NIH makes privacy agreement with Henrietta Lacks' family. Relatives of unknowing cell-donor Henrietta Lacks, the subject of the best seller The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, now being made into a movie by Oprah Winfrey, have forged a historic privacy agreement with federal researchers over genetics studies based on her now-famous cancer cells. The "HeLa" cancer cells grown from tissues taken from Lacks in 1951, the year she died of cervical cancer, were the first to survive to be "immortalized" in test tubes. Their use has become widespread in laboratories, the subject of some 74,000 cancer studies. They have also become the center of recent debates over genetic privacy in the era of gene maps, after a German research team published the gene map, or genome, of the cells in March.
The publication sparked a protest by the family and by Immortal Life author Rebecca Skloot over the invasion of genetic privacy. That led the German team to quickly withdraw the genome from public view. Recruitments bolster personalized medicine initiative. By Nancy Humphrey | Posted on Thursday, Mar. 14, 2013 — 9:20 AM VUMC’s personalized medicine effort is getting a major boost with the recruitment of two physician-scientists from Australia who will increase Vanderbilt’s strength in translational immunology, the translation of basic immunological discoveries into clinically useful tools. Simon Mallal, MBBS Simon Mallal, MBBS, and Elizabeth Phillips, M.D., will join the faculty on May 1 and July 1, respectively. They will maintain partial appointments at the research-intensive Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, where they are currently located. The couple are best known for having discovered the association between a genetic test (HLA-B*5701) and a life-threatening drug allergy to the anti-retroviral HIV drug abacavir in 2002.
Elizabeth Phillips, M.D. Mallal will also serve as associate director for Immunogenetics within the newly established Vanderbilt Technologies for Advanced Genomics (VANTAGE) core. Personalized cancer care highlighted at IOM meeting (04/26. Fair Nashville, TN Taking part in Monday’s regional meeting of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) were, from left, Jeff Balser, M.D., Ph.D., Harvey Fineberg, M.D., Ph.D., Harold (Hal) Moses, M.D., and William Pao, M.D., Ph.D. (photo by Anne Rayner) 4/26/2012 - A recent explosion in technological advances has created a new field known as translational “omics” that allows the measurement of molecules within a tissue or cell — genomics investigates DNA and proteomics examines proteins.
These new omics-based tests may be used to guide patient therapy in the future. Such omics-based tests are much more complex than in the past, because they are composed or derived from multiple molecular measurements and interpreted by a fully specified computational model to produce a result which can be used for patients in the clinic. Fineberg discussed the importance of “proceeding sensibly, safely and effectively in translating genomic knowledge into clinical trials.” Genomics as a Final Frontier, or Just a Way Station. VU study applies random genotype sets to new disease (01/6. Mostly Cloudy Nashville, TN 1/06/2012 - A new study in the American Journal of Human Genetics, led by Vanderbilt researchers Josh Denny, M.D., M.S., and Dana Crawford, Ph.D., takes random volumes of human genotypes and matches them with data siphoned from de-identified medical records and sheds new light on the genetic basis of the common disease hypothyroidism.
In a research lab, one thing more satisfying than a new discovery is a new discovery that inaugurates promising new research methodologies. Among this study’s other innovations, it’s the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) that reuses existing genotypes and clinical information from electronic medical records to study a new disease. Josh Denny, M.D., M.S. “Our premise was, let’s see if we can basically do a ‘no genotyping’ GWAS,” Denny said. “Can we use what’s already on the shelf, pick another disease, and analyze it within those samples?” My Health Chat - Personalized Cancer Treatment. My Health Chat - Personalized Cancer Treatment.
For Patients - My Health Chat. Project seeks to apply gene testing to drug prescribing (11/10. Partly Cloudy Nashville, TN 11/10/2011 - Your genetic make-up decides much more than your height or hair color. It can determine how you respond to the medication your doctor prescribes, or whether you will have a serious side effect. As the list of known gene-drug interactions continues to grow, scanning a patient’s genome, or body of genetic material, for variations that affect drug response may soon become a prescribing prerequisite.
This field is known as pharmacogenomics. Few doctors, however, can access the kind of genomic testing services that could help them determine which drug is the best “fit” for their patients. Even if they did, raw genetic data is not particularly helpful. To meet this challenge, the U.S. Vanderbilt already is pioneering this area. Josh Peterson, M.D., MPH Michael Laposata, M.D., Ph.D. The CDC grant is designed to take this program to the next level. “We recognize that in the scheme of human health, genomics is just one piece of the puzzle,” Pulley said. Statins included in next phase of PREDICT initiative (10/13. Mostly Cloudy Nashville, TN 10/13/2011 - Simvastatin, the generic form of the statin Zocor, is one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the United States.
The drug is effective in reducing LDL-cholesterol levels and lowering the risk for heart attacks and strokes. However, growing evidence indicates that at a dose of 80 milligrams a day, about 2 percent of patients will experience severe muscle toxicity – muscle aches accompanied by biochemical evidence of muscle damage. The risk for developing this complication, which in extreme cases can cause kidney damage and even death, is increased when patients carry a single genetic variation. “If you have two copies of the SLC01B1 gene, you’re at an almost 20-fold increased risk of muscle toxicity,” says Dan Roden, M.D., assistant vice chancellor for Personalized Medicine and the William Stokes Professor of Experimental Therapeutics.
Dan Roden, M.D. Russell Wilke, M.D. Not every side effect can be avoided, of course. Breast cancer added to VICC gene test arsenal (06/30. Cloudy Nashville, TN Carlos Arteaga, M.D. Breast cancer patients at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center can now have their tumor tissue tested for gene mutations that are important for treatment decisions. Information from genetic tests in the tumors will be used to match patients to the best cancer therapies available, including drugs that are in early clinical trial testing. Tumor mutation testing for breast cancer is the newest addition to VICC’s Personalized Cancer Medicine Initiative (PCMI), which was unveiled in the summer of 2010. The PCMI program started with routine mutation screening for all lung cancer and melanoma patients, with plans to include other forms of cancer as new scientific information and targeted therapies become available.
Research spearheaded by Carlos Arteaga, M.D., professor of Medicine and Cancer Biology and director of the Vanderbilt Breast Cancer Program, led to the new breast cancer testing initiative. William Pao, M.D., Ph.D. Lecturers explore impact of genomics on race perceptions (05/12. Cloudy Nashville, TN Gary Gibbons, M.D., of Morehouse School of Medicine, gave this year’s Dolores C. Shockley Lecture. (photo by Mary Donaldson) 5/12/2011 - Will revelations of the human genome finally extinguish the foul ember of racism, or will they ignite an even more insidious prejudice? That question was at the heart of two very different conversations at Vanderbilt University last week. On Thursday, May 5, Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman, Ph.D., began her Discovery Lecture, "The Meaning of Race in the Post-Genome Era," by recounting how science has been used to justify racism and other forms of discrimination.
Even though we now know that “at the level of the genome, we're 99.9 percent identical to one another,” said Tilghman, a pioneer in the field of mammalian genetics, “… what I worry most about are the unintended consequences” of research. These “epigenetic” changes are not racial destiny. Gibbons gave the 2011 Dolores C. For Patients - Your Genome and the Future of Medicine. New drug discovery center focuses on brain disorders (03/10. Partly Cloudy Nashville, TN Members of the new Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery include, from left, J.
Scott Daniels, Ph.D., Carrie Jones, Ph.D., Craig Lindsley, Ph.D., P. Jeffrey Conn, Ph.D., and Colleen Niswender, Ph.D. (photo by Dana Thomas) 3/10/2011 - Vanderbilt University Medical Center has established a new Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery to accelerate research that may lead to new treatments for Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia and other disorders of the brain. The center will incorporate and build on the successes of the Vanderbilt Program in Drug Discovery, established in 2003 by P. Conn will co-direct the new center with Craig Lindsley, Ph.D., professor of Pharmacology and Chemistry, and principal investigator of the Specialized Chemistry Center for Accelerated Probe Development. Conn will lead the pharmacology and neuroscience efforts at the center, while Lindsley will continue to direct the medicinal chemistry group. • J.