Here’s the first part of my column on the recent Congressional investigation into the genomcs industry: The genomics industry, which provides reports about disease risk, ancestry, and drug reactions based on one’s DNA, came under fire last week as a Congressional Committee held hearings and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released an unscientific “study” of [...]

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This is an amazing article about (70 year old!) Harvard Professor George Whitesides. He’s working to create cheap diagnostics for developing countries and he tells the reporter this: My view of the health care worker of the future is not a doctor, but an 18-year-old, otherwise unemployed, who has two things. He has a backpack [...]

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It’s been a tough week for the personal genomics testing marketplace. First there were two long days of FDA meetings, and then today an Energy and Commerce Committee held hearings where the GAO announced the results of a “sting” operation into direct to consumer (DTC) genomics companies. Below is the (brutal) GAO video. As Daniel [...]

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It’s always annoying to me when I hear people talk about how new advances in medicine are always going to cost more. In many cases the opposite is true. Here’s a well-written article from the NYT explaining why robotic surgery leads to CHEAPER health costs. The reasons are that there are fewer complications and patients [...]

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This is super-interesting and the researchers say they could be testing it in humans within a year. From the press release: “Researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center created a large, well armed battalion of tumor-seeking immune system cells and watched, in real time using Positron Emission Tomography (PET), as the special forces traveled throughout [...]

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I’m moderating a panel of cool women entrepreneurs and scientists at SU tomorrow night. If you’re around and interested in attending, here’s the link: http://singularityu.org/women2010/

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Was a super-interesting discussion. Recordings of the sessions are up on the web already if you missed them.

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Thomas Perls, Paola Sebastiani, and others recently published work that finds 70 genes to be involved in longevity (WSJ article). Using these genes, scientists could predict with 77% accuracy who would be exceptionally long-lived. Given this evidence, I wonder what the public will make of statements from people like the Blue Zone’s Dan Buettner that [...]

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