Multiple sclerosis (MS) and leukodystrophies (such as the disease featured in the movie Lorenzo’s Oil) are diseases in which myelin, the fatty layer coating nerves in the brain and spinal cord, is destroyed. According to The Myelin Project, over two million people worldwide are affected by demyelinating diseases.
Researchers at the National University of Singapore have identified a gene in rats that appears to affect oligodendrocytes, cells in the central nervous system that produce myelin. The juxtanodin gene changed oligodendrocyte motility, differentiation, or myelin-axon signaling. (PNAS, July 28, 2005)
One of the ways scientists hope to remyelinate nerve cells …read more

Newsweek’s special summer issue, The Future of Medicine, features four scientists who were instrumental in the sequencing of the human genome.
Some exercepts:

Leroy Hood, Institute for Systems Biology
Lately he’s been working on a project that analyzes how protein molecules fold and, as a result, how they interact with other chemicals in the body to either keep systems running, build new bodily components or, alternately, cause disease.
His new dream is “preventive and predictive medicine,” in which drugs are used not to cure, but to prevent disease in the first place. Hood says the advent of this type of medicine could …read more

Twins have been working hard for us again. Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute studied 28 pairs of identical male twins and found that exercise did not greatly influence cholesterol levels. (Science Daily, July 8, 2005)
Each pair of twins had one who exercised regularly while the other did not. Their blood cholesterol levels were tested after six weeks on a high fat diet, then tested again after another six weeks on a low fat diet. Regardless of their exercise regimen, the twins’ cholesterol levels responded …read more

Yesterday, I posted about students, staff, and faculty at the College of Alameda in California getting DNA testing to see what their DNA told them about their ancestry. One of the concerns I had about such testing was its accuracy.
One of the issues regarding results from DNA testing for ancestral origin concerns general human evolution. At some point in evolutionary history, all humans are related to one another no matter what race we currently belong to. Another issue concerns the use of analyzing genetic markers, which are very short segments of DNA with limited information. Furthermore, …read more

A few years ago, I went with my friends to see a fortune teller. He claimed that a mark on my face (invisible to me) showed that I’d had a miscarriage before. That was news to me. I’d never suspected myself to be pregnant so a miscarriage was definitely out of the question.
Statistically speaking, there was a small likelihood that I might have had one given that 40 to 50 per cent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Of these miscarriages, approximately 75 per cent are due to the embryo being unable to implant in the uterus. …read more

Both smokers and non-smokers can develop lung cancer especially if they carry genes which increase their susceptibility. In 2004, the Genetic Epidemiology of Lung Cancer Consortium found that lung cancer susceptibility was linked to chromosomes 6, 12, 14, and 20. (National Cancer Institute, July 26, 2004) This week, researchers at Dana-Fabrer Cancer Institute identified 93 chromosomal regions corresponding 11 genes that are associated with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). (EurekAlert, June 27, 2005)
In some these chromosomal regions, more than the normal number of the same gene were found aka over-copying. In other regions, where certain genes were …read more

If you’re interested in learning more about public health, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is offering free online courses via their OpenCourseWare (OCW) project.
The Bloomberg School’s OCW:

does not require that participants register

does not grant degrees or certificates

does not provide access to JHSPH faculty

Challenges to the world’s health escalate daily. As part of its mission to protect health and prevent disease and disability, the School feels a moral imperative to provide equal and open access to information and knowledge about the obstacles to the public’s health and their …read more

After all the debate, the FDA’a cardiovascular advisory committee has recommended that the FDA approve BiDil, the heart drug for African-Americans. (Red Herring, June 16, 2005) That leaves me wondering when Asian-Americans are going to get a drug to call their own.
The trouble is, I’m not sure I want to get a drug that’s supposed to work only in Asian-Americans. First of all, Asians make up a heterogeneous group that includes people from West Asia (Iraq, Iran), South Asia (India), Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Vietnam), and East Asia (China, Japan). (Wikipedia) I happen to be 100% Chinese and …read more

BiDil, the heart pill marketed for use by African-Americans, is in the news again. Race-based drugs are considered by some to be a stepping stone to developing drugs tailored to patients’ unique genetic profile. BiDil, however, may not be the best representative of this new way of dispensing medicine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is re-evaluating BiDil after it was rejected for use in the general population. (LA Times, June 16, 2005)
Now is a good time to review my concerns about race-based drugs:
1. Most people cannot be easily categorized.
2. Some patients will either knowingly or unknowingly …read more