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Personalised medicine
Prospects for and implications of forms of personalised medicine, and in particular the potential impact of personalised genomic medicine, have featured prominently in the news over the last month, with the UK Nuffield Foundation launching a new study in this area (22 October) and the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to the president of the US releasing a new report and recommendations on actions needed to realise the potential of personalised healthcare (7 November). A large-scale longitudinal study in the US has been set up to investigate the impact of personalised genomic information on lifestyle choices and behaviour (17 October).
Genetic disease: testing, screening and treatment
The first breast cancer susceptibility test based on low-risk susceptibility alleles was launched by deCODE (13 October) amid concerns about how results might be interpreted by patients; more positively, new forms of therapeutic for different genetic diseases are showing promise (15 October). A new test for the PC3A gene has been shown to be of value in identifying prostate cancer patients from whom a biopsy is required (21 October), whilst a new project to assess screening for hereditary breast-ovarian cancer syndrome in the UK Askenazi Jewish population has been launched (4 November). There was also media coverage of a reportedly novel form of pre-natal genetic screening that can be used to test embryos for multiple genetic variants (including those associated with disease susceptibility as well as disease-associated mutations), although the likelihood of the HFEA licensing this sort of testing seems very small (30 October).
Legal developments
In the UK, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill moved a stage closer to passing into law as it cleared the House of Commons (24 October), and in the international arena the World Medical Association announced that updates to the Declaration of Helsinki on ethical principles for medical research had been finalised (1 November).
Genomics research
Two major collaborative genomic research programmes have begun in the US; one will investigate the genomics of paediatric cardiac disease (23 October), and another intends to study the genome and phenome of epilepsy, linking genetic variants with forms of the disease and response to medication (8 November). The first ‘cancer genome’ sequence has been published (10 November) and ten key mutations linked with the acute myeloid leukaemia of the research subject.
Selected new reviews and commentaries
Our selection of recent articles of interest (3 November)
Other recent news and research
FDA grants orphan-drug status to treatment for blood diseases
Children's brain tumour discovery
Aneuploid cells hold promise for making cancer drugs
Researchers identify more genetic links to Alzheimer's
Protein does not cause heart disease, scientists say
Customized cancer drugs could come from gene tests
Gene 'roadmap' for lung cancers
Researchers link gene mutation to clubfoot
Study links gene variant to prostate cancer
U.K. expert to open center for cord blood, stem cell research in France
Genetically selected Spanish baby offers hope to sick brother
FDA releases draft guidance on potency tests for CGT products
Biocomputers hold promise for drug delivery
Study: DNA replication occurs in stem cell differentiation
Expert: Cancer screening should zero in on flawed genes
Scientists use chemicals to create iPS cells
Two gene variants may raise risk of skin cancer
Scientists report safer way of producing iPS cells
Orphan Genetic Disease Believed To Affect Ten Times More Children Than Previously Thought
See also the Genomics & Health Weekly Update from the CDC Office of Public Health Genomics.
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