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genomic privacy

23andMe confirms hackers stole ancestry data on 6.9 million users

BY LORENZO FRANCESCHI-BICCHIERAI TECHCRUNCH On Friday, genetic testing company 23andMe announced that hackers accessed the personal data of 0.1% of customers, or about 14,000 individuals. The company also said that by accessing those accounts, hackers were also able to access “a significant number of files containing profile information about other users’ ancestry.” But 23andMe would not say how many “other users” were impacted by the breach that the company initially disclosed in early October.

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.

research news

Scientists win historic Nobel chemistry prize for ‘genetic scissors’

BY PAUL RINCON BBC SCIENCE Two scientists have been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing the tools to edit DNA. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna are the first two women to share the prize, which honours their work on the technology of genome editing.

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.

professional regulation

UK medicines regulator approves gene therapy for two blood disorders

BY DENIS CAMPBELL THE GUARDIAN Britain’s drugs regulator has approved a groundbreaking treatment for two painful and debilitating lifelong blood disorders, which works by “editing” the gene that causes them. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has given the green light for Casgevy to be used to treat sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia.

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.

emerging technologies

Genomics Has Revealed An Age Undreamed Of

BY RAZIB KAHN PALLADIUM MAGAZINE On June 26, 2000, President Bill Clinton announced the completion of the draft of the human genome at a press conference with the two project leads, Francis Collins and J. Craig Venter. A genome is all the genetic information of an organism.

Blood test spots multiple cancers without clear symptoms, study finds

BY IAN SAMPLE THE GUARDIAN Doctors have told health services to prepare for a new era of cancer screening after a study found a simple blood test could spot multiple cancer types in patients before they develop clear symptoms. The Pathfinder study offered the blood test to more than 6,600 adults aged 50 and over, and detected dozens of new cases of disease. Many cancers were at an early stage and nearly three-quarters were forms not routinely screened for.

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.