An analysis of brain scans of participants in the UK Biobank has shown there are significant differences between the condition of the brain before and after mild COVID-19 infection. These included a reduction in overall brain size, reduction in grey matter thickness in the orbitofrontal cortex and hippocampal gyrus, and changes in markers of tissue damage in regions functionally connected to the primary olfactory cortex. Infected participants also showed, on average, a larger cognitive decline than participants who had not contracted COVID-19.
While there is known to be an association between inflammation and depression, it is not known if there is cause and effect. Now, the power of the UK Biobank has been brought to bear to show that when all genetic, health and environmental factors are accounted for, people with depression have higher levels of inflammation in their bodies than controls.
LONDON – Computational biology specialist Precisionlife Ltd. has used UK Biobank data to find sepsis risk genes that are present specifically in patients who suffer severe COVID-19 infections and shown that 13 of those genes are known druggable targets.
LONDON – While large-scale biobanks that link genomics to longitudinal health records of diagnosis, treatment and outcomes promise to revolutionize the understanding of the genetics of complex disease, the detailed statistical analysis of those high-dimensional data is still very much in its infancy.
LONDON – While large-scale biobanks that link genomics to longitudinal health records of diagnosis, treatment and outcomes promise to revolutionize understanding of the genetics of complex disease, the detailed statistical analysis of those high-dimensional data is still very much in its infancy.
LONDON – A paper that raised concerns for the future health of Lulu and Nana, the world's first gene-edited babies, has been fully retracted at the request of the authors, after they failed to identify a problem in data from the U.K. Biobank on which their analysis was based. The study published in Nature Medicine in June, concluded the edits the twin girls are purported to have in their CCR5 chemokine receptor gene is associated with a 21% increase in mortality in middle and old age.
LONDON – A paper that raised concerns for the future health of Lulu and Nana, the world's first gene edited babies, has been fully retracted at the request of the authors, after they failed to identify a problem in data from the U.K. Biobank on which their analysis was based.
