research professionals

Wellcome Trust – Genomics research resources

genomic privacy

It’s time to talk about who can access your digital genomic data

BY CURTIS AND HEREWARD THE CONVERSATION We are approaching a time when you might be too scared to have your genome sequenced. Only last week, a US senator called for an investigation into the privacy policies of direct-to-consumer DNA companies.

Ethical questions raised in search for Sardinian centenarians’ secrets

There is something like gold flowing through the veins of 100-year-old Maria Tegas, and everyone wants a piece of the treasure. The centenarian, who lives in a poor and remote area of central eastern Sardinia – in one of 14 villages known to geneticists and genealogists as the Blue Zone – has not had an easy life.

professional regulation

‘I want to help humans genetically modify themselves’

BY TOM IRELAND THE GUARDIAN Josiah Zayner, 36, recently made headlines by becoming the first person to use the revolutionary gene-editing tool Crispr to try to change their own genes. Part way through a talk on genetic engineering, Zayner pulled out a syringe apparently containing DNA and other chemicals designed to trigger a genetic change in his cells associated with dramatically increased muscle mass.

DIY Gene Editing: Fast, Cheap—and Worrisome

BY AMY DOCKSER MARCUS WALL STREET JOURNAL Kian Sadeghi has postponed homework assignments, sports practice and all the other demands of being a 17-year-old high-school junior for today. On a Saturday afternoon, he is in a lab learning how to use Crispr-Cas9, a gene-editing technique that has electrified scientists around the world—and sparked a widespread debate about its use.

emerging technologies

AP Exclusive: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

BY MARILYNN MARCHIONE THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A Chinese researcher claims that he helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies — twin girls born this month whose DNA he said he altered with a powerful new tool capable of rewriting the very blueprint of life. If true, it would be a profound leap of science and ethics.

FDA approves first gene therapy for an inherited disease

BY LAURIE MCGINLEY WASHINGTON POST In a historic move, the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved a pioneering gene therapy for a rare form of childhood blindness, the first such treatment cleared in the United States for an inherited disease. The approval signals a new era for gene therapy, a field that struggled for decades to overcome devastating setbacks but now is pushing forward in an effort to develop treatments for hemophilia, sickle-cell anemia and an array of other genetic diseases. Yet the products, should they reach patients, are likely to carry stratospheric prices — a prospect already worrying consumer advocates and economists.

gene patents

Like air and water, DNA should not be patentable

BY ANDRÉ PICARD THE GLOBE AND MAIL ‘Gene patents no longer need to stand in the way of diagnosing life-threatening disease.” That’s how Alex Munter, president and chief executive officer of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, summed up the impact of an out-of-court settlement in the lawsuit CHEO launched against Transgenomic Inc. in 2014. Transgenomic, a biotechnology company based in Omaha, Neb., owns five gene patents related to the potentially deadly heart condition Long QT syndrome.

Genes can’t be patented, rules Australia’s High Court

BY MICHAEL SLEZAK NEWSCIENTIST Your genes are no longer patentable in Australia. The country’s highest court found unanimously that two previous Australian judgments allowing patents of genes were wrong, and they do not constitute a patentable invention.