Archives for May 2007

2007: The Year of the Personalized Genomics

May 8, 2007 | by

George Weinstock, co-director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine, wrote a short, interesting article posted to MIT’s Tech Review, contemplating whether this year may be remembered as the year of the personalized genome.

In April, two companies, 454 Life Sciences and Illumina, announced plans to sequence individual human genomes. While genotyping tests have been used for decades to sequence single genes, DNA sequencing has never been done on the entire genome of a single person.

Alternative to Dichloroacetate

May 4, 2007 | by

It’s been three months since an article on dichloroacetate (DCA), the chemotherapeutic agent that selectively inhibits cancer cell growth in lung, breast and brain tumor cells grown in culture and lung tumors grown in immunocompromised rats, was published on Highlight HEALTH. Since then, thousands of people have read the article. Indeed, the blogosphere has been buzzing about DCA, unfortunately focusing on a conspiracy theory accusing big pharma of suppressing a cure for cancer instead of recognizing the study for what it is — a preliminary study in cell culture and rats that cannot be translated to humans without further research and clinical trials.

Highlight HEALTH is Now HONcode Accredited

May 2, 2007 | by

I’m very pleased to announce that Highlight HEALTH is now an HONcode accredited website.

As I wrote previously in The Trust and Credibility of Healthcare Blogs, I believe that when it comes to blogging about healthcare, trust and credibility are essential. One of the principle motivations for creating Highlight HEALTH was to develop a health resource that not only provided information on dietary supplements, nutrition and health news, but which presented evidence to support that information.