Julia Brown, PhD

A person's genetics has a role in susceptibility to many diseases (Figure), but has little correlation with how the disease may progress or lead to a fatal outcome.
nature.com/articles/s4158

What to Know About Painkillers, Vaccines, Genes and Autism

What to Know About Painkillers, Vaccines, Genes and Autism: For decades, researchers have looked for links. Most believe the disorder springs from a complex interplay of genetics and environmental factors. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/h...

In a proposed update to its guidelines, the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence retains its recommendation of three NHS-funded IVF cycles for those eligible under 40 and critiques unproven IVF add-ons. The draft is open for consultation until October 21.

Excellent piece by @alanlevinovitz.bsky.social @awaisaftab.bsky.social on the therapeutic effect of diagnosis +
the need for qual research. Reading Parson’s “sick role” theory in undergrad sociology was the moment I realized how much is missed by psych models. www.cambridge.org/core/service...

Opinion | What I Got Wrong About D.E.I.

“Metrics can be measured only by taking into account the starting point and ending point, as well as relevant features of the journey — the whole story.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/o...

People are having fewer babies: Is it really the end of the world? Steep population declines in most countries are expected to have negative impacts over the next several generations, but adaptation is possible.

“Declining fertility is only a disaster if you don’t adapt" (by valuing individual lives more through better access to education and healthcare) www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Opinion | I’m a Proud Conservative. My Disabled Son Needs Medicaid to Live.

What a shame that Fox News couldn’t publish this instead. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/o...

Futurism MIND GAMES /ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE People Are Being Involuntarily Committed, Jailed After Spiraling Into "ChatGPT Psychosis" “I don't know what's wrong with me, but something is very bad — I'm very scared, and I need to go to the hospital.” JUN 28, 9:00 AM EDT by MAGGIE HARRISON DUPRÉ

NEW: People are being involuntarily committed to psychiatric care facilities — and even ending up arrested or jailed — after becoming fixated on ChatGPT and other chatbots and spiraling into psychosis.

futurism.com/commitment-j...

For many Duchenne families, halt to gene therapy is heartbreak upon heartbreak As gene therapy maker Sarepta Therapeutics tangles with FDA over its Duchenne treatment, patients and their families are caught in the middle.

“I feel like the balance that is being discussed right now, is actually very much out of kilter with what are acceptable risks for me as a parent, acceptable risks to me as physician and what I think should be acceptable risks to FDA and Sarepta” www.statnews.com/2025/07/24/d...

Not a good idea, uninformed
Front page @washingtonpost.com today www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

The tech billionaires and rogue scientists moving to commercialize CRISPR babies Since the “CRISPR babies” scandal in 2018, no additional genetically modified

www.geneticsandsociety.org/biopolitical...

Opinion | ‘Motherhood Should Come With a Warning Label’

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/o...

Another tragic case of the risks of coming off clozapine altogether (and why psych meds are complicated). In Australia, clozapine takers also need blood monitoring each month, a crucial community-oriented check in that I believe helps as much as the medication itself.

“I had been the pregnant woman fetishizing the normal test result. Now that I was the mother of a child with a rare condition, I found an enemy in my past self”. Just finished Second Life by @amandahess.bsky.social. It is brilliant.

Opinion | There’s a Link Between Therapy Culture and Childlessness

It’s also true that therapy teaches how those that upset us reflect unresolved parts of ourselves. It allows for more intentional parenting, ideally with more compassion for grandparents, & the littlest versions of ourselves. Too many boomers & their kids missed out. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...

Empathy can take a toll – but 2 philosophers explain why we should see it as a strength Empathy affords us a more accurate understanding of others’ experiences and emotions. Just like pain, it can be hard to bear – but that’s also the source of its strength.

"when deciding complex policy questions ... resisting empathy impairs our decision-making. It keeps us from understanding what’s at stake ... it is vital to ask ourselves what policies we would favor if we were ... fully informed of the plight of others." theconversation.com/empathy-can-...

At a major genome-editing summit, spotlight turns to the value of human life Earlier gatherings focused on gaining public acceptance for what scientists want to do with CRISPR. This meeting flipped that on its head.

🧵 Speaking at the Global Observatory for Genome Editing summit at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in Cambridge this week, I highlighted a critical challenge: the deliberate fracturing of our knowledge ecosystems along ideological lines. www.statnews.com/2025/05/27/g...

Can doctors test embryos for autism? And should they? : It's Been a Minute A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer, obesity, autism, bipolar disorder, even celiac disease. These c...

Great discussion highlighting limitations to genetic determinism. More discussion still needed on parental pressures and variations of "autism", including insights from people with lived experience www.npr.org/2025/05/28/1...

CRISPR is used in landmark treatment to correct genetic misspelling of a single patient In a world first, scientists used CRISPR to fix a baby's unique genetic mutation. The report offers hope for personalized treatments of rare diseases.

For the first time, scientists say they have reached into the genome of a severely ill child and rewritten the unique misspelling in his DNA.

He Hears Voices in His Head. He Also Helped Win an Election.

A great piece about why social acceptance and feelings of competence is everything for those struggling with psychosis. (Many anthropological studies show as much). www.nytimes.com/2025/05/07/n...

Great commentary by Dr. Ravitksy. "I would like young women to really have options," for society (and markets) to make it possible to start a family when pregnancy in less risky, where workplaces are more accommodating of mothers who work, where women don't have to gamble under economic coercion...

Excellent piece!

Opinion | What Kennedy Gets Right, And Wrong, About Antidepressants (Gift Article) Harm from these drugs is real. Let’s not cede the conversation to Kennedy.

My opinion piece in today’s @nytimes.com . I discuss how clinical neglect of medication-related harms has made RFK Jr’s stance on antidepressants appealing to so many and moving the public conversation in a productive direction requires us to remedy this neglect.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/03/o...

My Brain Finally Broke Much of what we see now is fake, and the reality we face is full of horrors. More and more of the world is slipping beyond my comprehension.

“ChatGPT will reify the problems that it purports to solve, and thus make itself essential: encouraging users to rely less and less on inner resources and personal capacity … with which we handle the task of being alive.” — 🙏🏼Jia Tolentino www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

My Son Has a Rare Syndrome. So I Turned to the Internet. (Gift Article) Social media became a place of both solace and torment. How much was mine to share?

"On the internet it could seem that our children were defined by the medical system, or else the tabloids. But inside the photo app on my phone, I could create a proud corrective archive." Beautiful piece on Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome by a mother, Amanda Hess www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/m...

The future of pediatric development and disability Podcast Episode · The Future of Everything · 04/18/2025 · 32m

Great conversation about the importance of human intimacy in neurodevelopmental trajectories — tech can only get us so far! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Moderating this book event was the highlight of my week! Thank you @dianetober.bsky.social for doing such important work to uncover the economic coercion and devastating consequences that egg donors face. More registries, informed consent, long-term follow up and public conversation is needed!

Join us for Getting to Patients on Thurs, 3/20, in HSW-300! Drs. Peter Stock & Julie Sneddon share “Beta Cell Replacement Therapies for the Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus” with patient perspective and discussion with @juliaehbrown.bsky.social tiny.ucsf.edu/Diabetes

NIH Grants Fueled $95 Billion In FY 2024 Economic Activity, Finds New Report National Institutes of Health grants generated almost $95 billion in economic activity nationwide in FY 2024 according to a new report by United for Medical Research.

New report shows that NIH grants fueled $95 billion in economic activity and 407,782 jobs in 2024.

That's not to mention the countless lives that biomedical research has saved.

Show me a better investment than that.
www.forbes.com/sites/michae...

Academia Needs to Stick Up for Itself American higher education would be in a much stronger position today if it had made a proactive case to the public for its own importance—and taken steps to address its very real shortcomings.

‘we may soon see efforts to control the teaching of climate science, or biology, and maybe even evolution once again. The playbook to take “back” universities includes much more than what we have so far seen.’ Former Berkeley Chancellor speaking up 🙌 www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...