Infant DNA Sequencing: Worth It?
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is launching a five-year, 25M project to determine whether DNA sequencing in newborns should replace the current “heel stick” blood test. The heel stick test screens for up to 31 health conditions out of a possible 8,000 or so. The NIH genomic study will involve approximately 2000 infants from […]
SB 1359: It’s the Law
The fairly new Arizona law prevents the parents of a disabled child (and/or the child) from suing a physician for not disclosing a health defect, as a result of an act or omission, during prenatal care that may otherwise have led to an abortion. The question is, should doctors be protected from such malpractice suits […]
What are we doing here?
No, this is not a philosophical inquiry but an inquiry into age-related forgetfulness — and instead of there being an “app for that” there now appears to be a “gene for that.” Scientific American today revealed a study that links RbAp48 protein deficiencies to memory loss. Age-related memory decline is distinguished from Alzheimers in that […]
DOING THE RIGHT THING: HeLa Comes Home
Monday, August 12, 2013 By Yvonne Stevens 62 years after the death of Henrietta Lacks, as a result of an aggressive form of cervical cancer, her family finally reached an agreement with the National Institutes of Health with regard to future use of the contentious, lab-cultivated HeLa genome data (see also NY Times and Nature […]