What’s not to love about bananas? Besides being a wildly popular dessert fruit, they are the staple food of millions of people in developing countries. The current edition of Nature carries a paper that…
Researchers have identified four new genes linked to the most common form of migraine, in a discovery that could eventually aid in the development of treatments for the debilitating attacks. A team of…
A young Tasmanian Devil bears the signs of the highly contagious facial tumour that has wiped out 85% of the species.
AAP/Gary Brown
The facial tumour responsible for wiping out 85% of Tasmanian Devils is spreading regardless of genetic differences across the species, undermining the theory that it is mostly deadly in communities whose…
I’ve been an ecologist in Australia for the last ten years, working for both government agencies and as a university researcher. Over this time, funding for fieldwork has been increasingly hard to secure…
Genetic information should only be shared with full and informed consent.
Jack Fussell
Yesterday on The Conversation, Timothy Smith from the Florey Neurosciences Institute argued that in order to improve genetics research, we need free and open access to genetic information. But while the…
Technical, financial and legal barriers stop the sharing of vital information in medical research.
Frans de Waal/ Wikimedia Commons
A paper published today in Science Translational Medicine calls for the open sharing of clinical trial data among the medical research community. Researchers argue data sharing would lead to faster, more…
Apple founder Steve Jobs battled pancreatic cancer for many years.
EPA/Andy Rain
The discovery of a tumour suppressing gene could offer hope to patients with the deadliest form of cancer, new research has shown. An international team of researchers, including scientists from Australia…
A whole genome test is meaningless unless you can interpret it.
Dave Faryam
Rony Duncan, Murdoch Children's Research Institute and Martin Delatycki, Murdoch Children's Research Institute
It’s now possible to access genetic testing from your living room or office, without the need to visit a health professional. There are many reasons why you might like to get a genetic test. Maybe someone…
We have all heard at some time or another that Australia has the worst record of mammal extinctions in history, with many of our unique and vulnerable critters succumbing only years after the first Europeans…
A landmark study has revealed there are 10 different types of breast cancer, not four as previously thought - a finding that is expected to have far-reaching implications for treatment of the disease…
Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford