Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) has made many notable contributions to the scientific understanding and care of patients with common urologic cancers. Many of the advances represented paradigm shifts in management and established new standards of care. This review highlights the surgical procedures and treatment strategies originated and pioneered by urologic surgeons and colleagues at MSK during the past 50 years.
In June 2014, the H3Africa Working Group on Ethics organised a workshop with members of over 40 research ethics committees from across Africa to discuss the ethical challenges raised in H3Africa research, and to receive input on the proposed H3Africa governance framework. Prominent amongst a myriad of ethical issues raised by meeting participants were concerns over consent for future use of samples and data, the role of community engagement in large international collaborative projects, and particular features of the governance of sample sharing. This report describes these concerns in detail and will be informative to researchers wishing to conduct genomic research on diseases pertinent to the African research context.
New discoveries and innovations in biological sciences during the five decades preceding the 21st century and the new Millennium have focussed on genetics and genomics. It took just over 50 years following the unravelling of the structure of the molecule of nucleic acids (DNA), the key unit of the biological life, to embark on sequencing of major organisms’ entire genetic constitution or genome. The word Genome includes Gene and Ome implying complete knowledge of all genes and related elements in any single organism. Inevitably this led to enthusiastic expansion of the whole science and led to the emergence of Genomics. The suffix omics, derived from ancient Greek language, refers to in depth knowledge. Not surprisingly this followed plethora of related omics, for example proteomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics and so on. Currently we have over 30 such disciplines with the omics suffix. Key concepts of heredity, genes, genetics and genomics, specifically human genomics are introduced setting the broad landscape of Genomic Medicine.
