Fruit fly to help unravel genetics of human diabetes
University of Maryland: Scientists are using the fruit fly to find the genes and gene pathways that lead to insulin resistance and diabetes in humans.
Phys Org: http://www.physorg.com/news176405410.html
Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (November 2, 2009)
Drought tolerant gene found
A mutation in the lab rat of the plant world may have important implications for establishing drought resistance in key food crops.
Australian National University: http://news.anu.edu.au/?p=1738
The researcher team is exploring the application of the mutation, via genetic engineering and molecular marker technologies, to food crops such as rice or wheat. The researchers will begin to introduce the mutant characteristics into the elite wheat cultivars currently used in agriculture industry.
Light sentence for ‘bad’ genes
An Italian court has cut the sentence given to a convicted murderer by a year because he has genes linked to violent behaviour. Is the decision based on sound science and what are the implications of this precedent when we really do understand how our genome influences behaviour?
Nature News reports that an Italian court has cut the sentence given to a convicted murderer by a year because genetic testing revealed he has genes linked to violent behaviour.
This is the first time that behavioural genetics has affected a sentence passed by a European court.
I am no lawyer, but I gather this form of genetic determinism sets a scary precedent, in Europe at least, and no doubt gives lawyers elsewhere ammunition to boost their client’s case. Scary, for many reasons, but mostly for the scientific one, which is that we simply don’t yet have the genetic knowledge to definitively say, your genes made you do it.
Criminal genes
The convicted dude (Abdelmalek Bayout) in question was found to have abnormalities in brain-imaging scans and in five genes that have been linked to violent behaviour, including the gene called MAOA (or metabolizing enzyme monoamine oxidase).
The psychological report given to the court concluded that Bayout’s genes would make him more prone to behaving violently if provoked. On this evidence, the judge knocked and extra year off the Bayout’s nine year sentence.
Knowledge deficit
Our problem, as pointed out in the Nature article, is that that these genes may well have an influence on our behaviour, but it is a generalised influence only. That is, on a population-wide survey you may find people with these specific genes are more likely to display violent behaviour, but there are too many unknown environmental and epigenetic factors that also affect the activity of these genes. Nor do we understand the affect of possible other protective genes on the activity of these ‘violent’ genes. So our ability to predict how these genes will work in an individual is vague, at best.
Pass the can opener
Up to now, efforts to use a one’s genetics as a defense in court have been unsuccessful although the Nature report says a few cases have influenced sentencing in the United States.
Hopefully sanity and sound science will prevail for now. What will even more intriguing, however, will be the legal implications when we actually do have a more profound understanding of the human genome and its influence on human behaviours. It would be nice to think I could explain away all my loutish, know-it-all and foolhardy behaviour during my teenage years as simply genetic.
On an only marginally more futuristic note, in workshops I conduct for secondary students and community groups on this topic, I have had serious suggestions from people that if we know the genes associated with criminal behaviour, could we not select against them or engineer them in some way to render them benign, thus making society safer? Technically we could, and could so do with technology existing today, though it is generally illegal. And here we open another can of worms.
The exponential pace at which this science is moving suggests the day we need to deal with all these issues won’t be too far away. In fact society should be debating the applications of these technologies now.
Scientific American has reprinted the Nature story, but there are a few interesting comments at the bottom:
Jason Major
Novel nano drug delivery can eliminate tumours
Duke University: Bioengineers have developed a nano-scale delivery vehicle that self assembles with a cancer drug that, in animal models, has eliminated tumors after a single treatment.
Eureakalert: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-11/du-ddn103009.php
Escherichia coli (E. coli) have been genetically engineered to produce a specific artificial polypeptide. When the polypeptide and drug are combined in a container, they spontaneously self-assemble into a water-soluble nanoparticle about 50 nanometers in size, which makes them ideal for cancer therapy.