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A Biology of Mental Disorder
6/27/2009 12:00:00 AM
Understanding the biology of mental illness would be a paradigm shift in our thinking about mind. It would not only inform us about some of the most devastating diseases of humankind but, because these are diseases of thought and feeling, it would also tell us more about who we are and how we function. I naively thought we were on the verge of such a paradigm change in 1983, when James Gusella and Nancy Wexler were tracking down the gene that causes Huntington's disease. I expected that within 10 years we would have found the major genes that contribute to schizophrenia, depression, and autism. Since then, there has been a lot of enthusiasm about genes and mental illness and some false starts, but surprisingly little progress.
Brain Boosters
6/27/2009 12:00:00 AM
Daryl Kipke is showing off his company's latest prototype, a state-of-the-art electronic chip. It's not the sort likely to end up powering your iPod, but it does produce a beat you won't be able to get out of your head—because this device is designed to be surgically implanted deep in your brain, where the chip will deliver electric signals to specific clusters of cells. Kipke's firm, NeuroNexus Technologies in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is developing and testing the device to deliver electric pulses that can relieve some of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depression. "Deep-brain stimulation has been poorly understood," says Kipke, who is also a University of Michigan neuroscientist. "But with this technology we can improve neuron targeting and tuning."
Life’s Complexities
Fred Guterl 6/27/2009 12:00:00 AM
If a person's genes are his destiny, why do Sunney Xie's twin daughters have different personalities, and even different fingerprints? The girls share identical genes and nearly identical upbringings, and yet somehow, as they developed through toddlerhood, their biological paths diverged. Biologists have been pondering the relative influence of nature and nurture since long before Crick and Watson discovered the basic structure of DNA in 1953, but is it possible, after all these years, that they've been missing a third influence? Xie, a biologist at Harvard, has for the past three years performed experiments in his Cambridge, Massachusetts, lab aimed squarely at this question, and he thinks he's found the overlooked factor. It is pure chance.
Biology’s Odd Couple
Lily Huang 6/27/2009 12:00:00 AM
About 10 years ago, biology entered betting season. An upstart scientist named J. Craig Venter jolted the genetics establishment by launching his own gene-sequencing outfit, funded by commercial investment, and setting off toward biology's holy grail—the human genome—on his own. It was Venter versus the old guard—old because of where they got their money (governments and trusts) and the sequencing technique they wanted to hold onto. Venter won that race, and not because he got there first. By combining the freedom of academic inquiry and commercial capital, he came up with a new way of doing science so effective that it forced the old institutions to either ramp up or play second fiddle.
A Truce in the Crop Wars
Mac Margolis 6/27/2009 12:00:00 AM
A funny thing happened on the way to the next green revolution. The world's biggest biotech corporations have deployed the latest in genetic science to pump up yield, ward off crop disease, make food more nutritious and fundamentally reengineer what we plant and eat, and no one is complaining. Environmental groups are not shouting about the perils of "Frankenfoods." There's no rabid French cheese maker with a bad mustache leading foodies on a rampage through high-tech farms. Prince Charles is quiet. Has the war over the world's dinner table finally ended?
Beyond the Book of Life
6/27/2009 12:00:00 AM
Roll over, Mendel. Watson and Crick? They are so your old man's version of DNA. And that big multibillion-dollar hullabaloo called the Human Genome Project? To some scientists, it's beginning to look like an expensive genetic floor pad for a much more intricate—and dynamic—tapestry of life that lies on top of it.