{"id":1251,"date":"2008-01-18T07:43:17","date_gmt":"2008-01-18T12:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/?p=1251"},"modified":"2019-10-27T07:53:17","modified_gmt":"2019-10-27T11:53:17","slug":"genome-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/2008\/01\/18\/genome-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Genome, part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I just sent a tube of spit to 23 and me<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

23 and me are one of three companies already up and running with \u201cpersonal genomics,\u201d and I\u2019m getting what passes for a thousand bucks worth of my genome analyzed. You give them a credit card number, they send a sample collection kit, and in short order you log into their web site to see the results of their analysis. Hopefully, they won\u2019t have broken the \u201cdownload your raw data\u201d feature before I get access. While their web portal is interesting, the potential to use my own data directly is way, way better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They use a machine from a company named Illumina<\/a>. The experiment provides a \u201cread\u201d on both strands of my DNA for a single letter at each of more than 600,000 locations in my DNA. These are locations where we have some sort of evidence that a \u201csingle nucleotide polymorphism\u201d (SNP) occurs. That is, a one-letter swap that somehow matters in genetics. SNPs are one of the things that count as \u201cgenes\u201d these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some of these locations, we have pretty good data on physical traits that are correlated with specific letters. Here<\/a> is an example entry in snpedia<\/a> called \u201cRs1815739\u201d. In this case, the evidence suggests that there is a correlation between particular letter pairs (CC, CT, TT) and whether you\u2019ll be a better \u201csprint\u201d or endurance athlete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the vast majority of the locations, we know next to nothing. They\u2019ve been identified as variable locations \u2026 but nobody has a clue what affect (if any) they have. By \u201cvast majority,\u201d I mean \u201cmore than 99%\u201d. Seriously, I\u2019m getting data about myself that will be unwrapped \u2026 project by painstaking project \u2026 over the next couple of hundred years. I plan to crib a couple of scripts from cariaso<\/a> to email me research summaries of my loci of interest every morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the record, there are a bunch of other things that also count as \u201cgenes\u201d which are not measured by this experiment. This is the one that happens to be really easy to measure in bulk right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
This is the future?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The consent letter in the package is telling:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You should not assume that any information we may be able to provide to you, whether now or as genetic research advances, will be welcome or positive<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So there we go. I\u2019m \u201cgetting my genome done,\u201d for a few reasons. Primary among them is that I find myself in the role of explaining this technology to friends, family, and customers. If I\u2019m going to form some sort of opinion on it, I\u2019d better be well informed about the whole process. I also have some simple curiosity about the basics of my genetic makeup \u2026 and there are a few \u201cgotchas\u201d out there that would let me adjust my lifestyle in my early thirties to increase the odds of living into my late 90s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how does it feel? It feels a bit scary, actually. I wasn\u2019t expecting the degree of approach-avoidance that I felt, looking at that little plastic tube \u2026 and then looking at the fedex envelope to ship it off. I know better than most people that \u201cgenetics is not destiny,\u201d \u2026 and I\u2019ve been saying for a long time that more accurate information *always* leads to superior decision making. Still \u2026 do I really want to know about Hodgkin\u2019s?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes. Yes I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just sent a tube of spit to 23 and me. 23 and me are one of three companies already up and running with \u201cpersonal genomics,\u201d and I\u2019m getting what passes for a thousand bucks worth of my genome analyzed. You give them a credit…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genomics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1254,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions\/1254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}