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A Personal Search

Using equipment he bought himself, Hugh Rienhoff got to the bottom of an apparently genetic syndrome affecting his daughter, writes Brendan Maher at Nature. Rienhoff, a biotech entrepreneur and trained geneticist, found a mutation in the gene encoding transforming growth factor-β3 in his daughter, Bea. Genes in the TGF-β pathway, Maher notes, have been linked to other diseases that have symptoms that overlap with Bea's.

"Talk about personal genomics," says Gary Schroth, an R&D director at Illumina, which helped Rienhoff in his search. "It doesn't get any more personal than trying to figure out what's wrong with your own kid."

Maher adds that the work is to be published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics.

The Scan

ChatGPT Does As Well As Humans Answering Genetics Questions, Study Finds

Researchers in the European Journal of Human Genetics had ChatGPT answer genetics-related questions, finding it was about 68 percent accurate, but sometimes gave different answers to the same question.

Sequencing Analysis Examines Gene Regulatory Networks of Honeybee Soldier, Forager Brains

Researchers in Nature Ecology & Evolution find gene regulatory network differences between soldiers and foragers, suggesting bees can take on either role.

Analysis of Ashkenazi Jewish Cohort Uncovers New Genetic Loci Linked to Alzheimer's Disease

The study in Alzheimer's & Dementia highlighted known genes, but also novel ones with biological ties to Alzheimer's disease.

Tara Pacific Expedition Project Team Finds High Diversity Within Coral Reef Microbiome

In papers appearing in Nature Communications and elsewhere, the team reports on findings from the two-year excursion examining coral reefs.