Since the completion of the first human DNA sequence, genomic approaches have penetrated into cancer research and therapy: first through expression profiling for diagnostic, prognostic and predictive purposes, then by ...

The use of circulating tumour DNA to screen for cancer in asymptomatic individuals is the goal of Grail, initially set up by Illumina. This company is now raising a large amount of capital to develop this project on a much ...

The concept of precision oncology is straightforward, but the actual results of treating advanced cancer patients with the targeted drug suggested by genomic analysis have been generally disappointing, indicating that this ...

In clinical oncology, obtaining sequence data from tumour samples has become practical in terms of logistics, turnover time and costs. The major issue now is the interpretation of this sequence to define actionable targets, ...

Alternative bases that can fit into the DNA double helix have now been used in vivo to direct the synthesis of proteins incorporating unnatural amino acids. This bioengineering feat is significant at both the conceptual ...

A recent publication describes a sophisticated “liquid biopsy” procedure that analyses both tumoral DNA and proteins present in peripheral blood to provide sensitive detection of different types of cancer. These results ...

Recent efforts at gene therapy for haemophilia A and B using AAV-derived vectors show durable expression of coagulation factors at significant levels, resulting in almost complete correction of the phenotype. This is the ...

A recent paper shows that cancer patients using complementary therapies in addition to conventional treatment have distinctly worse outcomes. Analysis of the data shows that they are much more likely to refuse one component ...

Inflated drug prices necessarily raise the issue of rational allocation of health care resources. The system operated by the NICE agency in the UK attempts to do this by calculating the cost per quality-adjusted life year ...