Tag Archive for 'Congress'

Predicting lupus outcomes, US biomedical funding battles and telling children about genetic disease

There are a pair of papers in PLoS Genetics that shine some light on the effect of common GWAS variants on complex traits. The first investigates the effect of 22 common variants on sub-phenotypes of systemic lupus erythematosus, in how well a model including clinical measures plus GWAS variants can predict specific complications of lupus, over a model including just clinical outcomes. In some cases, there is little improvement (GWAS variants add nothing to prediction of renal failure, for instance), but in many there is a measurable improvement (such as for hameatological disorder and oral ulcers, the former of which is largely unpredictable from clinical outcomes). The second paper is a breakdown of the effect of the common obesity-associated variant FTO on BMI across age ranges; we see an interesting effect, whereby the variant that causes an increase in BMI in older children actually causes a fall in BMI in children under the age of 2. [LJ]

It’s budget battle season in the United States, and biomedical research funding looks likely to be caught in the crossfire. President Obama has proposed a $745 x 106 increase in the NIH budget, bringing it to $31.8 x 109 in total. This wouldn’t quite keep up with inflation, leading to a slight decrease in grant success rates from America’s largest biomedical research funder. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives, by contrast, has slashed the NIH budget by $1.6 x 109 in their proposed budget (bill HR1), which would be a heavy blow to research funding. Of course, scientists, non-crazy editorial writers and activist groups have been rallying around protecting research funding (in the NIH and beyond). Unfortunately I wouldn’t expect a speedy resolution, as veteran US politics blogger Nate Silver likens the whole situation to Zugzwang. [JCB]

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While You Were Meeting: FDA Mails Letters to 14 More Genetic Test Providers

(Cross-posted to Genomics Law Report.)

Earlier this week the FDA held a widely publicized two-day public meeting to discuss its planned regulation of laboratory developed tests (LDTs) (for more see: Day One Recap and Day Two Recap). Other than Monday morning, when the FDA presented background information on LDTs and some of the considerations that have pushed the agency to pursue a “risk-based application of oversight to LDTs,” the top agency officials at the meeting were conspicuously quiet. Elsewhere, however, the FDA was doing plenty of talking.

In letters dated July 19th, the first day of the FDA’s public LDT meeting, the agency continued its crackdown on direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic test providers, mailing letters to 14 providers of genetic tests. A list of all 14 companies and tests appears below.

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Personal Genomics Goes to Washington

(Cross-posted to Genomics Law Report.)

Next week, the eyes of the personal genomics world will be focused on Washington, D.C., where the FDA and Congress will be meeting separately to consider the industry’s future. First, the FDA will convene a highly-anticipated public meeting (July 19th and 20th) to “discuss how the agency will oversee laboratory-developed tests (LDTs).” The FDA announced last month a proposal to develop a “risk-based” approach to oversight of all LDTs – a broad category that includes the vast majority of genetic tests, including high-complexity diagnostic tests (IVDMIAs) and direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests. Hot on the heels of the FDA meeting, on July 22nd, the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce – which two months ago launched its own investigation into the personal genomics industry – will hold a subcommittee hearing on “Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing and the Consequences to the Public Health.”1

While the genomics and personalized medicine communities anxiously await the upcoming FDA and Congressional meetings, yesterday the future of personal genomics was being debated on the opposite coast, at a policy forum in San Francisco entitled “Genomics and the Consumer: The Present and Future of Personalized Medicine” (pdf). The forum, which was hosted by California State Senator Alex Padilla (sponsor of S.B. 482, the so-called “bioinformatics bill”) and personal genomics company 23andMe, was filled with speculation from personal genomics investors, providers, customers and commentators about what the FDA and Congress might have in store for the field.

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