Blogger Roxanne Palmer at Slate's Brow Beat blog wrote that the late actress Elizabeth Taylor's most famed physical feature — her eyes, "arresting: large, liquid, and framed by a thick fringe of eyelashes" — may have resulted from a mutation at FOXC2 that resulted in two sets of eyelashes. One potential complication is that damage to the cornea can result if the extra eyelashes grow inward, and FOXC2 mutations are also associated with lymphedema-distichiasis syndrome, a hereditary disease that can cause disorders of the lymphatic system. S. Pelech raises the ethical question that if Elizabeth Taylor's parents had amniocentesis and genome-wide sequencing performed when she was just a tiny fetus and they learned that she had a genetic mutation that could cause immune and vision problems, would they have elected to have the pregnancy terminated? Read More...

Tags: Genetic Testing, Elizabeth Taylor, Ethics

Pennsylvania State University's Stephan Schuster and his colleagues aim in a conservation effort called "Project Ark" to help save the endangered Tasmanian devil — whose population is dwindling due to the rapid spread of a species-specific infectious cancer, devil tumor facial disease — using a genomics-based approach to genotype up to 500 Tasmanian devils. S. Pelech comments that with about 40% of the world's estimated 10 million species of life facing extinction, one of the real bonuses of plummeting genome-wide sequencing costs is the possibility it offers to remediate some of the damage that humankind has wrought on this planet in the future. The advantage of a database with the full sequences of thousands of diverse genomes is that it can be easily copied on a wide-scale onto small storage devices for broad dissemination, even into space. Read More...

Tags: Extinction, Genotyping, Tasmanian Devil

Eric Schadt at Pacific Biosciences argued that the one-gene-at-a-time approach doesn't seem to be working, and greater emphasis should be placed on the examination of many genes and proteins and their interactions in networks. S. Pelech echos many of Eric Shadt's sentiments and takes the opportunity to outline three forms of intelligence: molecular intelligence that operates inside of living cells, cellular intelligence that permits the cells in an organism to communicate with each other and also monitor the external environment, and social intelligence that permits organisms within a group to function together. The same kind of organizing principles are at play at each of these levels despite the vast differences in their scale. Read More...

Tags: Networks, Hierarchical intelligence systems

Blogger Avik Roy at The Apothecary blog stated that comparative effectiveness research is necessary so physicians, researchers, and patients, know how different drugs stack up against each other, and the NIH should help fund this activity. S. Pelech comments that one of the dilemmas confronting drug comparative effectiveness research, apart from who is going to pay for it, is its usefulness once personalized medicine really starts to take hold. As the pharmaceutical industry increasingly integrates biomarker evaluation as a critical component of clinical trials, it will become less important of how the "average" person will react to two competing medicinal drugs for the same disease indication. Rather, it will matter more how well the drug matches the biomarker profile of the person who needs medication. Read More...

Tags: Drug R&D Spending

Blogger Nathan Ley in the Guardian described the difficulty he and his acquaintances have recently experienced in getting accepted into a PhD training in graduate school due in part to cutbacks in science funding and the stiff competition for limited spots. S. Pelech notes that without any advertisement, last year he has received over 150 enquiries for a graduate student position in his academic lab, the vast majority arising from China, India and Iran. China's higher education institutes had over 31 million students, an increase of some 35% from 2005 levels, so it is not surprising that many of the best and brightest of students from China and other developing countries are looking to the West for graduate and post-graduate training, and probably subsequently permanent jobs. Read More...

Tags: Career, Graduate training, China

Blogger Odyssey at Pondering Blather argued that Darwin's theory of evolution applies to research labs, and they are under selective pressure to become efficient, flexible and collaborative or go obsolete. S. Pelech comments that while there has been a tendency to apply Darwin's theory of evolution to a wider range of phenomena including the survival of businesses in the competitive market place, this is simplistic and does not sufficiently account for the importance of social intelligence and collaboration. He agrees with Odyssey that key factors for the success of a research laboratory are a broad range of knowledge and capabilities, careful monitoring of the environment, and effective working relationships. Read More...

Tags: Collaboration, Grant funding

Paul Krugman of The New York Times wrote that many jobs for recent college grads are being rendered "obsolete" by advances in technology. Blogger Mike the Mad Biologist envisions that with increasing automation there will be less opportunities for researchers involved in data generation, but more need for those with informatics training on data data analysis. S. Pelech comments that Biology has been primarily a descriptive science and the sequencing of genomes and determination of the 3D structures of the proteins encoded by their genes has really just carried on this tradition. However, he envisions that we are at the brink of a major paradigm shift in which molecular and cellular biology are on the verge of becoming much more constructive and predictive, and this will spur on innovation and creativity that can truly transform health care and many diverse industries including those for food, clothing, shelter and energy production. Such a biorevolution will be achieved by a work force of scientists that will require a lot more training than what we actually typically offer today. Read More...

Tags: Career, Jobs

Based on the successful identification through genome-wide sequencing of a mutation associated with immune disorders on the X chromosome of six-year-old Nicholas Volker that could be behind his severe inflammatory bowel disease, it has been proposed by Howard Jacob, director the Human and Molecular Genetics Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin that similar genome sequencing should be a standard clinical option for children with rare, inherited diseases. S. Pelech comments that gene-wide-sequencing is impractical for the diagnoses of common diseases in the general population where most health care costs are borne. He also notes that in the case of Nicholas Volker's genome, it was not established that this mutation actually produces an immune disorder, nor was it clear that even with a causal link to the responsible gene that this knowledge could lead to an effective treatment. Read More...

Tags: DNA Sequencing, Disease diagnosis, Genome-wide sequencing

Irvine, Calif.-based firm CareerBliss conducted 200,000 independent employee reviews from 70,000 jobs all over the US and concluded that biotechnology employees are happier with their jobs than workers in any other professions. Measures of workplace happiness included the worker's relationship with their boss and co-workers, work environment, job resources, compensation, growth opportunities, company culture, company reputation, daily tasks and job control over the work that they do on a daily basis. S. Pelech comments that if one is engaged in a decent paying job where you are intellectually stimulated by the tasks at hand, work with other highly intelligent people who are also employees, collaborators or customers, and are dedicated towards such laudable goals as to improve the health of the sick, it is hard to imagine a better vocation. Read More...

Tags: Career, Biotech jobs, Job satisfaction