January
Racing against time to beat a family’s dementia curse
Linde Jacobs and her sisters watched their mother suffer from the effects of frontotemporal dementia. They know they’re heading the same way, and want to save their daughters.
- Virginia Hughes
October 2024
Vic Liberals’ policy vacuum opens the door for teals
Readers’ letters on the infighting within Victoria’s opposition; federal Labor losing its way and running scared; gas supply; handouts for surgeons; and the value of mass genetic screening.
Saving Amy: how a DNA test identified cancer risk
Like other women in her family, Amy Soulsby was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Her only regret is that she didn’t do the genome test earlier.
- Michael Smith
The plan to save Australian lives with nationwide DNA screening
An ambitious vision to introduce mass genetic testing to the entire Australian adult population is being hailed as a solution to the country’s healthcare crisis. But can the health system cope?
- Michael Smith
July 2024
The secret to ageing may lie in AP-1
Australian researchers appear to have uncovered a crucial master controller that governs the activity of human genes as we develop and age.
- Jill Margo
November 2023
How the tech crowd track their health to live longer
‘Quantified self’ is a movement where the health conscious are trying to leave nothing to chance, using the latest in technology to monitor their bodies and fitness.
- Nick Bonyhady
May 2023
Meet the ‘pangenome’ - it could save your life one day
Until now, a European genome was the standard against which all human genomes were compared. Now, the “pangenome” aims to reflect people of all ancestries.
- Jill Margo
April 2023
This woman had a massive heart attack at 19. Now she knows why
Rhonda Ayoubi was a healthy 19-year-old university student. Then her heart stopped. Now her genome is helping others understand rare diseases.
- Updated
- Julie Hare
May 2022
How gene tests are changing how we have babies
Pre-conception genetic screening can spare parents the heartbreak of losing a child to an inherited condition.
- Rachelle Unreich
April 2022
Final piece of DNA puzzle could explain human traits, disease
The entire human genome has finally been sequenced – nearly 20 years after scientists first claimed to have made the breakthrough.
- Sarah Knapton
December 2021
Why Richard Dawkins should stay off Twitter
At 80, the evolutionary scientist and atheist still courts controversy, but his passion for social media could sideline his true legacy.
- Kate Mossman
November 2021
If you’ve taken a DNA saliva test, you could be part of a bigger plan
Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe, wants to take on Big Pharma with the reams of personal genomic data her company has amassed.
- Kristen Brown
September 2021
Meet Australia’s Brockovich, champ for the genetically discriminated
Genetic testing can open a Pandora’s box, but Jane Tiller is helping change the rules.
- Julie Hare
Cholesterol jab could transform heart disease treatment
Britain has approved use of a new ‘gene silencing’ drug that involves twice-yearly injections and could eventually replace statins.
- Miranda Levy
January 2021
The secret humans hidden in our DNA
Homo sapiens did not drive the other species of humans that once lived with us on this planet to extinction; instead we simply merged with them.
- Madelaine Böhme, Rüdiger Braun and Florian Breier
December 2020
When does genomics become eugenics?
As the tools to identify human traits and manipulate them become more refined, ideas about normalcy and deviancy, fitness and disability, are subtly changing.
- Eben Kirksey
September 2020
New COVID-19 genomic 'radar' to track outbreaks
Science trumps state politics with the creation of Australia's first national genomic surveillance system, which will be used initially to track COVID-19.
- Jill Margo
April 2020
Two types of coronavirus were circulating in January
A genetic analysis of COVID-19 virus samples gathered from 12 countries suggests that in January, both China and the US contained “original versions” of the virus.
- Jill Margo
January 2020
Ozzy Osborne's illness not caused by his rock'n'roll lifestyle
Symptoms of Parkinson's disease can look like the effects of drug abuse but this is a misunderstanding of the nature of the illness.
- Victoria Lambert
Smart drugs target prostate tumours
Prostate cancer is taking a new approach and with a new class of highly-focused drugs that have begun helping men with a particular genetic defect.
- Jill Margo