Healthcare NBIC

Top Healthcare Conversations of 2008

Many of the great healthcare thinkers and bloggers wrapped up 2008 with end-of-year considerations of the important developments in their fields, and some looked ahead with predictions for 2009. Here are the January 1, 2009 Health Memes from around the web:

Personal Genomics in 2008: the Year in Review  Genetic Future

From 2008 to 2009  ScienceRoll

Finding Venture Capital In 2009 Will Be Tough  Pharmalot

2009 Stem Cell Trendsetters in Neurology and Psychiatry  Brain Waves

The Future of Pharma  Health Beat

The Year in Bioethics: The Highs and Lows of 2008  Bioethics Forum

2008 in Review: Ethnicity Strikes Back  Dienekes' Anthropology Blog

HIT Predictions for 2009 on iHealthBeat  Health Populi

Best of Nanomedicine in 2008  Nanomedicinecenter.com

2009: Predictions Across the Web  ReadWriteWeb

Social Media Trends 2009, TrendsSpotting  ReadWriteWeb

Top 30 Brain Health and Fitness Articles of 2008  SharpBrains

Top 10 In 2008  Health Affairs Blog

Not Exactly Rocket Science Review of 2008 [Not Exactly Rocket Science]  ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science

Top Health Search Engines of 2008 [Highlight HEALTH]  The Highlight HEALTH Network

The Year in Biomedicine  Technology Review Feed - Biomedicine Top Stories

Health and Health Care in 2009 -- a Year of Managing Risks and Wild Cards  The Health Care Blog

(See the final week of 2008 on the December 29 archive page.)

Transgenic Chickens Manufacture Expensive Drugs

Here's a follow-up to our popular post about transgenic pigs makingdrugs in their milk. Oxford Biomedica and Viragen, Inc. yesterday announced that they have produced two therapeutic proteins in the whites of transgenic chicken eggs. Publishing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), the companies describe how the "OVA technique" created two substances: miR24, a monoclonal antibody for advanced malignant melanoma, and interferon beta-1a, a multiple sclerosis treatment currently marketed under two competing brand names, Avonex® (Biogen Idec) and Rebif® (Serono).

A Reuters article outlines the promise of animal factories for pricey therapies -- Avonex therapy costs $850 per month and can stretch on for years. Outsourcing pharma to the barnyard could make important drugs affordable to all.

Reverse Genetic Engineering

Scientists at the University of Utah have retrogressed the genetic development of a mouse, reconstructing a half-billion-year-old gene by combining key portions of two modern mouse genes that descended from the archaic gene.

The study focused on so-called Hox genes which direct the actions of other genes during the development of an animal embryo. Early animals had 13 Hox genes, but sometime between 530 million and 480 million years ago each Hox gene split into four, so 13 became 52. Duplicate Hox genes later either mutated in a way that proved useful, or vanished because they were redundant, so today in humans and other mammals there are 39 instead of 52 Hox genes. Researchers Mario Capecchi and Petr Tvrdik say that by combining critical portions of two later genes, Hox1a and Hox1b, they effectively recreated a gene with the function that the original Hox1 performed more than 530 million years ago.

The ability to reconstruct an ancient gene from descendant genes raises the possibility of a new type of gene therapy in which a portion of a related gene could be inserted into a disease-causing mutant gene to restore its normal function and cure the disease, Capecchi and Tvrdik say.

The study titled Reversal of Hox1 Gene Subfunctionalization in the Mouse was published in the journal Developmental Cell. A press account describing the work, with before-and-after photos of mice, is posted at the University of Utah web site.

Even with Omega-3s, Cloned Pigs Won't Make Healthy Bacon

As a happy member of the Bacon of the Month Club and Polish since birth, I'm a big fan of pork. But today's media frenzy over an article in Nature Biotechnology about some cloned pigs with meat rich in omega-3 fatty acids promises more than any pork lover can hope for: healthy bacon. We wrote a few months ago about transgenic pigs making medicine in their milk, but the latest  pigs -- the two on the right in this beauty shot at three weeks old -- are supposed to be healthier for humans to eat because of a roundworm gene added before birth.

According to the unfrenzied article by David Biello in Scientific American:

Yifan Dai of the University of Pittsburgh and his colleagues first transferred the roundworm gene--fat-1--to pig fetal cells. Randy Prather of the University of Missouri and his collaborators then cloned those cells and transferred them into 14 pig mothers. Twelve pigs were subsequently born and six of them tested positive for the gene and its ability to synthesize omega-3 fatty acids.

Seventeen authors are listed for the Nature Biotechnology article. It's a great piece of science that will make it possible to study the effects of omega-3s in pig models of the human heart (and way way way down the road we might get some roundworm bits added to our own genes -- maybe). But even with plenty of omega-3s, the new pigs' bacon and other cured meats -- if they were ever approved for human consumption -- would still be rich in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium nitrites. "Less unhealthy" might be more accurate, but be that as it may, the press release has been posted, the AP story has been picked up, and the major media around the world are on the case.

Aubrey de Grey on 60 Minutes

Last night, CBS News 60 Minutes covered "The Quest for Immortality" featuring an interview with Aubrey de Grey, keynote speaker at the Health IC Summit that I'm chairing in New York later this month. Aubrey's matter-of-fact approach to the issues of extreme life extension, what he calls Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, makes it difficult to argue that aging is inevitable or that we shouldn't try to find a cure for it. Ironically, his mildly skeptical and long-past-retirement-age interviewer was Morley Safer (age 74) who works with Andy Rooney (age 86) and Mike Wallace (age 87) on a program whose average viewer is pushing 60. The balancing view came from Jay Olshansky at the University of Illinois. It mainly amounts to "the search for immortality is always futile."

The web video starts with a short piece on Ray Kurzweil, although I don't remember that from last night's broadcast. The site has Firefox compatibility problems, so you may need to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer to see the clip. You can get the transcript here.

Aubrey de Grey's Health IC Summit keynote is scheduled for Wednesday, January 25, 2006.

Transgenic Pigs' Milk to Treat Cancer

In another demonstration of Korea's emerging biotech prowess, scientists at Chungnam National University have cloned pigs that have been genetically modified to produce an expensive cancer treatment. Professor Park Chang-sik and his team at the Research Center  for Transgenic Cloned Pigs said that four female piglets are expected to express GM-CSF (granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor) in their milk next year. GM-CSF, marketed by Berlex Pharmaceuticals under the trade name Leukine, builds up white blood cells in patients with leukemia and anemia or those who have low white blood cell counts during cancer treatment. From Berlex, GM-CSF costs more than $100 per daily dose. According to an article in The Korea Times, "Park expected the GM-CSF produced by genetically engineered pigs would be commercially viable in a decade after going through a serious of clinical tests."

At-Home Pharmacogenomics: Mail Order DNA Tests

"The Perfect Gift for the Genetic Age"

Doctors prescribing medicines use way too much trial and error to match drugs and doses. If the first prescription doesn't work, they try a different drug, change the dosage or start looking for interactions with other drugs the patient is taking. Success is counted when the side effects are not too gruesome and the patient improves.

Pharmacogenomics, combining pharmaceutical knowledge with our increasing understanding of the human genome, analyzes a patient's genotype to find prescriptions that maximize effectiveness and minimize side effects. It can also reduce adverse drug reactions, a major cause of healthcare mortality.

Ten years ago, genetic testing like this was strictly a laboratory affair. Today, you can do it at home with products like Genelex's mail order DNA test kits that screen for drug reactions, identify disease tendencies and even check ancestry and paternity. Tests cost anywhere from $250 for an identity profile to $1,590 for a Platinum Package.

The Genelex web site is split into branches "For the Public" and "For Medical Professionals." It's the public side that suggests DNA testing as a nice gift ... maybe for Fathers Day or Valentines Day, I guess.