http://www.rxpgnews.com/ Medical News and Information Thu, 21 Aug 2008 02:00:28 PST en-us http://www.rxpgnews.com/thalassemia/Alpha-Thalassemia_and_Protection_from_Malaria_4106_4106.shtml Thalassemias Over the course of human history, hundreds of thousands of genetic mutations have arisen in the global population. The most harmful ones usually disappear—by affecting an individual's “fitness,” i. e., the ability to reproduce, the mutations are lost before carriers can pass them on to their children—whereas most mutations are maintained in the population in low frequencies. Some mutations, however, can give the carrier such a large survival advantage that the mutations become positively selected for, leading to their presence in high frequencies in some populations. Fri, 21 Apr 2006 00:37:00 PST http://www.rxpgnews.com/thalassemia/Alpha-Thalassemia_and_Protection_from_Malaria_4106_4106.shtml http://www.rxpgnews.com/thalassemia/MBD2_Protein_mediates_silencing_of_the_fetal_gamma_3999_3999.shtml Thalassemias Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center researchers have identified the role of a protein in hemoglobin gene silencing that may one day be a potential target for the treatment of genetic blood disorders like sickle-cell anemia and beta-thalassemia on the molecular level. Tue, 11 Apr 2006 22:42:00 PST http://www.rxpgnews.com/thalassemia/MBD2_Protein_mediates_silencing_of_the_fetal_gamma_3999_3999.shtml