Harvard, MIT Team Up to Explore Genomic Frontier

From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Fri Jun 20 2003 - 15:37:11 MDT

  • Next message: Robin Hanson: "Re: The Future of Secrecy"

    I found it interesting that this researcher seems to see the benefits
    from the Human Genome Project and its successors coming not
    in time for his generation but rather for that of his children. Is it
    realism that makes him talk of the next generation or is he underrating
    the convergence of technologies in accelerating progress, or just
    trying not to over-hype I wonder.

    Its also clear that philanthropic funding is still available for good
    causes.
    ------------

    http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=2957230ai@

    "CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - Harvard and MIT
    announced a new partnership on Thursday to try to
    revolutionize medicine by using the wealth of information
    in the newly decoded human genetic blueprint.

    Flush with a $100 million gift by Los Angeles
    philanthropists Eli and Edythe L. Broad, the two universities
    announced they were teaming up with the Cambridge-based
    Whitehead Institute to essentially pick up from where the
    recently completed Human Genome Project left off."

    ...

    "The collaboration will create the Broad Institute, which
    will begin operating this year and will be headed by Eric
    Lander, one of the leaders of the Human Genome Project
    that mapped the human genetic code.

    Lander, a geneticist, molecular biologist and mathematician
    who works at the Whitehead Institute, wants to use genetic
    information to transform medicine by looking at and changing
    the actual cellular mechanisms underlying disease rather than
    simply treating symptoms.

    Lander explained that the institute, which will bring together
    a "critical mass" of biologists, chemists, engineers and
    computational scientists, would ideally yield benefits for his
    children and their generation.

    "I'm hoping by the time they grow up and they need medical
    attention for some of the common diseases that afflict us all,
    they will be able to have access to a medicine that is based
    on an understanding of the actual causes," he said "

    etc

    Brett Paatsch

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 15:45:05 MDT