Biomarkers
A Good Biomarker Is Hard to Find
17/08/10 20:32 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Blogger Monica Desai of the Guardian's science blog noted that despite the discovery of thousands of biomarkers, only a small percentage reach the clinic so expectations need to be tempered about the finding of a promising new biomarker. S. Pelech observes that if one considers that many common diseases such as cancer arise from particular combinations of defective proteins, then it becomes feasible to not only provide an accurate diagnosis based on monitoring of multiple biomarkers but also to develop effective strategies for therapeutic intervention. Read More...
(Don't) Be Still My Beating Heart
22/11/10 18:56 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Jonathan Seidman at Harvard Medical School made a case for the importance of studying rare genetic variants that cause cardiomyopathy, while there are several common variants, there are multiple rare variants that can significantly increase a patient's chances of suffering from the disease. S. Pelech comments that while the rates of heart disease and stroke in North America and Europe have temporarily declined, the future is much bleaker for the younger generation with more than a 5-fold in child obesity in the last 25 years. Although the study of genetic mutations in families with documented histories of diseases has proven to be very insightful and worthy of continuation, the identification of SNP variants in the general population that are linked to predisposed risks for these and other diseases of aging by random genome wide sequencing will be immensely more challenging. Read More...
Prometheus Struck Down by the Gods…
21/03/12 13:49 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Sabrina Richards in The Scientist reported that the US Supreme Court has overturned two methods patents on drug dose calibration held by biotech company Prometheus Laboratories. The Mayo Clinic claimed that the patents relied on natural phenomena, which are unpatentable, and the case went all the way to the US Supreme Court after the Federal District Court upheld the patents. S. Pelech comments that the US Supreme Court's ruling on the patentability of observations of natural phenomena like biomarkers seems pretty sensible for a myriad reasons, including the fact that their recognition come from acts of discovery as opposed to invention. Also with such an abundance of biomarkers, there could otherwise be a strong temptation to file a lot of ultimately useless patents that would really only benefit patent law firms. Read More...
Not So Useful?
17/02/10 11:32 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Tracking 101 SNPs linked to the incidence of cardiovascular disease in 19,313 Caucasian women for a median of 12.3 years failed to show any better discrimination than self reported family history. S. Pelech argues that environmental factors may play a much stronger role in the development of cardiovascular diseases, which may have more complex and diverse etiologies than generally appreciated. Read More...