talks on consumer genomics or personal genome

by Beyond Lab

As noted in one of my earlier posts, there are a lot of issues surrounding consumer genomics (personal genome) services /products and talks between academic and industry are required. Well one such discussion just happened last week at Cold Spring Harbor Lab (CSHL).

At the Biology of Genomes meeting at CSHL, one section witnessed Dietrich Stephan, co-founder and CSO of Navigenics; Linda Avey, 23andMe co-founder; Kari Stefansson, deCodeme president, CEO, and director; Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. Other participants included Kathy Hudson from Johns Hopkins University and Joseph McInerney from the National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics. Eric Lander was also there.

A lot of "existing" issues were discussed, especially the usefulness of personal genome. If you want to know more about the discussions please visit Daniel Macarthur's blog. I really like the comments about "a 'wiki-style' catalog of genetic associations".

more on personal genomics

by Beyond Lab

Just something to back up what I wrote in yesterday's post about personal genomics.
Boston Globe has an article about this
Some doubt genome's value as health tool.

There have been a lot of this kind of reports some where, both in scientific journals and media. However the image is still not clear. It would be interesting to see how the companies promote their products and challenge the scientist's views. Will simple search engine optimization do the work??