Words about science and hiking
I’ve made this argument before (see here and here and here) and so it is gratifying (as always) to see someone else make the same argument albeit with a different emphasis. A SciAm blog post by Kevin Mitchell (Is Our Future Really Written in Our Genes?) attacks the fallacy of genetic determinism by pointing out Read More …
NB – this question was first posted on Quora in 2010 The fact that this question is as relevant in 2019 as it was in 2010 tells us something, does it not? I think we can throw out the “we just need more time” plea. Francis Collins, leader of the human genome initiative and now Read More …
I’m always gratified to see my prejudices confirmed by people who are smarter and more knowledgeable than me. So a devastating critique of genomics and personalized medicine is the intellectual equivalent of having your dog stare soulfully into your eyes (while you are holding a treat). It’s just irresistible. The paper in question, by Michael Read More …
A new and exhaustive genome-wide association study for colorectal cancer has been published. This work is likely to be the definitive atlas of gene variants contributing to CRC risk: whole genomes were sequenced for 1400 cancer cases and compared to 720 controls. The results were mixed in with previous studies to improve statistical powering – Read More …
I’m always glad whenever I see a microbiology theme breach the moat of the NYT and make it on to their opinion page. But I usually end up disappointed once I actually read it. That’s the case with this call to biobank the world’s human gut microbiome. It’s far from the worst idea published this Read More …
Disclosure up front: I helped found SomaLogic and was its first R&D director. I left the company in 2004, but exercised my options and still hold its stock. I am definitely not neutral about the value of proteomics as a diagnostic and prognostic platform. Last Sunday’s NYT magazine had a pretty good article about the Read More …
I love genetics. Among the many disciplines of biology, it is perhaps the most elegant – that is, it explains much with just a few simple principles. The genetics class I took at UCSC so entranced me that I gave up all ambition to study psychology or be a writer, and became a molecular biologist Read More …
One of the knocks against phage therapy – and I’ve said this myself – is that phage are intrinsically narrow-spectrum agents. Not only do phage typically infect only one species of bacteria, they often don’t even do that. Usually their host range is restricted to a set of strains within a species. The result of Read More …
In science – especially biology – what you find is often no more important than where you look. The oncogene paradigm of cancer genesis – that mutations to key genes cause cells to become cancerous – has reigned supreme for several decades now. It is a driving factor in the whole notion of personalized medicine, Read More …
Another paper about another phage protein isn’t usually cause for notice. There are lots of phage, and they have lots of proteins, and figuring out what they all do could occupy the efforts of scientists for several millennia. Which is precisely my point. What’s sometimes lost in all the excitement about genomics is that it Read More …