In this week's Science, researchers from Stanford University and their colleagues call for the repeal of the National Institutes of Health's recent ban on funding for chimera research "in which human pluripotent cells are introduced into non-human vertebrate animal pre-gastrulation stage embryos." The scientists call the restriction misguided and say it poses a threat to advances in stem cell biology, developmental biology, and regenerative medicine.
And in Science Translational Medicine, an international team of researchers reports on the use of liquid biopsy to uncover genetic mutations that may be responsible for drug resistance in a subset of prostate cancer patients. By sequencing circulating tumor DNA in blood samples from 97 drug-resistant patients before and after treatment with an androgen receptor-targeting drug, the investigators found that many of the patients had copy number changes and somatic mutations in the androgen receptor gene. In comparison to those with a normal version of the gene, these patients were significantly less likely to respond to treatment. GenomeWeb has more on this study, here.