Personal Genome Project: scientists reveal their DNA to the whole world

    With a shocking disregard for their own privacy, at least 10 people have already agreed to put their own DNA open for decryption and analysis. These are scientists and computer scientists from Harvard, Duke and other American universities. All of them sent a piece of their skin and agreed to openly publish the analysis data.

    These are the terms of the new Personal Genome Project.within the framework of which it is planned to attract at least 100,000 people to similar actions and make up a huge open base of human genotypes. The creation of such a base is expected to accelerate the development of new drugs and the research work of geneticists. Actually, everyone in the scientific community agrees with this fact: the more such information is in the clear, the faster the research will go.

    DNA analysis can actually give a person a huge amount of information about his own health (a person can find out about his predisposition to obesity, alcoholism, cancer, Alzheimer's disease and hundreds of other diseases), and in some cases even save his life. For example, recently Sergey Brin (founder of Google) made an analysisand now knows that he faces a deadly disease. At least he has a couple of decades to prepare.

    And even after analyzing and publishing your genotype, insurance will become more expensive for you, they may not be hired due to congenital DNA defects (although such discrimination is prohibited by law), and scandals may occur in families due to DNA mismatches between fathers and children - but, after all, is it really worth fearing such a "violation of privacy"? Still, the pros outweigh the cons, and for science it is useful.

    Register to participate in the project here .

    via Slashdot

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