In recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness month, I am republishing this essay written on the eve of the pandemic. It’s an intriguing…
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post How Breast Cancer Reunited Six High School FriendsRead more
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post Determining Disease Risks Based on Genetic Ancestry Can Counter Health Care Disparities, But Doesn’t Go Far EnoughRead more
When it comes to estimating risk of a disease that is either genetic or has a genetic component, ancestry of an individual…
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post The Festival of Genomics and Biodata 2023 Comes to BostonRead more
One of the most anticipated returns to normalcy following the pandemic is the in-person conference. Like the mythical Phoenix bird arising from…
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post Why I’m Not Worried that ChatGPT Will Replace Me as a Biology Textbook AuthorRead more
I just used ChatGPT for the first time. Initially, I was concerned about my future as the chatbot near-instantaneously answered my queries…
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post Watermelon Pangenome Reveals Origins of SweetnessRead more
As autumn looms, we’re enjoying the last bites of sweet, juicy watermelon. Conventional agriculture has molded our fruits and veggies to suit…
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post Maui Fires: How Mitochondrial DNA Will Identify Human RemainsRead more
The Maui firestorm was so vast and fast that most identification of human remains will come from bits of persisting DNA from…
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post The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese: A Geneticist’s ReviewRead more
The history of genetics begins, not with Gregor Mendel’s pea experiments, but with people long ago noticing family resemblances and vulnerabilities so…
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post Eclectic Genomics: Cat Flu, Dolphin Adaptation to Climate Change, Predicting Cancer, and Diagnosing Rare DiseaseRead more
Determining the sequence of building blocks of entire genomes – aka genomics – first came to public attention in the 1990s, with…
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post A Squishy Sea Creature Regenerates a Body from a Severed HeadRead more
Humans aren’t very good at regeneration — we can do it for skin, bone, and liver, but that’s about it. Flatworms, zebrafish…
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post Experiments Reveal the Early Human Embryo, with Implications for Infertility and Early Pregnancy LossRead more
Several recent reports are filling in the gaps of what we know about the earliest days and weeks of human prenatal development…
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post How Targeted Cancer Drugs Disrupt the Cell CycleRead more
“If you’re an adult with newly diagnosed non-small cell lung cancer that’s spread and tests positive for PDL1 without an abnormal EGFR…
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post How (and Why) the Octopus Edits its RNARead more
What I love most about science in general, and genetics in particular, is when new findings upend everything we thought we knew…