They're not just used for scalpel practice - they're used for anatomical studies so that when your surgeon is opening you up, they know what all your organs actually look like and don't spend half an hour playing "find the body part we want". In order to be successful in dissection and surgery, you need to have practice on real flesh, because it's never as neat as the plastic models of the body would make you think.
Carrying the mutant genes in question (such as the ones that give a predisposition to breast cancer or prostate cancer) is not a sure sign that you will actually contract that cancer. Virii are part of a biological system, and as such are not immune from natural forces such as mutation rates - while DNA replication and other cellular mechanisms are designed to maintain the integrity of the genetic information, the processes are not perfect. So is it worth taking a risk to fix an allele that predisposes you to cancer with a treatment that may induce cancer itself?
The case of the British couple who had their daughter tested for the presence of mutant breast cancer genes is not representative of all genetic testing for breast cancer genes. This case involves pre-implantation diagnosis, and if the child was carrying the mutant alleles for the breast cancer genes, the only option to avoid having a child carrying the mutations would have been to abort the foetus (or carry it to term, but knowing that it carried the mutant alleles). But this isn't the usual way of testing for mutations in those genes - I could go and be tested tomorrow, and from what I understand it would involve a blood sample (see for details on testing for the breast cancer genes). Granted, a saliva test would be easier than a blood test, but all in all they're both far easier than the pre-implantation diagnosis carried out in the referenced articles (Slashdot article and the orignal article from the BBC).
Yes, we have immense amounts of unoccupied land, but with no water in sight. There's no way that putting them out in the middle of the desert regions would be helping them out - they'd be from one extreme to another!
I don't know if one radio station in Australia will be endorsing continued use of Facebook during working hours - a presenter recently forgot to read the news because they were too busy looking at Facebook.
You aren't the only one with that DNA.
Sharing it exposes more than just your genome.
Exactly - if you do happen to be carrying a recessive disease allele, your relatives immediately start to wonder if they carry it too...which isn't as bad as if you carry a dominant allele like the one for Huntington's. If they find this, then automatically one of your parents knows they have it (whether they wanted to find out or not) and your children know they have a 50% chance of getting this debilitating disease.
I know people will say "better to know than not", but the fact remains that many people just don't want to know - they'd rather just take life as it comes, rather than living with the knowledge that they'll be very ill in a few years time.
Hopefully the participants will have discussed it with blood relatives before participating.
The beauty of using adult stem cells is that they can be taken from and used on the same person without fear of rejection because they are already marked as "self" by the body...foetal stem cells may still cause problems because they have their own unique DNA.
Peer review doesn't always help. I've studied papers that have the most detailed, thoroughly tested research but end up relegated to some obscure journal because the people peer reviewing the topic don't agree with it. In one case, the pioneers of the field of siRNA lambasted a study which showed that short RNAs can enhance transcription, as well as negatively regulate it. Because this was so far outside of their model for how siRNAs work, they dismissed the work as nonsense, despite the paper showing five replicates of every experiment, and practically putting their entire work, step by step, into the supplementary materials. Papers get into good journals with far less than what I saw for this one, but peer review condemned it to obscurity.
I think peer review works, but only if the people reviewing keep an open mind and don't get piqued if the findings disagree with their own views.
I found this joke when looking for genetics jokes for a departmental presentation - I never used it, but thought it was funny anyway.
NEWS FLASH!!!
Scientists have discovered intelligent DNA in some women. Unfortunately 95% of them spat it out!
http://www.jokefile.co.uk/odds/dnajokes.html
Slashdot Mirror
Hands off! He's mine...including all genetic material! ;)
But how do you fix someone with "too many"?
Lots and Lots of Alcohol!
And, according to the laws of nature, only the fittest will survive!
They're not just used for scalpel practice - they're used for anatomical studies so that when your surgeon is opening you up, they know what all your organs actually look like and don't spend half an hour playing "find the body part we want". In order to be successful in dissection and surgery, you need to have practice on real flesh, because it's never as neat as the plastic models of the body would make you think.
Carrying the mutant genes in question (such as the ones that give a predisposition to breast cancer or prostate cancer) is not a sure sign that you will actually contract that cancer. Virii are part of a biological system, and as such are not immune from natural forces such as mutation rates - while DNA replication and other cellular mechanisms are designed to maintain the integrity of the genetic information, the processes are not perfect. So is it worth taking a risk to fix an allele that predisposes you to cancer with a treatment that may induce cancer itself?
Insightful post! Scientists should be able to get funding without all the media hype over techniques that aren't yet ready for implementation.
The case of the British couple who had their daughter tested for the presence of mutant breast cancer genes is not representative of all genetic testing for breast cancer genes. This case involves pre-implantation diagnosis, and if the child was carrying the mutant alleles for the breast cancer genes, the only option to avoid having a child carrying the mutations would have been to abort the foetus (or carry it to term, but knowing that it carried the mutant alleles). But this isn't the usual way of testing for mutations in those genes - I could go and be tested tomorrow, and from what I understand it would involve a blood sample (see for details on testing for the breast cancer genes). Granted, a saliva test would be easier than a blood test, but all in all they're both far easier than the pre-implantation diagnosis carried out in the referenced articles (Slashdot article and the orignal article from the BBC).
Yes, we have immense amounts of unoccupied land, but with no water in sight. There's no way that putting them out in the middle of the desert regions would be helping them out - they'd be from one extreme to another!
I don't know if one radio station in Australia will be endorsing continued use of Facebook during working hours - a presenter recently forgot to read the news because they were too busy looking at Facebook.
You aren't the only one with that DNA. Sharing it exposes more than just your genome.
Exactly - if you do happen to be carrying a recessive disease allele, your relatives immediately start to wonder if they carry it too...which isn't as bad as if you carry a dominant allele like the one for Huntington's. If they find this, then automatically one of your parents knows they have it (whether they wanted to find out or not) and your children know they have a 50% chance of getting this debilitating disease.
I know people will say "better to know than not", but the fact remains that many people just don't want to know - they'd rather just take life as it comes, rather than living with the knowledge that they'll be very ill in a few years time.
Hopefully the participants will have discussed it with blood relatives before participating.
The beauty of using adult stem cells is that they can be taken from and used on the same person without fear of rejection because they are already marked as "self" by the body...foetal stem cells may still cause problems because they have their own unique DNA.
Peer review doesn't always help. I've studied papers that have the most detailed, thoroughly tested research but end up relegated to some obscure journal because the people peer reviewing the topic don't agree with it. In one case, the pioneers of the field of siRNA lambasted a study which showed that short RNAs can enhance transcription, as well as negatively regulate it. Because this was so far outside of their model for how siRNAs work, they dismissed the work as nonsense, despite the paper showing five replicates of every experiment, and practically putting their entire work, step by step, into the supplementary materials. Papers get into good journals with far less than what I saw for this one, but peer review condemned it to obscurity. I think peer review works, but only if the people reviewing keep an open mind and don't get piqued if the findings disagree with their own views.
I found this joke when looking for genetics jokes for a departmental presentation - I never used it, but thought it was funny anyway. NEWS FLASH!!! Scientists have discovered intelligent DNA in some women. Unfortunately 95% of them spat it out! http://www.jokefile.co.uk/odds/dnajokes.html