Molly Coddington

TEN is a lethal skin disease. Can you explain what happens in the body when a patient has this diagnosis? TEN is one of the most severe skin reactions caused by common medications. It begins as a rash but can quickly progress to widespread skin peeling, resembling a burn affecting over 30% of the body. Underneath, skin cells – especially keratinocytes – suddenly die off. This leads to the outer layer of skin detaching, which is extremely painful and dangerous.

What are proteoforms? While we often think of each gene giving rise to a single “protein,” the reality is that each protein exists in potentially thousands of variants known as proteoforms. These variants are the active, functional forms of each protein and have a wide range of different modifications that impact how they fold, where they are located in the cell and how they perform enzymatic processes.

The UK Biobank WGS dataset published in Nature is one of the largest of its kind. What makes this dataset uniquely valuable compared to previous large-scale genomic resources? The UK Biobank WGS dataset stands out as one of the most powerful resources for advancing medical research. Its scale and diversity enable unparalleled opportunities for disease risk prediction, diagnostics and drug target discovery.