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Ricki Lewis

Genetic Linkage

Non-PC Genetics Lingo

January 10, 2012
Tags: human genetics, Ricki Lewis, orphan disease, Orphan Drug Act, National Organization for Rare Diseases, European Organization for Rare Diseases, rare disease, Race, people of color, mixed ancestry, NORD, Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, Sheila van Holst Pellekaan, HGDP, Human Genome Diversity Project, aborigine, Joseph Graves
We are all people of color, except the Invisible Man and Woman.
I struggle to stay politically correct when updating my human genetics textbook. “Hemophiliac” became “person with hemophilia” and “victim” vanished several editions ago. In the current incarnation, “mentally retarded” became “intellectually disabled” after colleagues warned that  Read More 
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Gene Therapy and the 10,000-Hour Rule

January 4, 2012
Tags: gene therapy, The Forever Fix: Gene Therapy and the Boy Who Saved It, Malcolm Gladwell, 10, 000-hour rule, Ashi DeSilva, Biology Digest, William French Anderson, Donald Kohn, ADA deficiency, Leber congenital amaurosis, Kalydeco, ivacaftor, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, cystic fibrosis, severe combined immune deficiency, Ricki Lewis, Corey Haas, Jesse Gelsinger
“Breakthroughs” in biomedicine are rarely that – they typically rest on a decade or more of experiments. Consider gene therapy.

I just unearthed an article from the December 1990 issue of Biology Digest, "Gene Therapy." I wrote it a mere two months after the very first gene therapy experiment, the much-publicized case of 4-year-old Ashi DeSilva,  Read More 
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Gene Therapy Subverted in New Dystopian Novel, “When She Woke”

December 30, 2011
Tags: gene therapy, When She Woke, Hillary Jordan, Ricki Lewis, Justin Cronin, The Passage, Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, mutation, Twilight Zone, Star Trek, X-Files, house, SyFy Channel, dystopia
I don’t usually take too kindly to the evil geneticist stereotype in fiction, but I can’t resist a good dystopian novel. "When She Woke," by Hillary Jordan, is the perfect book  Read More 
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New Roads to Drug Discovery for the New Year

December 22, 2011
Tags: fda, drug pipeline, Fabry disease, Angelman syndrome, lung cancer, Pompe disease, Gaucher disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute Benjamin D. Philpot, George Dimopoulos, Francis Collins, Christopher Hitchens, Ricki Lewis, Jeong-Sun Seo, Genome Medicine Institute Seoul National University, Macrogen Inc., Scott Garman and co-workers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, genomic imprinting, protein misfolding, genetic modification, Anopheles, malaria
In this age of expiring drug patents and stalled pipelines, I was pleasantly surprised to find in my morning batch of news releases four reports of promising, eclectic ways to fight diverse diseases. The  Read More 
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A Living Blood Vessel "Stamp"

December 16, 2011
Tags: blood vessel, tissue engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Hyunjoon Kong, Ricki Lewis
I still marvel at the interface between a tissue and an organ, even after a quarter century of writing college biology textbooks.

I can easily envision a sheet of epithelium folding itself up into the tiny tube of a capillary. But how do only four basic tissue types connect and contort to fashion such  Read More 
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Bed Bug Orgies and Evolution

December 6, 2011
Tags: bed bugs, Cimex lectularius, pyrethrin, insecticide, bedbugregistry.com, Coby Schal, Ed Vargo, North Carolina State University, American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, evolution, natural selection, Ricki Lewis
Seeking evidence for evolution? Look at bed bugs.

For the past century, the 5-millimeter-long, triangular headed, reddish residents of urban hotel bedrooms have mutated themselves into resistance to any insecticide we can throw at them. Cimex lectularius was nearly vanquished mid-century, when  Read More 
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Respiratory Replacement Parts -- Thanks to Stem Cells

November 29, 2011
Tags: stem cells, bioethics, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, cell, regeneration, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, tailored bioartificial nanocomposite, bone marrow stem cells, The Lancet, Ricki Lewis, gene therapy
We humans might not be able to regrow a leg, as can a cockroach or salamander, or regenerate a missing half, like a flatworm, but our organs can replenish themselves – thanks to stem cells. Two new reports about opposite ends of the respiratory system may pave the way for replacement breathing parts.

A 36-year-old  Read More 
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Gavin's Story: Whole Exome Sequencing Finds Mystery Mutation

November 19, 2011
Tags: whole exome sequencing, human genome, Gavin Stevens, Ming Qi, Leber congenital amaurosis, Foundation for Retinal Research, Knome, Complete Genomics, John Chiang, CEP 290, LRAT, CUBY20, Beijing Genomics Institute, DNA, rare disease
In a hotel ballroom on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania on a midsummer Saturday in 2010, an unusual roll call was under way at the Family Conference for the
Foundation for Retinal Research. Betsy Brint, co-head of organization, was calling out what sounded like code words – CEP290,  Read More 
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Twin Study Supports Parkinson’s-Solvent Link

November 14, 2011
Tags: Parkinson's Disease, twin study, Michael J. Fox Foundation, trichloroethylene, TCE, perchloroethylene, PERC, Annals of Neurology, Ricki Lewis, Samuel Goldman, Caroline Tanner, Parkinson's Institute Sunnyvale, NINDS, The Valley Foundation, James and Sharron Clark


In this age of genome sequencing, it’s refreshing to read about the continuing power of a simple tool of genetics: the twin study. But in reporting a new study linking long-term exposure to  Read More 
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Gene therapy on fetuses?

November 4, 2011
Tags: gene therapy, fetal medicine, fetal surgery, Leber congenital amaurosis, bioethics, The Forever Fix: Gene Therapy and the Boy Who Saved It, Carson Strong, Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park, fda, phase 1 clinical trial, Ricki Lewis, therapeutic misconception, Lorenzo's Oil, Stop ALD, adrenoleukodystrophy
Gene therapy is experiencing a renaissance, with many of the recent successes in children. For some conditions, the younger the child, the better the genetic correction, because affected tissues degenerate with time. This is the case for adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), the “Lorenzo’s Oil” disease that strips the insulation from brain neurons. One goal of  Read More 
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