A study on almost four thousand people of African descent has identified a gene that acts as natural defense against HIV by limiting its replication in certain white blood cells. An international effort co-led by EPFL, Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory, and Imperial College London, it paves the way for new treatment strategies and underscores the importance of studying diverse ancestral populations to better address their specific medical needs and global health disparities.
NHGRI Takes New, WGS Look at Mendelian Diseases July 27, 2021
By Allison Proffitt
July 27, 2021 | The National Institutes of Health has made a five-year, nearly $80 million commitment to the establishment of a Mendelian Genomics Research Consortium of five clinical laboratories and one data coordinating center. The Consortium will build on previous National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) work to develop new methods for identifying the genetic causes of single-gene diseases.
The clinical centers will be run by Stephen B. Montgomery, Ph.D., at Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California; Deborah A. Nickerson, Ph.D., at the University of Washington, Department of Genome Sciences, Seattle; Anne O Donnell-Luria, M.D., Ph.D., at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Boston Children s Hospital; Eric J. Vilain, M.D., Ph.D., at the Center for Genetic Medicine Research at Children s National Hospital, Washin