A District Court judge in the US has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to ban federal funding for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research. The decision, by Judge Royce Lambeth, is the latest development in the case of Sherley v Sebelius — a landmark lawsuit filed against the US's state-funded National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2009...
UK researchers have successfully trialled a new drug to help patients with a severe form of muscular dystrophy....
New research has shown that socio-economic status plays a bigger role in a child's development than whether that child was born after a planned pregnancy...
Two new initiatives have been launched by Cancer Research UK, aiming to increase the understanding of prostate and oesophageal cancers which will speed up the development of personalised treatments for patients....
Personal genomics company 23andMe is launching an initiative aiming to shift the balance of participation in both personal genomics and genetic research towards African-Americans...
A man who fathered at least 24 children by sperm donation in the US failed to inform fertility clinics that he had a rare genetic defect which is often fatal, ABC news has reported...
The rate at which we age depends on socio-economic status and can be revealed by a DNA test, which will improve assessment of public health measures, say Glaswegian scientists....
UK scientists are launching a global clinical trial to test the potential and safety of stem cells to treat multiple sclerosis (MS)...
Scientists have increased the quality of embryos developed for IVF - by culturing them on a bed of pins. Currently, embryos are fertilised in a dish, and left there to culture for a few days before being implanted. However, Professor Gary Smith, a researcher on the project, says this doesn't mimic how embryos naturally gestate...
The UK Government has recently announced a £4 million investment in stem cell services. The funding will enable NHS Blood and Transplant and charity Anthony Nolan to work together to increase UK cord blood collection and expand and improve adult stem cell donor registers...
'Biotechnology and Cloning' is part of a series of educational books for teenagers addressing 'contemporary social issues'. It is an unusual concept, being neither a textbook nor a revision guide. It does not directly explain the underlying science, but outlines and encourages the reader to think around the topics....
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Comment
The ethics of womb donation and transplantation
by Dr Morven Shearer
Last month news broke of an experimental womb transplantation surgery planned for early next year. With it came the possibility of women with an absent or non-functioning uterus carrying a child to term (see Roberts, 2011)....
Health disparities in the age of personalised medicine?
by Connie St Louis
The intersection of racial categories and emerging genetic technology is bound to be vexed given - for example - the long history of eugenics and segregation in the United States. Although the topic has received little attention among the UK general public, pharmaceutical companies on both sides of the Atlantic are investing huge amounts of research and development into individually tailored drugs - pharmacogenetics....