The findings offer potential ways to find people at high risk of suicide, and perhaps to treat them and prevent future suicides.
And, the researchers said, they also offer insights into how neglect and abuse can perpetuate unhealthy behavior through the generations.
Moshe Szyf of McGill University in Montreal and colleagues studied the brains of 18 men [...]

The human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS attacks immune system cells. Like other viruses, it cannot replicate on its own but must hijack a cell and turn it into a virus factory. HIV must evade several genes to do this, including an immunity gene called HLA.
Some people have versions of the HLA gene that are [...]

Maria Teresa Landi, a scientist in the National Cancer Institute’s division of epidemiology and genetics, examined the spiraling lengths of DNA in lung cells to determine exactly how smoking causes genes to go awry. The study provides a broader picture of the mechanisms involved in DNA alterations, which until now, had remained largely incomplete, experts [...]