Taking My Eye Off DNA

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted May 2, 2008 in DNA in General

Eye on DNA celebrates its first birthday this week! In celebration, I’ve decided reward myself by slowing down a bit.

As some of you already know, I am expecting my second child in a few weeks. Last night, I was reading The Last Lecture on my new Kindle (woohoo!), and this passage got my attention:

Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things? You may have causes, goals, interests. Are they even worth pursuing?

In some ways, blogging is becoming an albatross around my neck. The wonderful aspects of blogging–learning, networking, educating–still outweigh the annoyances. But in my present condition, I’m not sure if I’m spending my time on the right things. The clock is ticking and my attention span is shortening along with my temper. And on top of welcoming a new member to our family, my family and I are also relocating to Singapore from London this summer.

While I’ll still be keeping my eye on DNA *cough* over these next few months, the rest of me will be quite busy doing other things. Instead of posting every day, I intend to spend much more of my usual blogging time having fun with my five-year-old and husband before our lives turn upside down.

I’ll still be here but maybe not jumping around as much as usual. (How can I when I’m about to pop?!)

Thank you all for a great year. I’ll be back before too long so don’t forget about me!

(14 comments)

What does DNA mean to you? #3

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted April 30, 2008 in Meaning of DNA

This week, I asked Bertalan Mesko of Scienceroll:

What does DNA mean to you?

Even if the structure of DNA was discovered more than 50 years ago, DNA means the future for me. As personalized genetics is getting closer to people, DNA will be one of the most used words and not just in the scientific community. Plenty of the therapies used in our time will be revolutionized soon and our DNA will play the main role in the future of medicine regardless the dangers it can lead to.

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Books About DNA: The Century of the Gene by Evelyn Fox Keller

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted April 25, 2008 in Books About DNA, DNA Quotes and Excerpts, DNA in General

The Century of the Gene by Evelyn Fox Keller

In a book that promises to change the way we think and talk about genes and genetic determinism, Evelyn Fox Keller, one of our most gifted historians and philosophers of science, provides a powerful, profound analysis of the achievements of genetics and molecular biology in the twentieth century, the century of the gene. Not just a chronicle of biology’s progress from gene to genome in one hundred years, The Century of the Gene also calls our attention to the surprising ways these advances challenge the familiar picture of the gene most of us still entertain.

In a CBC Radio interview, Dr. Evelyn Fox Keller talks more about genes and public perception. (HT: Women in Science)

For more discussion on what is a gene, see this Genome Research article - What is a gene, post-ENCODE? History and updated definition.

…we propose a tentative update to the definition of a gene: A gene is a union of genomic sequences encoding a coherent set of potentially overlapping functional products.

DNA Network member Sandra Porter at Discovering Biology in a Digital World gave her definition of a gene last year.

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What does DNA mean to you? #2

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted April 23, 2008 in Meaning of DNA

In this continuing mini-interview series, Andrew Meyer of Buzzyeah, who achieved notoriety by asking for donations to fund his 23andMe test purchase, answers the question:

What does DNA mean to you?

DNA is my own deeply personal, complex set of instructions that I know very little about, but look forward to exploring and understanding better.

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The Next Generation’s Perception of Genetic Testing

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted April 17, 2008 in DNA Testing, DNA in General

Don’t miss it! An active discussion of the good and evil sides of genetic testing is now taking place over at this Eye on DNA post (with further discussion at Gene Sherpas). Many of the commenters are American college students who have some interesting viewpoints. Some are at one extreme advocating total clamp down and ban on direct-to-consumer genetic testing. And others are on the other extreme with little to no faith in government regulation.

Ashton raised some interesting points about children and genetic testing:

Another reason why DTC raises my suspicions is not knowing who has access to DTC? Is there an age requirement, and if so, what is it and how do you determine the age at which you can have a genetic test? If genetic tests are not available to peoples under eighteen, can parents sign for their children to have the tests? What if parents decide to force their children to take the genetic tests without their consent? On the other hand, let’s say you can get a DTC at any age. Does a child, anyone under the age of eighteen, have the ability to decide what to do with the information gained from the test?

VT also issued a list of “shoulds” to both companies and the government.

In the pre-college crowd, the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) studied 500 essays submitted by high school students to the National DNA Day Essay Contest in 2006 and 2007 (pdf of study). They found that a significant number of of essays demonstrated “obvious” misconceptions about genetics. (More from The Genetic Genealogist.)

Many high school students who submitted essays to the contest appeared to be unaware of polygenic inheritance and believed that “one gene is always responsible for one trait or one gene with one mutation always causes one disease.” This misunderstanding is particularly worrying if these students are future (or perhaps even current) consumers of genetic testing.

Due to advances in genetic screening, genetic technology, the promise of individual genome sequencing, and other progress in the field of genetic research, it is more important than ever for the public to have a critical understanding of basic genetic information. This understanding will be vital for individuals to be informed advocates for their own health care when it comes to providing consent for testing and treatment as well as for being able to understand and interpret test results accurately. This will become an even greater need as private companies begin to provide genetic tests through mail order such that individuals can test themselves at home without the consultation of a physician (Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing 1998). For patients to understand the tests and results, and their own risk, they must be able to understand the biological underpinning of the tests themselves. Furthermore, as genetic research becomes more firmly embedded in medical practice and care, the public must be able to make informed decisions regarding specific pieces of legislation. Multiple studies, including this one, demonstrate that the current classroom methods for genetics instruction are not developing a citizenry with accurate mental models of inheritance and the genetic basis of disease (Henderson and Maguire 2000).

Rather than being dismayed at the current state of understanding among the next generation, I am encouraged that genetics is being taught and discussed. The level of understanding expected of students today is nothing like what I taught myself 25 years ago for my grade school science fair project.

Back in 1983, the Human Genome Project hadn’t been launched yet and it was the year Kary Mullis invented PCR (according to the Genome News Network, although other sources point to 1980). My elementary school didn’t have much of a science education curriculum let alone labs where we could try to extract DNA or practice RFLP DNA fingerprinting. So I was left to my own devices without even the Internet to help me do research! *GASP*

My genetics science fair project had a three part display board. On one section, I had diagrammed Mendel’s pea experiment and on another section, I created a family tree showing pictures of my mother and father plus baby pictures of my sister and me. The most difficult part of the project was creating the DNA helices out of pipe cleaners for the sides and rungs of the “ladder” and construction paper for the bases. Later on in eighth grade, our science teacher allowed my lab partner and I to experiment with Drosophila melanogaster crosses (sadly, we drowned most of the fruit flies with ether).

The contrast between my early genetics education and genome science fair project ideas, such as those listed at Science Buddies, is so huge as to be embarrasing.

What was your first educational experience with genetics?

(4 comments)

What does DNA mean to you? #1

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted April 16, 2008 in DNA in General, Meaning of DNA

Today, I’m starting a new series of mini-interviews asking one simple question:

What does DNA mean to you?

Writer David Bradley of Sciencebase is first up with his thoughts:

DNA means one of my early successes (at the age of 18) in the public understanding of science, when I explained to my non-science educated father the meaning of the term and why it is so important for our understanding of life.

Want to share your thoughts? Email me!

(5 comments)

Two Books About Breast and Ovarian Cancer Genetics by Masha Gessen and Jessica Queller

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted April 11, 2008 in Books About DNA, DNA Quotes and Excerpts, DNA in General

Blood Matters: From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene by Masha Gessen

In 2004 genetic testing revealed that Masha Gessen had a mutation that predisposed her to ovarian and breast cancer. The discovery initiated Gessen into a club of sorts: the small (but exponentially expanding) group of people in possession of a new and different way of knowing themselves through what is inscribed in the strands of their DNA. As she wrestled with a wrenching personal decision—what to do with such knowledge—Gessen explored the landscape of this brave new world, speaking with others like her and with experts including medical researchers, historians, and religious thinkers.

Pretty Is What Changes: Impossible Choices, The Breast Cancer Gene, and How I Defied My Destiny by Jessica Queller

Laura Landro of the Wall Street Journal reviewed both Blood Matters and Pretty Is What Changes.

As we learn more about our risks of developing a wide range of cancers and diseases, how and when should we use that information in making life-altering decisions?

That is the question tackled in two books, both of them written by women in their 30s who are of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and who learn that they carry the BRCA breast- and ovarian-cancer gene mutation that is common to their ethnic heritage. When Jessica Queller, a television writer, and Masha Gessen, a journalist, are confronted with the prospect of imminent prophylactic mastectomies and the future removal of their ovaries, they find themselves weighing the elevated cancer risk against their unrealized personal goals and their fear of disfiguring surgery. The women also have to contend with the often conflicting advice they receive from genetic counselors, scientists, physicians and fellow patients.

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More Scientists Need Brain Enhancing Drugs

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted April 1, 2008 in DNA Fun, DNA in General

Daniel MacArthur at Genetic Future asks, “Why do genome-wide scans fail?” The answer may be inequalities among scientists’ intellectual abilities. To deal with such a disparity, some scientists are apparently indulging in brain enhancing drugs. The NIH has just announced three new initiatives to address the issue.

From the press release (complete press release below the fold):

While “doping” is now accepted as a problem among athletes, it is less widely known that so-celled “brain doping” has been affecting the competitive balance in scientific research as well. It is for this reason that NIH is collaborating with the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA), which has led the fight against doping in athletics, to create the World Anti Brain Doping Authority (WABDA).

I honestly don’t care if scientists are indulging in brain enhancing drugs as long as they get the job done. Maybe we aren’t at the $1,000 genome yet because not enough of them are doped up!

Update: April Fools!

Continue reading…

(7 comments)

Ethics of Whole Genome Research

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted March 25, 2008 in DNA and the Law, DNA in General

Yesterday, I touched on how consumers can prepare to use their genetic information to gain access to personalized medicine. On a related note, consumers should also be prepared to consider options for contributing their genetic information to research efforts. Commercial companies, such as 23andme, have made no secret of their desire to use their customers’ data for “the greater good.”

While we measure many hundreds of thousands of data points from your DNA, only a small percentage of them are known to be related to human traits or health conditions. The research community is rapidly learning more about genetics, and an important mission of 23andMe is to conduct and contribute to this research. By obtaining 23andMe’s services, you are agreeing to contribute your genetic information to our research efforts as described below. These efforts could translate into meaningful information about your genetics. [emphasis added]

The ethics of whole genome research in both the private and public sectors are explored in a consensus statement published in PLoS Biology. The following considerations are mentioned and recommendations for the first four are given.

• Consent
• Duty to recontact study participant
• Right to withdraw from research
• Return of research results
• Public data release
• Commercialization
• Patenting
• Benefit sharing
• Genetic discrimination

I must admit that discussion of ethics generally baffles me because I get so caught up on both sides (or maybe there are more than two sides?!). So I direct you to the Predictive Health Ethics Research (PredictER) Blog for further discussions of thorny issues surrounding genetics. PredictER is based at the Indiana University Center for Bioethics.

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Books About DNA: Life As It Is by William Loomis

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted March 21, 2008 in Books About DNA, DNA Quotes and Excerpts, DNA in General

Life As It Is by William F. Loomis

Book Description:

“This concise, accessible book considers from a biological perspective the controversial issues of our day: abortion, euthanasia, engineered evolution, cooperativity, and the future of sustainable life on this planet. Exploring in fascinating detail the processes by which cells come into being and multiply, Loomis clearly and simply explains the latest in complex biological research. He reviews recent insights into molecular and human evolution, the role of DNA sequences in determining traits, and the biological basis for consciousness, all of which, he argues, need to be considered when making life-and-death decisions and wrestling with questions about the limits to intervention.”

via Philip Manning’s Science Book News #97

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