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100,000 Californians To Be Gene Sequenced

Posted by Soulskill on from the homing-in-on-the-prius-gene dept.

eldavojohn writes "A hundred thousand elderly Californians (average age 65) will be gene sequenced by the state using samples of their saliva. This will be the first time such a large group has had their genes sequenced, and it is hoped to be a goldmine for genetic maladies — from cardiovascular diseases to diabetes to even the diseases associated with aging. Kaiser Permanente patients will be involved, and they are aiming to have half a million samples ready by 2013. Let's hope that they got permission from the patients' doctors first."

6 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Not sequencing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This not (gene or genome) sequencing. Rather, it picks up single nucleotide changes (SNPs). Still valuable information, but no new mutation will be discovered with this method.

    Sequencing would be a couple of orders of magnitude more expensive.

    1. Re:Not sequencing by SUB7IME · · Score: 4, Informative

      Anonymous coward is correct. This is genotyping, which is orders of magnitude less resource-intensive than gene sequencing.

      Genotyping | sequencing || driving down the highway | Lewis and Clark's journey

      Sequencing is pathfinding (they are not doing this). Genotyping is exploring the path that you already know is there (this is what they are doing). On the sequencing front, there is currently a 1000 genomes project - a massive collaboration of worldwide importance due to its difficulty and expense. On the other hand, genotyping 100,000 people is done all the time (heart attack GWAS, etc). The two concepts are enormously different.

  2. Re:Damned sure glad... by Idiomatick · · Score: 3, Informative

    At least get your racist history right. China had circled the globe in 1300s created the great wall of China, the still current largest man made channel, and the forbidden city, while they mapped the sky. At this time they didn't bother even trading with the Europeans because they were so much more advanced that they seemed like dirty savages. The largest fleet that Europe had at the time were Venician longboats armed with bows. Would have been easy for China to conquer them and the anchors of their ships weighed more than the European ships and the fact that they had bombs at the time.

    Oh and if you go back further. Africans built great civilizations and had lots of math that the europeans stole from them. Some cities were very well educated. Timbuktu rivaling Alexandria in some respects.

    Or further forwards, the inuit haven't fared nearly as well as america. Even though they are an offshoot of americans. I'm sure you made a mistake in your calculations somewhere.

  3. s/Sequenced/Genotyped by ianbean · · Score: 3, Informative

    Maybe everyone should read the article. They're being genotyped (700,000 SNPs by Affymetrix array) not sequenced. There is a significant difference...

  4. Re:Damned sure glad... by SUB7IME · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is why we passed GINA: http://www.genome.gov/24519851

  5. Re:The Good, the Bad, the Ugly... by sjames · · Score: 3, Informative

    Unfortunately for the social Darwinists in the crowd, they DO have one last option available. That is, attack the society that told them to just kindly go away and die quietly somewhere and take what they need. It's not as if they would have anything to lose is it?

    The same philosophy of social darwinism that tells you it's OK to just let them die also tells them it's OK to kill you so they and their family might live. The difference is that at some point they will face a 100% chance of death if they DON'T attack and a significant but lesser chance of death if they do.

    Disenfranchise people en-mass long enough and soon enough they will form their own society. If the parent society interferes with that, they will eventually become an enemy.

    Alternatively they become a diffuse source of discontent and the society unravels from the inside out.