Change for America on Science and Tech Policy, Part 4: The Office of Science and Technology Policy
In Washington, D.C. access is influence, and as we’ve argued several times here on Science Progress, in order to drive progressive science and tech policy across the entire federal government, the next science adviser to the president must be at the top level of the White House staff. And few would know better the importance of the science adviser holding cabinet-level rank than the last person to serve in the position at that status, Neal Lane.
Rick Weiss outlines a framework for a new federal policy that supports funding human embryonic stem cell research over on the CAP website. He writes that within the first week of taking office, President Obama “should call upon the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health to devise a plan for dismantling the current, overly restrictive Bush administration policy on the funding of human embryonic stem cell research.”
At the end of last week, Reuters reported that the European Patent Office issued its final ruling rejecting a patent application for the stem cell technology based on the work of James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin. Filed in 1995 by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the patent, according to the EPO release “describes a method for obtaining embryonic stem cell cultures from primates, including humans.”
Copy number variation refers to the fact that the number of copies of a gene, or deletions from sequences within a person’s DNA, along with the placement of those copies or deletions, contributes to his or her inherited characteristics. That is, the copies or deletions are themselves genetic information. Using sequencing methods, researchers can identify the variation in sequence patterns across a population. Spotting those variations is one challenge, but associating them with observable characteristics is another matter altogether.
