Biotechnological patents and morality: A critical view from a developing country
Biotechnology has now become an important factor for the increasing rate of scientific and technological development, particularly in the fields of medicine and agriculture. A great deal of modern pharmaceuticals have been directly and indirectly developed from biotech inventions. For example, it is estimated that nearly 30 per cent of the present world drug market is accounted for by biotechnological products such as antibiotics, steroids, vitamins, and vaccines. The significance of biotechnology may stem from the fact that some modern drugs developed from biotechnology are able to target traditional diseases more precisely than conventional drugs, and biotech medicines provide more precise cures with fewer side effects (Business Week, 1992, pp. 52-53). In agriculture, plant breeding was once restricted to sexually compatible plants, and generations of offspring were selectively bred to create unique varieties. Currently, genetically modified (GM) crops have the fastest adoption rate of any new technology in global agriculture simply because of their claimed benefits from higher yields and lowered production costs. It is estimated that over 9,000 permits have been issued to field-test GM crops by United States Animal and Plant Health ABsTrACT
From the bench to the bedside in the big data age: ethics and practices of consent and privacy for clinical genomics and personalized medicine
Scientists and clinicians are starting to translate genomic discoveries from research labs to the clinical setting. In the process, big data genomic technologies are both a risk to individual privacy and a benefit to personalized medicine. There is an opportunity to address the social and ethical demands of various stakeholders and shape the adoption of diagnostic genome technologies. We discuss ethical and practical issues associated with the networking of genomics by comparing how the European Union (EU) and North America understand and practice notions of privacy and consent in research. An overview of international policy suggests the embedding of genomics within digital networks and the Internet creates conditions that challenge the management of privacy and consent in the age of big data. The risks of re-identification, informational harms, and data security vulnerabilities are issues that need to be better addressed in the clinical setting to reconcile the unpredictable pathway of research and practice in the networked information society.
Genetics of speciation in the Aedes (Stegomyia) scutellaris group (Diptera: Culicidae) V. Chromosomal relationships among five species
A comparison was made of karyotypes of 5 species in the Aedes scutellaris group and their hybrids. All species had 3 distinct pairs of metacentric chromosomes (2n=6). These were of similar lengths in Ae: malayensis and Ae. alcasidi, and in Ae. polynesiensis and Ae. pseudoscutellaris. However, chromosome 1 in Ae. polynesiensis and Ae. kesseli, and chromosome 2 in Ae. pseudoscutellaris and Ae. kesseli were of unequal lengths. Meiotic analyses revealed that chromosome asynapsis was frequently seen in species hybrids. There was a significant variation in chiasma frequencies between species and their hybrids. However, the mean chiasma frequency was species specific. In addition, the mean chiasma frequency of species hybrids and the extent of chromosomal asynapsis provided a measure of genetic homology between species. Based on the assumption that a dicentric bridge and an acentric fragment were due to a single crossover within a paracentric inversion loop the following conclusions are made. Ae. malayensis and Ae. alcasidi are polymorphic for one paracentric inversion in chromosome 1. Ae. polynesiensis and Ae. pseudoscutellaris, and Ae. pseudoscutellaris and Ae. kesseli are fixed for one paracentric inversion in chromosome 2. Similarly, Ae. polynesiensis and Ae. kesseli are fixed for one paracentric inversion in chromosome 1. These chromosomal differences between species are discussed with respect to hybrid fertility data reported earlier.