Study Highlights the Risk of Handing Over Your Genome
Researchers found they could tie people’s identities to supposedly anonymous genetic data by cross-referencing it with information available online.
Contributors
Susan Young
Follow @twitterapiBiomedicine Editor
I’m the biomedicine editor for MIT Technology Review. I look for stories where technology stands to improve human health or advance our understanding of the human condition.
I joined MIT Technology Review in March 2012 after a brief stint in the Washington, D.C., news bureau of the scientific journal Nature. Before I ventured to the East Coast, I spent several years in the San Francisco Bay Area as a doctoral student in molecular biology and one whirlwind year in science-writing boot camp in Santa Cruz.
In California, I wrote for the Stanford University press offices, the Multiple Sclerosis Discovery Forum, and the Salinas Californian newspaper. I grew up in a small town in eastern Texas, surrounded by bird song, rolling cattle fields, and lanky pine trees. When I’m not exploring health tech, you will probably find me cooking or giggling over an exceptional LOLcat.
Susan Young's Stories
Type
Device Tests Drugs on a Tumor That's Still in the Body
Presage’s device would allow oncologists to test potentially harmful compounds in tiny amounts before giving patients a full dose.
Sound-Sensing Ear Cells Are Regenerated in Deaf Mice
A new study suggests that some of the hearing loss caused by noise exposure can be reversed with drugs.
Fireflies Inspire Brighter LEDs
A modification to existing LEDs based on firefly abdomens can boost the brightness of the light source.
A Glut of Gadgets Track Your Body’s Vital Signs
Many new fitness-tracking devices are on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Why We Have a Right to Consumer Genetics
It’s hard to get straightforward health guidance from personal genome tests, which are banned in some places. But one way to make them more meaningful is to let more people buy them.
It’s All About the Genes and the Brain Machines
In 2012, genomics tiptoed into the doctor’s office, gene therapy rose again, and man and machine united.
Two Projects Aim to Learn How Microbes Affect Health
Self-trackers are turning their attention to the microbial menageries found on, and in, the human body.
AT&T Labs Builds an Asthma-Trigger Detection Device
The chemical-sniffing setup will send data to the Web so doctors and patients can get a better sense of what causes attacks.
Scorpion Protein Illuminates Brain Tumors for Surgeons
A compound derived from a toxin from scorpion venom could help neurosurgeons differentiate between healthy and cancerous brain tissue.
