March 18, 2024
(The Atlantic) – Widespread genetic testing is uncovering case after secret case of children born to close biological relatives—providing an unprecedented accounting of incest in modern society. The geneticist Jim Wilson, at the University of Edinburgh, was shocked by the … Read More
March 14, 2024
(ABC News) – A new strategy to fight an extremely aggressive type of brain tumor showed promise in a pair of experiments with a handful of patients. Scientists took patients’ own immune cells and turned them into “living drugs” able … Read More
March 11, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – It sounds like science fiction, but Odunsi is among dozens of people participating in studies on a controversial new forefront of the gene-editing revolution. Regulators last year approved the world’s first medicine using Crispr, the Nobel … Read More
March 7, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – For nearly three decades, Yvonne “Missy” Woods was Colorado’s star forensic scientist, relied on by police and prosecutors to test DNA evidence in the state’s most baffling crimes. Her work was considered the gold standard by … Read More
March 7, 2024
(New York Times) – Why do twins, who share so many genetic and environmental inputs, diverge as adults in their experience of mental illness? On Wednesday, a team of researchers from the University of Iceland and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden … Read More
February 27, 2024
(Aeon) – Good Chemistry takes viewers behind the scenes and beyond the headlines of the CRISPR gene-editing breakthrough. Centred on the work of the French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier and the US biochemist Jennifer Doudna, who together became the first all-female … Read More
February 26, 2024
(STAT News) – If UCSF is known for birthing the field of fetal surgery, UC Berkeley, located a short drive across the Bay Bridge, is famous in biomedical circles for pioneering CRISPR gene editing, the most powerful DNA-manipulating tool ever … Read More
February 26, 2024
European Journal of Human Genetics (vol. 32, no. 2, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “From Mendel to multi-omics: Shifting Paradigms” by Tesfaye B. Mersha “A Framework for Evaluating long-term Impact of Newborn Screening” by Shona Kalkman, … Read More
February 23, 2024
(Nature) – Some geneticists have expressed their unease about a figure in a high-profile Nature paper that was published earlier this week, noting that it could be misinterpreted as reinforcing racist beliefs. The figure has reignited a long-standing debate among … Read More
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
European Journal of Human Genetics (vol. 32, no. 1, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “Advancing intercontinental Collaboration in Human Genetics: Success Story of the African and European Young Investigator Forum” by Mohamed Zahir Alimohamed, et al. … Read More
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