An international team of scientists has found that the genes that help the body break down alcohol also influence a person's risk of developing cancers of the mouth, throat and oesophagus. The study, published in the journal Nature Genetics, looked at six variants of the alcohol dehydrogenase...
New research shows that the sperm of men who work as painters and decorators is likely to be of poorer quality. This is due to their exposure to chemical solvents known as glycol ethers in water-based paints and other substances used in their trade. The scientists...
Fears that twin baby girls conceived through IVF treatment in India had been abandoned by their parents have been struck out by the UK's West Midlands NHS Trust. The Sun newspaper broke the news by reporting how the parents of the child, an Indian couple with British...
Last Wednesday, President Bush signed into law the US's long-awaited Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act ('GINA'), heralded as the first civil rights legislation of the new millennium. The legislation swept Congress with a combined almost-unanimous 509-1 vote and will prohibit genetic discrimination by employers, insurers and unions...
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the US have found a faster and more efficient way to reprogramme cells into embryonic-like stem cells so that they can be used to study genetic disorders such as sickle cell anaemia. The study was published in the...
A British woman has had some of her own eggs frozen for her ten-year old daughter to use in the future, as she will be rendered infertile by a genetic illness. As frozen eggs for donation can only be kept for 10 years, and the mother's eggs...
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Comment
From principles to practice: implementing genetic database governance
by Sue Gibbons
Biobanking is flourishing. Techniques and technologies are evolving rapidly. Demand for harmonised standards, especially to facilitate cross-border data and biosample sharing and database interoperability, is mounting. Within this changing environment, the need to develop appropriate, legitimate and effective human genetic database governance frameworks - at national, regional and international levels - is...