Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

Chat Away

PubMed Commons has opened up further to the community, Sally Rockey, the deputy director for extramural research at the US National Institutes of Health, writes at the Rock Talk blog.

The forum and post-publication review system launched earlier this year as a pilot version open to invited participants. About a week after its launch, the National Center for Biotechnology Information noted that 1,000 had signed up and about 100 comments had been made. About half of those comments, NCBI said at the time, were back-and-forths about the paper, while others provided updated links to databases or other corrections. The PubMed Commons blog notes that several hundred comments have now been made.

Rockey adds that commenting is still limited to authors of publications found in PubMed, but the public can now see those discussions.

The Scan

Positive Framing of Genetic Studies Can Spark Mistrust Among Underrepresented Groups

Researchers in Human Genetics and Genomics Advances report that how researchers describe genomic studies may alienate potential participants.

Small Study of Gene Editing to Treat Sickle Cell Disease

In a Novartis-sponsored study in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that a CRISPR-Cas9-based treatment targeting promoters of genes encoding fetal hemoglobin could reduce disease symptoms.

Gut Microbiome Changes Appear in Infants Before They Develop Eczema, Study Finds

Researchers report in mSystems that infants experienced an enrichment in Clostridium sensu stricto 1 and Finegoldia and a depletion of Bacteroides before developing eczema.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment Specificity Enhanced With Stem Cell Editing

A study in Nature suggests epitope editing in donor stem cells prior to bone marrow transplants can stave off toxicity when targeting acute myeloid leukemia with immunotherapy.