Personal genome in the public domain
A person posted his personal genome online for the first time
CNews R&D based on the materials of the personal blog of the hero of this story: Open Sourcing My Genetic Data
Recently, reports have been appearing more and more often, according to which the owners of popular social Internet services are not very scrupulous about the confidentiality of information stored on their sites. However, the lack of privacy does not bother numerous Internet users who upload a huge amount of personal data to the "world Wide Web", most of which is publicly available.
The director of the analytical agency Digital Bazaar, Manu Sporny, decided to go the furthest – he used the GitHub service in order to make the decryption of his genome publicly available to all Internet users.
To obtain this information, he used the services of a company that analyzes a saliva sample sent to her address in a special plastic container for a relatively small fee.
As a result, a person receives information about about 1,000,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms or so-called "snips" (from the English single nucleotide polymorphism, SNP).
Snip is a variation (mutation) of the genome affecting one nucleotide or one "letter" included in the DNA sequence. Analysis of snips allows a person to learn about their origin, the risks of developing diseases, the status of a carrier of hereditary diseases and sensitivity to certain drugs. Currently, experts have information about about 14,000 of the nearly 10,000,000 snips of the human genome. The available information is quite contradictory, so only about 160 snips are presented on the company's website. However, new data is constantly appearing.
To numerous questions from friends and acquaintances surprised by his act, Manu Controversially replied that "... for a long time and painfully pondered all the questions that a person asks himself before publishing personal information of this kind. Such an act can entail serious consequences for private life. However, for myself personally, I decided that the positive aspects of my act outweigh all possible negative consequences." At the same time, he did not give more detailed explanations and promised to answer all questions in his blog.
On the one hand, the decoding provided by Manu is a storehouse of information for scientists specializing in the field of personal genomics and may help them make many interesting discoveries. However, on the other hand, in the future this act may turn into a "nightmare" for him.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru21.02.2011