Medical Regs & Ethics
Promise of “easy” stem cells comes under investigation
Two breakthrough papers in Nature highlight a remarkable new technique for creating totipotent stem cells via a simple acid bath ...
New strains of bird flu up risk for pandemic
Genetic variations in the deadly bird flu virus circulating in China increase the potential for a pandemic strain to emerge, ...
Are genetically-enhanced Olympians coming, or already here?
Athletes may someday use today's gene therapy techniques to illicitly blow past the competition through gene doping. In fact, maybe ...
Breast cancer genetic tests have improved and doctors urge retesting
Over the past decade, the phrases ‘BRCA 1’ and ‘BRCA 2’ went mainstream as genetic testing to assess breast cancer ...
Three parent baby debate: FDA ponders mitochondrial manipulation and, perhaps, germline modification too
Next week, the Food and Drug Administration is meeting to consider how a very controversial new form of assisted reproduction ...
Will genetic sequencing lead to a new racism?
Advances in genetic sequencing are giving rise to a new era of scientific racism, despite decades of efforts to reverse ...
New bionic hand includes a sense of touch
Sensory feedback is what will turn future prostheses from tools into hands; a breakthrough bionic hand represents a first step ...
Study treats each person as his or her own experiment
What if we based decisions to exercise more, eat healthier or make other lifestyle changes to maintain our health on ...
IBM’s Watson and DNA mapping to improve drug prescription process
Scott Megill hopes that his company can bridge the gap between physicians and geneticists and provide personalized patient predictions of ...
Double mastectomies halve death rate for BRCA1 or BRCA2 breast cancer patients
Woman with a genetic form of breast cancer who have double mastectomies are nearly 50 per cent less likely to ...
A progressive looks for common ground in the GMO debate
Skeptics of GM food should come to grips with the fact that the act of genetic manipulation is itself not ...
Full genome sequencing is medically promising, but still expensive
Genome sequencing holds great potential for diagnosing diseases, finding treatments and ultimately cutting medical costs, experts say, but insurance companies ...
Latest on rewriting genomes, humans’ included
A genetic modification system, CRISPR/Cas, has shown breakthrough success in primates and is poised to make the futurists' dreams of ...
Preparing for the inevitable: DNA tests for newborns
Today, parents don't need to deal with the knowledge of genetic pitfalls that might lie ahead for their offspring. But ...
New York City student ancestry project to analyze DNA
“I’m part Neanderthal,” Rachel Bruton, a member of National Geographic’s Explorer Programs team, told Medical Daily. “I consider it bragging ...
Americans both excited and worried by advances in DNA research
Most Americans are excited about the possibility of scientific breakthroughs brought by DNA research, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll finds. But ...
Sleeping too much, or not enough, increases genetic risk of depression
Two new studies published in the journal Sleep have found a link between sleep duration and depression. “Healthy sleep is ...
Epigenetic changes needed to regenerate nerves
To regenerate after injury, a nerve cell must turn on gene programs that have been silenced since development. Epigenetic modifications, ...
23andMe pushes on with genetic research
Researchers have gained more insight into the genetic risk factors for asthma with hay fever thanks to consumer genetic testing ...
Environmentalists’ stance on GMOs betrays progressive values
It is obviously inconsistent on the part of environmental groups such as Greenpeace to trumpet the importance of the worldwide ...
Were Neanderthals a different species?
Up to 40% of the Neanderthal genome may be preserved across our collective genomes, and the areas of the human ...
Misplaced fears of identical diseases links anti-GMOers to anti-technology fringe groups
GMOs, vaccines, chemtrails, fluoride, all have remarkably similar suites of disease "side effects" according to anti-technology critics. The same scare ...
Should the FDA take a libertarian view of personal genomics?
Geneticists, lawyers, students and industry experts packed into a conference room on Stanford's campus this week to discuss the ethics ...
Acid bath turns adult cells into stem cells
Japanese researchers report transforming adult cells into a flexible, embryonic state via a surprisingly simple method of exposing the cells ...
Acid bath reverts adult cells to pluripotent state
A little stress is all it took to make new life from old. Adult cells have been given the potential ...
23andme finds genes for asthma (with hay fever)
23andMe, the leading personal genetics company, has participated in the first ever genome-wide association study of the combined asthma-with-hay fever ...
CRISPR can create viable, genetically modified monkeys
Researchers at Nanjing Medical University and Yunnan Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research in Kunming, China, have created genetically modified ...