The German Chamber of Physicians has called for a change in the law that currently forbids preimplantation genetic diagnosis, the genetic testing of embryos. They argue that there has been an increase in 'medical tourism', with German couples seeking advice in neighbouring countries. The German health ministry has indicated that...
Biotech business is booming again, according to several newspaper reports last week. Bill Castell, head of Nycomed Amersham, said last week the company may float its life sciences business, in recognition of the increasing importance of the new 'gene economy'. The firm, which makes research products, is considering the partial...
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is telephoning every researcher who has ever registered a clinical gene therapy trial, in an effort to track down all previously unreported 'adverse events'. The move follows recent concern over hundreds of failed gene therapy experiments, including several deaths, which went unreported at...
Donna Maclean, a poet and casino waitress from Bristol, is trying to become the first person to patent herself. She has made her unique application to the patent office in an attempt to register her anger at the mass patenting of genes by scientists and biotech companies. 'There's a kind...
Two patients in a gene therapy trial for haemophilia, a blood-clotting disorder, have shown a marked improvement in their condition. The US team, from Stanford University School of Medicine and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, admit they were surprised by the results, which are published in this month's Nature Genetics...
Gene therapy researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, may not get to test a promising new gene therapy delivery system in humans. The team, which recently reported success using the so-called 'gutless' virus in animals, may be stopped from carrying out human trials by the company...
Scientists have nearly finished sequencing the fruit fly genome, almost a year ahead of schedule. American firm Celera Genomics, along with the Berkley Drosophila Genome Project and The European Drosophila Project, will publish their joint results in the journal Science next month. The announcement boosts Celera's controversial claim that it...
Human geneticists in Japan will soon be required to obtain informed consent from anyone providing them with a DNA sample, under draft guidelines released by the Ministry of Health and Welfare last week. The new ethics rules will apply to all research funded by the ministry, including a large study...
The Cambridge-based biotech company Gemini Holdings has announced plans for a genetic database in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The project, to be called Newfound Genetics, is a joint venture between Gemini and a consortium called Lineage Biomedical, set up by Newfoundland doctors. It hopes to recruit families...
US scientists have created the first mouse model of Down syndrome (DS), a condition that affects one in 700 human babies. People with DS have an extra copy of human chromosome 21, and the mice have three copies of the corresponding mouse chromosome regions. The researchers, speaking at the American...
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