Free Republic

HARI SREENIVASAN: Another medical story that caught our attention this week. Word of what’s described as a pioneering clinical trial for patients with advanced lung cancer. What’s novel is not necessarily the drugs being used, but how many and how they’re being targeted. Dr. Mark Kris, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, joins us. So what are they doing in the U.K. with this clinical trial? What’s so interesting about it? DR. MARK KRIS: They are taking a discovery that was made here almost ten years ago now where specific genes are damaged in lung tumors. And the...

Two of the holy grails of medicine - stem cell technology and precision gene therapy - have been united for the first time in humans, say scientists.It means patients with a genetic disease could, one day, be treated with their own cells. A study in Nature corrected a mutation in stem cells made from a patient with a liver disease. Researchers said this was a "critical step" towards devising treatments, but safety tests were still needed. At the moment, stem cells created from a patient with a genetic illness cannot be used to cure the disease as those cells would...

Gene-association studies hint at better ways of treating the leading cause of death, but capitalizing on them is proving to be a slow and difficult process. Erika Check Hayden reports. Cardiovascular conditions are the leading cause of death worldwide.A. MASSEE/SPL As personalized cancer treatment edges into the clinic, doctors and scientists are hoping that cardiovascular disease — the world's top killer — will be next to benefit from genomics.An avalanche of studies has linked genetic variants to various cardiovascular conditions and to patients' responses to commonly prescribed drugs. First up could be genetic guidance for the anti-clotting agents warfarin and...