Kristen V. Brown

ScienceBiology

How a Legal Brawl Between Two Rich Guys Could Change How We Think About DNA

It was the kind of lawsuit that would only happen in Florida. Toronto businessman Harold Peerenboom and Marvel Entertainment chairman Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter were locked in an absurd suburban skirmish, bickering over who should run the tennis center at Sloan’s Curve, the exclusive Palm Beach waterfront community where both men resided. Peerenboom wanted to open … Continued

ScienceBiology

I Tried a DNA-Optimized Skincare Routine—and I Was Allergic to It

The pitch was a skincare routine designed especially for me, genetically optimized to give me the skin I was “born to have.” The reality was decidedly more itchy, flaky, and red. I may be a woman of science (or at least science journalism), but that has not always stopped me from falling pray to the … Continued

ScienceBiology

Genealogy Tourism Is Booming as Americans Search for Identity in DNA and Abroad

Liza Lizarraga has spent hours combing through paper and digital archives to track her family’s history the old-fashioned way, and she has spit in a test tube to find out what morsels of her family’s history might be revealed by her DNA. In September, though, Lizarraga will walk the same path as her ancestors when … Continued

ScienceBiology

I DNA Tested My Cat and She Was Not Happy About It

I was crawling around on the floor, chasing my cat, Avalanche, as she artfully wriggled away from me over and over again to gnaw at the piece of tape I had stuck to her gray and white fur. Avalanche had unwittingly become a victim of journalistic inquiry: I wanted to explore the latest fad in … Continued

ScienceBiology

Report: A DNA Testing Company Could Not Tell the Difference Between Human and Dog DNA

Dog may be man’s best friend, and even genetically similar to humans, to boot, but there are enough key differences that it shouldn’t be too hard to distinguish between human and doggie DNA. And yet, an investigation into home DNA testing kits by NBC Chicago found that at least one DNA testing company could not … Continued

ScienceBiology

Report: Police Forced a DNA Testing Company to Share a Customer’s Identity in the Golden State Killer Case

When investigators revealed last week that a genealogy website had played a major role in catching alleged Golden State Killer Joseph James DeAngelo, a 72-year-old former police officer, some people worried what that meant for DNA privacy. The Golden State Killer terrorized California in the 1970s and 1980s, killing at least a dozen people and raping … Continued

Tech News

I Spent a Weekend With Cyborgs, and Now I Have an RFID Implant I Have No Idea What to Do With

Jeffrey Tibbetts prepped for implantation and scrubbed in, methodically sudsing up to his elbows, scraping the dirt from under his fingernails and scouring his hands with a rough brush to render his body sterile before donning a pair of beige latex surgical gloves. Behind him, a twentysomething tea barista in a black baseball cap waited … Continued

ScienceBiology

What the Golden State Killer Case Reveals About Your Genetic Privacy

The identity of the Golden State Killer, a notorious serial killer who terrorized California in the 1970s and 1980s, evaded police for decades. The case went cold. Then, recently, investigators got a major break: A match for what seemed to be a close relative of the killer, uploaded onto a genealogy website. Investigators scoured the … Continued

ScienceBiology

Largest Study of Its Kind Identifies 44 Genetic Risk Factors for Depression

Depression is a tricky beast. Symptoms vary widely from person to person, as does the response to treatment. But there’s no question that genetic makeup plays an important role, and understanding the genetic architecture of depression could help us better understand how to treat it. A new study in the journal Nature Genetics has identified 44 … Continued

ScienceHealth

The Organization That Has Run America’s Organ Transplants for 32 Years Finally Has Competition

For more than three decades, the nonprofit United Network for Organ Sharing has run America’s organ transplant system, matching organs with those who need them thanks to a contract with the United States government. But critics have contended the UNOS, which raked in nearly $58 million in revenue in 2015, is inefficient and resistant to … Continued

ScienceBiology

How a Massive Effort to Sequence Genomes of 1.5 Million Species Could Help Preserve Life on Earth

In what will undoubtedly be the largest genomic sequencing effort of all time, an international consortium of researchers is organizing a massive effort to collect and sequence the DNA of Earth’s 1.5 million known eukaryotes, the domain of organisms that includes animals, plants, and fungi. It is a historically ambitious undertaking, akin to the Human … Continued

ScienceBiology

Forget the Double Helix—Scientists Discovered a New DNA Structure Inside Human Cells

Guided by the work of Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the the twisted-ladder structure of DNA in 1953, a finding that gave rise to the modern field of molecular biology. It was by understanding DNA’s double-helix form that science was able to begin unravelling the many mysteries of genetic code. The double … Continued

ScienceBiology

An FDA Panel Just Recommended an Epilepsy Drug Made from Cannabis

This year, the Food and Drug Administration is joining stoners the world over in celebrating 4/20. Just kidding. But on Thursday, an expert panel did unanimously recommend that the agency approve a new drug made from cannabis to treat two severe and rare forms of epilepsy. If approved, the drug, called Epidiolex and made by … Continued

ScienceBiology

This Gene-Editing Breakthrough Could Provide Hyper-Specific Cancer Diagnoses

Ever since researchers first discovered that bacterial immune systems could be hijacked to selectively change DNA in living creatures, CRISPR gene-editing technology has been limited by the boundaries of the cell wall. CRISPR allows scientists to cut and paste little bits of DNA, swapping out even single letters of DNA to correct disease-causing genetic mutations. … Continued

ScienceBiology

This Tattoo Only Becomes Visible When It Detects Early Signs of Disease

In the future, tattoos may no longer be mere decorative statements for the body, but useful biomedical devices that can alert us when something’s not quite right. In new research out of Switzerland, scientists have created a tattoo that becomes visible on the skin of mice only once it has detected elevated levels of calcium … Continued

ScienceBiology

Researchers Trying to Map Every Cell in the Human Body Release First Data Set

Science textbooks will tell you that the human body has just a couple hundred types of cells. But efforts to catalog all the cells in the human body suggest that number is a multiple many, many times larger. In 2017, an international consortium of scientists officially kicked off efforts to construct the Human Cell Atlas, … Continued

ScienceBiology

23andMe Is Working to Make DNA Data More Diverse

When you mail off a sample of your spit to find out about your ancestry, companies like 23andMe compare your DNA to other people around the world, seeing how closely your genes match the genes of people in, say, Norway, in order to deduce whether your ancestors might have been Norwegian, too. Since our earliest … Continued

ScienceBiology

Goldman Sachs Analysts Question Whether Curing Patients Is Good for Business

Recent advancements in science and medicine have put cures within reach for diseases that have long plagued humankind. In a recent report, though, Goldman Sachs analysts posed an uncomfortable question that quickly sparked criticism. “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” analysts asked in an April 10 report entitled “The Genome Revolution,” which CNBC first … Continued

ScienceBiology

Report: FDA Launches Investigation Into Research by Peter Thiel-Backed Herpes Vaccine Company

The Food and Drug Administration has launched a criminal investigation into an offshore herpes research trial that began with secret injections of an unauthorized herpes vaccine in US hotel rooms, according to a report by Kaiser Health News. The experimental herpes vaccine research, led by now-deceased Southern Illinois University professor William Halford, initially drew criticism … Continued

ScienceBiology

An Indian State Is Building a Massive, Blockchain-Based DNA Database

India’s eighth largest state is seeking to build a blockchain-based DNA database of all 50 million of its citizens. The government of Andhra Pradesh, or AP, announced a partnership to build the database with the German genomics and precision medicine company Shivom late last month. As with other recent efforts in places such as Dubai … Continued