A team of French scientists at the Necker Hospital, Paris, has successfully used gene therapy to treat two babies born with a life-threatening genetic condition that affects the immune system. Usually, babies with severe combined immune deficiency (SCID) X1 have to live in sterile 'bubbles' to avoid any infections. But...
The Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP), a scheme to collect and analyse DNA samples representing the world's ethnic diversity, is fighting for its life, according to a news report in last week's Nature. A combination of political and public controversy has turned the ambitious international project into a set of...
The Alzheimer's Society has claimed that many of the UK's top insurance companies are misleading customers into providing genetic test results, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph newspaper. The Society carried out a survey that revealed that eight out of nine insurance firms are breaking their own industry...
The key to understanding the human genome will be sequencing the genome of the lab mouse, according to scientists attending the recent human genome meeting in Vancouver. 'That will be the Rosetta Stone in terms of interpreting the human genome', said Steven Jones of the Genome Sequence Centre in Vancouver...
Two European politicians have launched an initiative calling for an end to the patenting of human genes, a news article in Nature reports. Called SOS Human Genome, the campaign is seeking a moratorium on implementing the European Commission's directive on biotech patents, originally issued two years ago. German MP Wolfgang...
Nearly all Europeans share just seven common female ancestors, claims Professor Bryan Sykes of Oxford University. He studied DNA samples from 6000 people living in 20 different countries, and found seven distinct patterns of DNA variation. He studied mitochondrial DNA, which is passed on from mothers (but not fathers) to...
The Human Genome Project is nearly finished and will soon change all our lives overnight. Or so you might think, given the regular media coverage biology's biggest project receives. Last week, the reports were of biotech firm Celera Genomics, lambasted by their public sector rivals for claiming they had 'nearly...
The announcement by biotech company Celera Genomics that it has 'finished' sequencing the human genome has been disputed by scientists from the publicly-funded Human Genome Project. They have questioned the Celera's claims that it will assemble the complete sequence within six weeks. Speaking at the Human Genome Mapping 2000 meeting...
A team of US researchers has identified a gene they say may trigger many of the diseases of old age. The gene, called p21, was already known to make a protein that stops old or damaged cells dividing. But it also appears to affect the action of many other genes...
A UK biotech firm has successfully used a new method to transfer genes into rabbits, and hopes to begin human gene therapy trials using the same technique next year. Researchers at Eurogene Ltd used a new, genetically altered virus, developed by a team of scientists at the University of Kuopio...
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