A company in the UK has launched a new mail-order fertility test, which it says can help women to decide how long they can wait before having children. Called the 'Plan Ahead Kit', the test retails for £179, and is designed to work out the number of eggs that a...
Gene therapy could help rescue a promising treatment for Parkinson's disease (PD) shelved over safety fears, New Scientist magazine reports. The drug, glial-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), was withdrawn in September 2004 - just five months after it had been approved for use in patients. The biotech company that made the treatment...
Scientists attending a meeting on genomics and public health in London last week criticised some genetic tests being sold directly to the public. According to a report in the Guardian newspaper, tests that claim to assess a person's risk of developing common illnesses - sold via the Internet or through chemists...
US researchers have found that many cases of Parkinson's disease (PD) in certain ethnic groups could be triggered by a single faulty gene. In two separate studies, the scientists discovered that some patients with an Ashkenazi Jewish or Arabic background have a mutated version of the LRRK2 gene. The findings...
Japanese researchers have found that the number of cigarettes a smoker gets through could be influenced by genetic variations that affect the way the body deals with nicotine. The findings, to be published in the European Respiratory Journal, suggest that the more quickly people break down nicotine, the more cigarettes...
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Telling the time on a woman's biological clock
by Dr Jess Buxton
According to last week's newspapers, women will now be able to 'tell the time on their biological clocks', and 'see how long they have left to have children' - all for £179. The launch of a new home test kit to help women gauge their egg supply was accompanied by a...