Press releases

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• Cancer signatures uncovered
  
  
• Human brains pay a price for being big
  
  
• Guidelines to prevent genetic discrimination
  
  
• Gene-expression profiling of the effects of liver toxins
  
  
• Large-scale community protein annotation - WikiProteins
  
  
• Mapping of prostate cancer genes opens the door to new treatments
  
  
• Break it down: genome sequence of Podospora anserina reveals unsuspected ability to use complex carbon sources
  
  
• Supplements are not nutritious
  
  
• On the trail of rogue genetically modified pathogens
  
  
• Scientists unravel the genetic coding of the pea
  
  
• New gene prediction method capitalizes on multiple genomes
  
  
• Generating antibodies in high throughput
  
  
• Blind mice shed light on human sight loss
  
  
• Bar flies: fruit flies help unravel the genetics of alcohol sensitivity
  
  
• Decoding effects of toxins on embryo development
  
  
• Free shopping in a virtual bazaar of gene regulation data
  
  
• Umbilical cord gene expression signals premature babies' lung disease risk
  
  
• The molecular signature of loneliness
  
  
• Air pollution link to clogged arteries
  
  
• The sound of proteins
  
  
• 'Drunk' fruit flies could shed light on genetic basis of human alcohol abuse
  
  
• Predicting chemotherapy outcome
  
  
• New species from old data
  
  
• Fruit flies unlock Methuselah's secrets
  
  
• Comparisons of the new mouse genome sequence
  
  
• Making sense of the human genome: researchers characterize a crucial family of signaling proteins in the human genome
  
  
• Stanford researchers argue that there is indeed a biological base for race
  
  
• Genomic study breathes new life into asthma research
  
  
• Why does a worm need nearly as many genes as a man?
  
  
• Genomes on 'chips' boon to cancer research
  
  
• BioMed Central is pleased to announce the publication of Sydney Brenner's autobiography
  
  
• A genomic blueprint for a sense of smell
  
  
• Researchers to publish a third historic human genome article in Genome Biology this week
  
  
• Human Genome project leaves much of human variation unsampled
  
  
• Diagnosis on a chip - molecular profiling that could improve diagnosis and help design better drugs
  
  
• Gene "shaving" could help doctors predict the efficacy of cancer treatments
  
  
• Whither genomics?
  
  
• Current Science Group declares support for 'PubMed Central' historic development
  
  
• Science publishing - beginning of a revolution?
  
  

Guidelines to prevent genetic discrimination

A multi-disciplinary group from Stanford University (California, US) has proposed ten principles to guide the use of racial and ethnic categories in genetic research, as reported today in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology.

The guiding principles have been proposed to attempt to minimise the misinterpretation and misuse of human genetic variation research. The group included members of the humanities, social and life sciences, law and medical schools at Stanford University. It was led by Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, who explains why these principles are important: "Since the completion of the Human Genome Project, research focused on human genetic variation has intensified. This has rekindled debate about the connection between genetic traits and human 'racial' differences".

The principles include a declaration that the group does not believe that there is any scientific basis for hierarchically ordered categories of race or ethnicity and a recognition that racial and ethnic categories are created and maintained by socio-political contexts and change over time. The group cautions against "making the naïve leap to a genetic explanation for group differences in complex traits, especially for human behavioural traits such as IQ, tendency to violence or degrees of athleticism".

According to Lee "The gene remains a powerful icon in the public imagination and is often misunderstood as being deterministic and immutable. Furthermore, history reminds us that science may easily be used to justify racial stereotypes and racist policies".

The authors believe that their guiding principles constitute one step in an ongoing, open dialogue about these concerns and hope that they will encourage responsible practices.

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Article:

The ethics of characterizing difference: guiding principles on using racial categories in human genetics

Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, Joanna Mountain, Barbara Koenig, Russ Altman, Melissa Brown, Albert Camarillo, Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Mildred Cho, Jennifer Eberhardt, Marcus Feldman, Richard Ford, Henry Greely, Roy King, Hazel Markus, Debra Satz, Matthew Snipp, Claude Steele and Peter Underhill

Genome Biology 2008, 9:404.

http://genomebiology.com

Please quote the journal in any story you write, and link to the article if you are writing for the web.

For more information about this study, or about the journal, contact Graeme Baldwin by email at graeme.baldwin@biomedcentral.com or by phone on +44 (0) 20 7631 9980.

Please quote the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's Open Access policy.

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Genome Biology publishes articles from the full spectrum of biology. Subjects covered include any aspect of molecular, cellular, organismal or population biology studied from a genomic perspective, as well as genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, genomic methods (including structure prediction), computational biology, sequence analysis (including large-scale and cross-genome analyses), comparative biology and evolution. Genome Biology has an impact factor of 6.59.

BioMed Central, (http://www.biomedcentral.com) is an independent online publishing house committed to providing immediate access without charge to the peer-reviewed biological and medical research it publishes. This commitment is based on the view that open access to research is essential to the rapid and efficient communication of science.