Just before his appointment as head of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Francis Collins, the most prominent medical geneticist of our time, had his own genome scanned for disease susceptibility genes. He had decided, so he said, that the technology of personalised genomics was finally mature enough to yield meaningful results.
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The AquaBounty Salmon: Will the World’s First Commercial GE Animal Be an Albatross?
Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson (Photo Credit: Yodod) Is it unrealistic to expect the scientific approval process for the world’s first commercial genetically engineered (GE) animal, the AquAdvantage salmon, to be rigorous and complete? Or …
Continue readingValuing Folk Crop Varieties for Agroecology and Food Security
Dr Debal Deb, Founder-Chair, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies, India (Photo Credit: D. Deb) On May 25, 2009, Hurricane Aila hit the deltaic islands of the Sunderban of West Bengal. The estuarine water surged and destroyed …
Continue readingEuropean Community Law and Nanotechnology: A Risky Business?
Naomi Salmon, Department of Law and Criminology, Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK Following hot on the heels of the ‘Biotechnology Revolution’, the ‘Nanotechnology Revolution’ is now gathering steam. After twenty or so years of basic and …
Continue readingThe Real Burning Question: Are Liquid Fuels the best use of Non-Woody Biomass?
David Malakoff, Science Writer (Photo Credit: PortWorks) If Roger Samson had a coat of arms, it might be a flickering flame encircled by a wreath of grass. For decades now, the Canadian agriculture expert has …
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