Five bioethicists have published a paper in today’s issue of Science - The Illusive Gold Standard in Genetic Ancestry Testing (paid subscription required) – calling for government regulation of genetic ancestry testing (aka genetic genealogy). There is an accompanying press release: “Stanford Bioethicist and Colleagues Call for Federal Regulation of Genetic Ancestry Testing” (another [...]
Journalists Peter Aldhous and Michael Reilly write about using DNA obtained from a drinking glass and other sources to “hack” someone’s genome.
In “Special investigation: How my genome was hacked,” the authors use a variety of consumer-available DNA services to prepare and amplify genomic DNA in order to send it away for analysis by deCODEme. [...]
14 January 2009 – 3:00 am
Although I can hardly hope to introduce or discuss these recent events any better than Daniel MacArthur has already given at Genetic Future, I will at least bring this new information to your attention.
Last Wednesday the New York Times printed “My Genome, My Self”, an article written by Stephen Pinker, one of the Personal [...]
An international team of researchers have concluded that humans entered the Americas from Asia along at least two different paths. By studying two rare mtDNA haplogroups found in Native Americans – D4h3 and X2a – the researchers conclude that D4h3 spread into the Americans along the Pacific coast while X2a entered through the [...]
11 December 2008 – 9:09 am
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I’m currently in the middle of third-year law school exams, so I thought I’d do a round-up of all the interesting stories I’ve seen over the past week or two.
Holiday Specials on DNA Testing
First, it appears that most of the major genetic genealogy companies are offering special deals for the holidays:
Family Tree DNA [...]
10 December 2008 – 11:34 pm
A new article in Ancestry Magazine, “Meeting My New Family,” details a recent meeting of genetic relatives in Chicago. The author is Howard Wolinsky, who has written other articles in the field of genetic genealogy (see, for example, an article in EMBO about 2 years ago). As Howard describes, the meeting wasn’t a traditional [...]
13 November 2008 – 2:12 pm
Today at 1:15PM, the American Society of Human Genetics released the “ASHG Ancestry Testing Statement and Recommendations (pdf)” during a press briefing session entitled “ASHG Ancestry Testing Statement and Recommendations: Guidelines for Understanding the Issues and Implications Involved.” The briefing session, held from 1:15PM to 2:15PM, is part of the 58th annual ASHG meeting [...]
12 November 2008 – 8:44 am
The 58th annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics is currently being held in Philadelphia. Today at 10:00AM there will be a session specifically about genetic genealogy entitled “The Social, Ethical, and Biomedical Implications of Ancestry Testing: Exploring New Terrain.” From the abstract:
“What is genetic ancestry and how does it relate to [...]
5 November 2008 – 9:00 pm
Nature has a brand new web focus on personal genomics (as of November 5th, 2008). And best of all, most of the articles are entirely free to access, download, and read! From the site:
“As the number of human beings with their genomes fully sequenced ticks higher and direct-to-consumer gene profiling companies push the limits [...]
30 October 2008 – 8:25 pm
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Ötzi the Iceman is the popular name for a 5,000 year-old mummy discovered frozen in the ice of the Alps in 1991. Studies of the Iceman has revealed an immense amount of information about him, including details of his life, his death, and his culture.
Although Ötzi’s mtDNA has previously been studied, researchers [...]
