For the past few days I've been avidly following Daniel MacArthur's tweets from the Personal Genome Conference at Cold Spring Harbor(@dgmacarthur #cshlpg).
The Personal Genomics tweets aren't just interesting because of the science, they're interesting because MacArthur and others have started to take on the conventional dogma in genetic ethics.
For years, there has been a strong message from the clinical genetics and genetics education community that genetic information is dangerous.
This morning I attended a "bloggers-only" conference call with Dr. Eric Green and the folks from the NIH Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) to hear about NHGRI's new strategic plan. The new plan represents a shift away from viewing the genome through a lens marked "for research use only" and towards the goal of making the genome useful as a clinical tool. As a consequence, we will see a greater emphasis on funding activities that support clinical work. For example, it's not always clear how variations in the genome are related to disease. NHGRI might fund projects that help sort and ... Read more
Blaine Bettinger has an absolutely wonderful post where he compares his results for type 2 diabetes from 23andMe and DeCODEme.
I really liked his post and I appreciated the way he showed the data from the two companies and elaborated on their interpretation of his genotype and his risk.
Interestingly, his story goes beyond a simple relationship, where one base changes, one amino acid changes, and voila! you've got the disease.
Bettinger describes what happens when there are changes in ... Read more
Genome Web's Daily Scan noted an interesting blog post today from John D. Halamka, one of the people to get his genome sequenced through the personal genome project.
I was interested to see his post since Genome Web wrote that he was discussing data standards and we have been writing quite a bit, ourselves, about data measurements for Next Gen sequencing (e.g. Next Gen-Omics) on our company blog, ... Read more
Masha Gessen was faced with a terrifying choice: cut off her breasts, and possibly save herself from cancer, or use them to feed her child.
It was late at night when I walked back to my empty dorm room at the conference. Shivering, I stood on the narrow bed, quickly shut the windows, tore the blankets off the other bed, and wrapped myself up, trying to get warm. Too cold to sleep, I picked up my copy of Masha Gessen's " ... Read more
Lots of bloggers in the DNA network have been busy these past few days writing about Google's co-founder Sergey Brin, his blog, his wife's company (23andme), and his mutation in the LRRK2 gene.
I was a little surprised to see that while other bloggers (here, here, ... Read more
Are you curious about Second Life?
Next week you can satisfy your curiosity and learn about the personal genomics frontier at the same time.
Bertalan Meskó announced that Erin Davis (science writer) and Joyce Tung (human geneticist) from 23andMe will be giving a presentation next week in Second Life on personalized genetics.
As travel costs rise and traveling becomes harder, I think we'll see many more things happening in alternative places like Second Life. ... Read more
The genie is out of the bottle. Personal genomes are not just for Venter and Watson anymore.
Three competing companies, 23andme, Decode, and Navigenics are betting that you want to do a little better than reading your horoscopes and playing with tea leaves. They think that you want to know something about your destiny and take control of your future. And when I look at the 23andme web site, I want it, too. I want it so badly, it makes me drool. ... Read more
