"In this accessible talk from TEDxBoston, Richard Resnick shows how cheap and fast genome sequencing is about to turn health care (and insurance, and politics) upside down." "In the 1990s, the race to work out the structure of DNA 50 years ago was eclipsed by another race: to catalogue all the genes in the human genome. The rivalry became so bitter that presidents and prime ministers had to intervene in an epic endeavour that will take a decade to complete and cost billion of dollars. The story begins in 1990, when the Human Genome Project was launched to decipher the complete instruction manual of the human being. This epic endeavour took over a decade to complete and cost billions of dollars. Eight years after its launch, a rival private bid was announced in an attempt to shut the public project down. A personal feud erupted between Craig Venter, who ran Celera's privately funded Genome Project, and Sir John Sulston, who oversaw Britain's share of the public Human Genome Project. Craig Venter believed he could finish the Human Genome several years before the public project. The fighting became so intense that President Clinton stepped in to try to unite the two sides. Clinton asked a go-between to sort out the two warring groups. Over pizza and beer in a basement, the two sides agreed to a cease-fire. They would announce their draft results -- together -- in a joint celebration hosted by The White House in June 2000." "The discovery of double-helix structure of DNA is to science what Mona Lisa is to painting. It has been called the single biggest discovery of all times. But it was not just stumbled upon - it was a race. Specifically, it was a race between two teams of young scientists working in Britain. Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins were trying to identify the structure by studying X-ray diffractions of the DNA molecule. But Jim Watson and Francis Crick studied a little bit of everything -- including, to the consternation of some, the work of their competitors. A few have gone so far as to accuse Watson of stealing Franklin's X-ray work. In any case, Watson and Crick's inquisitive working style ultimately allowed them to determine the DNA structure first, in 1953 -- an achievement that led to their Nobel Prize in 1962. Meanwhile, Franklin passed away in 1958 from cancer." "Gentle offers its test online for $1,990 and ships its test kit within 3 days. After collecting saliva and sending the test tube back to Gentle, a customer will see their results about 6 weeks later. Gentle has an exclusive agreement with Royal Doctors, an international company specialised in connecting people to the best care, enabling them to have results communicated by an independent medical doctor with a degree in medical genetics. Alternatively, clients can choose to have their results communicated by their own doctor." Read more... In “The Gene Machine and Me,” [Eliza] Strickland focuses on a new sequencing machine that will soon enable researchers to decode an entire human genome—a sequence of 3 billion molecules—for about US $1000. To make the story personal, Strickland had her own DNA run through the machine and had doctors analyze the resulting data. She asked the doctors to reveal everything they found in her genome, no matter how alarming, and she decided to share that information with IEEE Spectrum’s readers. That decision would affect her family: After all, she inherited her genetic material from her parents and shares it with her sister, niece, and nephew. Read full article... |
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