Genetics in the National Geographic Magazine
The February issue of the National Geographic Magazine has an amazing feature on the heart. The lead story by Jennifer Kahn discusses the genetics of heart disease in detail.
“Heart disease is not a one- or two-gene problem,” says Steven Ellis, a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist who oversees a 10,000-person genetic study known as GeneBank that collects DNA samples from patients who enter hospitals with atherosclerosis. Ellis, like most cardiac researchers, suspects that dozens of genes end up contributing to a predisposition: Some affect arterial integrity, others inflammation (which both causes and exacerbates arterial cracks), and still others the processing of lipids (the fats and cholesterol that turn into plaques). Of the several dozen genes, each may contribute just one percent to a person’s total risk—an amount that may be compounded, or offset, by outside factors like diet. As one doctor told me, any person’s heart attack risk is “50 percent genetic and 50 percent cheeseburger.”
Francis Collins is also featured in the Voices section of the magazine in an interview talking about the relationship between science and religion.
Ethics of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis
To what do we owe our children and to ourselves as parents? Do we have the right to demand perfection in both talents and health?
One way to ensure that we have “better” children is to train them once they’re born. Another way would be to manipulate their cells in utero or even at the point of conception using preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to identify then discard embryos that have defective genes. Or, perhaps genetic engineering could be used to correct or alter DNA.
Technology Review interviewed University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Vardit Ravitsky about the ethical issues surrounding PGD. Here’s an excerpt:
TR: Is biologically altering an embryo different than socially altering a child?
VR: That depends on what you think about genes and the environment–the nature-nurture debate. I personally think that although there are significant differences between educationally and genetically shaping the identities of children, in many ways they are similar. I’m a strong believer in genetics, but you can never reduce human talent to genetics.
Down with genetic determinism!
Tags: determinism, fate, fatalistic, fatalism, genetics, genes, dna, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, pgd, diseases, illness, health
Hat Tip: Kate, Photo: djshaggy
J. Craig Venter’s Dangerous Idea
The Edge World Question Center’s question of the year in 2006 was: What is your dangerous idea? Here’s an extract of J. Craig Venter’s response:
Revealing the genetic basis of personality and behavior will create societal conflicts.
We attribute behaviors in other mammalian species to genes and genetics but when it comes to humans we seem to like the notion that we are all created equal, or that each child is a “blank slate”. As we obtain the sequences of more and more mammalian genomes including more human sequences, together with basic observations and some common sense, we will be forced to turn away from the politically correct interpretations, as our new genomic tool sets provide the means to allow us to begin to sort out the reality about nature or nurture. In other words, we are at the threshold of a realistic biology of humankind.
In this essay, Venter acknowledges the power of genetic determinism but doesn’t give into it. So while we acknowledge our genes, we can also reach beyond them with our hopes and dreams.
Technorati Tags: determinism, genetics, genes, dna, diseases, illness, health, craig venter
Dr. Steven Heine on Genetic Fatalism
Dr. Steven Heine, one of the co-authors of the study that found that women’s performance on math tests were affected by their perceived innate genetic ability, has an editorial in the Boston Globe.
…as our research suggests, people often respond in rather fatalistic ways when they hear about genetic causes. We believe this is because most people have quite erroneous conceptions of how genes influence behavior. They seem to conceive of genes as something like ingredients in a recipe. Just as an extra cup of sugar will necessarily make the cake sweeter, people think that having a gene for obesity will inevitably make them heavier. However, genes are not the ingredients of our selves. The expressions of genes are governed by experiences and interactions with other genes, and they guide behaviors in probabilistic ways. Furthermore, genes can influence the ways we interact with, and are thus shaped by, our environments. The ways genes affect behavior are far more complicated than the ways that are typically summarized in university press releases or newspaper articles. In the end, these simplified stories can misrepresent genetic explanations for behaviors.
How do you think the idea of genetic determinism affects the way you think about yourself?
Technorati Tags: fate, genetics, genes, dna, diseases, illness, health, steven heine
Genetics Interview #15: Prof. Gaia Bernstein of Seton Hall Law School
Writing Genetics and Health over the past year-and-a-half has been a rewarding experience partly because I’ve come into contact with so many incredible people. Professor Gaia Bernstein of Seton Hall Law School is one such person. We originally met while discussing genetic discrimination between our two blogs (she used to guest blog at PrawfsBlawg). And today, I have the honor of interviewing her for the Genetics and Health interview series.
1. Over the recent years, what have been some major changes or challenges to the law pertaining to genetic discrimination and other aspects of genetic privacy?
It would probably be fair to say that there has not been a major change in legal protection for genetic information recently. Privacy law in the United States is a patchwork of federal and state laws. These laws are often enacted to react to a new technological threat to privacy. Genetic privacy laws follow the same pattern – federal and state legislatures have reacted to concerns about genetic discrimination and, currently, both federal and state laws encompass provisions that offer partial privacy protections. These protections are incomplete and where state law is concerned they are inconsistent across state lines.
There has been much ado about the legislation of a federal genetic privacy law. Yet, despite several attempts such a law has not yet been enacted. As the number of available genetic tests grows many are concerned that genetic discrimination by insurers and employers will become a prevalent phenomenon. Nevertheless, the status quo at this point is maintained.
Gene Talk #8: Genetic Determinism at Seldo.com
This week’s Gene Talk from Seldo.com brings up the hot-button topic of genetic determinism. Laurie said:
Are our lives just the emergent behaviour of the interactions of our genes with our environment? Is our free will an illusion, no more free than a drop of water is free to choose the random path it takes down a windshield—unpredictable, but with an inevitable result?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Check out the heated discussion we had in April.
This essay by Professor Patricia S. Greenspan also addresses the issue: Free Will and Genetic Determinism. (Brings back memories of the year-long series of philosophy courses I took in college. Wish I’d paid more attention back then!)
Technorati Tags: genetics, genes, dna, disease, illness, health, genetic determinism, philosophy
Dr. Francis Collins on Personalized Medicine
Dr. Francis Collins, a key player in The Human Genome Project, wrote about personalized medicine in a Boston Globe op-ed piece.
Here’s how he defines personalized medicine:
At its most basic, personalized medicine refers to using information about a person’s genetic makeup to tailor strategies for the detection, treatment, or prevention of disease.
And his thoughts on what we, the general public, will encounter in the genome revolution:
The public is also in urgent need of education and guidance. Even the savviest consumer is likely to have difficulty interpreting the onslaught of advertisements from companies trying to hitch their wagons to the personalized medicine star. These ads run the gamut from established medical laboratories offering tests for genes involved in susceptibility to serious diseases, such as breast cancer, to Internet opportunists making wild claims about being able to tailor diets or face creams to a person’s DNA profile.
There is no way for consumers to gauge whether a genetic test is scientifically valid, let alone whether it is appropriate for them or reimbursable by their insurance companies. The lack of oversight of such tests leaves the average person vulnerable to misuses or mispresentation of what personalized medicine truly is.
The Genetics and Public Health Blog can help you sift through the plethora of genetics information and relate it directly to your health and the health of the community we belong to. Along with you, I’ll be contemplating the answers to the questions Dr. Collins lays out:
- Will access to genomic technologies be equitable?
- Will knowledge of human genetic variation reduce prejudice or increase it?
- What boundaries will need to be placed on this technology, particularly when applied to enhancement of traits rather than prevention or treatment of disease?
- Will we succumb to genetic determinism, neglecting the role of the environment and undervaluing the power of the human spirit?
Pointer from The Personal Genome
Unknown Genetic Legacy
One of the most compelling reasons for people to find their biological parent(s) is the need to understand their genetic legacy. For adoptees, it may be difficult to track down their biological parents especially if they were adopted from another country. For children resulting from egg or sperm donation, however, information about their genetic heritage may be just a cryobank away.
David Plotz wrote about sperm donation in The New York Times, May 20, 2005,
In these (sperm donor) families, there is no paternal secret to protect. In an age of genetic determinism, many of the children are haunted by the fact that they can’t know half of their genetic heritage, and thus half of themselves. Hardly a week goes by that I am not contacted by an adult child of donor insemination seeking to find his donor father. Because the law is arrayed against them, these quests for identity are usually hopeless, and heartbreaking.
Once genome sequencing becomes widespread and affordable, this is one less heartbreak children of adoption or egg/sperm donation will have to face.
