Premature ageing gene discovery
Two teams of scientists have identified the genetic cause of progeria, a rare premature ageing condition. Their findings could lead to a new treatment for the disease, and could also provide insights into the normal ageing process. The researchers, based at the National Human Genome Research Institute, US, and the...
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Gene hype?
by Juliet Tizzard
This week we report on the completion of the human genome sequence. But you could be forgiven for missing it. Only the Guardian newspaper gave the announcement significant column inches - most other news organisations gave it little more than a passing mention. Nearly three years ago, in June 2000, when...
'Pro-life' tactics on tissue typing
by Colin Gavaghan
A] defeat for society at large and certainly an overwhelming defeat for Parliamentary democracy.' So read the response from Josephine Quintavalle, Director of CORE (Comment on Reproductive Ethics), to April's UK Court of Appeal decision concerning tissue typing. The Court had reversed an earlier decision, in which a judge had...
Time to review embryology laws?
by Ian Gibson MP
In 1938, Aldous Huxley published a widely read book concerning the possible impact of the rapidly developing life sciences on human beings. Brave New World is a fanciful story about what human life could be like AF (After Ford) 600 - Ford being the symbol of mass production. The numbers and...