Genomic Testing: The Risk of Knowing Too Much…. part I

Sophisticated tests can generate a wealth of information about a patient’s cancer or disease risk. 
But they also raise serious questions By Alexandra Goho ​Consider the following: A healthy woman in her early 20s has a family history of breast cancer. She decides to undergo genetic testing to determine her own breast cancer risk. But instead of simply testing for...

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Genomic Testing: The Risk of Knowing Too Much… part II

Although doctors routinely talk to their patients in advance about what the tests could reveal, and genetic counselors are frequently involved, how to best communicate all that information to patients is still a work in progress. “I think it’s a fascinating and exciting time, but it’s also a time where we need to focus carefully on both physician and patient...

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Improving Cancer Outcomes for Patients of All Races and Ethnicities

Great strides have been made in prevention and treatment of cancer. Today Americans are more likely to survive a cancer diagnosis and enjoy a higher quality of life than at any other time in history.However, some groups – in particular, racial and ethnic minorities – experience notably higher incidence of some types of cancer than the general population and/or suffer...

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Eye Stem Cell Therapy Moves Ahead

Researchers inject retinal support cells derived from human embryonic stem cells into the eyes of four men with macular degeneration, bolstering evidence of the experimental treatment’s safety. Scientists in Korea have injected human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived retinal support cells into the eyes of four men with macular degeneration, according to a study published...

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Breakthrough in ‘editing’ mitochondrial disease DNA

BREAKTHROUGH IN ‘EDITING’ MITOCHONDRIAL DISEASE DNA Written by David McNamee Researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, CA, report success for the first time in using gene-editing technology to prevent multiple human mitochondrial diseases from being passed from female mice to their offspring. Mitochondria generate the majority of...

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Researcher Shares Personal Account of Immunotherapy Advances

About 30 years ago, cancer researcher Drew Pardoll had a revelation. He was treating bone marrow transplant patients who were at risk of developing graft-versus-host disease, a complication in which the T cells from the donor’s graft recognize the patient’s tissues as foreign and attack them. Pardoll, director of cancer immunology at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer...

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