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Perhaps It Could Tell You Whether You're Susceptible to Undue Stress

Sep 15, 2008

The British Heart Foundation's Nilesh Samani says that gene tests cause undue stress, according to the BBC. Samani, who is also a professor at the University of Leicester, says the tests, especially those based on genome-wide association studies, have little clinical usefulness. "There is no real value in testing at the moment. The prediction at the individual level is not sufficiently discriminative to tell you if you are going to get a disease or not," says Samani.

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The Scan

Pig Organ Transplants Considered

The Wall Street Journal reports that the US Food and Drug Administration may soon allow clinical trials that involve transplanting pig organs into humans.

'Poo-Bank' Proposal

Harvard Medical School researchers suggest people should bank stool samples when they are young to transplant when they later develop age-related diseases.

Spurred to Develop Again

New Scientist reports that researchers may have uncovered why about 60 percent of in vitro fertilization embryos stop developing.

Science Papers Examine Breast Milk Cell Populations, Cerebral Cortex Cellular Diversity, Micronesia Population History

In Science this week: unique cell populations found within breast milk, 100 transcriptionally distinct cell populations uncovered in the cerebral cortex, and more.