Jennie Landsman first noticed something was wrong when her 6-month-old son Benny was still unable to hold up his head. She and her husband Gary took him to multiple specialists. It took months, and the birth of another son, Josh, before finally receiving a devastating answer last August. Their two youngest sons were diagnosed with…
Two companies that focus on supporting Jewish couples have partnered to offer genetic screening tests to newlyweds with at least one Jewish partner, eJewish Philanthropy reported. JScreen is a not-for-profit that provides health counseling and genetic screening tests for Jews. Honeymoon Israel provides trips to Israel for newlywed couples with at least one Jewish partner….
Ashkenazi Jews with Crohn’s disease have an increased likelihood of carrying a gene mutation that causes Parkinson’s disease, a new scientific study has found. The study, published in Science Translational Medicine, could help doctors better understand the causes of both Parkinson’s and Crohn’s, a disease causing chronic inflammation of the digestive system that is disproportionately…
One of the hottest gift items this holiday season is a plastic tube for holding your spit. Of course, it’s a little more high-tech than that. Companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.com have been making a killing this year selling home genetics tests. With high hopes of discovering their ancestry and learning more about their genetic…
A study combining data from over 300 institutions around the world has found 72 new genetic mutations that may lead to the development of breast cancer, CNN reported. Seven of the mutations found lead to a type of breast cancer that doesn’t respond to traditional hormonal therapies, like tamoxifen. The total known number of mutations…
In the season premiere of the PBS’ show “Finding Your Roots,” hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Larry David and Senator Bernie Sanders are told of their respective ancestries. David gained acclaim in 2015 for doing a “spot-on” impression of the senator, a performance made easier by the widely remarked-upon fact that David shares Sanders’…
With characteristic envelope-pushing humor, Michael Rosbash, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, couldn’t help dropping a joke into a press conference Monday morning about the life of a scientist. In the library of Brandeis University, where he has taught for over forty years, Rosbash told a packed crowd of colleagues, university…
23andMe isn’t the only company that conducts mail-order DNA tests that reveal consumers’ ancestry. There’s also MyHeritage, Living DNA and GPS Origins, to name a few. But it’s 23andMe, founded in 2006, whose name is becoming a synonym for spitting in a vial and finding out what percentage of you comes from where. Now the…
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