Monday, January 12, 2009

Personal Genomes

The price of SNP analysis based on DNA microarrays has fallen to the point to make a $400 test commercially viable. The New York Time ran an article about a reporter getting his personal genome analyzed. One of the themes that some have picked up on, is that currently this type of analysis is still a very nascent technology. Correlations between specific SNP markers and particular diseases have been suggested in literature, but we are still a long way from true understanding. The recent call to arms for improvements in Systems Biology research illustrates how much is left to be done.
The Personal Genome Project, which seeks to fully sequence the exomic content of 100,000 personal genomes and provide the data openly with correlated medical histories. Preliminarily information on the first ten subjects has been released. And while the actual sequencing data is not downloadable off the web site, they do encourage you to contact them if you are interested in reserch collaberations.


Nova recently aired a show about the project:

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