The UK's Medical Research Council (MRC) has warned that progress in stem cell research in this country may be overtaken by the US if the current federal restrictions are lifted sometime in the future. Leszek Borysiewicz, the newly appointed head of the MRC, raised concerns that once...
By Katy Sinclair: Tests taking place at the Frenchay Hospital near Bristol, UK, have raised hopes that stem cell injections could reverse the physical decline experienced by multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. The trial, led by Neil Scolding, professor of clinical neurosciences for North Bristol NHS Trust, involves injecting patients with...
Last week, following public outrage over the legal concept that a healthy baby might amount to 'damage', the Australian Medical Association (AMA) president, Dr Andrew Foote, condemned the recent unprecedented case before the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Supreme Court. In it, two women are suing their doctor...
The parents of an Iowan man on life support and unable to give consent have been made to seek a court declaration that extracting his sperm for his fiancee's future use was lawful. Daniel Christy, 23, was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident and was flown to...
RNA interference (RNAi), a genetic therapy with huge therapeutic potential across medicine, is back on track after a paper published in Nature this week. Research into the technique - which has garnered a Nobel prize and swathes of excitable column inches - suffered a setback last year when a...
Stay up-to-date on all the latest developments in the fields of human fertility and genomics. And be the first to hear about upcoming events and other announcements.
Comment
Prospective DNA Banking: Worthwhile? Ethical? Socially Acceptable?
by Ailsa Stevens
According to one Nature columnist, 21 October 2004 marked the 'End of the beginning'; the day the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium published its 'gold standard' version of the human genome sequence (1). The Human Genome Project was set up in 1990 to read all the instructions needed to make...