The World Medical Association (WMA) has come out in support of the Icelandic Medical Association in its opposition to the setting up of a national health sector gene database which would cover the entire population of Iceland. The decision was made at the WMA council meeting two weeks ago in...
Spain's National Commission on Assisted Reproduction has issued a series of recommendations to the government on a variety of issues in assisted reproduction, including the live issue of reproductive and therapeutic uses of cloning technology as well as familiar issues surrounding embryo and gamete freezing. The commission's report underlines the...
The possibility of a genetic treatment for cystic fibrosis has moved a step closer with the start of a gene therapy trial at Stanford University Medical Center in California. The treatment involves the delivery, by aerosol, to the patient's lungs of a manufactured version of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance...
A British doctor has submitted an application to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the UK's regulatory body, to carry out embryo splitting. The notorious Paul Rainsbury, consultant gynaecologist at the BUPA Roding Hospital in Essex, argues that embryo splitting would allow a woman to increase the number of...
British obstetricians announced at a conference last week that they are close to developing a prenatal test with no attendant risk of miscarriage. The team of doctors from Imperial College, London and Queen Charlotte's Hospital are currently working to perfect a procedure that would allow the detection of genetic and...
A study investigating the genetic basis of homosexuality has failed to support research published six years ago suggesting the existence of a 'gay gene'. A team of scientists led by Dean Hamer, an American Aids researcher, caused controversy in 1993 when it published results of a study claiming to have...
Shield Diagnostics has signed an exclusive deal with Gemini Holdings which will allow them to develop Gemini's DNA based test for a gene that causes a predisposition to brittle-bone disease. Shield Diagnostics said the test could have other applications. The colourful banker, Mungo Parks, who masterminded Nomura International's attempt to...
Venture capitalists are demanding better terms from the biotechnology companies that they back. This follows on from the well reported troubles of British Biotech. Although a report to be released by the accountancy firm Ernst & Young confirms that the UK still leads the £30b European biotech sector, it also warns...
DNA chip technology is a growing industry that could revolutionise disease diagnosis. Current laboratory techniques for detecting genetic mutations responsible for disease are both time-consuming and expensive, whereas, a DNA chip - once developed - should only take minutes or, at most, hours to detect the gene mutations at the root of...
An unprecedented consortium of ten global pharmaceutical companies, the UK's Wellcome Trust, and five research institutes will pool their resources to draw up a $45m (£30m) map of the variations in the human genetic code, or single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). This alliance, called the SNP Consortium, also announced last week that...
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