Monday, December 03, 2007

Personal Genome Project   posted by p-ter @ 12/03/2007 07:04:00 PM
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Jonathan Eisen points out that the Personal Genome Project is looking for volunteers. If you read this website, you're probably well-enough informed about genetics to know the risks and benefits of having your genome sequence publicly available (ie. both are pretty minimal at this point).

Apparently the initial goal is to sequence the "exome" (ie. the 2-3% of the genome that actually encodes proteins) of all the individuals, and make it public along with phenotypic information. This is quite the opposite of the approach usually taken in genetics, where the privacy of subjects is to be protected at all costs. It's also precisely how genetics needs to be done in the future.

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