Dr. Sebat's Dream

[Barbara Steinberg]

This Friday, the medical journal Science will publish a study, which used new gene-scanning technology, where high-resolution techniques quickly scan the entire human DNA map. Scientists discovered 53 genetic mutations that were three times as likely to turn up in people with schizophrenia.

One of them distorts a protein, which guides neurons to their proper places during brain development. Another mutation changes "the shape of a molecule that transports glutamate, a chemical that excites neurons and is heavily involved transmitting signals between brain cells."

“The take-home message is that there’s a new way to search for genetic links, and this new method goes straight to the underlying biology,” said the senior author, Jonathan Sebat, an assistant professor of genetics at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

“My dream,” Dr. Sebat said, “is that we’ll do this kind of high-resolution analysis across tens of thousands of people and have full catalogs of variations that will tell us something not only about schizophrenia but about bipolar disorder, autism, depression, all of these disorders.”

References:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/science/28gene.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/327/1

[Barbara Steinberg]

If our health care system is not reformed, where

1. non-profit health care (Medicare for all, socialized medicine) is available to all people who do not fit the business plans of the private insurance companies, and

2. drug companies stop being able to charge $567 for 30 pills of an atypical anti-psychotic because the government cannot negotiate the price of bulk purchases with them,

employers will not fear bankruptcy when one of their employees or employee-spouses goes on a small-business health plan with a mental illness. Therefore, they won't find a reason to fire them or not hire them in the first place.

I must also add, however, that if this kind of gene imaging helps find an inexpensive cure, the relief of human suffering in the future would be unimaginable today

[Ellen S]

Wow! This is exciting news that holds potential for so many different things. I'm really excited to read about this and hope to hear more about it in the future. The sooner, the better!

What do you think about the potential for misuse of this information on an individual basis?

[Barbara Steinberg]

Yes, exactly Janeen. The caretakers have many sites where they talk, but the patients experience pain all the time. A radio in one's ear, constantly listening to anything, might be perceived as goofing off to some, but in a bipolar person, it keeps the silence out of the brain, and is a suicide-prevention method. Also, if the patient was neglected as a child, the symptoms in adulthood get worse. Can you imagine someone living that nightmare for 50 years going in for gene-correction therapy and having the monsters suddenly disappear? Dr. Sebat's dream is beautiful, and would make an unbelievable impact on the lives on millions of people.

[Jolyn]

This is really great news, Barbara. If they can see it, I have to believe that some day they'll figure out how to fix it. Imagine all the people who could be freed of these horrible disorders!