Cancer Centers Racing to Map Patients’ Genes

A recent New York Times article talks about the "arms race" that is taking place in the genetic community. Millions of dollars have been spent in recent years to create a way to quickly and effectively process genetic and other biological information. Mount Sinai medical center recently developed a $3 million supercomputer capable of making quick work of this information, while other New York hospitals and colleges are spending more than half a billion dollars on research facilities! This arms race has become a crucial part of an ongoing war: the war against cancer and other diseases.

The belief is that eventually being able to routinely sequence everyone's genome would lead to "precision medicine" or treatment based on the unique characteristics of a patient's genes. John Hopkins is looking to, within the next two years, develop a systematic genomic sequencing program that also includes an individual's environment, family history and other factors in order to create preventative  medicines (seen here) specific to the individual. The hope is that by understanding the genome, and where diseases come from, that scientists and doctors can, at the earliest age, implement preventive measures and medicines to combat diseases.

Although scientists are still a long way from generating useful information from the genome, this new race to be the first to do so, will speed up the process as well as increase the amount of genomes able to be sequenced.

Famous "HeLa" Human Cell Line Gets Its DNA Sequenced

HeLa cells, immortal cells taken from the deadly cervical tumor form Henrietta Lacks, has been sequenced by researchers. The cells were established in 1951 after Lacks died of her cancer. These cells were the first cells to survive in the lab after more than a couple of days. The cells have contributed to much research including to the development of the polio vaccine as well as more than 60,000 research papers. These cells have been replicated in many labs around the world for six decades.

The genome of the HeLa cell line has been sequenced by a team at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany lead by geneticist Lars Steinmetz. His team confirmed that HeLa cells contain one extra version of most chromosomes, with up to five copies of some. It was also found that large segments of chromosome 11 and many other chromosomes had massive rearrangements, which could be contributed to the cervical tumor. With the genome now sequenced and showing to be full of errors Steinmetz brings of the question of its continued use as models for human cell biology. Having been replicated for so long the cell has evolved, the cell has accumulated errors that are not present in the original tumor DNA.



http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=famous-hela-human-cell-line-gets-its-dna-sequenced&print=true

Bioethics Panel Urges More Gene Privacy Protection

Gene-mapping has become an important factor in providing more useful health and medical information.  The idea of being able to detect any diseases that might affect an individual in the future can be thought of as a great thing, especially since the costs of this test have decreased, including in comparison to other single gene mutation tests.  It has been found that DNA decoding is legal in more than half the US, but there is now concern about the privacy issues that might prevail.  For example, if gene-mapping becomes common practice in a visit to the doctor's, who will be allowed to see the results, when can the test can be taken, and how will it be administered?  How long will it take for a law to pass that prohibits the sharing of genetic information from clinical studies?  Will doctors be able to warn patients about any other diseases they may have if they are only specifically checked for one?

Although a law has already been passed that prevents employers/health insurers from discriminating against genetic information, life and long-term care insurances have not been incorporated into that law.  Electronic storage of such information has not even proven to be fully secure.  These are just a few of the worries that have peaked interest in looking more into gene-mapping before it becomes a test accessible by 100% of the public population.

 

I never thought of gene mapping to be available as a regularly run test so soon.  The fact that the expense of the test has even come down surprises me because I would assume costs to remain high, if not increase once it is completely available to the public of all US states.  One concept I never thought of when it comes to privacy has to do with hereditary information.  If a person is diagnosed with an inherited disease, he/she might show results to a relative that could have it.  If the relative never wanted to know about a medical condition, that could be a violation of his/her privacy.  I was also surprised to read that a doctor could keep information private about other possible diseases a patient might have if only one specific mutation is being looked into (unless a waiver is signed).  It is a shame that there are even loopholes with something as personal as the release of one's genetic data.