September 23, 2002

10:44 PM

Dr Venter says he will be able to provide an individual's genome on a CD in about a week for $712,000 (£400,000) from later this year with the ultimate goal to sequence someone's entire genome in 24 hours for $1,000 (£562).
posted by nasim (9 comments total)

Why? I'd imagine your average millionaire hasn't the foggiest idea what to do with this information. Although the studying of the human genome should be encouraged and studied, making money doesn't seem like a necessary step in that science.
posted by alvin eichholz at 10:55 PM on September 23, 2002

Uuh, ok, cool, I can get my genome on a CD. So what do I do now, wear it around my neck?

Is there a practical use for this today or is it just something you do so that you can brag about at parties attended by other filthy-rich people with too much money?

Please enlighten this ignerent soul.
posted by bicyclingfool at 10:59 PM on September 23, 2002

haha. you spelled ignit wrong.
posted by Satapher at 11:06 PM on September 23, 2002

One of the things I am most interested in would be the ability to compare your genome to say...your friends. I imagine sitting around and comparing whether the gene for your brown eyes are the same as your friends or if they have a slightly different brown eye SNP. I imagine late night IRC chat networks for people who have a gene that predisposes them to insomnia. Perhaps you might be interested to find you share a couple muscle protein genes in common with your sports hero. In short whatever other benefits (medical or otherwise) it might provide I think the greatest will be to understand ourselves better(in relation to others who have the same or different genes for various things). That's one of the reasons I get up in the morning.
posted by nasim at 11:46 PM on September 23, 2002

You could also give it to insurance companies so they can find all sorts of new pre-existing conditions. "I see from your genome that you've got the BRCA1 gene. This means that we'll cover you for everything except breast and ovary cancer. Thank you for shopping Geico."
posted by ptermit at 5:02 AM on September 24, 2002

Isn't Geico an auto insurance company?
posted by agregoli at 7:35 AM on September 24, 2002

Well, yes, and homeowners'. It was a joke, though.
posted by ptermit at 1:31 PM on September 24, 2002

Oh. I was just incredulous that I could have misheard all 50,000 of those irritating commercials.
posted by agregoli at 2:22 PM on September 24, 2002

You could burn copies for your friends, or carry it around on your Apple iPod like a diabetes bracelet, in case you need to be suddenly cloned.
posted by inksyndicate at 5:49 PM on September 24, 2002