|
In the News ...
Cancer and Genetics
Genes that both extend
life and protect against cancer
identified. University
of California - San Francisco.
EurekAlert!, 14 October
2007.
[N]ew research
... identifies
naturally occurring processes
that allow many genes to both
slow aging and protect against
cancer in the much-studied C. elegans roundworm. ... Many of
the worm genes have counterparts
in humans, suggesting that new
drugs may some day ensure a
long, cancer-free life.
Genome update defines landscape
of breast and colon cancers.
Johns Hopkins Medical
Institutions.
EurekAlert!, 11
October 2007.
In a systematic search of 18,191
genes representing more than 90
percent of the protein-coding
genes in the human genome ...
the Johns Hopkins scientists
found that most cancer-causing
gene mutations are quite diverse
and can vary from person to
person.
'Network' approach identifies
potential breast cancer
susceptibility gene.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
EurekAlert!, 9 October 2007.
[A]n international group of
collaborators have used data on
genes involved in inherited
forms of breast cancer to
identify a novel gene
potentially linked to the
disease. ... Their approach ... used advanced
laboratory techniques plus novel
"data mining" approaches to
discover new cancer-related
genes.
* * *
Other Research News ...
-- China, Arthritis,
Cholesterol, ... --
First Asian genome sequenced.
Brendan Borrell.
Nature News, 12
October 2007.
Individual genomes get boost
from Chinese effort.
Scientists in Beijing announced
yesterday that they have
sequenced the diploid genome of
a Han Chinese individual. The
announcement comes on the heels
of the completion of Craig
Venter’s and James Watson’s
personal genomes earlier this
year.
Hunt for osteoarthritis gene
link.
BBC News, 11 October 2007.
British researchers are to carry
out the first study to seek to
uncover the genetic causes of
osteoarthritis. -
The analysis of DNA from 14,000
volunteers could lead to a
simple test for predicting who
is at risk from severe forms of
the disease.
MIT links gene to cholesterol.
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
EurekAlert!, 11
October 2007.
Research could lead to drugs
for atherosclerosis, Alzheimer's
-
MIT researchers have discovered
a link between a gene believed
to promote long lifespan and a
pathway that flushes cholesterol
from the body. ... The finding
could help researchers create
drugs that lower the risk of
diseases associated with high
cholesterol, including
atherosclerosis (clogged
arteries) and Alzheimer's
disease.
Severe heart defect likely
caused by genetic factors.
Cincinnati Children's Hospital
Medical Center.
EurekAlert!, 10
October 2007.
The study ...
is the first to show the high
heritability and likely genetic
underpinnings of HLHS [Hypoplastic
Left Heart Syndrome] and
recommend a direction for future
research into its cause,
development and possible
therapeutic strategies.
Cognitive Problems a Family Affair for Parkinson's Patients. Osterweil, Neil.
MedPage Today, 9 October 2007.
The authors conducted an historical cohort study of 1,019 first-degree relatives of 162 patients with Parkinson's
disease and of 858 relatives of 147 matched controls chosen as a representative sample of the population of Olmsted
County, Minn. They also evaluated 2,716 first-degree relatives of 411 patients with Parkinson's disease who were
referred to the Mayo Clinic. ... They called relatives of patients with Parkinson's disease and administered the
Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status-Modified, a 12-item instrument. For relatives with dementia, proxies
answered questions about the relative's memory and activities of daily living, and whether he or she had been
diagnosed with Alzheimer's, dementia, or senility. The authors also extracted data on dementia from a medical-
records linkage system.
Researchers Identify
Genes That Increase Rheumatoid
Arthritis Risk.
NIH News, 4 October 2007.
Researchers in the United States
and Sweden have identified a
genetic region associated with
increased risk of rheumatoid
arthritis ....
First significant genetic finding in severe PMS, or PMDD. Elsevier. EurekAlert!, 2 October 2007.
Previously, researchers have shown that women with PMDD [premenstrual
dysphoric disorder] have an abnormal response to normal hormone levels
and, thus, are differentially sensitive to their own hormone changes.
Huo and colleagues now report their new findings, which link PMDD with
common variants in the estrogen receptor alpha gene ....
Research shows how
genetic mutation causes epilepsy
in infants. Research
Australia.
EurekAlert!, 2 October 2007.
New research from the Howard
Florey Institute in Melbourne
has shown why mutation in a
single gene can cause epilepsy
in infants. ...
Genetics' Super Summer. Robert Langreth and Matthew Herper.
Forbes, 2 October 2007.
The hunt for new genes has
suddenly gone into overdrive -
Between the end of May and
the beginning of September,
scientists discovered telltale
genetic markers that help
predict the risk of nine major
diseases .... Some of these newly
discovered markers will be used
soon in diagnostic tests; others
will help researchers better
understand the diseases in order
to invent new treatments. ...
* * *
Personalized Medicine
Blood test takes step
toward predicting Alzheimer's
risk, Stanford researchers find.
Stanford University Medical
Center.
EurkeAlert!, 14 October
2007.
Researchers ... have developed a
blood test that is a step toward
giving people an answer two to
six years in advance of the
onset of the disease.
Genome Guru Wants to Map 10,000
Human Genomes in 10 Years.
Randy Dotinga.
WIRED, 11 October
2007.
The news about Venter's genome
convinced about 200 people to
volunteer to take part in the
Venter Institute's
genome-testing project. .... Some scientists
predict personal genome testing
may become generally available
within five years, but Venter's
group still expects tests to
cost $300,000 each .....
Editorial: Beware gene
screening advice. [349
words]
NewScientist, 6 October
2007.
Wouldn't it be great if
screening for genes could tell
us the diseases we are likely to
fall prey to? .... A growing band of companies
now think we have the knowledge
to do this .... Unfortunately,
they have yet to make a
convincing case for their
claims.
The personal side of
genomics. Nathan Blow,
Nature 449, 627-630. 4
October 2007.
The
technology necessary for a
personal-genomics revolution is
here on the scene. Most people
say that the major concern for
personal-genomics projects is
how to deal with the data from
participants. And even on that
front there seems to be a lot of
optimism within the genomics
community.
Being Well Informed.
Nathan Blow,
Nature 449, 627. 4 October
2007.
George Church ... aims to
integrate data for genomics,
environment and phenotype in
more than 100,000 volunteers.
... Perhaps the biggest issue
for the project is how to
acquire informed consent from so
many participants, who will have
their data become publicly
available.
DNA Decoding Maps
Mainstream Future.
Keith J. Winstein.
WSJ.com, 4 October 2007.
Dropping Costs May Make Gene
Sequencing of Patients More
Common -- The price of
reading a person's genome is
plummeting, raising hope for new
medical discoveries and cures.
It cost the Human Genome Project
$3 billion to extract the first
complete genetic blueprint,
which was completed in 2003. Now
four companies are racing to
bring the cost to below $10,000
....
* * *
Pharmacogentics and Toxicogenomics
-- Copaxone, Toxicogenomic
Tests, and Others --
Israeli scientists identify:
Genes that affect responses of
multiple sclerosis patients to
Copaxone. Weizmann Institute of
Science.
EurekAlert!, 10 October
2007.
A group of Israeli scientists
... have recently
identified genes responsible for
the positive response of many
multiple sclerosis patients to
the drug Copaxone. These
findings may contribute to the
development of personalized
medicine for multiple sclerosis
sufferers.
Trial seeks 'genetic
fingerprint' for predicting drug
effectiveness.
University of Cincinnati.
EurekAlert!, 3 October 2007.
University of Cincinnati (UC)
physician-scientists believe
identifying a genetic
“fingerprint†could help predict
which specific therapies will be
most effective for patients with
gastric cancer. ... Researchers
will compare pre- and
post-surgery tissue samples to
obtain the genetic data
necessary to establish
associations ....
NAS Report Offers New Tools to
Assess Health Risks from
Chemicals. NIH News.
EurekAlert!,
9 October 2007.
The report from the NAS National
Research Council (NRC) ...
states that the technological
hurdles that could have limited
the reproducibility of data from toxicogenomic technologies have
been resolved and recommends
ways for the field to move
forward. ...
* * *
Biobanks
and DNA Databases ...
NIH launches SNP health
association resource (SHARe)
project.
Maria Adams.
PHG Foundation
News, 11 October 2007.
The National Institutes of
Health (NIH) is making a vast
collection of genetic and
clinical data freely available
to researchers. Called the SNP
Health Association Resource (SHARe),
it will allow researchers to
access extensive phenotype and
genotype information from
several of the large cohort
studies ....
Prospective DNA Banking:
Worthwhile? Ethical? Socially
Acceptable? Ailsa
Taylor.
BioNews, 1 October 2007.
[D]espite ongoing debates over
the power of genetics to
estimate common disease risk, it
is widely believed that genetic
information will become
increasingly important in
healthcare. This has lead some
experts to suggest that such
information would be richer if
people today chose to bank their
DNA prospectively, in order that
their relatives could access
this data for genetic testing in
the future.
* * *
Medical
Records and Health IT
States and V.A. at Odds
on Cancer Data. Gina
Kolata.
New York Times, 10 October
2007.
At issue,
says Dr. Joel Kupersmith, chief
of the department’s research and
development office, is “the
dynamic tension between patient
privacy and the desire to use
patients’ private information to
do research.â€
Your Health Data,
Plugged In to the Web.
Catherine Rampell.
Washington Post, 5 October
2007.
HealthVault ... allows people to
upload their medical records to
the Web and share the
information with doctors. ...
Some privacy advocates are
concerned that such sites could
expose sensitive medical data to
hackers and outsiders, but
Microsoft said it has spent the
past several years consulting
with experts to ensure that
HealthVault will keep personal
information private.
Lilly's CEO Calls for Reform of Nation's Drug Safety System.
PRNewswire /
Lilly News, 2 October 2007.
Sidney Taurel, chairman and chief executive officer, Eli Lilly and
Company ... called on the health care industry, medical community and
U.S. government to actively collaborate on a health information
technology system that would provide more rapid and useful insights on
the effectiveness of medicines while improving drug safety.
* * *
Policy and Law ...
Italian court ruling favours
pre-implantation genetic
diagnosis.
Philippa Brice.
PHG Foundation
Newsletter, 9 October 2007.
In Italy, a Sardinian court has
ruled that gynaecologist
Giovanni Monni must provide
pre-implantation genetic
diagnosis (PGD) for a couple who
are beta-thalassaemia carriers
....
Surveys show public
distrusts HIPAA; researchers
detest it. Nancy
Ferris.
GovernmentHealth IT, 2
October 2007.
Nearly three of five Americans
agree that the privacy of their
health information is not well
protected by federal and state
laws and organizational
practices, according to a survey
by Harris Interactive released
today.
* * *
Blogs ...
PredictER Blog
Medical Records and the
VA: Cancer, Laptops, Babies and
Bath Water.
PredictER Blog.
10 October 2007.
[T]he VA'S chief of research and
development, noted that "the
department was especially
sensitive to privacy concerns in
light of incidents like the
theft by teenagers last year of
a laptop computer containing
personal information on 26.5
million veterans." The new
directive does not, of course,
provide information and privacy
protections that would have
prevented the theft of a laptop.
Will the VA's new policy truly
provide the information security
and privacy protections that
patients expect?
Biobanks and Dead
People: DNA and the Taboo.
PredictER Blog.
3 October 2007.
In an informative, two-part post
at the end of August, Blaine
Bettinger of
The Genetic Genealogist
introduced DNA banking for the
deceased and questioned the
ethics of biobanking without
informed consent.
* * *
Other Blogs ...
Does Microsoft’s
HealthVault really protect your
privacy? David P.
Hamilton.
VentureBeat, 14 October
2007.
The big surprise (to me, at
least) is that services like
HealthVault aren’t covered by
HIPAA, a mammoth federal law
that, among other things, sets
some strict standards for the
privacy of medical data.
Privately-managed record
repositories like HealthVault
apparently weren’t even
envisioned when Congress passed
HIPAA in 1996, and so they’re
exempt from its provisions
(which, to be fair, many people
consider onerous).
Exciting Discoveries of
2007 | Breast Cancer.
Cancer-Genetics, 13 October 2007.
It seems that year 2007 is one of the most exciting year in breast
cancer genetics. There have been at least 7 new genes strongly linked
to breast cancer this year ....
Insuring your genes. Richardson, Tyler. Little Blue Pill, 30 September 2007.
DNA-technology has enabled researchers to isolate ... dozens of genetic
variations ... the cost implications to the health care system is
serious. While diagnosing predisposition to ... disease early through
DNA profiling will save lives and money, they are just predispositions
- there is no guarantee of suffering from the disease as health is a
complex web of genetics, environment, and individual habits. Therefore,
many are fearful of releasing their genetic profile in fear that they
will be left without that most precious security blanket - health
insurance.
Yet Another Far Out Sequencing
Idea? Keith Robinson.
Omics! Omics!,
11 October 2007.
[A]nother
little-known company, [Base4
Innovation] this time English,
has thrown its hat into the
Archon X-Prize ring. ... One of
the interesting things to
observe as the genome sequencing
field heats up is how many
non-traditional entrants are
being attracted.
* * *
Announcements ...
NHGRI Funds New Centers for
Excellence in Ethical, Legal and
Social Implications Research.
NIH News, 10 October 2007.
Centers Established in North
Carolina and Pennsylvania to
Focus on Genomic Research -
Over the next five
years, grants totaling more than
$12 million will be awarded as
part of the Centers for
Excellence in Ethical, Legal and
Social Implications Research
initiative, launched by NHGRI in
2004. The new centers are being
established at the University of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill and
the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia.
Researchers expand
efforts to explore functional
landscape of the human genome.
NIH/National Human
Genome Research Institute.
EurekAlert!, 9 October 2007.
Full-scale ENCODE project
will survey entire human
instruction book -
The National Human Genome
Research Institute (NHGRI) ...
announced grants totaling more
than $80 million over the next
four years to expand the ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements
(ENCODE) project .... [Grant
recipients
include:] Xiaoman Li, Ph.D.;
Indiana University,
Indianapolis; $870,000 (three
years); Discovery of Cis-Regulatory
Modules in the Human Genome.
This team will strive to develop
computational methods for
identifying conserved cis-regulatory
modules in non-protein coding
regions of the human genome.
Grant supports study of abnormal
ring-shaped chromosomes.
Children's Hospital of
Philadelphia.
EurekAlert!, 9
October 2007.
Misshapen Structures linked to
epilepsy, mental retardation
-
When chromosomes, which are
normally bar-shaped, instead
bend into a ring before birth,
they may disrupt normal
development and cause a
multitude of problems. Genetics
experts at The Children’s
Hospital of Philadelphia will be
investigating one such disorder,
supported by a $126,000 grant
from the Ring Chromosome 20
Foundation.
NIGMS Grantees Win Nobel
for Gene Targeting.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska
Institutet.
NobelPrize.org, 8 October
2007.
Gene targeting is often used to
inactivate single genes. Such
gene "knockout" experiments have
elucidated the roles of numerous genes in embryonic
development, adult physiology,
aging and disease. To date, more
than ten thousand mouse genes
(approximately half of the genes
in the mammalian genome) have
been knocked out. Ongoing
international efforts will make
"knockout mice" for all genes
available within the near
future.
NIH Announces Addition
of 22 New Study Centers in
National Children's Study.
NIH News, 4 October 2007.
The National Children's Study
announced today that it awarded
contracts in late September to
22 new study centers to manage
participant recruitment and data
collection in 26 additional
communities across the United
States.
* * *
Journal Club ...
Bexelius C, et al. Will forensic use of medical biobanks decrease public trust in healthcare services? Some empirical observations. Scand J Public Health 2007; 35 (4):442-4.
PMID: 17786809
Brand AM and Probst-Hensch NM. Biobanking for epidemiological research and public health. Pathobiology 2007; 74 (4):227-38.
PMID: 17709965
Burke W and Psaty BM. Personalized medicine in the era of genomics. JAMA 2007; 298 (14):1682-4.
PMID: 17925520
Bush H. Practical genomics. Out of the lab, into practice. Hosp Health Netw 2007; 81 (8):36-41, 2.
PMID: 17874817
Ellsworth RE, et al. The Clinical Breast Care Project: an
important resource in investigating environmental and genetic
contributions to breast cancer in African American women. Cell Tissue Bank 2007.
[Epub ahead of print]
PMID: 17929197
Fenton E. Genetic enhancement: a threat to human rights?
Bioethics (OnlineEarly Articles).
doi:10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00564.x
Gottweis H and Zatloukal K. Biobank governance: trends and perspectives. Pathobiology 2007; 74 (4):206-11.
PMID: 17709961
Hall MA, et al. Genetic screening for iron overload: No evidence of discrimination at 1 year. J Fam Pract 2007; 56 (10):829-34.
PMID: 17908514
Mackenzie C. Feminist bioethics and genetic termination. Bioethics 2007; 21 (9):515-6.
PMID: 17927628
Mullen C. Representation or Reason: Consulting the Public on the Ethics of Health Policy. Health Care Anal 2007.
PMID: 17922193
Riegman PH, et al. Biobanking for interdisciplinary clinical research. Pathobiology 2007; 74 (4):239-44.
PMID: 17709966
Thachuk A. The space in between: narratives of silence and genetic terminations. Bioethics 2007; 21 (9):511-4.
PMID: 17927627
Tupasela A. Re-examining medical modernization: framing the public in Finnish biomedical research policy. Public Underst Sci 2007; 16 (1):63-78.
PMID: 17575709
Wray NR, et al. Prediction of individual genetic risk to disease from genome-wide association studies. Genome Res 2007; 17 (10):1520-8.
PMID: 17785532
|