Word: dna
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...scraggly cornstalks sprouting from pots in Andy Hiatt's laboratory don't look particularly unusual. But woven into their DNA is a tiny strip of mankind: a human gene that codes for an antibody to a sexually transmitted disease--genital herpes--that afflicts some 60 million Americans. When the corn plants mature and produce kernels, Hiatt's company, Epicyte Pharmaceutical of San Diego, hopes to turn them into a topical gel for herpes...
What's driving this effort to morph fields into drug factories? In a word: cost. In the past decade, the DNA revolution has spawned a generation of drugs made from human antibodies, the proteins that white blood cells use to defend the body against disease. Today such "biologics" are cultivated in huge fermentation vats, often by painstakingly planting cloned human cells in such unlikely breeding sites as the ovary cells of Chinese hamsters. Building one of these sophisticated biofactories can take as long as seven years and cost up to $600 million...
...fathers” paying child support nationwide may not be the actual fathers. Often, child-support agencies bamboozle them into signing paternity declarations, or the mother fraudulently names a father to qualify for welfare assistance. In some cases, judges are prohibited from overturning default rulings despite clear DNA evidence. The problem is so out of hand that in 1998 the California Court of Appeals had to rebuke overzealous L.A. officials for having “lost sight of the paramount duty to seek justice” in child-support cases...
...Dad’s” wages and ruining his credit, by reporting owed arrears to credit agencies—measures that ensure the financial security of single mothers, at the expense of justice for the men erroneously declared fathers. Instead, states should establish paternity with hard and fast DNA evidence, before notifying employers and credit agencies. Judges should never be left to decide a paternity case without such easily obtainable evidence...
Efforts to enshrine in law the ability of judges to refer to DNA tests, however, have encountered ferocious opposition. In Sept. 2002, for instance, California Governor Gray Davis vetoed the Paternity Justice Act under pressure from the National Organization for Women and children’s advocacy groups. The legislation would have freed thousands of paternity fraud victims from unwarranted child-support obligations by allowing judges to overturn default paternity judgments when confronted with DNA evidence disproving paternity...