dgmacarthur

After a semi-hiatus due to various distractions, I'm about to restart blogging in earnest again over at the new home of Genetic Future on Wired Science.  Please update your RSS feed: my new one is here. And a reminder: you can always keep track of new posts here as well as other nuggets of…

In the last century infant mortality has declined precipitously in the Western world, thanks in large part to the development of antibiotics and vaccination. Yet as the suffering and death from infectious disease has reduced, the burden from genetic disease has become proportionately greater:…

Software company 5AM Solutions has just launched a neat little FireFox plug-in for customers of consumer genomics company 23andMe.  The idea is very simple: Download your raw data from 23andMe (or use one of the files from me or my colleagues at Genomes Unzipped); Install the plug-in from here…

As part of his Gene Week celebration over at Forbes, Matthew Herper has a provocative post titled "Why you can't have your $1000 genome". In this post I'll explain why, while Herper's pessimism is absolutely justified for genomes produced in a medical setting, I'm confident that I'll be obtaining…

Late last week I stumbled across a press release with an attention-grabbing headline ("The Causes of Common Diseases are Not Genetic Concludes a New Analysis") linking to a lengthy blog post at the Bioscience Resource Project, a website devoted to food and agriculture. The post, written by two…

A reminder to anyone who reads my other blog Genomes Unzipped that we have a reader survey underway there now, which includes some questions about genetic testing experiences and attitudes towards genetics. We're closing the survey to responses this weekend, so if you're an Unzipped reader but…

Update 30/11/10: 23andMe has extended their 80% discount until Christmas, without a need for a discount code. Personal genomics company 23andMe has made some fairly major announcements this week: a brand new chip, a new product strategy (including a monthly subscription fee), and yet another…

Back in June I launched a new blog, Genomes Unzipped, together with a group of colleagues and friends with expertise in various areas of genetics. At the time I made a rather cryptic comment about "planning much bigger things for the site over the next few months". Today I announced what I meant…

Over at Genomes Unzipped, my esteemed colleague Carl Anderson has his first ever blog post: an exploration of the various ways in which the effects of genetic variants on disease risk can vary from person to person.  This potential variation has been the cause of much angst among critics of the…

In my second big piece of news for the day, I'm pleased to announce that Genetic Future will shortly be moving to a  the brand new Wired Science Blogs network. While the network was announced today there will be a brief hiatus before I get started in my new home, due to the time constraints…

For those who haven't already heard via Twitter or other means, there's a good reason I've been so quiet the past few weeks. My first collaborative genetic experiment with my wife - for which I presented some promising preliminary data back in February - finally generated results on August 28th:…

The recent Government Accountability Office report into the direct-to-consumer genetic testing industry certainly made a splash: it took centre stage at a Congressional hearing on the industry, and garnered media headlines about "bogus" results being generated by testing companies. As I noted at…

More huge news in the sequencing industry, following on from the public share offer from Pacific Biosciences - relative newcomer to the field, Ion Torrent, has just been bought by Life Technologies for an impressive US$375 million in cash and stock, with an option to increase by a further US$350…

The long-awaited public stock offer from third-generation sequencing technology company Pacific Biosciences has finally arrived (here's the SEC filing, and coverage from Matthew Herper and GenomeWeb). PacBio has already raised almost US$400 million in venture capital, and aims to increase this by…

In my previous post I quoted from Mary Carmichael's excellent interview with two officials from the FDA, Alberto Gutierrez and Elizabeth Mansfield (part of her fantastic week-long DNA dilemma series, which you should read in full if you haven't already). There are numerous nuggets of gold tucked…

Two days ago I reported a rumour that the FDA might have convinced genotyping chip provider Illumina to stop providing its products to direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies - a move that would effectively prevent these companies from being able to operate. The rumour seemed plausible at the…

Following up on the rumours I posted about yesterday regarding a potential bid by the FDA to choke of direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies' supply of genotyping chips, I received the following statement by email from 23andMe's PR firm: 23andMe is engaged in an ongoing process with the FDA…

Update 14:35 EDT 04/08/10: I just received a phone call from a 23andMe representative indicating that these rumours are not true; more details to follow once I have a written statement. Update 17:26 EDT 04/08/10: Here is the written statement from 23andMe's PR firm: We will continue to work…

The whole idea of actually paying to read mainstream news online is rather alien to me, having grown up immersed in a world of free content readily available via Google News. Indeed, I can't help but see free news as some kind of inviolable human right. Thus when the Times recently set up a…

This week was pretty hectic, so there were plenty of useful or interesting links from the personal genomics world that I didn't have time to write about in detail. Feel free to share your own suggestions in the comments. Responses to the Congress/FDA crack-downAs all of you will be aware, the big…

(This is an edited excerpt from an op-ed piece I just wrote for Xconomy, posted here as I think it provides some nuance on my views on regulation of genetic testing that was lacking from my post last week. Some context for new readers: a Congressional investigation into the direct-to-consumer (DTC…

(Cross-posted to Genomes Unzipped.) Today's US Congress Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing into the direct-to-consumer genetic testing industry was a vicious affair. Representatives from testing companies 23andMe, Navigenics and Pathway faced a barrage of questions about the accuracy and…

I mentioned last week on Genetic Future that a reporter with the Washington Post, Rob Stein, had emailed the National Society of Genetic Counsellors to search specifically for people with negative experiences of personal genomics for an upcoming article on the industry. At the time I called for…

Every issue of Nature Genetics is packed full of them, and they're the basis for the risk predictions offered by every personal genomics company - but how do you make sense of a genome-wide association study? How can you tell the difference between results you can trust and those you should treat…

The first ever post on the new group blog I announced yesterday, Genomes Unzipped, is now live: it's Luke Jostins of Genetic Inference talking about the importance of sequencing for the future of personal genomics. Here's a taste: There is a particular type of variation that genotype chips can…

I'm pleased to announce the beta launch of a new group blog on personal genomics, Genomes Unzipped.  I've been working with a group of scientific colleagues and fellow bloggers on this project for quite a while now. Some of the group members will be familiar to regular readers: Dan Vorhaus from…

I've just been forwarded an email that was originally sent to the National Society of Genetic Counsellors email list on behalf of a reporter with the Washington Post: Dear NSGC Members, Washington Post reporter Rob Stein has interviewed NSGC President Liz Kearney on the subject of regulation of…

As an addendum to my previous post on the controversial "longevity genes" study, you should go and check this out. It's a post on the blog of personal genomics company 23andMe, and it's a pretty impressive piece of scientific dissection of the longevity GWAS paper - in addition to detailing a…

When an article was published in Science last week reporting that DNA samples from exceptionally long-lived individuals differed detectably from those of normal individuals, it got plenty of positive attention from the mainstream media. However, the buzz from experts was rapid and telling: my…

An excerpt from an article I co-wrote for Xconomy with Genomics Law Report's Dan Vorhaus - link to the full article below. Are you ready for consumer genetics? Is your government? Recent announcements of federal investigations into the budding direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing industry…