In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the discovery of information related to the genetic risk of disease, as well as in the technical ability to accurately measure an individual’s genotype. These advances underlie the promise of personalized medicine, in which a patient’s genotype informs the medical care they receive. Private companies are attempting to capitalize on these adv...

Microinjection of specific radioisotope tracers showed that DNA and protein synthesis are triggered by fertilization but nuclear RNA synthesis does not occur until the cleavage nuclei migrate to the periphery. In the male, heterochromatization of the paternal chromosome set also occurs when the cleavage nuclei reach the periphery. These results help to explain those of several types of genetic ...

Sports-related genetic testing is a sector of the diverse direct-to-consumer (DTC) industry that has not yet been examined thoroughly by academic scholars. A systematic search was used to identify companies in this sector and content analysis of online information was performed. More than a dozen companies were identified. Marketing practices observed generally did not target parents for child ...

Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assay can be used to easily visualize information about proteins, DNA, and RNA on chromosomes and is widely used for analysis of genomes, epigenomes, mRNAs, and non-coding RNAs. The ChIP assay can detect, not only DNA-binding proteins of various organisms, but also the temporal and spatial regulating mechanisms of RNA-binding proteins. Because of these featu...

1. I found it interesting that the clinical factors alone only accounted for 7.6% of the variability in dosing and were not significant but this moved to 27.5% with the addition of the genetic tests (p<0.05). Might be interesting to discuss this in the discussion (from Table 5). Also most prior studies have found that the combination of factors here account for 40% of the variability perhaps th...

Following a suspected virus-vaccine mismatch, the screening method was used to estimate in almost real time the influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE) against severe cases in high-risk individuals. Data on vaccination status were provided by the influenza severe surveillance system and data on vaccination coverage by the National Social Security Scheme. The analysis showed a decline of the vaccin...

I argue here that gene patents, and patented genetic tests based on them, are a very bad idea. First, I discuss whether genes can reasonably be the subject of patents in the first place; I maintain that the answer is no. Second, I explain how gene patents interfere with scientific progress, slowing down the development of new cures and treatments for genetic diseases.

The Internet currently enables unprecedented ease of access for direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing, with saliva collection kits posted directly to consumer homes from anywhere in the world. This poses new challenges for local jurisdictions in regulating genetic testing, traditionally a tightly-regulated industry. Some Internet-based genetic tests have the capacity to cause significant con...

Many obstacles currently limit the ability to apply our knowledge of gene-drug associations in pharmacy practice. However, steps are gradually being taken toward the goal of incorporating genetic testing into routine patient care.