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Make It Routine

Sally Davies, the chief medical officer of England, has called for genomic testing to be a routine part of clinical care, the Guardian reports.

"Genomic medicine has the potential to save costs and improve quality of care by targeting treatment, maximizing benefit, and reducing side effects," she writes in her annual report. She adds that genomics "is opening up better diagnoses for patients, better and safer treatments, opportunities for screening and the possibilities for prevention."

Right now, Davies says DNA testing is set up as a cottage industry and needs to be centralized, BBC News reports. She adds that a new National Genomics Board should be set up to oversee the roll-out of genomic services throughout the National Health Service.

"We need to take the science to the patients and not the patients to the science," she tells the Guardian.

Davies further outlined a new social contract, the Guardian says, in which people realize that by sharing their genetic data for study, they'd be helping themselves as well as others.

"The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute welcomes the Chief Medical Officer's report that acknowledges the central role of genomics in improving future healthcare," says Julia Wilson, associate director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, in a statement.

"Medical treatments and diagnoses have been transformed by genomics and genetic research in conditions as diverse as inherited diseases, infections and cancer," she adds. "This will continue as we reveal further the secrets of genomes which will drive the development of personalized medicine in the UK."

The Scan

ChatGPT Does As Well As Humans Answering Genetics Questions, Study Finds

Researchers in the European Journal of Human Genetics had ChatGPT answer genetics-related questions, finding it was about 68 percent accurate, but sometimes gave different answers to the same question.

Sequencing Analysis Examines Gene Regulatory Networks of Honeybee Soldier, Forager Brains

Researchers in Nature Ecology & Evolution find gene regulatory network differences between soldiers and foragers, suggesting bees can take on either role.

Analysis of Ashkenazi Jewish Cohort Uncovers New Genetic Loci Linked to Alzheimer's Disease

The study in Alzheimer's & Dementia highlighted known genes, but also novel ones with biological ties to Alzheimer's disease.

Tara Pacific Expedition Project Team Finds High Diversity Within Coral Reef Microbiome

In papers appearing in Nature Communications and elsewhere, the team reports on findings from the two-year excursion examining coral reefs.