Veritas Genetics Collaborates with Dr. Steven Narod and Women’s College Hospital to Launch The Screen Project – a Population-Based BRCA Screening Initiative across Canada

Goal is to give Canadians unprecedented access to inherited cancer screening BOSTON, March 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Veritas Genetics, the global leader in accessible genetic sequencing and interpretation, will provide BRCA testing for Canadian women and men who enroll in The Screen Project, a new Women’s College Hospital (WCH) initiative led by researchers in the Familial […]

Personalized Medicine Takes on the MTHFR Gene

Have you ever noticed how certain characteristics “run in the family”? Maybe it’s depression. For example, a family’s grandmother, mother and son all showing similar symptoms of a mood disorder. How about sleep problems? Father, father’s mother, father’s brother and father’s children. Alcoholism, ADHD, early age heart disease and stroke? Once you start thinking it […]

NIH probes the genome to understand severe drug reaction

“Angela was unique. She was a trendsetter … one in a million. The disease that took her was one in a million. Even in death, she stood out from the crowd.” These poignant words are from the eulogy for 22-year-old Angela Anderson, a young woman who was taken too soon by a rare genetic condition […]

New test can predict cancer up to 13 years before disease develops

Genetic changes can predict cancer up to 13 years in the future, according to new research. Harvard and Northwestern University discovered that tiny but significant changes are already happening in the body more than a decade before cancer is diagnosed. They found that the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes, which prevent DNA damage, […]

Most exciting cancer treatment since chemotherapy could save patients using DNA tests

A revolutionary approach to treating cancer using DNA tests can shrink tumors at six times the rates of conventional medicine. Experts said the promise shown by “precision medicine” was “the most exciting thing since chemotherapy” meaning that in future, patients could be saved by £200 gene tests. It could mean around one in three women who currently undergo grueling […]

Cancer and gene testing: The dark knowledge that can save lives

LOS ANGELES — Five months ago, I took a test for something called the BRCA genetic mutation, which is often referred to as the breast cancer gene. My mother had fought off breast cancer and she waged a ferocious battle against a second cancer, ovarian, when it ambushed her body seven years later. The cancer […]

The true character is the future in Manuel Corpas’ “Perfect DNA”

Perfect DNA is a novel that uses Dr. Manuel Corpas’ own experiences and expertise as genome scientist to begin exploring some challenging genetic issues. The idea is to show how the genome technology is going to affect healthcare in the mid 2030’s. The main protagonist is John Malcolm, a forty-something accountant based in London. The […]

Getting Google to find Human Genome Datasets

The plummeting prices in sequencing has triggered an exponential growth in the generation of genomic datasets. Currently it is very difficult for search engines such as Google to index data in the biomedical domain. How do we make data from this domain findable by search engines? A group of developers and scientists have gathered on […] […]

A Family’s Shared Defect Sheds Light on the Human Genome

They said it was their family curse: a rare congenital deformity called syndactyly, in which the thumb and index finger are fused together on one or both hands. Ten members of the extended clan were affected, and with each new birth, they told Stefan Mundlos of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, the first […]

Half a million Brits have ‘ticking timebomb heart-killer gene’ and could drop DEAD – but don’t know it

At least 620,000 people have the inherited condition but may be wandering around without realising it More than 600,000 Brits could die at any moment because they have a faulty gene, experts have warned. At least 620,000 people in the UK have an inherited heart condition that puts them at risk of sudden death, the […]

DNAmelody

Bridging the gap

Month: March 2017