Craig Venter’s genome and our brave new world
(UPDATED: See below.)
It’s finally all about him.
By “him,” of course, I mean J. Craig Venter, the iconoclastic scientist who had his entire genome sequenced, posted in a public database, and analyzed in a scientific paper published Monday in the online journal PLoS Biology. If for some reason you hadn’t heard, feel free to take a moment to read all about it in the NYT, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, Reuters, CNN, or any of the… Continue Reading
Roundup: Biogenerics bill in limbo, clashing data on health IT benefits, the RNAi boom, and more
House-Senate confrontation set over biogenerics – Late last month, a key group of senators reached agreement on legislative provisions that would authorize copycat versions of biotech drugs, which are typically complex proteins manufactured by genetically engineered cells (see details here and here). These provisions would finally put biotech drugs — which don’t face cut-rate competition once their key patents expire — on a par with traditional pharmaceuticals, and have been a long time in coming. They’re… Continue Reading