing the disease, enhancing survival rates. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among British men, with about 52,300 new cases and 12,000 deaths recorded in the UK each year. Black men are twice as likely to be diagnosed and 2.5 times more like ..read more

With insurance companies using genetic information to set prices and policies, advocates say the need for protection against genetic discrimination is ‘urgent’ Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast After her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, Meg Herrmann decided to get genetically tested for a hereditary cancer-causing gene. “I thought, ‘I need to know.’ Hereditary cancer can develop at any point in your life and you have a 70% likelihood that it’ll develop,” the Brisbane PhD candidate says ..read more

Single-dose treatment transformed lives of patients with potentially deadly condition in first human trial A groundbreaking gene therapy has been hailed as a “medical magic wand” after the treatment transformed the lives of patients with a hereditary disorder that causes painful and potentially fatal swelling. Patients who took part in the first human trial of the therapy experienced a dramatic improvement in their symptoms, and many were able to come off long-term medication and return to life as normal ..read more