Genome Alberta's Official Newsletter

GE3LS Digest - May 18, 2009

INTERNATIONAL

Germany gives green light to genetically modified potato trials—April 28, 2009
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4212432,00.html
Germany has given the green light for further test cultivation of Amflora, a genetically-modified potato manufactured by chemicals giant BASF. The decision of Geman agriculture minister Ilse Aigner comes two weeks after she controversially banned a type of genetically-modified maize manufactured by US biotech giant Monsanto. Critics say Aigner caved in to pressure from her conservative Bavarian CSU party by banning MON 810 and has subsequently sought to regain favor with the conservative CDU party by approving the Amflora trial.Genetically modified crops are an almost exhaustive subject which not only puts the conservative coalition parties CDU and CSU at loggerheads but also leads to heated public debate. However, experts say the MON 810 and Amflora cases cannot be compared although Aigner did manage to rattle the cage in both cases, effectively gaining alternating criticism and applause from parties right across the political spectrum.

Insurance Companies Refuse to Insure "Genetically Inferior" Customers – April 30, 2009
http://www.naturalnews.com/026164.html
Insurance companies have already begun using genetic tests as a basis for discrimination, researchers have revealed, in the first study providing conclusive evidence of genetic discrimination."Previous to this paper, only anecdotal reports of genetic discrimination have been available, with some commentators questioning whether or not the phenomenon actually existed," researcher Kristine Barlow-Stewart said. Researchers from the Center for Genetics Education at Royal North Shore Hospital in Australia surveyed more than 1,000 people who had taken advantage of clinical genetic services about any experiences that might have been related to discrimination. Following up on the self-reports with their own investigations, the researchers were able to confirm 11 cases of genetic discrimination.

Genetically modified canola to be mixed with main crop – May 3, 2009
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25418718-662,00.html
The nation's major grain handler, Graincorp, announced this week that genetically modified canola will be mixed in with the main crop in this year's harvest. Anti-GM groups say the decision means canola oil and a large amount of commonly bought processed food made with canola will now be genetically modified. They say staples that will become genetically modified include baby food, potato chips, biscuits, frozen vegetables, crackers and pre-prepared meals. They claim the move is premature because GM food has yet to be tested properly. "All GM food has been created randomly. The DNA of these plants has been altered and no one really knows where it will go," said Madeleine Love, spokeswoman for Mothers Are Demystifying Genetic Engineering (MADGE).

Gene Test for Dosage of Warfarin Is Rebuffed – May 4, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/health/05thinner.html?ref=business
In a setback for the fledgling field of personalized medicine, Medicare has decided not to pay for genetic tests intended to help doctors determine the best dose of the blood thinner warfarin for a particular patient. In a proposed decision posted on its Web site Monday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that there was not enough evidence that use of the tests improved patients’ health.
But the agency said it would pay for the tests as part of clinical trials to gather such evidence.
The warfarin response tests, which cost $50 to $500, look at variations in two specific genes in a patient. They are among a group of new tests that seek to tailor medical treatments based on a patient’s genetic makeup. Such tests might help tell which drug would be best for a particular person, or whether a patient might be susceptible to dangerous side effects.

New Technique For Modifying Plant Genes Developed – May 4, 2009
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090429132233.htm
Researchers at the University of Minnesota and Massachusetts General Hospital have used a genome engineering tool they developed to make a model crop plant herbicide-resistant without significant changes to its DNA."It's still a GMO [Genetically Modified Organism] but the modification was subtle," said Daniel Voytas, lead author and director of the U of M Center for Genome Engineering. "We made a slight change in the sequence of the plant's own DNA rather than adding foreign DNA."
The new approach has the potential to help scientists modify plants to produce food, fuel and fiber sustainably while minimizing concerns about genetically modified organisms.

Francis Collins' "Scientific and Scriptural Truth" – May 5, 2009
http://www.genomeweb.com/node/916147?emc=el&m=379901&l=1&v=18a1fdcd03
With funding from the John Templeton Foundation, Francis Collins has launched a new foundation called BioLogos, which "promotes the search for truth in both the natural and spiritual realms, and seeks to harmonize these different perspectives." Collins hopes to show Christians, particularly evangelicals, that faith and science are compatible. For example, he tells Time magazine that Christians should consider the book of Genesis "not as a book about science but about the nature of God and the nature of humans. Evolution gives us the 'how,' but we need the Bible to understand the 'why' of our creation." The website answers questions ranging from "Can scientific and scriptural truth be reconciled?" to "Was there death before the Fall?"

Japanese scientist claims breakthrough with organ grown in sheep – May 5, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6222361.ece
Huddled at the back of her shed, bleating under a magnificent winter coat and tearing cheerfully at a bale of hay, she is possibly the answer to Japan’s chronic national shortage of organ donors: a sheep with a revolutionary secret. Guided by one of the animal’s lab-coated creators, the visitor’s hand is led to the creature’s underbelly and towards a spot in the middle under eight inches of greasy wool. Lurking there is a spare pancreas. If the science that put it there can be pushed further forward, Japan may be spared an ethical and practical crisis that has split medical and political opinion.

3 genes help breast cancer spread to brain: Study in mice may explain how the cells break through a natural barrier –May 6, 2009
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30604756/
Three genes in mice may help explain how breast cancer cells overcome a natural barrier to get into the brain, scientists said on Wednesday. Two of the genes, COX2 and HB-EGF, have already been found to help cancer spread to the lungs, the team reported in the journal Nature. The third — ST6GALNAC5 — appears to make the outer coat of cancer cells sticky, allowing them to linger in tiny blood vessels in the brain long enough to seep through and enter brain tissue. “Our research sheds light on the role these genes play in determining how breast tumor cells break free and, once mobile, how they decide where to attack,” Joan Massague of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, who worked on the study, said in a statement.

How to Save a Trillion Dollars: America needs a Human Genome Project for personalized health care – May 6, 2009
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22592/
Recently, I discovered that my heart-attack risk is frighteningly high over the next 10 to 20 years. This alarming prognosis was achieved using technology that could potentially be good news for the health-care reform effort being attempted in Washington. Amid bailouts and numbing deficits, this kind of personalized medicine might even help save billions or possibly trillions of dollars over the next decade or two.

Biotech group confident, despite economy – May 10, 2009
http://www.boston.com/business/healthcare/articles/2009/05/10/biotech_group_confident_despite_economy/
James C. Greenwood, 58, is president and chief executive of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a Washington trade group representing over 1,200 biotech companies and related organizations. Greenwood is a former Republican congressman representing Bucks County, Pa., in the US House of Representatives from 1993 to 2005, when he joined BIO. He spoke to Globe reporter Robert Weisman on a visit to the newspaper's offices last week.

Pig-to-Monkey Transplant Treats Diabetes: Embryonic tissue could let xenotransplants evade the host's immune system – May 12, 2009
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22636/
Using embryonic tissue for interspecies organ transplants offers a way to evade the host's immune system, say scientists who used the method to treat type 1 diabetes in primates. By transplanting embryonic pancreatic tissue from pigs to monkeys, Israeli researchers report that they were able to reverse the primates' insulin deficiency. The key, the researchers say, is the embryonic tissue's ability to grow into a new pancreas that uses blood vessels from the host animal. The host blood vessels are not subject to the dangerous immune reaction that has always dogged xenotransplants of mature pancreatic material.

Panel Votes to Outlaw Human-Animal Hybrids – May 12, 2009
http://www.usnews.com/articles/science/2009/05/12/panel-votes-to-outlaw-human-animal-hybrids.html
Scientific researchers in some areas have tried to create human embryonic stem cells, which scientists say could be used to develop treatment for a variety of human ailments, by placing human DNA into animal cells. But such practices are controversial for a number of reasons. Sen. Danny Martiny's bill, approved without objection by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was designed to outlaw such practices. It defines and criminalizes various ways of making human-animal hybrids, including combining human sperm and an animal egg, combining animal sperm with a human egg, and the use of human brain tissue or neural tissue to develop a human brain in an animal.

Stem-cell therapy faces more scrutiny in China: But regulations remain unclear for companies that supply treatments – May 13, 2009
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090513/full/459146a.html?s=news_rss
The Chinese Ministry of Health has implemented regulations on the clinical application of cutting-edge therapies such as stem-cell injections.Stem-cell scientists in China contacted by Nature hope that the rules may help to curtail a growing trade in unproven treatments that attract patients from around the world, risking their health and potentially damaging the reputation of stem-cell research. The new regulations, which came into effect on 1 May, designate all forms of stem-cell therapy as 'category 3' medical technologies — those deemed "ethically problematic", "high risk" or "still in need of clinical verification". The ministry will take direct responsibility for regulating all category-3 procedures, which include gene therapy, surgical treatment of mental disorders or drug addiction, and sex changes.

Easing of international stem cell research regulations – May 13, 2009
http://www.phgfoundation.org/news/4577/
In the US, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently issued for public comment draft guidance on the federal funding of research on human embryonic stem cells, intended to implement President Obama’s recent Executive Order 13505 lifting a previous ban on such funding (see previous news). The new guidelines permit "funding for research using human embryonic stem cells that were derived from embryos created by in vitro fertilization for reproductive purposes and were no longer needed for that purpose.” In other countries with restrictive regulations on stem cell research, the US developments have further increased pressure from scientists to ease restrictions. South Korea recently reversed a ban on stem cell research using human oocytes (eggs), granting approval to a new research project using oocytes from aborted human fetuses.

Do DNA patents spur science or stifle it? Both: Cancer suit unlikely to succeed, but has huge implications for our health – May 13, 2009
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30719222/
Lawyers who work on patents in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries are sweating bullets today. It is not a bad thing when patent lawyers are feeling queasy.The storm that has got them turning green has been building up for many years. It has arrived in the form of a lawsuit that has enormous importance for you, your family and for the future of biomedical research around the world.The ACLU and a group of prestigious genetic researchers and medical organizations have filed suit against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, as well as Myriad Genetics company and the University of Utah Research Foundation, challenging the validity of the patents Myriad and the Foundation hold on two gene sequences associated with women being at high risk of getting breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

Obama’s Stem Cell Guidelines Threaten Research – May 14, 2009
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/escguideline//
Under the Obama administration’s proposed rules for funding embryonic stem cell research, hundreds of existing cell lines could be ineligible, even those that qualified under President Bush.The guidelines were written by the National Institutes of Health and are currently in draft form and expected to be finalized in July. But in their current state, they restrict funding to stem cell lines produced according to new rules that are only now being established. Few existing cell lines will meet those requirements.
“The so-called Presidential lines aren’t suitable for actual medical application,” said Patrick Taylor, deputy counsel at Children’s Hospital Boston, who criticized the NIH guidelines in a paper published Thursday in Cell Stem Cell. “But we’re talking about many, many more lines. The new lines were created with extensive ethical oversight. They’re at stake here.”


Analysis of genomic diversity in Mexican Mestizo populations to develop genomic medicine in Mexico – May 11, 2009
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/05/11/0903045106.abstract
Mexico is developing the basis for genomic medicine to improve healthcare of its population. The extensive study of genetic diversity and linkage disequilibrium structure of different populations has made it possible to develop tagging and imputation strategies to comprehensively analyze common genetic variation in association studies of complex diseases. We assessed the benefit of a Mexican haplotype map to improve identification of genes related to common diseases in the Mexican population. We evaluated genetic diversity, linkage disequilibrium patterns, and extent of haplotype sharing using genomewide data from Mexican Mestizos from regions with different histories of admixture and particular population dynamics. Ancestry was evaluated by including 1 Mexican Amerindian group and data from the HapMap. Our results provide evidence of genetic differences between Mexican subpopulations that should be considered in the design and analysis of association studies of complex diseases. In addition, these results support the notion that a haplotype map of the Mexican Mestizo population can reduce the number of tag SNPs required to characterize common genetic variation in this population. This is one of the first genomewide genotyping efforts of a recently admixed population in Latin America.