A new weekly television documentary examines how genetic research and biotechnology are changing the world.
Topics covered this week, beginning Friday, March 21, on Secrets of the Sequence:
Brain Biochip: Each year nearly 40 thousand Americans are told they have brain cancer, a disease that manifests itself as one of a wide range of tumors. Testing tissues for the type and stage of these tumors is time consuming and, unfortunately, time is not a luxury that someone with cancer can afford. A quick method for more accurate cancer diagnosis and subsequent tumor classification is urgently needed by doctors and their patients. Enter the DNA Micro-array. Doctors at Virginia Commonwealth University are developing this revolutionary technology to study gene expression profiles in cancerous tissues. It will enable them to develop these profiles within hours, thus leading to a faster cancer diagnosis and greater hope for the patient.
Quick Fix: Why do some smokers become addicted to nicotine and others do not? And does the tendency to smoke runs in families? Researchers are conducting studies on identical twins - some smokers, some non-smokers - to help determine the heritability of nicotine addiction. Identical twins have identical genomes, so if one of the twins is a smoker it is likely that his or her sibling will be a smoker, too. By studying their metabolic reactions to the nicotine, these scientists expect to learn whether addiction is more a matter of character, environment or the genes.
Patent Pending: Does gene patenting provide legitimate protection for intellectual property, or does it obstruct vital research into genetic disease? Does it make a few rich at the expense of others, or does it support academic and research institutions struggling to get by? The answer is...all of the above, and often at the expense of the patients who need help. We will meet Pat and Sharon Terry, parents of two children with a rare disease of bodily tissues called PXE: Pseudoxanthoma Elasticum. They have applied for the patent on the gene associated with their children's affliction and have created a database of all PXE patients worldwide. We will learn how they used business acumen and market forces to direct research into PXE for their children's and other PXE patients' benefit. In most cases, gene patents have been granted to large pharmaceutical companies because their extensive investments can result in considerable profit when the patented genes are used to develop drug therapies.
Because individual public television stations determine when specific episodes air, please check your local television listings to find exact time and air dates. For a listing of the public television stations that are broadcasting the series, and for more background information on the series, see Ward TV’s website at http://www.wardtv.com/stations.htm.
Secrets of the Sequence, a 52-week series which began April 5 in some markets, explores a variety of topics and addresses plant biotech issues such as how bananas are being developed to resist diseases and insects and how tomatoes are being developed to grow in salty soil.
The Council for Biotechnology Information (CBI) is one of the original underwriters which helped bring the series to the air.