May 2008
Francis Collins: A view from the press room
By Ricki Lewis
Francis Collins, the soon-to-be former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), boldly ventured where not too many scientists dare – the press room.
At the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics, Dr. Collins is as much a fixture of the reporters’ official turf as the coffee and bagels. Not just popping in for scheduled press conferences and media updates, he stops by at all hours, chatting with whomever is about.
At last year’s meeting, amidst the smoke of the fires in San Diego, he addressed a packed auditorium about the importance of communication and education in human genetics. He certainly practices what he preaches.
Unintended consequences from GINA?
Many have hailed the passage of the Genetic Information Nondescrimination Act as a major policy advance. And while there are certainly people who will benefit from the protections included in the law, Emory's Ani B. Satz argues in the Atlanta Journal Constitution that many will also lose out because of it:
The act increases protections only for some medical information, privileging those with genetic conditions over those with nongenetic ones. This necessarily places greater pressure on insurers to use nongenetic medical information to segregate risk. Further, it creates unequal disability protections. GINA protects individuals with genetic conditions from health insurance and employment discrimination even if they have no symptoms of the condition. The Americans with Disabilities Act protects only individuals with symptoms in regard to employment, services and public accommodation.
GINA also creates the perception that genetic testing is unique and not basic health care. This may further limit already restricted coverage of such technologies under public and private health insurance. In addition, heightened protections for genetic testing may discourage insurers from covering such services out of fear that they will open themselves to increased risk of litigation for breaching patient privacy. Further, insurers and employers are likely to lose incentive to provide genetic testing when they are not allowed access to the results, as they are for other diagnostic tests.
Well-intentioned members of Congress were wrongly persuaded that genetic information is a unique form of medical information. Insurers must discriminate in differentiating between risks in order to function as insurers. Whether it is unjust to deny anyone entitlement to basic health care based on randomly chosen risk criteria —- genetic or nongenetic —- is a separate question from whether insurers should be able to use only nongenetic information for actuarial purposes.
-GD
Art Caplan on Oscar Pistorious, the double amputee sprinter
Over at MSNBC, Art writes that he's not so sure that Pistorious should be allowed to compete in the Olympics:
Should anyone who must run on prosthetic legs be allowed to compete in the Olympics or other sporting events?
Oscar Pistorius, a college student from South Africa, has been told he can compete in the Beijing games this August, in either the 400-meter or the 1600-meter relay race as a member of the South African team, if he can reach a qualifying time.
The decision has been greeted around the world with approval. Some see it as a triumph for the disabled. It is easy to see why. Pistorius, known as the Blade Runner, is a very appealing, articulate young man who trains hard and sincerely wants a chance to compete. But I am not sure letting him run is the right decision.
Pistorius was born with major bones missing in both his lower legs. His legs were amputated at the knees when he was a child. He runs using artificial limbs made of carbon fiber, known as Cheetah blades. The controversy over whether Pistorius should be allowed to compete has focused exclusively on whether his Cheetah blades give him an unfair advantage.
Last January the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) said, based on a report from a German scientist, that mechanical legs give anyone using them an advantage in a race. They are more energy efficient than human legs, ultra-light, springier and do not fatigue. The IAAF said since the Cheetahs helped athletes perform better, it would ban their use. That decision meant no Olympics for Pistorius.
Pistorius appealed the ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland. Scientists at six universities in three nations took a look at Pistorius’ artificial legs. They concluded that the available evidence about the advantages of the Cheetah blades was insufficient. Last week the court said that, until more evidence was produced, Pistorius was eligible. The IAAF backed down and Pistorius can now compete.
What if further study does show that Pistorius can run faster because his artificial Cheetah blades work better than legs? Should he or others be kept out of competitions involving able-bodied persons?
Woof!
You couldn't make a story like this up. Lou Hawthorne, the guy who was previously involved with an operation called Genetic Savings and Clone (that's him on the right with cloned dogs), teams up with Hwang Wook Suk -- the central figure in one of modern science's epic frauds -- to auction off dog cloning services. The opening bid is $100,000. And they're calling the operation Best Friends Again. It almost sounds like the plot to a Charlie Kaufman film.
And the funny thing about all this (OK, one of the funny things) is that Snuppy, the cloned dog, was just about the only thing that Hwang didn't lie about.
Of course, even if you can clone your pup, that doesn't mean you're getting him back, as Art Caplan highlighted today for Bloomberg:
"People believe they're going to get their pet back through cloning, but the new cloned dog won't know the old pet's tricks ... It's a false promise to say you can get your pet back."
Others are saying that there's more at stake than dissatisified pet owners. Groups such as the Center for Genetics and Society are warning this could open the way for human cloning. Said CGS's Marcy Darnovsky in a press release, "Many people consider pets to be part of our families. If we get used to cute cloned puppies, will some people expect cute cloned babies next?"
-Greg Dahlmann
photo: Best Friends Again
NIH recognizes undiagnosed diseases
By Ricki Lewis
If TV’s Dr. House, diagnostician extraordinaire, is ever truly stumped, he can refer his patient to the National Institutes of Health’s new "Undiagnosed Diseases Program."
Health care providers will refer patients whose symptoms do not fit any known pattern, and the agency will invite some of them for a work-up at the NIH’s Clinical Center in Bethesda. After examinations by dozens of medical specialists, patients might be enrolled in one of the existing 1,500 ongoing clinical trials or perhaps inspire a new investigation. In addition to attempting to diagnose the undiagnosable, the program will also identify subtypes of more common illnesses, leading to a “catalog of descriptions of conditions – a phenotype atlas that will provide new information for textbook diagnoses,” said William A. Gahl, MD, PhD clinical director at the National Human Genome Research Institute, who was one of a panel of speakers at a telephone news conference today announcing the program.
Amanda Young, a 26-year-old from Georgia, represented the type of patient who might take advantage of the new program. “I had horrible infections, and no one knew how to stop them. All they knew was that I had a low white blood cell count. By age 3 1/2 I’d had meningitis 3 times, seizures, and an abscess on my abdomen the size of a cantaloupe.” At age 8, a scratch on a leg turned into a raging infection, and gas gangrene led to amputation up to the hip. At age 9, she went to the NIH, and on May 13, 2003, her disease finally received a name: IRAK4 deficiency. She inherited a mutation from each parent, profoundly impairing her innate immunity.
The Undiagnosed Diseases Program anticipates 1-2 referrals a week for the first year, and hopefully many of them will hear “magic words” like Amanda Young did – a name for their diseases. More importantly will be the explanations that the names symbolize. For example, IRAK4 is an enzyme that participates in the Toll-like receptor pathway – discovered in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.
As a former Drosophila geneticist, I was thrilled at the reference during the NIH phone conference to my old six-legged friends. I worked with homeotic mutants – flies that had legs in place of their antennae and mouthparts (that's a picture of one on the right). One reason that I left science for journalism was my oh-so-wrong feeling that flies with mixed up body parts mattered only to other flies. Months after I got my PhD, others in my lab discovered the homeobox – the genetic instructions for where organs end up in the embryo. Homeoboxes would eventually be found everywhere in the living world, from chickens to trees. And over the years, the mutations I’d worked with turned up behind a host of human diseases, from cancers, to birth defects, to curiously fused toes.
NIH’s Undiagnosed Diseases Program is a boon to desperately sick people, a fitting celebration of the 25 year anniversary of the Orphan Drug Act, and at the same time a vindication of basic research.
Lewis, R. Confessions of an ex-fly pusher. The Scientist 14(9):10, 2000.
Ricki Lewis is the author of the novel Stem Cell Symphony and the textbook Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications, now in its 8th edition. She is a fellow of the Alden March Bioethics Institute.
Gordon Brown on animal-human embryos
The UK's parliament is continuing to move forward on the country's Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill. In a piece this past weekend in The Observer, the British PM argued for a legal framework that would allow for the creation of animal-human embryos:
Embryonic stem cell research has always been controversial and I respect the views of all those with religious convictions which they see as precluding this type of research. But I also see the profound opportunity we have to save and transform millions of lives through this strand of medicine.
That is why we have - patiently and with full regard for religious concerns - sought to introduce clear laws which permit the use of stem cells within a clear, managed, legal framework, subject to the strictest supervision.
And there is one major and controversial issue we must confront head on if we are to make further progress. Around the world, researchers now face a severe shortage of embryonic stem cells.
They argue that the safest way to maintain progress is to make use of animal eggs from which the animal genetic material is almost entirely removed, then a human cell nucleus added, to make them compatible for research on human diseases.
If these 'human admixed embryos' survive for a few days, stem cells may be collected from them and grown in culture. The embryos are then destroyed.
By permitting the use of this technique, we may be able to bring to an end the critical limiting factor in stem cell research: the lack of human eggs from which to create embryos and collect stem cells.
Right now, teams of scientists in London and Newcastle are researching conditions such as Alzheimer's using this technique, but they face uncertainty because there is no clear legal framework to govern their work.
Our bill will provide such a framework to support the research but within clear boundaries.
Admixed embryos will be allowed only where they are used for clear scientific purposes and it will be illegal to keep them for longer than 14 days. It will also be illegal to implant them into women or into any animals.
Let me be clear: if we want to sustain stem cell research and bring new cures and treatments to millions of people, I believe admixed embryos are necessary. The question for me is not whether they should exist, but how their use should be controlled.
On Monday, the House of Commons voted down an amendment that would have banned the creation of these embryos.
-Greg Dahlmann
Earlier on blog.bioethics.net:
+ The UK's debate on, well, almost everything
+ UK approves human-animal embryos
The 5 most popular Bioethics News stories from the week of May 5
Here are the most popular Bioethics News items from last week based on average clicks per day:
1. First human embryonic stem cell trial delayed
(San Jose Mercury News) Geron says it's awaiting word about why the FDA held up the trial. The company is looking to test a potential treatment for spinal cord injuries.
2. Selecting viable embryos
(BBC) Researchers report in the journal Human Reproduction that they've identified a genetic profile that indicates an embryo is likely to result in a successful pregnancy. They say the development could end the practice of implanting multiple embryos for IVF.
3. HIV-positive man gets 35 years for spitting
(Dallas Morning News) The man was convicted of spitting into the eyes and open mouth of a police officer. The jury found that the man had used his saliva as a deadly weapon.
4. Amputee sprinter's attempt for Olympics gets OK
(New York Times) An international panel has ruled the Oscar Pistorious, a double amputee, should be allowed to compete for a sport at the games. A previous ruling had concluded that Pistorious' prosthetics had given him an unfair advantage.
5. Stent ads criticized
(New York Times) Cardiologists writing in NEJM criticized TV ads for the J&J's Cypher stent because they say the spots didn't adequately inform consumers of the risks involved with the devices. The article also questions whether such high-risk procedures should be marketed to consumers at all.
The top five stories from two weeks ago.
"Victimless" leather, and yet, there's still regret
Here's something you don't see every day -- or, you know, ever: a living coat made out of mouse stem cells. Yep, really.
The coat was part an exhibition at MoMA called Design and the Elastic Mind. Here's how the piece is described on MoMA's site:
A small-scale prototype of a “leather” jacket grown in vitro, Victimless Leather is a living layer supported by a biodegradable polymer matrix shaped like a miniature coat, offering the possibility of wearing leather without directly killing an animal. Catts and Zurr believe that “biotechnological research occurs within a particular social and political system, which will inevitably focus on manipulating nature for profit and economic gain.” They argue that if the things we surround ourselves with every day can be both manufactured and living, growing entities, “we will begin to take a more responsible attitude toward our environment and curb our destructive consumerism.”
But wait,it gets stranger -- and more interesting. Recently, the coat had to be killed -- or turned off or... something -- because its growth was out of control. And an arm fell off. From a story in NYT:
Though she has said “I felt cruel when I turned it off,” Ms. Antonelli [the exhibit's senior curator] said in the more recent interview that it was, essentially, a simple decision tinged with a bit of regret. “It was the only piece in the show that was alive,” she said. “It really was an amazing piece.”
Oron Catts, director of SymbioticA [the creator], said in an e-mail interview that he “particularly liked what happened at the MoMA,” with its slightly Frankensteinian sensibility of “life growing out of control.” The need to shut the exhibit fit in with the group’s overarching goal “to present the end of our projects in ways that remind people that these works are/were alive and that we have a responsibility towards the living systems that we engage in manipulating,” he wrote. Besides, he added, “the piece was able to regain some of its irony that was lost” when it was put in the context of what he characterized as an “optimistic design show.”
(via)
-Greg Dahlmann
photo: Ionat Zurr
Neural Buddhism?
David Brooks has been reading up on neuroscience:
The atheism debate is a textbook example of how a scientific revolution can change public culture. Just as “The Origin of Species reshaped social thinking, just as Einstein’s theory of relativity affected art, so the revolution in neuroscience is having an effect on how people see the world.
And yet my guess is that the atheism debate is going to be a sideshow. The cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it’s going to end up challenging faith in the Bible.
Over the past several years, the momentum has shifted away from hard-core materialism. The brain seems less like a cold machine. It does not operate like a computer. Instead, meaning, belief and consciousness seem to emerge mysteriously from idiosyncratic networks of neural firings. Those squishy things called emotions play a gigantic role in all forms of thinking. Love is vital to brain development.
Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.
Scientists have more respect for elevated spiritual states. Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that transcendent experiences can actually be identified and measured in the brain (people experience a decrease in activity in the parietal lobe, which orients us in space). The mind seems to have the ability to transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that feels more real.
This new wave of research will not seep into the public realm in the form of militant atheism. Instead it will lead to what you might call neural Buddhism.
...
In unexpected ways, science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other. That’s bound to lead to new movements that emphasize self-transcendence but put little stock in divine law or revelation. Orthodox believers are going to have to defend particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings. They’re going to have to defend the idea of a personal God, and explain why specific theologies are true guides for behavior day to day. I’m not qualified to take sides, believe me. I’m just trying to anticipate which way the debate is headed. We’re in the middle of a scientific revolution. It’s going to have big cultural effects.
Earlier on blog.bioethics.net:
+ David Brooks is ready for his outboard brain
-Greg Dahlmann
The 5 most popular Bioethics News stories from the week of May 5
Here are the most popular Bioethics News items from last week based on average clicks per day:
1. Rapid organ recovery
(USA Today) New York City has a plan to equip ambulance crews to prep bodies for organ harvest -- before receiving consent from families. No organs would actually be removed without consent.
(This story ran away with the number one ranking last week. The #2 story wasn't even close in popularity.)
2. Major city hospitals lack surge capacity
(USA Today) A House committee investigation reports that trauma centers in seven studied cities don't have the capacity to handle the influx of patients from a terrorist attack. The chair of the committee called the report "truly alarming."
3. Health care costs starting to squeeze the insured
(NYT) With incomes stagnating and costs rising, more people are having trouble paying premiums and co-pays.
4. California awards $271 million for stem cell research
(NYT) It's the biggest disbursement to date of money from the state's $3 billion stem cell research fund. The money will go toward building 12 research centers around the state.
5. When does adulthood start?
(Washington Post) Neuroscience, including brain imaging, is becoming part of the legal discussion about whether young adults who commit crimes should be subject to laws for full adults.
The top five stories from two weeks ago.
Blood Matters
In NYT this weekend, Jennifer Senior reviewed Masha Gessen's Blood Matters: From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene this weekend:
... While it was Gessen’s misfortune to have inherited her mother’s cruel mutation [BRCA1], it was her good luck — and ours — that she also inherited her mother’s storytelling grace and critical dexterity (Yolka Gessen was a writer and a translator). “Blood Matters” is valuable reading to almost anyone facing a huge health decision, not only for the literary commiseration it offers, but also for the inspired example of medical sleuthing on one’s own behalf that it provides. Gessen keeps an inflammatory topic at room temperature, writing elegantly and without self-pity. The book is very funny in places. (My favorite sentence, for reasons I can’t quite describe: “DNA-testing equipment tends to fall into two categories: things that look like printers and things that look like toasters.”) It’s also very lucid, even when the science gets complex. It’s a liberating book. Strange as it sounds, it would make a great Mother’s Day present.
Given the relative odds, one would think Gessen’s genetic counselors would have advised a pre-emptive mastectomy rather than an oophorectomy, or removal of the ovaries. To her surprise, they recommended an oophorectomy. One can understand their logic: breast cancer is easier to detect and survive; removing the ovaries reduces the risk of breast cancer; and most women can’t even countenance the idea of parting with their breasts. But Gessen balked, well aware of the studies associating surgical menopause with cognitive troubles and depression, to say nothing of osteoporosis, high blood pressure and heart disease. “I politely suggested I could just shoot myself tomorrow: That would prevent my death from cancer with a 100 percent probability,” she writes. “The joke remained suspended in the thin air between us and the counselors, and with it, our disengagement from one another was complete.”
And that question I had last week about what you call the state of potential disease? According to Gessen's book, the word used in the community of women with BRCA1 is "previvor." Gessen herself calls it being in the "cancer caste."
-Greg Dahlmann
UPDATE: Be sure to check out Larry McCullough's comment about terms such as "previvor."
Art Caplan on med schools and industry freebies
Over at MSNBC, Art writes that a recent recommendation for medical schools to ban free stuff from industry is on target:
The American Association of Medical Colleges recently released a long-awaited report recommending that pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers knock off their efforts to bribe medical students and faculty. The Association said in no uncertain terms: No more freebies. That means no more doling out free lunches, tickets, trips, pens, binders, flashdrives, bookbags, free samples and other trinkets in classrooms, offices, exam rooms and reception areas of medical schools.
What led the leaders of the schools that train American doctors to pull the plug on the free flow of chachkes, baubles and doughnuts to medical students and their teachers? The report says that the steady marketing of drugs using freebies raises questions about the “objectivity and integrity of academic teaching, learning and practice.” In other words, if you let young, well-coifed drug company representatives run around your school in short skirts or snazzy suits doling out gifts, it conveys a very bad image — that a school is an appropriate place to do marketing.
Worse still, making your medical school a drug company free-fire zone conveys the impression that the faculty believe there is a lot to learn from slanted drug company sales pitches. And worst of all, when the welcome mat is out for drug reps bearing small gifts, this says that the faculty believe the best way to educate the next generation of doctors about drug safety and efficacy is to make sure students remember a drug’s name by having it thrown in their faces 10 times a day on every pen, notepad, vase, clock, key ring, calculator and coffee mug that a pharmaceutical company’s marketing department can have their legions of salespeople lug into the hospital.
I think a ban makes good ethical sense. I am proud to say that my medical school and its teaching hospitals were the first in the country to boot the drug reps and freebie peddlers off campus.
But the policy of banning marketing in medical schools has drawn some predictable criticism.
10 Reasons to Sequence the Platypus Genome
By Ricki Lewis
Move over Craig Venter and James Watson, the latest celebrity to have her genome sequenced is Glennie, a member of Ornithorhynchus anatinus. She hails from New South Wales, Australia.
When the planners of the human genome project set aside funds for sequencing the genomes of others, I was glad that the enigmatic platypus made the list. Occupying a key branchpoint on the evolutionary tree, the platypus is a hodgepodge of parts borrowed from birds and reptiles, and echoed in the vastly more numerous placental mammals. The curious web-footed and furry, egg-laying and lactating beasts diverged from the most recent shared ancestor of all mammals about 166 million years ago, heading in a different direction from its pouched and placental brethren. The reports on the platypus genome are published in Nature and Genome Research.
Why sequence the platypus genome? Let me count the ways.
Are you diseased? Pre-diseased? Potentially diseased?
Today's Science Times included an interesting story about work toward classifying diseases by their genetic underpinnings. There are bunch of interesting angles to this idea, but one in particular stood out for me: as we gain greater insight into the nature of disease, our concept of what it means to be "sick" changes. From Andrew Pollack's piece:
The shift from symptoms to anatomical measurements had big implications for patients, said Dr. Duffin, who is also a hematologist.
“Up until the 18th century, you had to feel sick to be sick,” she said. But now people can be considered sick based on measurements like high blood pressure without feeling ill at all.
Indeed, Dr. Duffin said, people who feel sick nowadays “don’t get to have a disease unless the doctor can find something” and instead might be told that it’s all in their head. Doctors argue, for instance, about whether fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, which have no obvious anatomical causes, are really diseases.
Genes might allow the study of diseases at a finer level than even physiological tests. Genes are the instructions for the production of proteins, which interact in complex ways to carry out functions in the body. Disruptions in these molecular pathways can cause disease.
“It gives you a direct connection to what the root causes are,” said Dr. David Altshuler, a professor of medicine and genetics at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital, and a researcher at the Broad Institute. “That is different from listening to a stethoscope.”
The 5 (OK, 6) most popular Bioethics News stories from the week of April 28
Here are the most popular Bioethics News items from last week based on average clicks per day:
1. House passes GINA
(NYT) The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act passed on a 414-1 vote. President Bush has said he would sign the bill.
2. Praying parents charged
(AP) The parents of a Wisconsin child who prayed while the child died from diabetic complications have been charged with reckless homicide. The parents regarded their daughter's condition as "a test of faith" and a "spiritual attack."
3. Med college group: no more industry gifts
(NYT) The Association of American Medical Colleges has proposed banning free food, gifts, travel and ghost-writing from drug and device makers.
4. More details on McCain's health plan
(NYT) The presidential candidate's plan would try to shift the basis of coverage from employers to individuals. McCain has also called for the federal government to assure that coverage will be available for people who have been turned down.
5. Marrying for health care (tie)
(LA Times) A survey sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that seven percent of Americans said they or someone in their household got married for healthcare benefits last year.
5. iPS cells used to create heart cells in mice (tie)
(Reuters) Researchers from UCLA report in the journal Stem Cell Express that they got mouse iPS cells to differentiate into two types of heart cells as well as hematopoietic cells.
The top five stories from two weeks ago.
Surrogacy without drama
When surrogacy comes up in the media, it's usually within the context of a story about celebrities, outsourced wombs, court cases or comedy. But this past weekend, the Washington Post had the story of a surrogacy gone absolutely, positively... normal. From Brigid Schulte's piece:
Fourteen years ago, Kovacic, a married, middle-class mother of three, signed a $15,000 contract with Carol Van Cleef and Doug Thompson, now of McLean, to carry the embryo that their sperm and egg had created in a petri dish. On her 35th birthday, Kovacic gave birth to Jamie. The two families, without a second thought or a hint of awkwardness, have celebrated together every year since.
In technical terms, Kovacic was a "gestational carrier" for Carol and Doug, the "intended parents." Kovacic, 49, short and easygoing with an impish sense of humor, and Van Cleef, 52, a tall, willowy, self-described type-A partner in a major law firm, couldn't be more different. But theirs is an intimate bond of flesh and bone, forged in science and the ancient yearning for a child that society has yet to find the words to describe, much less understand.
Kovacic, who lives in Herndon, brought two of her own daughters to the birthday dinner. The girls gushed about movies and bands and teased Jamie's 17-year-old brother, Peter. Jamie, sitting between Kovacic and Van Cleef, mentioned that she would be singing soprano in her upcoming chorus concert.
Kovacic looked at Van Cleef and raised an eyebrow. "I know she didn't get that from either one of us, did she?"
Kovacic has been Jamie's "special friend" at preschool. She has attended her graduations, school performances and confirmation. She babysat for her as a child. But the one thing she clearly isn't is Jamie's mother.
One interesting fact from this piece: surrogate births account for less than one percent of all births from reproductive technologies.
-Greg Dahlmann
Toward test tube meat
PETA recently announced it would award $1 million to the first person who develops commercially viable in vitro chicken meat during the next four years. They've set the bar pretty high -- the meat has to have "a taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh to non-meat-eaters and meat-eaters alike."
So, what's the likelihood of that happening? In the near future, not too good, according to Time:
In theory, this seems like an excellent idea, with the potential to ease the burden on the environment from meat production, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve human health. In practice, however, the chances of anyone actually winning the prize seem slim. "No one has yet produced [in vitro meat]. No one has succeeded in coming close," says Dr. Stig Omholt, director of Norway's Centre for Integrative Genetics and chair of the In Vitro Meat Consortium, which held its first symposium this month. Still, Omholt says, "it seems possible to develop this technology."
If such a product is created, it would raise some interesting questions.
Bioethics and pop culture watch
Two recent items that probably don't mean a whole lot, but might be interesting in a bioethics-in-pop-culture kind of way:
+ Oprah's interview with the pregnant transsexual man scored big ratings.
+ And Tina Fey's surrogacy comedy Baby Mama easily topped the box office last weekend, delivering (!) more than $18 million.
-Greg Dahlmann