In today’s ecosystem of online science publications, it can be hard to tell what qualifies as journalism and what doesn’t. Does it matter?
For Erin Zimmerman, a plant molecular biologist turned freelance science writer living in Ontario, Canada, a recent plant science conference presented a rare opportunity to meet scientists working in the field and to gin up some story ideas.
Text messages (also known as Short Message Service, or SMS) have become the go-to medium when contacting others. This is especially the case for today’s college students, who seem to conduct their social and even business lives completely via messaging service.
SoundRocket examined the data surrounding the efficacy of using SMS when surveying college students, resulting in presentation at a past American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Conference.
After about seven years with Soundrocket, the Genomes2People Research Program has re-upped and expanded the partnership with the help of a new NIH grant for its PeopleSeq Consortium study.
An article just released today in Genome Medical, and available here to download in its entirety, reports on a groundbreaking study of over 650 individuals who have received whole genome sequencing as a predisposition screening tool.
Prefer to read all five posts about the recent FDA Pharmacogenetics Test Report activity at once? We have compiled the full week here into this one post…
Over the course of this week, we have covered a variety of related topics that arose from the recent FDA activity around direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing. Because this is so new, much is yet unknown, so the best we can do today is speculate. However, we thought we would wrap up today with a few parting ideas to consider…
The National Society of Genetic Counselor’s position statement on DTC testing from 2015 states that consumers have the right to make an informed decision on DTC genetic testing. As with other DTC tests based on SNP array technology, it is important that companies offering these tests are very clear when discussing their limitations. For instance, the 23andMe Personal Genome Service…
One day following the Personal Genome Service Pharmacogenetic Reports (PGSPR) approval release, on Thursday, November 1, 2018, Jeffrey Shuren, M.D., J.D. (the Director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health), together with Janet Woodcock, M.D., (the Director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research) published a statement to warn “consumers about genetic tests that claim to predict patient’s responses to specific medications.” This statement specifically calls out tests…
What Are User Comprehension Studies and Why are they Required by the FDA?
Unlike tests that are overseen by health care professionals where a conversation may take place about the meaning of results, direct-to-consumer tests bypass the traditional patient-doctor relationship and deliver results directly to patients (or consumers). A well-known example of a direct-to-consumer test is a pregnancy test that one may purchase at any pharmacy or similar retail store…