Genes contain instructions for making proteins, and a central dogma of biology is that this information flows from DNA to RNA to proteins. But only two percent of the human genome actually encodes proteins; the function of the remaining 98 percent remains largely unknown.

 

One pressing problem in human genetics is to understand what these regions of the genome do—if anything at all. Historically, some have even referred to these regions as “junk.”

 

Now, a new study in Cell finds that some noncoding RNAs are not, in fact, junk—they are functional and play an important role in our cells, including in cancer and human development. Using CRISPR technology that targets RNA instead of DNA, researchers at New York University and the New York Genome Center searched across the genome and found nearly 800 noncoding RNAs important for the function of diverse human cells from different tissues.

More than a quarter of new mothers have fallen asleep recently while feeding their babies, putting the infants at increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), research reveals.

One of the first studies to investigate the prevalence of unrecognized cognitive impairment among patients seen at Federally Qualified Health Centers, has found that it is ubiquitous, especially among minoritized older adults. These facilities provide primary care and preventive services regardless of ability to pay or health insurance status to more than 30 million patients, including a growing number of older adults.

Researchers with the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group (ECOG-ACRIN) and PrECOG, LLC, will present a variety of abstracts that aim to improve treatments for patients with lymphoma and acute leukemias at the 66th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Meeting & Exposition. Promising results from a phase 2 study (PrE0905) in patients with acute myeloid leukemia and new data from the practice-changing E1910 phase 3 trial are among the highlights. Results from the E1910 trial led to an FDA approval in June 2024 after it found that adding the immunotherapy drug blinatumomab to standard front-line consolidation chemotherapy keeps most patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia in remission and improves their survival.