Razib Khan

Pedigree + Personal Genomics = More Insight

Update: Feature was always there. Just hard to find. 23andMe did a site redesign. Most of it is user interface clean up, but there one particular cool function: if you have an individual’s pedigree up to grandparents you can see which allele they inherited. Just select “Family Traits” under “Family & Friends.” You then get [...]

Genes are not a mirror upon our souls

I have put 1 million markers (from a combination of Illumina SNP-chips) of mine online. I’m also going to put my sequence online when I get it done. Why? What do I gain from this? Hopefully I don’t gain anything from it. By this, I mean that the only major information that is actionable in [...]

On genetic privacy

Larry Moran has a post up, Who Owns Your Genome?, where he mentions me apropos of the HeLa genome disclosure: In my opinion, there is no excuse for publishing this genome sequence without consent. Razib Khan disagrees. He thinks that he can publish his genome sequence without obtaining consent from anyone else and I assume [...]

Henrietta Lacks’ genome, and familial consent

Rebecca Skloot has an op-ed in The New York Times, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the Sequel. I’ve read it a few times now and I’ll be honest and say I’m not totally clear on some of the points she’s trying to make, so I didn’t have a strong reaction to it. This is [...]

Those genius Chinese babies

I’ve gotten several emails about the Vice interview of Geoffrey Miller on BGI’s Cognitive Genetics Project. It’s a sexy piece, and no surprise given Miller’s fascination with the future of China and science (something I share to a moderate extent). But for the love of God please watch this Steve Hsu video first before reading [...]

High likelihood that my daughter does not have an autosomal dominant condition

After my previous post my wife started doing research online. The autosomal dominant condition that I have is almost certainly localized to one particular chromosome (there is a large effect QTL there that is strongly associated with my condition). Additionally, I inherit this condition from my mother. My daughter has her whole pedigree genotyped, thanks [...]

Confidence in inference in phylogenetic data sets

A few weeks ago I put up a new data set into my repository. As is my usual practice now the populations can be found in the .fam file. But I’ve added more into this. I have to rewrite my ADMIXTURE tutorial soon, so I thought I would bring up an important issue when interpreting [...]

What is wrong with some ancestry testing

This is an example of the type of question I receive all the time: Here is some genetic analysis of Somalis from yours truly. I don’t necessarily blame the public here, as the marketing of Y and mtDNA lineages has really gotten out of control recently. The problem is that the fine print that Y [...]

The abuse of ancestry testing is bad for personal genomics

I have very little with which I can disagree with in this Mark Thomas piece, To claim someone has ‘Viking ancestors’ is no better than astrology. His conclusion: Exaggerated claims from the consumer ancestry industry can also undermine the results of serious research about human genetic history, which is cautiously and slowly building up a [...]

The age of non-invasive pre-natal testing is here

Last summer Neuroskeptic posted on The Coming Age of Fetal Genomics. It seems likely to me that this “age” won’t be ushered in with a bang, but we’ll be there before we know it. After all, most people aren’t thinking about having children at any given moment, and don’t track biomedical advances in genetic disease [...]

1 out of 100 benefit from whole genome sequencing

Perhaps. The New York Times has a piece out reviewing the vogue for sequencing the genomes of children who have mysterious diseases. The numbers are what matters here I think: A few years ago, this sort of test was so difficult and expensive that it was generally only available to participants in research projects like [...]

The importance of open data in genomics (and in everything!)

Yesterday a friend of mine who happens to be of doughty German and Scandinavian upper Midwest stock messaged me on Facebook and explained that her father’s results for 23andMe had come in…and he was 43 percent Sub-Saharan African! Her mother’s results came in a few hours later, and she was 35 percent Sub-Saharan African. I [...]

Do you want your genotype in a public data set?

In the near future one of my projects is revising and expanding the “PHYLO” pedigree file which I put up a week ago. Basically I want there to be a public data set which has a modest number of SNPs useful for phylogenetic analysis (100-200,000) with a wide population coverage. Additionally, I am going to [...]

Laura Hercher convinces me there is no non-self interested case for genetic paternalism

Over at David Dobbs’ weblog Laura Hercher has a guest post up with the heading The Case for Selective Paternalism in Genetic Testing. Here are some relevant sections: Which brings me back to this issue of paternalism. I agree that it makes no sense to put up obstacles for inquisitive and motivated individuals who wish [...]

Buddy, can you spare some ascertainment?

The above map shows the population coverage for the Geno 2.0 SNP-chip, put out by the Genographic Project. Their paper outlining the utility and rationale by the chip is now out on arXiv. I saw this map last summer, when Spencer Wells hosted a webinar on the launch of Geno 2.0, and it was the [...]

Buyer beware in ancestry testing!

Over at Genomes Unzipped Vincent Plagnol has put up a post, Exaggerations and errors in the promotion of genetic ancestry testing, which to my mind is an understated and soft-touch old-fashioned “fisking” of the pronouncements of a spokesperson for an outfit termed Britain’s DNA. The whole post is worth reading, but this is a very [...]

$99 for 1 million markers

Looks like 23andMe has a new $99 price point. If so, that’s 100 markers per cent! (here’s the press release) 1) Privacy: Yes, this a privacy risk. 23andMe is fundamentally an IT company, and IT companies mess up. But I am confident that within 10-15 years genetic information is going to be pretty easy to [...]

$99 for 1 million markers

Looks like 23andMe has a new $99 price point. If so, that’s 100 markers per cent! (here’s the press release) 1) Privacy: Yes, this a privacy risk. 23andMe is fundamentally an IT company, and IT companies mess up. But I am confident that within 10-15 years genetic information is going to be pretty easy to [...]

Is Daniel MacArthur ‘desi’?

My initial inclination in this post was to discuss a recent ordering snafu which resulted in many of my friends being quite peeved at 23andMe. But browsing through their new ‘ancestry composition’ feature I thought I had to discuss it first, because of some nerd-level intrigue. Though I agree with many of Dienekes concerns about [...]

Can your genes be patented?

Court to Decide if Human Genes Can Be Patented. So it seems a group of middle aged to very aged lawyers will decide the decades long Myriad Genetics saga. My position on this issue is simple: if you are going to award patents, they must be awarded to acts of engineering, not discoveries of science. [...]

Back to crunching personal genomic data

Many months ago I told some of my friends that I’d run analyses of their 23andMe data, and report it back to them. A year ago I made the same promise to some of my readers. But life got in the way, and I’ve been very busy. I’m working on scripts to make the whole [...]

It takes a village, and guidelines

A week ago I posted on a rather scary case of medical doctors withholding information from a family because they felt that it was in the best interests of the family. I objected mostly because I don’t have a good feeling about this sort of patern…

It takes a village, and guidelines

A week ago I posted on a rather scary case of medical doctors withholding information from a family because they felt that it was in the best interests of the family. I objected mostly because I don’t have a good feeling about this sort of patern…

A golden age of sibling comparisons

Image credit: Assumption-Free Estimation of Heritability from Genome-Wide Identity-by-Descent Sharing between Full Siblings

I really love the paper Assumption-Free Estimation of Heritability from Genome-Wide Identity-by-Descent Sharing between Full S…

One girl, one exome

Interesting story in The San Jose Mercury News, Open-source science helps San Carlos father’s genetic quest:
“We used materials that are public, freely available,” said Rienhoff, a physician and scientist, as Beatrice frolicked nearby…

One girl, one exome

Interesting story in The San Jose Mercury News, Open-source science helps San Carlos father’s genetic quest:
“We used materials that are public, freely available,” said Rienhoff, a physician and scientist, as Beatrice frolicked nearby…

GEDmatch needs funds!

I noticed today that GEDmatch is trying to raise funds to cover the cost of their web services. What are those services? Basically if you get raw data back from direct-to-consumer genotyping firms GEDmatch allows you to run further analytics. You can d…

AncestryDNA is now accepting the necessity of raw data downloads

The Legal Genealogist points me to the fact that AncestryDNA is now going to work on allowing users to download their data. Here’s the specific section:
AncestryDNA believes that our customers have the right to their own genetic data. It is your …

Dienekes and ADMIXTOOLS

Less than a month ago I pointed to the release of ADMIXTOOLS. Unfortunately, though I have a desktop at home devoted purely to my personal genomic hobbies I haven’t been able to free up the time on weekends to start doing my own analysis. This is…

Fear not the gene!

John Hawks points me to a critique of NPR coverage of personal genomics. In defense of NPR they seem like Physical Review Letters in comparison to other media, such as the BBC. But I do wonder what the causality here is. Does the media lead us to the p…

I am free of rare homozygous recessives! (well, perhaps)

I got a notification today from Ian Logan that he set up a page on my genotype using a method which detects rare homozygous SNPs in the ~1 million markers I put up from my 23andMe results. My raw data is online, so anyone can analyze it. Here is the su…

Ancestry.com’s AncestryDNA won’t give you your raw data

CeCe Moore points me to an “interesting” fact I had not noticed about Ancestry.com‘s AncestryDNA service (which is not open available to everyone right now):
I re-emphasized to John the importance to the genetic genealogy community th…

The ecstasy and agony of prenatal information

Slate reposts a piece from New Scientist, Do You Really Want To Know Your Baby’s Genetics? It is arranged as a series of questions which might arise from the new information. For me my frustration with this sort of discussion is rooted in reviewing o…

Consent and genomics

Interesting story in The New York Times, Genes Now Tell Doctors Secrets They Can’t Utter:
One of the first cases came a decade ago, just as the new age of genetics was beginning. A young woman with a strong family history of breast and ovarian cancer…

Beware of the ancient of days!

By now you have probably read in The New York Times, or on the blogs, about the new paper in Nature which reports on the empirical trend toward the children of older fathers carrying more de novo mutations. Really all you need is this figure:

It&#8217…

Yes we should (prenatal sequencing)

Obsession. I’ve been obsessed with many things in my life, from specific women to sundry topics. But I’ve never known obsession until I had a child. Perhaps others are not like me, but the monomaniacal need to know as much as you can about …

23andMe discount code (again)

At this point if you have spare cash why not shell out $300 for a raw copy of your genotype? (yes, I know 23andMe provides other services) I’m sure many readers spend $100 on nice meals now and then. That’s one day. Your genotype won’…

Regulate the diet industry!

Brandom Keim leaves this comment:
It’s easy to see genomic data regulation in romantic narrative terms — The plucky little guys who want to be free! The big, bad institutions who want to control them! — and it’s also a trap. Interpreting genomi…

Genetic counseling and conflict of interest

Article in The New York Times:
Genetic testing raises some vexing ethical questions, like whether it will cause unnecessary anxiety or lead to more medical procedures, including abortions.
Now, as the number of tests and the money to be made from them …

Toward healthier gestations

Neuroskeptic has a post up, The Coming Age of Fetal Genomics:
So they don’t. Instead, they buy a $100 test kit, they each provide a small blood sample and send it off to one of the companies offering fetal genome testing. At the testing lab, they…

Paternity before birth

Before Birth, Dad’s ID. Nothing too surprising, if you can check for fetal abnormalities, it shouldn’t be too hard to ascertain paternity. Two issues of note in the piece. In the specific cases highlighted the author and the sources emphasized …

Eugenics by another name

Evolution’s winner. Real headline.

In the mid-2000s two British biologists of some public note attempted to revive or resuscitate the good name of eugenics, Richard Dawkins and Armand Leroi. My own suspicion is that this emerges in part from a …

Genome sequencing of the unborn

Noninvasive Whole-Genome Sequencing of a Human Fetus:
Analysis of cell-free fetal DNA in maternal plasma holds promise for the development of noninvasive prenatal genetic diagnostics. Previous studies have been restricted to detection of fetal trisomie…

The current bias in genealogical databases

As a follow up to my post below on the thick coverage of European information in genealogical and genomic databases, here are the “Ancestry Finder” matches from 23andMe for my daughter using the default settings:

If I increase sensitivity …

Science, the genealogical leveler?

I follow CeCe Moore’s blog posts on scientific genealogy pretty closely. But it’s more because of my interest in personal genomics broadly, rather than scientific genealogy as such. My own knowledge of my family’s past beyond the lev…

GEDmatch

For genetic genealogy buffs, I highly recommend Gedmatch. It’s been rolling out a lot of new features, including ancestry inference tools from the major genome bloggers. Here is my “chromosome paining” using Zack Ajmal’s referen…

Genetics and genomics projects galore!

Thought I would pass these on. A graduate student at Rice is trying to raise some funds for research, Genopolitics: Your Genes Affect How You Vote!. The methodology is a twin study:
To test this, I’ll track how genes affect attitudes during the 2…

The oracle of personal genomics

The Awl had a rather unoriginal piece up recently, Everything I Didn’t Learn From Taking A Personal Genome Test (this is part of a genre which will probably crest in the next few years, before widespread genotyping becomes common, demystifying t…

Your child’s genome before the 2nd trimester?

A long piece in Slate, Will Gattaca come True?:
When Lo licensed his technology to Sequenom, he stipulated that it could not be used for sex selection. Rabinowitz says Natera won’t test for sex at this point, either. But how long such provisions will…

Her identity by descent made flesh

As I have indicated before, my daughter has a family tree where everyone out to 0.25 coefficient of relatedness has been genotyped by 23andMe. This is convenient in many ways. Before, relatedness was a theory. Now relatedness can be ascertained on the …

Elizabeth Warren, Native American

Elizabeth Warren, Native American

It has come to my attention that Elizabeth Warren, who is running for a Senate seat in Massachusetts, claims Native American ancestry. This did not surprise me. Warren is from Oklahoma, where nearly 10% of the popul…

One baby, alone on a PCA island

A week ago I reported that according to 23andMe I’m 40% Asian, and she is 8% Asian (in the future if I say “she” without explanation, you know of whom I speak). Obviously something is off here. The situation resolved itself when I tu…

The world is as it should be in personal genomics

I’ve been having some fun with my daughter’s personal genomics. You see, she has her whole pedigree out to r = 1/4. So, for example, contributions from her grandparents seem to be about on this order:
Paternal grandfather = 0.28
Paternal gr…

Mike Snyder profile in Science

Examining His Own Body, Stanford Geneticist Stops Diabetes in Its Tracks: Over a 14-month period, the molecular geneticist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, analyzed his blood 20 different times to pluck out a wide variety of biochemical data depicting the status of his body’s immune system, metabolism, and gene activity. In today’s issue [...]

Parkinson’s disease patients & free 23andMe

Michelle tipped me off to 23andMe’s new initiative to get Parkison’s disease sufferers genotyped. Basically, if you are a sufferer, you get the service for free. The goal presumably to increase the sample size so as to pick up new possible associations. But a question: can you think of a downside for Parkinson’s disease sufferers? [...]

Loss-of-function & variation in load

Greg Cochran pointed out something that I’d been considering about the MacArthur et al. paper: if the average human (OK, non-African human) has ~100 loss-of-function variants, then the standard deviation should be ~10. That’s because the distribution is presumably poisson, and variance = mean, and the square root of the of the variance (~100) is the [...]

Free 23andMe genotyping

From OpenSNP: At the end of last year we announced that we’ve got some funding from the German WikiMedia foundation to get more people – who are willing to share their results – genotyped. We have now settled on a process that should allow us to perform the project without too many problems.Starting today, you can [...]

Extraordinary mutations require extraordinary evidence

Over at Genomes Unzipped Dr. Daniel MacArthur has a review up of a paper in Science where he is first author (note for grad students and aspiring post-docs, Dr. MacArthur is starting a new lab, where he posted an ungated version of the paper). He hits all the salient points, so I will cover two [...]

The Nanopore footnote?

The New York Times and Nature both have favorable reviews of Oxford Nanopore’s showy claims at Advances in Genome Biology and Technology. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please see the twitter stream, or the post at Genomes Unzipped. A note of caution: look back at The New York Times reporting on Pacific [...]

Update on the Afrikaner genotype

Since my original post on the Afrikaner genotype, I’ve gotten many responses. No genotypes yet though. At some point I need to organize how to pay for typing many individuals. Currently my intent is to pay for those who will allow their identities to be public so that people can confirm their genealogies. Other people [...]

Socialized personal genomics?

Norway to bring cancer-gene tests to the clinic: Norway is set to become the first country to incorporate genome sequencing into its national health-care system. The Scandinavian nation, which has a population of 4.8 million, will use ‘next-generation’ DNA sequencers to trawl for mutations in tumours that might reveal which cancer treatments would be most [...]

ChromoPainter & fineSTRUCTURE on a South Asian data set

Over at Harappa DNA Zack ran ChromoPainter/fineStructure on his South Asian data set and posted the results. The new method immediately makes a few things clear: 1) The “South Asians” in the HGDP data set that’s been used for so long are rather on the inbred side, and relatively genetically distinct as far as South Asian populations [...]

Socialized medicine + personal genomics = ?

My own working assumption is that the demand side impulse toward mass adoption of human genomic technology in the USA is going to be dampened by fear of downside consequences, GINA notwithstanding. Rather, I assume that the more deregulated consumer environment in parts of Asia with very low fertility rates, as well as European states [...]

Personal genomics and adoption

With DNA Testing, Suddenly They Are Family: Several companies provide tests that can confirm whether adoptees are related to individuals they already know. Others cast a wider net by plugging DNA results into databases that contain tens of thousands of genetic samples, provided mostly by people searching for their ancestral roots. The tests detect genetic [...]

Genetic profiling: CSI edition

Apparently the national media is reporting that scientific genealogy may result in leads to a cold case. The principle is simple: apparently Y chromosomal material was matched to public genealogy databases. From this the researcher concluded that the perpetrator is probably a male line descendant of Robert Fuller of Salem, Massachusetts. Contrary to the urban [...]

“Recreational genomics,” 4+ years on

In an exchange with Mark Shriver, I was pointed to this 2007 position paper in Science, The Science and Business of Genetic Ancestry Testing. It’s an interesting historical artifact. Much of the critique was aimed at AncestrybyDNA, but it can be generalized. Now that 23andMe has ~100,000 customers, have the things which they worried about [...]

Reconstructing a generation unsampled

In the near future I will be analyzing the genotype of an individual where all four grandparents have been typed. But this got me thinking about my own situation: is there a way I could “reconstruct” my own grandparents? None of them are living. The easiest way to type them would be to obtain tissue [...]

PGD:2010s::IVF:1980s

Get ready for PGD, the acronym for preimplantation genetic diagnosis. We don’t really talk about “test tube babies” anymore. It’s “IVF,” and as American as apple pie (OK, perhaps as Israeli as falafel). Here’s the Ngrams result: It’s just not that big of a deal anymore. But take a look at the order articles in The [...]

23andMe controversies in the genetic genealogy community

A few readers have pointed me to controversies having to do with 23andMe’s “terms of use”. You can read about it over at Your Genetic Genealogist, who has two posts up on the issues. I think the crux is that the early enthusiasts for personal genomics in the genetic genealogy community can not support the revenue [...]

Basque genetic distinctiveness (again)

With all the talk about Basques I decided to do my own analysis with Admixture. Dienekes gave me a copy of his IBS file, which has all the 1000 Genomes Spanish samples, including Basques. I merged it with the HGDP sample, which has French Basques (just “Basques” in the plots below) and French non-Basques. I [...]

Would you have your fetus genetically tested?

There’s a variable in the GSS, GENESELF, which asks: Today, tests are being developed that make it possible to detect serious genetic defects before a baby is born. But so far, it is impossible either to treat or to correct most of them. If (you/your partner) were pregnant, would you want (her) to have a [...]

Are you a caveman?

23andMe finally unveiled a Neanderthal Ancestry estimation feature. I’m at ~2.4 percent. What I’m curious about is the fact that out of the 45 “friends and family” who are surveyed, only two are at 3 percent. One of my them is my sibling who I found seems to have the Neandertal copy of a dystrophin [...]

I pledge my full genome to the public domain

I expect to get my full genome sequenced in a few years, at the latest. When that happens, I’ll try and place it online at a public repository. Why? There’s something of a chicken and egg issue with the utility of genomes. The more you have out there, the more juice you can squeeze. I’m [...]

Thoughts on the $1,000 genome, circa 2007

You’ve probably read Andrew Pollack’s DNA Sequencing Caught in Deluge of Data, by now. This section caught my eye: “The cost of sequencing a human genome — all three billion bases of DNA in a set of human chromosomes — plunged to $10,500 last July from $8.9 million in July 2007, according to the National [...]

Congratulations to openSNP

For winning the API Binary Battle! The Nature News weblog has a moderately overwrought piece on the possibilities for crowd-sourcing in genetics. Interestingly they report that openSNP only has 50 genotypes. That’s lame. Though I haven’t poked around the site much since I initially loaded my data. I’ll have to spend some time this weekend [...]

A consideration of Pacific Biosciences

I went to a seminar where a Pacific Biosciences representative was presenting recently. Along with others I arrived early because we thought it would be rather crowded. Not so much. Has the bubble burst?

Zoom in to the last year….

Genomic databases: making tissue matching drives irrelevant?

23andMe has a feature which allows you to check MHC compatibility. This is important for matching potential organ donors with those who need those organs. If a close family member is not a match (it’s a very polymorphic set of genes), then a co-ethnic is the next best bet. This is a major problem for [...]

Genomes made real

Things we said today: But change is afoot. Numerous teams of clinicians and genomicists (including two at my own institution) have come together to sequence patients’ genomes and/or exomes to identify disease-causing mutations. Of course, doctors and researchers and genetic counselors are still bickering about when to sequence, whom to sequence, return of results, institutional [...]

Personal genomics: more than fun & games

My main current interest in personal genomics right now is pure recreation. I don’t expect much utility out of it, because a lot of correlations between genes (SNPs, etc. ) and traits/diseases are rather weak. But there are some exceptions. Recently I was temporarily put on a prescription medication and I wanted to check if [...]

Spontaneous genomic F.U.D.

Patron saint of gene-F.U.D. F.U.D.  “Fear, uncertainty and doubt”. It generally refers to a feeling or sense which is driven by exogenous forces. Corporations and movements intent on reinforcing some status quo. But when it comes to personal genomics one issue I’ve noted and observed is spontaneous and endogenous F.U.D. As if humans naturally have [...]

How many human genomes have been sequenced?

That query doesn’t seem to have an easy answer on Google, so I’m trying to enter it here. A prominent genomicist asserted a ballpark figure of ~30,000 human genomes in the year 2011. Most of that is in the year 2011 itself. Also, in regards to the “$1,000 genome” question, it seems that some labs [...]

In the year 2011….

Follow up to the previous post, (Via Ed), Fetal gene screening comes to market: Until last week, scrutinizing a fetus’s DNA for indications of genetic abnormalities meant tapping into the mother’s womb with a needle. Now there’s a test that can do it using a small sample of the mother’s blood. MaterniT21, a Down’s syndrome [...]

In the year 2015….

Recently I was having a discussion with some friends about getting the full genomes of everyone in my immediate family when the price point comes down to $1,000, just as I have had my immediately family genotyped. You can find some interesting stuff just from the genotype alone, which for current affordable platforms aims for [...]

The Betsileo of Madagascar are Malay and Bantu

A month ago I posted the genetic results of a Malagasy individual of Merina identity. Today I post those for someone of Betsileo heritage. All the technical details are the same. You can find all the ADMIXTURE and PCA files here. This genotyping was paid for by readers. I’ll update the post with the names [...]

Is it ethical to publish your baby’s genome?

That’s what a reader below asks. To some extent I wondered this when Dan MacArthur and Ilana Fisher put their genotypes out there. They have a son, and so now you can generate a likely matrix of risks for Tobias MacArthur since you have his parents’ genotypes. Since he’s only a bit over a year [...]

Harappa Ancestry Project at 10 months

It’s been 10 months since Zack Ajmal first contacted me about the possibility of the Harappa Ancestry Project. I was of two minds. On the one hand I did think there was a major problem with undersampling some regions of South Asia. But, it seemed that the 1000 Genomes would fix that soon enough. As [...]

Imagine a world with ubiquitous DNA tests….

I thought of that when stumbling upon this story of Spanish babies being sold to adoptive parents, while the biological parents were told that the baby had died: “The father of a friend of mine admitted to him that both he and I had been bought from a priest and a nun from Zaragoza after [...]

Is publishing your genome unethical?

Larry Moran thinks that I had to ask my parents and siblings for permission before publishing my genotype. Interestingly, most of his readers seems to disagree with Larry on this, so I won’t offer my own response in any detail. They’re handling it well enough. I would like to add though that obviously this isn’t [...]

Is publishing your genotype unethical?

Larry Moran thinks that I had to ask my parents and siblings for permission before publishing my genotype. Interestingly, most of his readers seems to disagree with Larry on this, so I won’t offer my own response in any detail. They’re handling it well enough. I would like to add though that obviously this isn’t [...]

openSNP

Some of the people behind the openSNP website have been in touch with me for a while. As I put my own genotype into the public domain I’m obviously pretty well disposed toward this sort of thing. You should check them out if you haven’t before, they just moved to a beefier server. Here’s what [...]

Sequencing everyone in the Faroe Islands

There was some speculation last week about which nation would have everyone sequenced first. We now have a contender, the Faroe Islands, a self-governing Danish dependency (they’re not part of the E.U.) is going to try and sequence most of the population of ~50,000 over the next five years: Around 100 people who are likely [...]

Dodecad Ancestry Project is at ~10,000

A few days ago I noticed that the Dodecad Ancestry Project had nearly nearly 10,000 individuals! ~500 are participants in the project (like myself, I’m DOD075). But most of the individuals were derived from public or shared data sets. You can see them in the Google spreadsheet with all the results. It’s quite an accomplishment, [...]

Not the great stagnation

Dan MacArthur points me to this story on the sequencing of the West family. You can read the full paper in PLoS Genetics. When the price point for a full genome comes down to $1,000 or so I plan on getting the code for everyone in my immediate family, just like I got everyone genotyped [...]

Poll on personal genomics

Genomes Unzipped points me to a Nature survey on personal genomics for scientific researchers. With price points down to $200 or so many scientists have been at least genotyped. Though it varies by domain. Many molecular biologists seem intrigued by the novelty of personal genotyping services. In contrast, in a room of a dozen or [...]

Why I’d “go short” on “genetic privacy”

Patient Data Posted Online in Major Breach of Privacy: A medical privacy breach at Stanford University’s hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., led to the public posting of medical records for 20,000 emergency room patients, including names and diagnosis cod…

An attempt at “open science”

I was asked by the person who provided me the Tutsi genotype for detailed results. Of course I would do so! So I uploaded the raw csv files to Google Docs. The format and explanation isn’t totally clear, though if you follow my posts you’ll…

Survey on personal genomics

Just got this email, and I thought I would share with my readers: I’m a biologist from Germany and together with 2 fellow biologists I’m currently working on a project that evaluates the sharing of raw data from DTC-genetic-testing companie…

Tutsi genetics, ii

In my post below, Tutsi probably differ genetically from the Hutu, there were many comments. Some I did not post because they were rude, though they did ask valid questions. I will address those issues, but let me quote one comment:
That’s an interes…

Tutsi probably differ genetically from the Hutu

Paul Kagame with Barack and Michelle Obama
I first heard about Rwanda in the 1980s in relation to Dian Fossey’s work with mountain gorillas. The details around this were tragic enough, but obviously what happened in 1994 washed away the events d…

Twin studies are not useless

A few friends have pinged me on this piece in Slate, Double Inanity: Twin studies are pretty much useless. The headline is bold, but the piece is just a sloppy mishmash. It’s really something amenable for a major “fisking,” but I gene…

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