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Interview with J. Craig Venter
ebusinessmedia1 writes "An fascinating article that has Venter reflecting on the work yet to be done in genomics, and his strong sense that biology will drive developments in computing in the near future."
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I really don't buy that this article was written by Venter. I may not like the man for various proprietary-related reasons, but he is certainly a better writer than this rubbish in the article.
These may be his ideas expressed in this article, but I don't buy for one second that he actually wrote this. Some journalist probably screwed up all of his quotes, or took notes and simply could not present the ideas clearly.
Putting aside the literary flaws of this article, Venter has some interesting ideas. The question is how to do this in a way that is as open to the public as possible, yet still provide the funding. I do not think that Venter particularly wants to accomplish these goals by proprietary means; however, it does not seem like there are many alternatives. What he wants to do is sequence 10,000 genomes. Remember how long it took just to sequence 5 genomes? Well, he wants to sequence 10,000.
He also wants to develop technologies to allow us to sequence each individual's genome. All of this stuff costs lots of money. It makes sense that the software and algorithms to do this should -- and probably will -- be open, simply so that various methods can be improved upon and scrutinized. However, the costs of the hardware needed to accomplish this is mind-boggling. I'd suggest using beowulf linux clusters with very powerful individual computers; however, it's still going to be an enormous cost.
In regards to sequencing each individual's genome, some of the technology may be on the way. There are ideas about sequencing DNA base-pairs by recording electric readings as DNA is pulled through a pore (the electric readings produced by A, T, C, and G all differ).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
J. Jonah Jameson
P. T. Barnum
F. Murray Abraham
Then you turn around, and there's Craig T. Nelson. And he's a stand up guy.
http://www.remix.net/
What you need is...A MEAT COMPUTER!
Given that morons like the above clearly exist, do we indeed want to press ahead with this technology right now? Last I checked, all the peoples of the world weren't getting along too great, and the above troll is a good example of why we wouldn't want this to be TOO common / cheap. If we as a community are opposed to secrecy of science we might be better off just waiting a bit on this stuff, at least until some change in humanity (mebbe we all live in space stations scattered around and thus are difficult to disease into non-existance) makes the threat less deadly.
Given that the vast majority of the material inherited from one's mother is not DNA, not genes, and that this cellular material (cytosomes, organelles, replication molecules etc) regulates the DNA, surely we need to start finding out more about this other stuff about now?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
"But it was almost like an underground movement because, politically, ESTs were a four-letter word[...]"
Four-letter word? Hrrrmm... Celera.... Hrrrm... Then it must be ACGT.
...all of the machinery needed to support it, as well.
You get bequeathed almost everything except about half of your DNA from dear old Mum. The vast majority of your biological building blocks are epigenetic, and you get almost all of that matrilineally (certainly by weight; I don't know of any studies into what else besides DNA is contributed by the spermatoza - science seems to have been more than slightly tunnel-vision about DNA).
And cytoplasm is a long way from the simple `albuminous putty' that Haeckel wishfully describes. It's getting to the point where if that man supported an idea, you can be pretty sure it's gunna be a dud.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
As did "calculator."