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September 2018

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Large-scale investigation of the reasons why potentially important genes are ignored
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Biomedical research is one of the largest areas of present-day science and embeds the hope and potential to improve the lives of the general public. In order to understand how individual scientists choose individual research questions, Stoeger et al. studied why certain genes are well studied but others are not. While it has been previously observed that most research on human genes only concentrates on approximately 2,000 of the 19,000 genes of the human genome, the reasons for this ignorance are largely unknown. The authors systematically tested explanations for this observation, finding that biomedical research is primarily guided by a handful of generic chemical and biological characteristics of genes, which facilitated experimentation during the 1980s and 1990s, rather than by the physiological importance of individual genes or their relevance to human disease. The image shows "hot" and "cold" regions of biology; genes (dots) are mapped according to generic chemical and biological characteristics. Blue indicates cold regions, where genes are studied less frequently than anticipated under the assumption that every gene would be studied to the same extent.

Image Credit: Thomas Stoeger

Essays

The Sacred Ibis debate: The first test of evolution

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Perspectives

Science without publication paywalls: cOAlition S for the realisation of full and immediate Open Access

Marc Schiltz

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Carnivore conservation needs evidence-based livestock protection

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Science in the fight to uphold the rights of children

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Community Page

EukRef: Phylogenetic curation of ribosomal RNA to enhance understanding of eukaryotic diversity and distribution

Javier del Campo, Martin Kolisko, Vittorio Boscaro, Luciana F. Santoferrara, Serafim Nenarokov, Ramon Massana, Laure Guillou, Alastair Simpson, Cedric Berney, Colomban de Vargas, Matthew W. Brown, Patrick J. Keeling, Laura Wegener Parfrey

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Research Articles

Evolutionary emergence of infectious diseases in heterogeneous host populations

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Destabilized adaptive influenza variants critical for innate immune system escape are potentiated by host chaperones

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The neurodevelopmental precursors of altruistic behavior in infancy

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EpCAM ectodomain EpEX is a ligand of EGFR that counteracts EGF-mediated epithelial-mesenchymal transition through modulation of phospho-ERK1/2 in head and neck cancers

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Vocal practice regulates singing activity–dependent genes underlying age-independent vocal learning in songbirds

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Aging alters the epigenetic asymmetry of HSC division

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Jagged1/Notch2 controls kidney fibrosis via Tfam-mediated metabolic reprogramming

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Short Reports

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Methods and Resources

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Meta-Research Article

Large-scale investigation of the reasons why potentially important genes are ignored

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Formal Comments

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Research Matters

To fight tuberculosis, fund basic research

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