Excerpts from the Globe's blog on the Boston-area medical community.
The road to personalized medicine is a bumpy one, but researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute have found a method that might smooth the way.
Writing in yesterday's Nature Genetics, they report on a faster, cheaper method of screening for multiple mutations that turn on cancer genes. Taking advantage of mass spectrometry, a tool genetic researchers use to detect variations in genes, they were able to narrow down their search for relevant genes.
"You don't have to sequence the entire cancer genome," said Dr. Levi A. Garraway, an oncologist at Dana-Farber and an associate member of the Broad. "All you need to do is look in specific locations."
Horse genome sequenced
The first draft of the horse genome sequence has been completed by scientists at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, work that has implications for the study of human disease, the National Human Genome Research Institute announced last week. A team led by Kerstin Lindblad-Toh at the MIT-Harvard institute began sequencing the domestic horse genome in 2006, culminating a 10-year effort by international scientists called the Horse Genome Project.
Patients' spiritual needs unmet, study says
Nearly three-quarters of patients with advanced cancer felt their spiritual needs were not met by the medical system, including chaplains, a survey of 230 patients by Harvard researchers shows. Nearly half of the patients thought their religious communities gave them little or no support. The Coping With Cancer study, based at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is reported in Saturday's Journal of Clinical Oncology.
ELIZABETH COONEY 
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
