Ewan Birney, Jennifer Raff, Adam Rutherford, Aylwyn Scally Human genetics tells us about the similarities and differences between people – in our physical and psychological traits, and in our susceptibility to disorders and diseases – but our DNA can also reveal the broader story of our evolution, ancestry and history. Genetics is a new scientific … The post Race, genetics and pseudoscience: an explainer appeared first on Ewan's Blog: Bioinformatician at large ..read more

Understanding how life works has been a goal of science since its inception. Many scientists do this for intellectual curiosity – the desire to simply understand and know the natural world around us. Other scientists are driven by the application of knowledge to different areas – applications of human health, agriculture, and the care of … The post What do we need to know in the Life Sciences? appeared first on Ewan's Blog: Bioinformatician at large ..read more

This week (May 20th 2019) has seen yet another splash by an American company offering a polygenic trait score on embryos including intelligence. This is wrong on a number of levels; ethically it is wrong to make this decision as an independent laboratory without broad societal buy in; scientifically it is wrong to imagine the … The post Why embryo selection for polygenic traits is wrong. appeared first on Ewan's Blog: Bioinformatician at large ..read more

This is the last of my Christmas genes. Hope you have enjoyed the series. Merry Christmas everyone! The post 12 Genes of Christmas #12: SRSF1 appeared first on Ewan's Blog: Bioinformatician at large ..read more

The post 12 Genes of Christmas #11: COX1 (MT CO1) appeared first on Ewan's Blog: Bioinformatician at large ..read more

The post 12 Genes of Christmas #10: ACE appeared first on Ewan's Blog: Bioinformatician at large ..read more

The post 12 Genes of Christmas #9: IL6 appeared first on Ewan's Blog: Bioinformatician at large ..read more

The post 12 Genes of Christmas #8: SHH (Sonic Hedgehog) appeared first on Ewan's Blog: Bioinformatician at large ..read more

The post 12 Genes of Christmas #7: FTO appeared first on Ewan's Blog: Bioinformatician at large ..read more

Due to the unwise announcement of using polygenic risk score selection embryo selection by Genomic Prediction, a US company, and its exposure in articles such as this by the Economist, the wisdom of selecting embryos by polygenic risk scores has become a concrete question. I do not think it is medically justified, nor scientifically sound, … The post Why using genetic risk scores on embryos is wrong appeared first on Ewan's Blog: Bioinformatician at large ..read more