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Researchers Identify New Genes Linked With Schizophrenia Risk in First-of-Its-Kind Study

Researchers have made an important discovery about the causes of schizophrenia, a disease related to dementia or fragmented mentality.   Researchers have identified two genes associated with the disease as well as a third gene that carries the risk of schizophrenia and autism. Scientists involved in this research believes, this discovery can go a long way in finding a cure for these kind of diseases. Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine found that these harmful genes are almost the same in every ethnic or racial group. The findings of this research were published in Nature Genetics . According to an estimate, about one percent of people worldwide suffering from schizophrenia. The scientists identified two risky genes, SRRM2 and AKAP11, based on a comparative analysis of gene sequencing from individuals with schizophrenia and healthy individuals. It compared a dataset of 35,828 patients with schizophrenia to 107,877 healthy or control groups and included a variety of

What is Autophagy and How Does it Work in Our Body to Digesting Damaged Cells?

The word autophagy is derived from the Greek words 'Auto' meaning self and 'Phagy' meaning eating. Autophagy is a self-digesting mechanism responsible for removal of damaged organelles in our body . It is a normal psychological process that is responsible for the automatic digestion of cells in human body. Autophagy is the same as feeding of damaged cells. Autophagy is a lysosome dependent mechanism to remove unnecessary proteins in our body. It suggests the orderly degradation and recycling of cellular components.  Autophagy maintains normal functions through protein degradation during biosynthesis, and nonfunctional long-lived proteins by lysosome. It automatically creates new cells to replace destroyed cells.  This concept emerged during the 1960's , when researchers first observed that the cell could destroy its own contents to the membrane. In the 1990s , Oshinori Ohsumi used Baker's yeast to identify genes required for autophagy destructions.

What is Nanotechnology in Simple Terms?

Nanotechnology has established its reach in almost all areas of our life. This branch of physics based on the measurement and application of precision is not very new.   Depending on the application it is quite ancient. In recent years, many researches and studies have been done related to nanotechnology and its uses. Through which this technology has attained new heights of development.  Hence this period is termed as ' Nano Revolution '. The nano revolution is expected to be a milestone not only in physics but in many fields including quantum physics. But  nanotechnology in medicine can change the overall scenario of therapies in hospitals.  Through this treatment of incurable diseases will be possible using nano robotics also known as molecular robotics. Nano robot would be able to deliver medicines to disease affected cells/tissues of our body. Such patients can also be cured whose chances of survival are negligible. Basically, nanotechnology is a field of scie