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."
'You Cannot Use People'
November 24, 2008
Jay Katz, a psychoanalyst and Yale Law School professor, died last week of heart failure at the age of 86. During his career, Katz studied the conflicting interests of doctors and patients in medical research, writing the 1984 book The Silent World of Doctor and Patient. In the 1970s, Katz was on the panel investigating the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. "There is persistent confusion between research and [clinical] practice and the obfuscation of the two," Katz told the Los Angeles Times in 1994. "You cannot use people -- or you should not use people -- as means for others' ends and for ends that might ultimately even be good.'