‘Phantom Heritability’ Indicates Poor Predictive Value of Gene Tests

Helen Wallace, GeneWatch UK (photo credit: jurvetson)

Last week, a paper on “phantom heritability” was published by a research group led by Eric Lander, one of the leading contributors to understanding the implications of the Human Genome Project (HGP) for common, complex diseases such as heart disease and cancer (1). The paper has created excitement amongst scientists who have been critical of the claims made for the likely impacts of the HGP on health and medicine. This is not because the paper makes a startling new discovery, but because it is an important step towards recognition of these long standing criticisms. … Continue Reading

Psychiatrists plead to continue funding of genetic approaches to disease

Jonathan Latham

Ninety six leading psychiatric geneticists have publicly requested their scientific funding agencies not to abandon the search for genetic links to mental health. In a letter, published Aug 9th in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, they argue that the ongoing failure to uncover significant disease genes for mental illness does not indicate that current research is fundamentally misdirected.

Instead, they believe that current experimental designs lack sufficient statistical power. And it is a defect they want remedied by further studies. “Since family history is a major risk factor” they write “we urge the major funding bodies worldwide to continue to support GWAS (Genome-Wide Association Studies) as a major investigative tool’. … Continue Reading

23andMe disproves its own business model

Jonathan Latham

Online gene testing company 23andMe last week published its first genetic research study into Parkinson’s Disease. The study was funded by the participants (many of whom are customers of 23andMe), the company itself, and Google-founder Sergei Brin, who is married to 23andMe’s CEO and founder, Anne Wojcicki (1). Wojcicki is also personally subsidising the company and is a co-author on the paper.

23andMe’s study shows that two new genes it has discovered, plus all known existing genes linked to the disease, are not much better than random selection for predicting who will get Parkinson’s Disease. … Continue Reading

The Great DNA Data Deficit: Are Genes for Disease a Mirage?

Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson

Just before his appointment as head of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Francis Collins, the most prominent medical geneticist of our time, had his own genome scanned for disease susceptibility genes. He had decided, so he said, that the technology of personalised genomics was finally mature enough to yield meaningful results. Indeed, the outcome of his scan inspired The Language of Life, his recent book which urges every individual to do the same and secure their place on the personalised genomics bandwagon.

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Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA

Author: by Richard Lewontin

ISBN: 0140232192 Publisher: Penguin books (1991)

Biologists know that complex traits are typically associated with genetic variation between individuals. Nevertheless, if we hear on the news that obesity, antisocial behaviour or some other disorder has a strong genetic component, we are likely to attach special significance to this ‘fact’. We may be less likely to attribute social factors as a cause and we may be more likely to accept a technological or pharmaceutical solution as a remedy. The disorder may also acquire a credibility and a sense of inevitability that it previously lacked. The reasoning that leads to these conclusions has a certain logic, after all we investigate causes primarily so that we can find remedies, but nevertheless we need to be careful that our thinking is well-founded.

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Goodbye Dolly….Hello Synthia

Below is a press release of the ETC (Ethics, Technology and Concentration) Group

J. Craig Venter Institute Seeks Monopoly Patents on the World’s First-Ever Human-Made Life Form

ETC Group Will Challenge Patents on “Synthia” – Original Syn Organism Created in Laboratory
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Cisgenic Plants: Just Schouten from the Hip?

Allison Wilson and Jonathan Latham

Many genetic engineers have long resented the regulatory procedures imposed on transgenic crop plants, often arguing that there is no difference between the risks arising from transgenic plants and plants bred using ‘conventional’ methods. A recent proposal calls for complete deregulation of transgenic plants which have only plant DNA inserted into their genomes (Schouten et al., 2006a,b). The term cisgenic has been coined for such plants in order to highlight the origins of the transferred DNA. Other terms for plant-derived transgenes include ‘all-native DNA’ and ‘P-DNA’ (Rommens, 2004).

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