A collaboration between researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the United Kingdom and the Faculty of medicine of the University of Geneva has demonstrated how DNA variation that controls and regulates the gene activity acts predominantly in a tissue-specific manner. In approximately 4 out of 5 cases, genetic variations will produce different effects depending on the tissue investigated. The results of this study are published today, July 31, in the prestigious journal Science.

New research suggests that antibiotic treatment could be asymptomatically inducing the transmission of the healthcare-acquired infection, C. difficile, contributing to the outbreaks that have recently been widely reported in hospitals and other settings. A team of scientists have successfully mirrored the infection cycle of C. difficile by generating a 'mouse hospital' with conditions mimicking the human environment in which C. difficile is transmitted.

Researchers have today published the complete genome sequence of the Schistosoma mansoni, a parasitic worm - commonly known as a blood fluke - that causes devastating disease. The World Health Organization ranks schistosomiasis as a neglected disease of the poor, affecting 210 million people in 76 countries, and each year causing 280,000 deaths in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

Selected from 240 applicants, and eight interviewees, Dr Elizabeth Murchison, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, is one of four bright female talents to be awarded a 2009 L'Oréal-UNESCO UK and Ireland For Women In Science Fellowship. Elizabeth, who came to the Sanger Institute in January 2009, was offered the award in recognition of her research into the origins and evolution of transmissible cancers.

His Royal Highness The Duke of York, visited the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus today to hear about the contributions made by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the neighbouring European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) to the global scientific community. His visit included a discussion about engaging young people in science and in the social issues arising from genetics.

Researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, the University of California at Davis, and Harvard University have isolated stable, highly germline-competent embryonic stem (ES) cells from the C57BL/6N genetic background. These cells are ideal for high-throughput genetic manipulation and are the foundation for two large-scale knockout programmes that will provide targeted C57BL/6 ES cells for the scientific community.

A collaboration between researchers across the globe has uncovered the genetic cause of a rare, deadly developmental disorder of the lung called alveolar capillary dysplasia with misalignment of pulmonary veins (ACD/MPV) that is usually lethal to infants within the first month of life. The disorder results from mutations in the FOXF1 transcription factor gene.

Researchers have found the first inherited genetic risk factors for testicular cancer, according to research published online in Nature Genetics today.

A study of children with malaria in The Gambia, West Africa, has provided new insights into how to conduct genetic studies of common diseases in African populations, which are far more genetically-diverse than European or Asian populations.

New sequencing and analysis of six strains of Chlamydia will result in improved diagnosis of the sexually transmitted infection. This study provides remarkable insights into a new strain of Chlamydia that was identified in Sweden in 2006 after spreading rapidly across the country by evading most established diagnostic tests.