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Month: December 2012

Smart food — Is there an alternative to GMOs?

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By 2050, we need to figure out how to not only feed but also nourish the three billion new people who will be joining the seven billion of us who are already here on the planet. And we need to figure out how to do this as effectively, ethically and as environmentally sensibly as possible.

Since the 1980s the only celebrated solution has been GMO’s — genetically modified organisms. Genetic modification allows genes from one species to be moved into another. If anyone had never heard of GMOs — like the latest pop band — Prop 37  made GMOs a household name.

It’s absolutely true that we need to be planning now for how we are going to sustainably scale our food distribution systems for a much larger global population on a restricted water supply and nutrient depleted soil. Over 850 million people today do not have access to enough food to lead healthy lives. As our numbers only grow, a serious breakthrough is needed. Is “Franken-food” the only answer?

View the original article here: The Future of Food Series: Exponential Solutions to Transforming Our Food System

Co-founder of Greenpeace: GM opponents need a fundamental conversion

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It takes courage, humility and honesty to admit mistakes. And how many of us haven’t jumped to wrong and impetuous conclusions in our youth. But Damascene Conversions don’t come any bigger than that of Dr Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, who these days campaigns against some of what he once stood for.

“Greenpeace and its allies have successfully blocked the introduction of golden rice for over a decade,” he said recently. And he went on to quote the World Health Organisation, which estimates between 250,000 and 500,000 children become blind every year due to vitamin A deficiency which golden rice can correct. Half of those children die within a year of becoming blind.

Golden rice is, of course, a genetically modified form of rice that, unlike conventional rice, contains beta-carotene in its kernel. It’s been available since 1998 and countless experiments have shown it can eliminate vitamin A deficiency. It could be argued that by “spreading misinformation about golden rice” (Moore’s words, not mine) in countries where the problem is most acute, Greenpeace and others have been responsible for the blindness and death of up to seven million children.

View the original article here: GM opponents need a fundamental conversion

DNA isn’t all-powerful: A challenge to personalized cancer care

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(Reuters) – The cancer cells were not behaving the way the textbooks say they should. Some of the cells in colonies that were started with colorectal tumor cells were propagating like mad; others were hardly multiplying. Some were dropping dead from chemotherapy and others were no more slowed by the drug than is a tsunami by a tissue. Yet the cells in each “clone” all had identical genomes, supposedly the all-powerful determinant of how cancer cells behave.

That finding, published online Thursday in Science, could explain why almost none of the new generation of “personalized” cancer drugs is a true cure, and suggests that drugs based on genetics alone will never achieve that holy grail.

Scientists not involved in the study praised it for correcting what Dr. Charis Eng, an oncologist and geneticist who leads the Genomic Medicine Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, called “the simple-minded” idea that tumor genomes alone explain cancer.

View the original article here: In challenge to personalized cancer care, DNA isn’t all-powerful

We’re overselling the health-care ‘revolution’ of personal genomics

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In the very near future, we’ll all be able to have our entire genome – all our genetic information – mapped for under $1,000.

It has been suggested that this technological advance will usher in a new health-care “revolution.” It will allow us, or so it’s promised, to individualize health-care treatments and preventive strategies – an approach often called “personalized medicine.” It will allow us to become fully aware of our genetic shortcomings and the diseases for which we’re at increased genetic risk, thus providing the impetuous to adopt healthier lifestyles.

But will having your personal genome available really revolutionize your health-care world? Will you be able to use this information to significantly improve your chances of avoiding the most common chronic diseases? Not likely.

View the original article here: We’re overselling the health-care ‘revolution’ of personal genomics

Indian scientists found guilty of marketing contaminated GM cotton seeds

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In what appears to be a case of serious scientific fraud and subsequent cover up, Indian scientists have been found guilty of commercialising contaminated genetically modified(GM) cotton seeds despite knowing about contamination for several years.

The GM cotton variety in question- Bikaneri Nerma Bt or BN Bt- was developed by the Nagpur-based Central Institute for Cotton Research of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research.

It was commercialised in 2009 and was touted as an alternative to GM cotton marketed by Mahyco. Two years back, Mahyco complained to ICAR that BN Bt, in fact, contained a gene developed by its partner Monsanto.

View the original article here: Indian scientists found guilty of marketing contaminated GM cotton seeds – India Today

DNA may be future goldmine for marketers

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In the ever-growing field of personal-data mining, marketing firms already latch on to details far beyond the sphere of names and postal codes to gain insights into consumers’ personal tastes. And DNA may well be the next frontier: genetic information gleaned from burgeoning databases. [Thousands], for instance, have contributed their DNA for ancestry or health tests.

If that sounds far-fetched, consider this: Two years ago, just a decade after the first human genome was mapped, Visa Inc., one of the world’s largest credit-card companies, tried to secure a patent that would allow it to search, among other things, DNA databanks for marketing purposes. As the cost to sequence DNA drops, and online databases grow, the commercial interests in consumers’ genetic profiles is likely to grow along with it. In the academic world, researchers are already mining human DNA for links between genes and consumer preferences.

Additional Resources:

View the original article here: Why your DNA is a goldmine for marketers

Cancers better at manipulation of host genes than thought

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Cancer cells are derived from our very own stock, being based on our very DNA. Yet they are able to develop into their own type of cell and replicate out of control while our cells behave themselves. Research from the last several years has shown that much of the genetic wrangling of tumour cells occurs at the epigenetic level, with cancer cells switching off genes that would otherwise prevent their uncontrolled spread.

Now a new study has shed light on the other side of these epigenetic machinations, showing how cancer cells can also activate genes that support their activities.

View the original article here: Surprise epigenetic finding shows how cancer manipulates our genes

Personalized medicine for prostate cancer: Promise of the future

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Personalized medicine is treatment specific for a patient based on his or her genetic makeup. It doesn’t involve designing a new drug or use of exclusive technology for each individual patient. Instead, with the knowledge of a patient’s genetic makeup, health researchers would like to use the best possible therapy from the array of technologies and drugs to cure them.

This concept virtually makes treating any disease a piece of cake. The reality, however, is quite different. Such a targeted approach will take many years before it begins to take effect.

View the original article here: Getting Personal with Cancer – The Buzz About Personalized Medicine For Prostate Cancer

New business plans for direct-to-consumer gene testing industry

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The Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) gene testing industry has generated a lot of press over the last five or six years. But the business plan has always seemed rather on the South Park side of logical. Now two of the major players in the gene testing industry — 23andMe and Family Tree DNA — along with upstart GenePeeks are launching new ventures that could remake the direct-to-consumer (DTC) market.

Additional Resources:

 View the original article here: New Business Plans for the Direct-to-Consumer Gene Testing Industry?

Bioethics by Donna Dickenson: A review

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Donna Dickenson, Emeritus Professor of Medical Ethics and Humanities at the University of London, has written a highly accessible guide to the ethical implications of biotechnology. It delves into  questions about the limits of science, the problems raised by the patenting of genes, the role of the profit motive in medicine and the injustices spawned by reproductive technologies.

Additional Resources:

View the original article here: Review: Bioethics: All That Matters by Donna Dickenson

“Genes and justice” — exploring the crossroads of genetics and policy

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“Genes and Justice.” That unexpected combination of words led to the “question of the day” that lit up on a screen in front of 26 Princeton undergraduates: “What changes in policy and society, if any, are needed to ensure that genetic evidence produces true justice?”

Seated together at one end of a classroom in Robertson Hall on a recent fall evening were the initiators of the question: Shirley M. Tilghman, president of Princeton University, and Keith Wailoo, the Townsend Martin Professor of history and public affairs. Together, they possess a wealth of knowledge to explore the topic. Tilghman, a professor of molecular biology, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on genetics; Wailoo draws upon insights gained from his work on several award-winning books on genetics and society, and many years teaching across the disciplines of health, race and public policy.

But it is the students who are being challenged to answer the day’s question in the course “Modern Genetics and Public Policy,” which Tilghman and Wailoo are co-teaching for the first time this semester. The course is offered through theWoodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

View the original article here: Exploring the crossroads of genetics and policy

The future of food: Are there alternatives to GMOs?

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By 2050, we need to figure out how to not only feed but also nourish the three billion new people who will be joining the seven billion of us who are already here on the planet. And we need to figure out how to do this as effectively, ethically and as environmentally sensibly as possible.

Since the 1980s the only celebrated solution has been GMO’s — genetically modified organisms. Genetic modification allows genes from one species to be moved into another. If anyone had never heard of GMOs — like the latest pop band — Prop 37 made GMOs a household name.

While there are many cases of GMO crops contaminating neighboring crops and there is research to support that GMOs are possibly harmful to human health, many experts say the evidence against GMOs is not conclusive and also argue that GMOs are our only pathway forward to feeding our growing population. In fact Norman Borloug — winner of the Nobel Prize for his work in curbing world hunger through The Green Revolution which were a series of innovations in genetic engineering — still believes in the promise of GMOs to feed the planet and that it is the anti-science movement that is prohibiting progress.

View the original article here: The Future of Food Series: Exponential Solutions to Transforming Our Food System

Will Monsanto destroy Mexico’s corn?

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Corn has been carefully tended in Mexico for eight millennia and environmental conservationists report that thousands of peasant varieties are still grown throughout the country. With an estimated 75 per cent of the planet’s biodiversity vanished as of 1995, Mexico’s heterogeneous corn fields are a rare vestige of the age prior to the “Green Revolution” era that is responsible for the artificially and unhealthily homogenous industrial agriculture that is prevalent now. 

Introducing GE corn to Mexico would sound the death knell for this precious ecology as it is widely agreed that GE crops cannot co-exist with conventionally bred seeds. 

View the original article here: Will Monsanto destroy Mexico’s corn?

“Just Label It” crowd’s true mission is to ban GM crops

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Anti-biotech activists are like zombies in a horror movie: No matter how many times you defeat them, they keep snapping back to life, determined to wreak brand-new havoc.

So a month after suffering a bad loss in California on Election Day, they’re shifting their misconceived movement to Connecticut, Oregon, Vermont, and elsewhere. The next engagement is already well underway in the state of Washington, where the frightening extremism of what they really hope to achieve is also on full display.

Their outrageous goal is nothing less than a complete ban of crops enhanced by biotechnology–and they must be stopped.

View the original article here: Standing Up to the True Mission of the “Just Label It” Crowd

Researchers eager to create parentless embryos with stem cells

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An international fertility conference early next year will teach participants how to create embryos with stem cells. The organisers for the International Conference on Preservation of Fertility in Cancer Patient 2013, to be held in Hong Kong in February, are making astonishing claims. The conference “will teach the neo-creation of sperm and eggs from skin cells using the new techniques of IPS cell culture and gamete differentiation recently perfected in mice in Japan,” they told potential participants. “This will be the future for the most difficult infertility cases, actually making sperm and eggs from somatic cells.  In mice, normal litters have been born with this approach.”

View the original article here: Researchers eager to create parentless embryos with stem cells

Why aren’t we arguing over stem cells anymore?

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I’m sure if I did a deep enough Google search, I’d  find some reference to stem cells coming up during the recent campaign, but I honestly can’t recall any candidate raising the issue. The blogs were silent. A campaign in which every conceivable social edge issue was deployed observed almost complete radio silence on the issue that just a few years ago riled the political world.

And it has been that science that effectively ended the political debate over stem cells. In other words, the moral objections were not “antiscience” at all. To the contrary, they may the be the spur that has lead to recent breakthroughs.

This was, of course, the argument all along: the promise of stem cells was not restricted to embryonic stem cells. Alternative therapies using adult stem cells could obviate the need to destroy embryos, while still advancing the cause of science.

View the original article here: Why We’re Not Arguing About Stem Cells Anymore