A type of DNA test the Apple CEO hoped might save his life is becoming widely available. If you need proof of how information technology is influencing biotech, take a look at Foundation Medicine, the Boston-area diagnostics company that went public on Wednesday. Its stock price quickly doubled after the IPO. And one reason is surely its links to stratospheric tech names from the West Coast. The company is backed by both Google and Bill Gates, and the core idea behind its technology was once tried out on Apple founder Steve Jobs. Foundation sells a $5,800 test that looks in detail at the DNA of a person with cancer. The concept is that a comprehensive catalogue of genetic mutations in a persons tumor will show exactly whats driving the cancer and help doctors choose what drug will work best (see Foundation Medicine: Personalizing Cancer Drugs.) It turns out that Jobs was one of the first peopleand certainly the best-knownto try this kind of all-in genetic strategy to beat cancer. As recounted in Walter Isaacsons biography of the Apple CEO, Jobs spent $100,000 to learn the DNA sequence of his genome and that of the tumors killing him. Jobs was jumping … Continue reading →

A type of DNA test the Apple CEO hoped might save his life is becoming widely available. Final slide: In 2011, Steve Jobs spent $100,000 to discover the genetic basis of the cancer that killed him. If you need proof of how information technology is influencing biotech, take a look at Foundation Medicine, the Boston-area diagnostics company that went public on Wednesday. Its stock price quickly doubled after the IPO. And one reason is surely its links to stratospheric tech names from the West Coast. The company is backed by both Google and Bill Gates, and the core idea behind its technology was once tried out on Apple founder Steve Jobs. Foundation sells a $5,800 test that looks in detail at the DNA of a person with cancer. The concept is that a comprehensive catalogue of genetic mutations in a persons tumor will show exactly whats driving the cancer and help doctors choose what drug will work best (see Foundation Medicine: Personalizing Cancer Drugs.) It turns out that Jobs was one of the first peopleand certainly the best-knownto try this kind of all-in genetic strategy to beat cancer. As recounted in Walter Isaacsons biography of the Apple CEO, Jobs spent … Continue reading →

Sep. 26, 2013 Although heavily studied, the specific genetic causes of "complex diseases," a category of disorders which includes autism, diabetes and heart disease, are largely unknown due to byzantine genetic and environmental interactions. Now, scientists from the University of Chicago have created one of the most expansive analyses to date of the genetic factors at play in complex diseases -- by using diseases with known genetic causes to guide them. Analyzing more than 120 million patient records and identifying trends of co-occurrence among hundreds of diseases, they created a unique genetic map that has the potential to guide researchers and clinicians in diagnosing, identifying risk factors for and someday developing therapies against complex diseases. The work was published Sept. 26 in Cell. "For the first time we've found that almost every complex disease has a unique set of associations with single-gene diseases. This essentially gives us 'barcodes' of specific gene loci, which we can use to help untangle the complex genetics of complex diseases," said Andrey Rzhetsky, PhD, professor of genetic medicine and human genetics at the University of Chicago, who led the study. The majority of human diseases are complex and caused by a combination of genetic, environmental … Continue reading →

Featured Article Academic Journal Main Category: Surgery Also Included In: Transplants / Organ Donations Article Date: 27 Sep 2013 - 0:00 PDT Current ratings for: Stem-cell fat grafts effective for plastic surgery Scientists say that the first randomized human trial using stem-cell enriched fat grafts for reconstructive surgery shows that the procedure is safe, reliable and effective. Researchers from the Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark say the procedure could become central to plastic and reconstructive surgery. Autologous fat grafting, or lipofilling, is being increasingly used in reconstructive surgery, such as breast reconstruction following cancer, the researchers say. The procedure involves harvesting a patient's own fat in order to increase the volume of fat in another area of their body. The researchers point out that the procedure has high resorption rates of up to 80% - the percentage of the transferred fat that does not survive. But recent animal studies have demonstrated that fat grafts that have been enriched with culture-expanded adipose (fat)-derived stem cells (ASCs) have been shown to significantly improve graft survival. For their study, published in The Lancet, the researchers carried out the stem-cell fat graft procedure and compared this with the standard autologous procedure in 10 healthy … Continue reading →