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Genome of DNA Pioneer Is Deciphered
unchiujar writes "The New York Times reports that the full genome of James D. Watson, one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953, has been deciphered, marking what some scientists believe is the gateway to an impending era of personalized genomic medicine. A copy of his genome, recorded on a pair of DVDs, was presented to Dr. Watson on Thursday in a ceremony in Houston by Richard Gibbs, director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at the Baylor College of Medicine, and by Jonathan Rothberg, founder of the company 454 Life Sciences. 'The first two genome sequences belonging to individuals are now being made available to researchers within a few days of each other. One is Dr. Watson's and the other belongs to J. Craig Venter, who as president of the Celera Corporation started a human genome project in competition with the government. Dr. Venter left Celera after producing only a draft version of a genome, his own, in 2001, which the company did no further work on. He has now brought his genome to completion at his own institute in Rockville, Md., and deposited it last week in GenBank, a public DNA database, he said.'"
So what's that, 16 gigabytes of information to describe one person. But this is a DNA profile, not necessarily something which can be turned back into DNA.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Anyone know if combination restrictions apply?
Yes, but most of them are not compatible with life, so chances are you don't have any.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I don't think I should be passed up for a liver transplant from years of hard drinking because I have a genetic predisposition to parkinsons or diabetes.
I would deny you the liver implant based solely on your hard drinking. All unlucky souls that need a new liver because of a disease should get it before you who knowingly killed your own liver get a new.
Ah, I remember those days.
/. crowd - it is essentially an IT solution to an otherwise-expensive problem.
Basically, the issue was that the human genome project was operating under a rather long timeline (mostly based on the state of technology when the project started). Venter thought that using a massively-parallel approach to the problem and using computers to assemble the resulting mess of data would get the results faster, but with some gaps in the final data that would require follow-up. He started Celera to implement this idea.
The business model was simple. All the data would be released publicly, but before it was patents would be secured on medical uses for a few hundred new genes that looked to be important. They also offered some database services that in theory would be superior to what was available publicly (although they did publicize their sequences in Genbank/etc).
Suffice it to say the world of academics wasn't too happy about this, as the math on paper suggested that with the amount of capital Celera was commiting he would indeed overtake the HGP (on its original timeline) with time to spare. The reason for this is similar to what you see in distributed computing projects like the RC-5 cracking attempts. If a project stretches 5 years you'll probably see that half of the project got done in the last six months - because of the ever-growing computing power available to it. The whole project could be repeated in 1 year instead of the original 5. The same applied to DNA sequencing technology at the time - the decade-plus-long HGP could be completed in a year or two if started today with the same level of funding. So, starting late didn't really slow down Celera all that much.
In the end Venter's idea essentially paid off. Sure, some complain that the random sequencing technique leaves gaps, but they can be closed conventionally. Also, if you look at most intended uses for sequence data, having 99% of it is just about as good as having 100% of it. And when you look at cost it is probably better to have 99% of 10 organisms sequenced to 100% of one.
The massively-parallel approach to sequencing would probably be of interest to many in the
(posting anonymously as I'm in the field, and it's a small world)
I watched the live webcast of him accepting the (portable hard drive) that contained the genome data. He was kind of an ass, trashing DOE, former NIH administrators, and various and sundry others. My colleagues and I confirmed that he had definitely fallen into the "I'm old and famous and don't care what I say or who hears it" model. I was disappointed, as I had hoped he would have been gracious.
A fetus is excluded from the meaning of the legal term "person", because that's easier to do and results in more consistent application of the law than would amending every single law to replace "person" with "person other than a fetus". For similar reasons, corporations are considered legal "persons".
The "fetuses aren't people" argument is a red herring, anyway. Yes, a fetus is a human life, and a chimpanzee is almost a human life. However, in our society, we benefit from offering only very limited protection to either one. In both cases, we are (arguably) conserving our resources for individuals who are more likely to become contributing members of our society. Some might say that it's cruel, but ultimately our species benefits as a result.
Eugenics could be justified on similar grounds. Frankly, I'd be interested in hearing any sound arguments (beyond "It's just so wrong") that eugenics is bad for the species.
http://outcampaign.org/