Volume 7 Issue 3, March 2001

Editorial

Will the US clone alone?

Editorial 01 Mar 2001

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Letters to the Editor

Perinatal omega-3 fatty acid deficiency affects blood pressure later in life

Harrison S. Weisinger
James A. Armitage
Richard S. Weisinger
Letters to the Editor 01 Mar 2001
Countering the 'counterattack' hypothesis

Nicholas P. Restifo
Letters to the Editor 01 Mar 2001

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News

Scientists race to develop a blood test for vCJD

Laura Bonetta
News 01 Mar 2001
More sensitive tests for BSE needed

Laura Bonetta
News 01 Mar 2001
Experts predict bleak post-genomic era for drug R&D

Karen Birmingham
News 01 Mar 2001
Experiments are destined for space

Laura Bonetta
News 01 Mar 2001
Bush is a threat to US stem-cell research

Marlene Cimons
News 01 Mar 2001
Election year boost for Australian R&D

Rada Rouse
News 01 Mar 2001
US awaits FDA appointment

Alicia Ault
News 01 Mar 2001
HHS advises IRBs on conflict issues

Tinker Ready
News 01 Mar 2001
FDA to regulate tissue banks

Tom Hollon
News 01 Mar 2001
New reporting rules for gene therapy and xeno trials

Alan Dove
News 01 Mar 2001
Limited gene therapy trials to restart

Tinker Ready
News 01 Mar 2001
Sir John Sulston

The race between the public (International Human Genome Consortium) and private (Celera) efforts to sequence the human genome was relatively fierce by scientific standards. But as last month's publications in Science and Nature show, the two groups crossed the finishing line together. Nature Medicine talked to the man who, as part of the Consortium, lead the Sanger Centre in Cambridge, UK, through this historical time to sequence the second largest part of the genome outside the US.

Karen Birmingham
News 01 Mar 2001

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Commentary

The early days of DNA sequences

Fred Sanger
Commentary 01 Mar 2001
Legal Issues in Genomic Medicine

Philip R. Reilly
Commentary 01 Mar 2001
Immune privilege or inflammation? Insights into the Fas ligand enigma

Joe O'Connell
Aileen Houston
Fergus Shanahan
Commentary 01 Mar 2001

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Book Review

Cracking the Genome

Peter P. Tolias
Book Review 01 Mar 2001
Dark Remedy: The Impact of Thalidomide and Its Revival as a Vital Medicine

Kenneth C. Anderson
Book Review 01 Mar 2001

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News & Views

Putting the genes for type II diabetes on the map

The sequencing of the human genome represents a major milestone that will have profound consequences for the practice of medicine. Many new disease genes will be identified, and this information may someday be used to predict a patient's risk of developing a specific disease or response to a particular drug. The following six News and Views articles discuss how The Human Genome Project will revolutionize the diagnosis and treatment of diseases including diabetes, asthma, cancer, autoimmunity and cardiac disease, as well as the potential for developing 'personalized therapies'. They also serve to remind us that although we have our 'genetic blueprint' in hand, a large amount of work remains before we fully understand how to best use it.

Katrine Almind
Alessandro Doria
C. Ronald Kahn
News & Views 01 Mar 2001
Zeroing in on tolerance

Many genetic loci have been associated with autoimmune diseases through linkage analyses, but it has been a major challenge to isolate actual disease genes. The sequencing of the human genome and mapping of single nucleotide polymorphisms will speed the identification of these genes, and may also help explain how environmental factors such as bacteria and viruses can induce autoimmunity.

Anne M. Bowcock
Michael Lovett
News & Views 01 Mar 2001
Pharmacogenetic applications of the Human Genome project

Basic research and clinical studies are underway to identify genetic polymorphisms that underlie drug effects. What obstacles must we overcome before we can use genetic analysis to predict the ability of patients to respond to certain treatments?

Stephen B. Liggett
News & Views 01 Mar 2001
Gazing into a crystal ball–cancer therapy in the post-genomic era

The sequencing of the human genome is likely to speed the discovery of factors involved in cancer pathogenesis and lead to an age of individually tailored anti-cancer drugs. But does the ability to obtain an abundance of genetic information mean that we necessarily know how to use it?

Mark J. Ratain
Mary V. Relling
News & Views 01 Mar 2001
CYP3A genetics in drug metabolism

Most drugs are metabolized by CYP3A enzymes, and variations in expression levels of these enzymes are believed to determine whether patients will have a positive or adverse drug response. Little is known about the mechanisms that underlie inter-individual differences in CYP3A expression, but the mapping of human genome sequence variations will facilitate the search for answers.

Michel Eichelbaum
Oliver Burk
News & Views 01 Mar 2001
The heart of genomics

The completion of the Human Genome Project will provide much needed insight into the molecular basis of monogenic or complex cardiac disorders. But what are the prospects for using genomic information in diagnosis and treatment of cardiac diseases?

Michel Komajda
Philippe Charron
News & Views 01 Mar 2001
Blood simple prion diagnostics

One of the major challenges of the mad cow disease epidemic is the need for a good diagnostic test, to identify people and animals that have been infected with the infectious form of prion before symptoms appear. Differential display analysis may have revealed a good candidate marker (pages 361-364).

Adriano Aguzzi
News & Views 01 Mar 2001
A role for fibronectin in self-repair after ischemic injury

Plasma fibronectin has been proposed to play a role in wound healing. Studies with conditional knockout mice, however, indicate that fibronectin has more to do with protecting cells from ischemic damage after stroke (pages 324-330).

Deane F. Mosher
News & Views 01 Mar 2001
The neglected ion: HCO₃⁻

Most research into the function of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator has focused on its role in Cl⁻ transport. New findings suggest that we may have been focusing on the wrong ion.

Paul M. Quinton
News & Views 01 Mar 2001
Eyeing a new route along an old pathway

Little is known about molecular mechanisms responsible for the development of glaucoma, the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. A new study suggests that glaucoma pathogenesis involves an endothelial leukocyte cell-adhesion molecule that is implicated in the development of vascular diseases (pages 304-309).

Stanislav I. Tomarev
News & Views 01 Mar 2001
Research News

Bernd Pulverer
Karen Birmingham
Kristine Novak
News & Views 01 Mar 2001