Improving cancer precision therapy requires a greater ability to identify and describe groups of patients who share the same molecular and clinical particularities. An SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics group recently played a pivotal role in building the most thorough ‘catalogue’ of an aggressive type of childhood cancer – thus providing a basis for novel therapeutic treatments.
Organisms that are expanding their spatial range suffer from a drastic decrease of fitness over time due to the accumulation of harmful mutations. A study led by a team of scientists from the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and the University of Bern now provides the first experimental evidence of this theory. The article is published in Genetics and selected in the issue’s highlights.
Were our prehistoric ancestors aware of the dangers caused by procreation among close relatives? A study led by an international team of scientists, including SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics Group Leader Laurent Excoffier and his team at the University of Bern, suggests that early humans might have purposely avoided mating with closely related partners. And this as early as 34,000 years ago.
On 28 September, the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics held its first course dedicated to clinicians and clinical laboratory professionals.
This one-day course aimed at providing participants with a deepened knowledge, experience and understanding of how to make the best use of bioinformatics to improve cancer diagnosis.
We need heat. All warm-blooded animals know this instinctively because when life leaves us, the cold creeps in fast. Heat is produced in different ways inside us, and not only to keep our body temperature at a healthy level but also to keep it stable. After the fashion of small mobile furnaces, we carry adipose tissues that are full of stored fat waiting to be burnt down to release heat - a process termed thermogenesis.
Spearheaded by SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' Group Leader Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas and in partnership with Group Leader Laurent Excoffier, Genome Odyssey is a theater play inspired by the scientists' recent paper in Nature on Australia’s peopling. It is inviting the public to a journey through our genome and origins.
