February 21, 2024
(Nature) – The CRISPR–Cas9 gene-editing system excels at altering and disrupting genes. But the changes it makes are permanent, which can be a big problem if the system goes awry. Now, a CRISPR-based system that targets a cell’s short-lived messenger … Read More
February 20, 2024
(New York Times) – Scientists have diagnosed Down syndrome from DNA in the ancient bones of seven infants, one as old as 5,500 years. Their method, published in the journal Nature Communications, may help researchers learn more about how prehistoric … Read More
February 19, 2024
(Nature) – Stark and others around the world have repeatedly demonstrated the feasibility and clinical benefit of rapid sequencing and interpretation pipelines for delivering timely, personalized interventions for previously enigmatic disorders. These workflows can generally deliver diagnoses in less than … Read More
February 19, 2024
(STAT News) – Six years ago, the National Institutes of Health placed its biggest ever bet on precision medicine, launching a study to enroll over 1 million participants in an ambitious data-gathering gambit unmatched in its scope and diversity. Since … Read More
February 14, 2024
(PBS) – Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, many health care providers say an increasing number of patients are deciding the fate of their pregnancies on whatever information they can gather before state abortion bans kick in. But early ultrasounds … Read More
February 14, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – The NIH study will involve 10,000 participants in total, some of whom are signing up for intense measures, like monitors that follow them and make sure they don’t eat smuggled food, or special eyeglass attachments to … Read More
February 1, 2024
(BBC) – Gene therapy has transformed the lives of people with a genetic disorder that causes painful and unpredictable swelling attacks. Angiodema, thought to affect 50,000 people worldwide, can be seriously debilitating, affect airways, and occasionally prove fatal. Patients treated … Read More
February 1, 2024
(New York Times) – Women are much more likely than men to have their immune system turn against them, resulting in an array of so-called autoimmune diseases, like lupus and multiple sclerosis. A study published on Thursday offers an explanation … Read More
February 1, 2024
(STAT News) – Naming cancers solely by the organs they originate in is getting a bit old, according to Fabrice André, a medical oncologist at Gustave Roussy in France and the president-elect of the European Society of Medical Oncology. Instead, … Read More
January 31, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – 23andMe went public in 2021 and its valuation briefly topped $6 billion. Forbes anointed Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe’s chief executive and a Silicon Valley celebrity, as the “newest self-made billionaire.” Now Wojcicki’s self-made billions have vanished. 23andMe’s … Read More
January 31, 2024
(Axios) – As everyone in health care is trying to figure out which patients should get pricey new weight-loss drugs, a biotech company spun out of the Mayo Clinic is betting the genetics-based approach it’s pioneering may hold the answer. … Read More
January 29, 2024
(RAND) – A complex, high-threat landscape is emerging in which future wars might be fought with humans controlling hyper-sophisticated machines with their thoughts; the military-industrial base is disturbed by synthetically generated, genomically targeted plagues; and the future warfighter goes beyond … Read More
January 29, 2024
January 24, 2024
(New York Times) – Maximila Imali, a top Kenyan sprinter, did not lose her eligibility to compete in the Paris Olympics because she cheated. She did not fail a doping test. She broke no rules. Instead, she is set to … Read More
January 24, 2024
(Nature) – Moreau and a few other researchers have alerted publishers to 96 papers over the past half-decade, and raised questions about genetic databases that hold data from minority ethnic groups. Ethical concerns are particularly acute in forensic science because … Read More
January 23, 2024
(New York Times) – Aissam Dam, an 11-year-old boy, grew up in a world of profound silence. He was born deaf and had never heard anything. While living in a poor community in Morocco, he expressed himself with a sign … Read More
January 23, 2024
(New York Times) – The Food and Drug Administration is requiring companies that make specialized cancer therapies known as CAR-T to add a boxed warning that the treatments themselves may cause cancers. The agency noted that the benefits still outweighed … Read More
January 23, 2024
(Nature) – Researchers have been trying for more than 50 years to tame the cells that are responsible for autoimmune disorders such as type 1 diabetes, lupus and multiple sclerosis. Most of the approved therapies for these conditions work by … Read More
January 22, 2024
(Knowable Magazine) – The fact that warfarin is riskier in some populations than others isn’t a surprise. Different geographic regions tend to host people with slightly different genetic makeups, and sometimes those genetic differences lead to radically different reactions to … Read More
January 22, 2024
(Wired) – In 2017, detectives at the East Bay Regional Park District Police Department working a cold case got an idea, one that might help them finally get a lead on the murder of Maria Jane Weidhofer. Officers had found … Read More
January 19, 2024
(Associated Press) – Surgeons externally attached a pig liver to a brain-dead human body and watched it successfully filter blood, a step toward eventually trying the technique in patients with liver failure. The University of Pennsylvania announced the novel experiment … Read More
January 17, 2024
(STAT News) – The new method developed by Su and her colleagues seeks to assess embryo quality by looking at pieces of genetic material called extracellular RNA (exRNA) left behind in the liquid that embryos are grown in. Their findings … Read More
January 15, 2024
(STAT News) – The Pashai family of Dallas on Thursday got some good news, but not exactly the news they had spent the last month praying for. The Texas Medicaid program, after denying coverage for an initial consult to begin … Read More
January 11, 2024
(New York Times) – Many researchers suspect that the disease is triggered by a virus, known as Epstein-Barr, which causes the immune system to attack the nerves and can leave patients struggling to walk or talk. But the virus can’t … Read More
January 9, 2024
(Wired) – The therapy for sickle cell disease is projected to cost over $2 million per patient, and only a small number of facilities in the US have the technological capability to provide it. We see a certain cycle over … Read More
