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> Subject: NEWS: UK tiptoes through ethical minefield > From: Murray Charters <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 13:02:32 -0700 UK tiptoes through ethical minefield By Ben Hirschler LONDON: British scientists are tiptoeing through an ethical minefield as they prepare to build the world's biggest genetic database. The study, which will contain DNA samples from 500,000 adults, is a unique opportunity to examine the genetic factors which underpin a host of diseases from asthma to Alzheimer's. But the project - first suggested two years ago - will not get off the ground before late 2002 as researchers draw up elaborate protocols over how to collect and collate the data. Central to the debate are concerns over confidentiality and the issue of what access pharmaceutical companies should have to the information. The UK Population Biomedical Collection will cost up to $84 million) to establish and contain DNA samples, lifestyle details and medical records from volunteers of both sexes aged from 45 to 64. "We want to find out how genes on the one hand, and lifestyle and environmental factors on the other, interact with one another," said Professor Tom Meade, director of the Medical Research Council's Epidemiology and Medical Care Unit in London who chairs the working group. Last year's mapping of the human genome opens the door to understanding the root causes of many diseases but the interaction between genes and environmental influences is hugely complex. As a result, large-scale studies are needed to tease out statistical significance in the many variables which increase or decrease our chance of succumbing to a particular disease. The project will look at a range of diseases, including cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes and asthma. Meade believes it could yield its first fruits in around five years. He expects the initial progress to be in a field known as pharmacogenomics, or understanding why people react differently to the same medicines. More fundamental breakthroughs will take longer. "The main results in determining the important interactions between genes and lifestyle will probably take more than 10 years," Meade said. The project - backed by Britain's Medical Research Council, the Department of Health and The Wellcome Trust, the world's biggest medical charity - is not the first genetic database. But it will be the largest and the most ethnically diverse, containing twice the number of DNA samples as one in Iceland, where a commercial biotech firm, deCODE Genetics, has struck a controversial deal to gain exclusive access to 270,000 medical records. Waves of immigration from the Celts and Saxons through to Africans and Indians make Britain an ideal "laboratory" for studying genetic influences in a population group that is largely typical of the wider world. Five decades of National Health Service records also mean there are well-documented medical histories to marry against the genetic and lifestyle data. Other gene databases, by contrast, have focused on isolated populations such as Estonia, Newfoundland and Tonga, as well as Iceland. They make comparisons easier but some experts worry such isolated groups may not be representative. Confidentiality is a priority for Meade and his colleagues, and an independent monitoring body will be established to police access to data and DNA samples. Insurance companies and the police will not have access, safeguarding participants from the risk that information could be used against them. But the flip-side of that privacy is that there will be no feedback of results to individual members of the study population and hence no personal gain in terms of advance warnings of health problems.-Reuters SOURCE: REUTERS http://www.dawn.com/2001/text/int15.htm * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn