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GE3LS Digest - November 16, 2009

Two research teams funded through the Innovative Partnership Program between Canada and California to advance Cancer Stem Cell Research – October 28th, 2009
http://genomecanada.ca/en/about/news.aspx?i=338
The Cancer Stem Cell Consortium (CSCC) is pleased to announce that two multi-disciplinary research teams co-led by Canadian and Californian scientists have been awarded funding through a Collaborative Partnership Program with The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). The program supports research that will result in a cancer stem cell based therapy with the specific aim of improving cancer treatment.

Electronic Health Information and Privacy Conference, November 19, 2009, Ottawa, ON
http://www.ehip.ca/
The theme for the 2009 conference is the collection and use/disclosure of genetic information. We will address issues concerning the consent and security mechanisms around the construction of biobanks, including linking to other data sources. The focus will be on policy as well as technical issues and solutions. The conference will also cover a number of very relevant contemporary privacy issues: privacy considerations in the context of syndromic surveillance (for example, when trying to detect influenza like illnesses from various hospital and practice sources), and the expected significant changes to the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and HIPAA enforcement.

Doctoral Thesis Fellowships and Postdoctoral Fellowships: Call For Applications
http://valgen.ca/
A group of Canadian scholars has created Value Addition Through Genomics and GE³LS (VALGEN), a Genome Canada project managed by Genome Prairie. This project responds to the deep governance challenges and opportunities of applied genomics for bioproducts and crops through research and knowledge mobilization on the core issues of intellectual property management, regulation and governance and democratic engagement.

Up to six doctoral thesis fellowships and three postdoctoral fellowships will be awarded in the three major research areas of VALGEN:
(1) intellectual property management,
(2) regulation and governance, and
(3) democratic engagement.
Fellowships will be located in one or more of the following institutions: University of Saskatchewan, University of Ottawa, University of British Columbia, University of Regina, McGill University, University of Calgary, Laval University, the University of Western Ontario, or other universities in the VALGEN network.

For More Information and to Apply:

An application consisting of a detailed cover letter and C.V. must be submitted by December 1, 2009.

Submit applications to: Kari Doerksen, University of Saskatchewan, Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, 101 Diefenbaker Place, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5B8 or to kdoerksen@genomeprairie.ca.

For more information please consult www.genomecanada.ca and www.valgen.ca

INTERNATIONAL

Breakthroughs in genetics leave families facing agonising choices – October 31, 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6475298/Breakthroughs-in-genetics-leave-families-facing-agonising-choices.html
Medical advances mean those at high risk of passing on some diseases can have their embryos screened, to prevent the inheritance of some deadly genes. But doing so has meant receiving shattering information about whether they carry the same gene, which means their own life is destined to be cut short. Now, a new test case could result in people being shielded from such news – but experts say it will open the door to even more complex ethical dilemmas. Regulators are considering whether those with a family history of rare genetic diseases should be given permission to have their embryos screened, and healthy specimens selected for implantation, while being protected from findings which would reveal their own fate. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) is considering a hospital's application to carry out such screening for patients with a family history of the cruel degenerative condition Huntington's disease, which has a 50 per cent chance of being passed from parent to child.

Green Light for Gene Patent Lawsuit – November 3, 2009
http://www.scienceprogress.org/2009/11/green-light-for-gene-patent-lawsuit/
A U.S. District Court judge ruled Monday that a gene patent lawsuit filed against the Patent and Trademark Office could move forward. At issue are patents exclusively licensed by Myriad Genetics for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Mutations of the genes are strongly linked to significant risks of breast cancer. The suit, lead by the Association for Molecular Pathology and including plaintiffs such as the American Civil Liberties Union, is the first of its kind, claiming that the patents violate free speech by inhibiting research. Myriad, along with the USPTO and the University of Utah Research Foundation, requested that the suit be dismissed, but the court denied the motion.

For Sale: Human Eggs Become a Research Commodity – November 2, 2009
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=shelling-out-for-eggs
Paying a woman for her eggs to use in stem cell research has been a bioethical no-no for years. But this past June, New York State decided to allow just that, becoming the first state to permit public money to be used in this way. The decision, which allows payment of up to $10,000, will likely jump-start donations—and thereby research. Many bioethicists, however, worry that the financial incentive could exploit women and compromise their health. Ethical issues surround egg donation because the process is not without risk. It requires a series of hormonal stimulation injections as well as an invasive procedure to retrieve the eggs. The long-term health effects and risks of complication are not well known. A woman who provides eggs for research is “assuming unknown risk for unknown benefits,” says Debra Mathews, a pediatrician at Johns Hopkins University. The lingering unknowns prompted the National Academy of Science to issue in 2005 nonbinding guidelines to prohibit payment (but allow direct reimbursement for expenses), as a means to protect underprivileged women in particular.

Genomics: No Longer A Failure – November 2, 2009
http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/02/human-genome-sciences-vertex-business-healthcare-genomics.html
Shares of Human Genome Sciences and Vertex Pharmaceuticals, tiny drug developers that first gained during the hype fest that followed the mapping of the human genetic code a decade ago, are soaring Monday morning after positive clinical trial results. Human Genome, of Rockville, Md., rose 39% to $26 in early trading after releasing positive results from a second study of its drug Benlysta, a treatment for lupus, an immune disease. The company and Wall Street analysts who follow it say the result should be enough to secure marketing approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The company hopes to get an expedited regulatory review that could lead to approval by late next year. It would be the first really new lupus drug in decades.

It’s my genome: should researchers be obliged to return genetic data to research participants? - November 3, 2009
http://www.genomicslawreport.com/index.php/2009/11/03/its-my-genome-should-researchers-be-obliged-to-return-genetic-data-to-research-participants/
Alice signed up as a “healthy control” for a research project into the genetics of type 2 diabetes. During the project, researchers identified a variation in Alice’s BRCA1 gene that is known to be associated with a high risk of breast cancer. Alice is unaware that she carries this variant, and if she was told about it she would be able to take steps to minimise her risk of cancer. It is clearly in Alice’s best interests to be given the option to be informed about this discovery – and yet in most research studies she would have no such opportunity. Instead, Alice is likely to have signed an informed consent form advising her that she will not receive any findings from the research study, and that indeed she has no automatic right to access any of the data generated from her DNA during the project. As genetic research studies move into the era of whole-genome sequencing, and as cohorts of patients and controls grow ever larger, the frequency with which researchers uncover such medically relevant “incidental findings” will increase sharply.

Survey of Academic Life Scientists Suggests 10-Year Drop in Industry Funding – November 5, 2009
http://www.genomeweb.com/print/927189?emc=el&m=541951&l=5&v=42c8152690
Direct industry funding for academic life science research appears to have decreased in the last decade, according to the results of a 2007 survey published this week.The survey also found that academic life scientists with industry support withheld data or delayed publication due to commercial prospects more frequently than those with no industry support during that time. The research, which appears in the November/December issue of Health Affairs, was supported by a grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute. It followed similar surveys conducted in 1995 and 1985 by the same research group at the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Policy, allowing them to examine trends in industry-academia partnerships over the past 20 years. For the most recent study, in late 2006 and 2007 the researchers mailed surveys to a randomly selected group of life science faculty members at the 50 US universities receiving the most NIH support in 2004. The survey asked a range of questions about respondents' relationships and activities in the preceding three years.

French scientists appear to halt rare brain disease in 2 boys with new gene therapy approach – November 5, 2009
http://healthandfitness.sympatico.ca/News/ContentPosting?newsitemid=052754324&feedname=CP-HEALTH&show=False&number=0&showbyline=True&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc&date=True
French scientists mixed gene therapy and bone marrow transplants in two boys to seemingly halt the fatal brain disease best known from the movie "Lorenzo's Oil. The surprise ingredient: They disabled the HIV virus so it couldn't cause AIDS, and then used it to carry in the healthy new gene. The experiment marks the first time researchers have tried that long-contemplated step in people - and the first effective gene therapy against a severe brain disease, said lead researcher Dr. Patrick Aubourg of the University Paris-Descartes. Although it is a small, first-step study, it has "exciting implications" for other blood and immune disorders that had been feared beyond gene therapy's reach, said Dr. Kenneth Cornetta, president of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. "This study shows the power of combining gene therapy and cell therapy," added Cornetta, whose own lab at Indiana University has long researched how to safely develop gene delivery using lentiviruses, HIV's family.

Rules on Modified Corn Skirted, Study Says – November 5, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/business/06corn.html?ref=science
As many as 25 percent of the American farmers growing genetically engineered corn are no longer complying with federal rules intended to maintain the resistance of the crops to damage from insects, according to a report Thursday from an advocacy group. The increase in farmers skirting the rules, from fewer than 10 percent a few years ago, raises the risk that insects will develop resistance to the toxins in the corn that are meant to kill them, the report says. And it raises questions about whether the Environmental Protection Agency and the agricultural biotechnology industry are adequately enforcing the rules. The data “should be a wake-up call to E.P.A. that the regulatory system is not working,” Gregory Jaffe, the report’s author, wrote in a letter Thursday to Lisa P. Jackson, the administrator of the federal agency. Mr. Jaffe is the biotechnology project director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington advocacy group that does not oppose genetically engineered crops but favors stricter regulation.

Stem Cells May Offer Alternative to Lung Transplants – November 6, 2009
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/respiratory-problems/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100248162
Belgian scientists who used embryonic stem cells to create lung tissue say this technique could provide an alternative to lung transplants for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cystic fibrosis. This is the first time it's been shown that embryonic stem cells can be converted into airway epithelial-like cells without the use of specific growth factors or embryoid body formation. The researchers achieved this using an "air-liquid interface" system that mimics the conditions found in an adult trachea. "Efforts will be made to further improve this novel culture protocol, trying to increase the number of differentiated cells or to guide the differentiation into particular cell types by adding certain growth factors to this system," Lindsey Van Haute, of the department of embryology and genetics at the Free University of Brussels, said in a news release.

Whole genome sequencing under $5,000 –November 9, 2009
http://www.phgfoundation.org/news/4917/
Following numerous tantalising announcements earlier in the year, US company Complete Genomics Inc. has now published the results of three complete genomes, which were sequenced for an average cost of $4,400 each using its third generation sequencing platform [Drmanac R et al. (2009) Science doi: 10.1126/science.1181498]. The company is one of the front runners in the race to achieve the coveted $1,000 genome, and previously announced that it “plans to sequence 10,000 human genomes in 2010” (see previous news). Although the current price-tag excludes the platform itself and any associated infrastructure, the consumables cost between $1,726 and $8,800 for these genomes, which were sequenced at a coverage ranging from 45- to 87-fold per genome respectively.

Use of animals and embryos containing human material – November 10, 2009
http://www.phgfoundation.org/news/4919/
The UK Academy of Medical Sciences has launched a new study to examine the use of animals containing human material (such as DNA) in scientific research. They say that consideration of this area is needed in the light of rapid scientific advances ‘to ensure that research into our understanding of diseases and their treatment can take place in the UK within a robust ethical and regulatory framework’. The investigation will consider transgenic animals and animal embryos containing integrated ‘human-like genetic material’, and chimeric animals and animal embryos, containing cells of human origin. For example, this might include mouse models of human diseases such as Down’s Syndrome, which are widely used for medical and pharmaceutical research; human tissues or organs being grown in animals as part of transplantation research; or the controversial hybrid human-animal embryos for stem cell research.


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Reducing uncertainty in regulatory decision-making for transgenic crops: More ecological research or shrewder environmental risk assessment?
http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/gmcrops/article/9776/
Ecological research and environmental risk assessment are similar in that they address interesting problems by formulating and testing hypotheses. They differ in the types of problem that are interesting, the characteristics of good hypotheses to solve those problems, and the methods for rigorous testing of hypotheses. It is important to recognise the differences between environmental risk assessment and basic ecological research because confusing them can lead to ineffective risk assessment and missed opportunities to advance ecological theory. Uncertainty in regulatory decision-making about transgenic crops may be reduced more effectively by clarifying the purpose and structure of environmental risk assessments than by further research on the ecology of the crops.