Human Genetic Variation Alters Anthrax Toxin Sensitivity
Martchenko, Candille et al., PNAS
Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine show that genetic variation affecting capillary morphogenesis gene 2, or CMG2, dramatically alters toxin sensitivity in humans. In its analysis, the team reports on "a CMG2 single-nucleotide polymorphism occurring frequently in African and European populations [that they found] independently altered toxin uptake." The group goes on to suggest "testing of genomically characterized human cell populations may offer a broadly useful strategy for elucidating effects of genetic variation on infectious disease susceptibility."
Talking It Out
March 09, 2009
Representative John Conyers (D-MI) responds to Michael Eisen and Lawrence Lessig's call for Conyers to defend why he is supporting the Fair Copyright in Research Act that would prohibit agencies from insisting that researchers make their data open access in return for federal funding. In the Huffington Post, Conyers says his bill will "restore longstanding federal copyright policy in this area. It reverses a provision slipped into an appropriations bill in the middle of the night, with no consultation with the Committee which is actually supposed to write the law in this area, the Judiciary Committee, which I chair."
Eisen responds on his blog. "Conyers' argument that the bill should have gone to his Judiciary committee rests on the dubious notion that NIH policy modifies copyright. But the policy in question does not alter copyright in any way," he writes.