Blog Comments

Kinetica Online is pleased to provide direct links to commentaries from our senior editor Dr. Steven Pelech has posted on other blogs sites. Most of these comments appear on the GenomeWeb Daily Scan website, which in turn highlight interesting blogs that have been posted at numerous sites in the blogosphere since the beginning of 2010. A wide variety of topical subjects are covered ranging from the latest scientific breakthroughs, research trends, politics and career advice. The original blogs and Dr. Pelech’s comments are summarized here under the title of the original blog. Should viewers wish to add to these discussions, they should add their comments at the original blog sites.

The views expressed by Dr. Pelech do not necessarily reflect those of the other management and staff at Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation. However, we wish to encourage healthy debate that might spur improvements in how biomedical research is supported and conducted.

Transgenics

It's Not a Pet

Rebecca Boyle in Popular Science suggested that personalized mouse models might eventually be used for testing the effectiveness of drugs. The mice are implanted with tissue (e.g. tumours or blood cells) from the patient that can mimic their biology and then are used to pre-test drugs or treatments to see if they will potentially work in the patient. S. Pelech comments that immune compromised mice have also long been used for cultivation of human tumours from transplanted cancer cells, but the identification of the driver cancer mutations in the sequenced genome from the tumour of a patient is itself a very challenging task. Due to the acquisition of new mutations in growing tumours from defects in DNA repair proteins, the genetic profiles of descendant tumours in the mice could actually be quite diverse and respond differently to even the same drugs. Ultimately, an entire customized research program would be required to deliver personalized medicine as proposed by Ms. Boyle. Read More...