The US needs broader regulation of 'reprogenetics': medical technologies that involve the creation, use and storage of human egg, sperm or embryos, according to a US bioethics centre report on the subject. Co-author Lori Knowles told the Scientist magazine last week that 'the really important thing is for some action...
The European Parliament has voted in Strasbourg today in favour of allowing European funds to be used for scientific research using stem cells derived from human embryos. Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) also rejected proposed amendments from the European Commission that would have prevented research on embryonic stem (ES...
A 'gene chip' that aims to predict how well patients will respond to particular medicines has been withdrawn from sale in the US, after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requested more supporting data for its claims. The AmpliChip CYP450, launched earlier this year by Swiss firm Roche Diagnostics, is...
Women in Israel will be able to harvest the sperm of their dead husbands, even if the men had not given their prior consent. But the new guidelines, released last week, also say that a widow will not be able to claim the sperm if the husband had clearly indicated...
Scientists have identified a common genetic defect underlying psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), all of which are autoimmune disorders. Three different genes, all of which are controlled by the same protein 'switch', called Runx1, appear to be involved. The findings, reported in the journal Nature Genetics last...
A panel of experts meeting at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, US, have said that it would be unethical and risky to use embryonic stem (ES) cell lines currently eligible for use by federally-funded researchers in the US for transplantation into human patients. At a meeting held last week...
A fertility clinic in Colorado, US, is being sued by a blind woman who alleges that it discriminated against her. Kijuana Chambers says that the Rocky Mountain Women's Health Care Centre stopped treating her in 1999 because she was blind. Ms Chambers says that she underwent three attempts of artificial...
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The politics of stem cells in Europe
by Juliet Tizzard
It's been nearly five years since James Thomson and John Gearhart announced, in two separate studies, that they had successfully derived human embryonic stem cells. The breakthrough made possible what had only been a vague hope until then: that scientists would be able to grow stem cells in the laboratory...