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Norway Brings DNA Sequencing To National Healthcare
ananyo writes "Norway is set to become the first country to incorporate genome sequencing into its national health-care system. The Scandinavian nation, which has a population of 4.8 million, will use 'next-generation' DNA sequencers to trawl for mutations in tumors that might reveal which cancer treatments would be most effective. In its three-year pilot phase, the Norwegian Cancer Genomics Consortium will sequence the tumor genomes of 1,000 patients in the hope of influencing their treatments. It will also look at another 3,000 previously obtained tumor biopsies to get a better idea of the mutations in different cancers, and how they influence a patient's response to a drug. In a second phase, the project will build the laboratory, clinical and computing infrastructure needed to bring such care to the 25,000 Norwegians who are diagnosed with cancer each year. Similar projects are under way in the United Kingdom and at research hospitals in the United States, France and elsewhere. But Norway's will be among the first to look for tumor mutations using next-generation DNA sequencing rather than conventional genetic testing."
Yes, but having been down to -42C in Canada, I'd much rather that than the -12C I suffered in the North of Norway near Narvik just inside the arctic circle.
The -12C sea air in Norway was much more painful and more biting than -42C was in Canada. Sure the latter will do more damage to you physically, but at least it was nowhere near as painful!
So you could end up with a government that literally tells you when to pee, for health reasons.
Nice troll.
Norway significantly outranks the US on the Democracy Index.
As do all the Nordic countries for that matter..... all with the strong Nordic healthcare & welfare systems in place.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
I write science part-time for the University of Colorado Cancer Center -- biomarkers are totally the way of the future. In lung cancer, we discovered that a ALK-EML4 gene rearrangement predicts great response to the drug crizotinib; we know about PSA in prostate cancer; we test for hormone dependence in breast cancer. Hopefully the Norway sequencing will add to this list of biomarkers that allow us to find cancer early and give doctors clues to its treatment. (Now, the next-gen is *protein* sequencing.)
GeekDad, TED speaker, Wipeout loser, author of Brain Trust
Mate-paired reads are getting long enough (~ 40 kbp). They are still sub-optimally used by current assembly algorithms (specifically scaffolding).