research professionals

Wellcome Trust – Genomics research resources

genomic privacy

Pentagon warns military members DNA kits pose ‘personal and operational risks’

BY JENNA MCLAUGHLIN AND ZACH DORFMAN YAHOO NEWS EXCLUSIVE The Pentagon is advising members of the military not to use consumer DNA kits, saying the information collected by private companies could pose a security risk, according to a memo co-signed by the Defense Department’s top intelligence official. A growing number of companies like 23andMe and Ancestry sell testing kits that allow buyers to get a DNA profile by sending in a cheek swab or saliva sample.

Cops Now Using Warrants To Gain Access To DNA Services’ Entire Databases

BY TIM CUSHING TECHDIRT Cops have discovered a new source of useful third-party records: DNA databases. Millions of people have voluntarily handed over personal information to a number of services in exchange for info on medical markers or distant family members.

research news

Did coronavirus come from a lab?

BY MICHAEL MARSHALL NEWSCIENTIST No, this virus isn’t a bioweapon. New diseases have emerged throughout human history, and we have seen two major coronavirus outbreaks in the last two decades: SARS and MERS.

The secret to regeneration? Scientists say it lies in the axolotl genome.

BY MATT DAVIS BIG THINK Few creatures have captured the attention of both the general public and scientists as thoroughly as a peculiar-looking salamander known as the axolotl. Native only to Lake Xochimilco, south of Mexico City, axolotls are less and less frequently found in the wild.

professional regulation

There Still Aren’t Any Rules Preventing Rogue Scientists From Making Gene-Edited Babies

EMILY MULLIN MEDIUM / ONE-ZERO Around this time last November, Chinese scientist He Jiankui stunned the world when he revealed the birth of the first known gene-edited babies. Working in relative secrecy, he had used CRISPR to modify human embryos in the lab and then established pregnancies with those embryos.

Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

BY FABIAN SCHMIDT DW.COM SCIENCE An attempt to contain the populations of the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti in Brazil may have failed. It appears that gene mutations have been transferred to the local population.

emerging technologies

Osaka University transplants iPS cell-based heart cells in world’s first clinical trial

BY JIJI JAPAN TIMES An Osaka University team said it has carried out the world’s first transplant of cardiac muscle cells created from iPS cells in a physician-initiated clinical trial. In the clinical project to verify the safety and efficacy of the therapy using induced pluripotent stem cells, Yoshiki Sawa, a professor in the university’s cardiovascular surgery unit, and colleagues aim to transplant heart muscle cell sheets over the course of three years into 10 patients suffering from serious heart malfunction caused by ischemic cardiomyopathy.

This microbe no longer needs to eat food to grow, thanks to a bit of genetic engineering

BY ROBERT F SERVICE SCIENCE MAGAZINE Synthetic biologists have performed a biochemical switcheroo. They’ve re-engineered a bacterium that normally eats a diet of simple sugars into one that builds its cells by absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2), much like plants.

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.