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United Kingdom: a new link between genomes and genome editing
The House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee (British Parliament) has published a brief report to conclude its extensive inquiry into genomes and genome editing. The report focuses on the project entitled, "100,000 genomes"[1] and on the developments and...
Store organs in order to preserve them – the challenge from XOR Labs
The start-up Company, XOR Labs, based in Toronto, "one the world's capital cities in terms of lung transplantation", is endeavouring to export "a machine to preserve the lungs following a transplant". This compact device "can store lungs under a glass dome for several...
IVF: Two friends discover that they are brother and sister
In England, Georgia Bond and Jack Bowman, two British teenagers from Liverpool who have been friends for years, "have found out that they were both conceived by in-vitro fertilisation". They "had even joked about having the same sperm donor". Having discovered...
Decommissioning of organ trafficking in Pakistan
In Pakistan, in an "improvised operating theatre in a house in Lahore", four people have been arrested for the illegal harvesting of two livers "scheduled for transplantation involving two Oman nationals". The team that carried out these "illegal...
ANSM authorises the resumption of Carmat heart clinical trials
Following the death of the fifth transplant patient, the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products' Safety (ANSM) instructed the Carmat Company to suspend clinical trials involving its artificial heart (see Death of fifth patient transplanted with a...
Council of Europe: report on gene editing adopted by the Commission
The draft recommendation entitled "recourse to new genetic technologies in human beings" was adopted on 25 April 2017 by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's Committee for Social Affairs (see Council of Europe reflects on editing of embryo genes). It...
CRISPR: a third clinical trial authorised in humans
Chinese scientists have undertaken a clinical trial using the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing tool in an attempt to treat cancer patients. The trial will include 20 patients with an aggressive gastric cancer, nasopharyngeal carcinoma and lymphoma. Jia Wei, Deputy...
Scandal surrounding Italian woman who pays for baby
After falsifying a pregnancy to mislead her family, an Italian woman discovered that the child she had bought from a young Romanian woman was of mixed race. She returned the child three days later. The baby's biological mother, the "false" mother and a Moroccan man...
Ireland: a consultation in favour of abortion
In Ireland, the Citzen's Assembly commissioned by Parliament in 2016 to give its opinion on a series of society-related issues, recommended "by a large majority" to "end the ban on abortion" by the Eighth Amendment. The latter, which was introduced into the Irish...
Oregon: could assisted suicide replace chemotherapies that cost too much?
A study published by JAMA oncology at the beginning of the month has assessed the past 20 years since the introduction of the Death With Dignity Act - the first US law allowing assisted suicide in the State of Oregon. The study revealed that "3% of the assisted...
Profitability of IVF cycles under scrutiny in the United Kingdom
"Drastic cuts in IVF services by the NHS should be offset by free pre-implantation genetic screening," announced gynaecologist, Luciano Nardo, who believes that these tests"would increase couples' chances of conception". As far as he is concerned, this should be...
“Test-tube babies” more likely to develop paediatric cancers
In Israel, the Ben-Gourion University has carried out a study that has shown that "test-tube babies" are more likely to develop "various types of paediatric cancers and tumours". The study analysed the health records of babies born between 1991 and 2013[1] and...