Audio from PGP Press Conference on Public Data Release

Harvard Medical School’s Office of Public Affairs has published an audio recording of the October 20th press conference where the PGP-10 discussed their individual decisions about public release of their genomic data.

Listen to mp3 here.

October 27, 2008 | Filed Under pgp | Leave a Comment 

George Church on Ira Flatow’s Science Friday 2pm ET

George Church, founder of the Personal Genome Project, will be a guest on Science Friday with Ira Flatow, tomorrow at 2pm ET.

Details on how to tune in to this October 24th broadcast.

Update: Listen to the archived show now.

October 23, 2008 | Filed Under pgp | Leave a Comment 

Press Conference Video Footage featuring the PGP-10

After an all day meeting of talks and discussion, the PGP-10 participated in a press conference. NECN has some video footage from that event:

Scot Yount. Researchers intend to build online DNA database. NECN, October 21, 2008.

October 23, 2008 | Filed Under pgp | Leave a Comment 

Press coverage on the Personal Genome Project’s 2nd annual meeting at Harvard Medical School

The 2nd annual meeting of the Personal Genome Project was held at Harvard Medical School yesterday. Here is a round-up of articles thus far (updated 10/24/08):

“Taking a Peek at the Experts’ Genetic Secrets” by Amy Harmon, The New York Times

“Personal Genome Project Participants Get First Look at their DNA” by Carey Goldberg, Boston Globe

“Subjects’ DNA Secrets to be Revealed” by Carey Goldberg, Boston Globe

“Genome Fanatics to Post Own DNA Sequences on Web” by Denise Lavoie, Associated Press

“Harvard Genome Volunteers Say They’ll Reveal Own DNA” by John Lauerman, Bloomberg News

“Genomes on Display” by Emily Singer, Technology Review

“Thousands Volunteer to Expose DNA Secrets to the World” by Ewen Callaway, New Scientist

“Sharing Your Personal Genetic Map With the World” by Nancy Shute, U.S. News & World Report

“A New Sort of Facebook: Posting Your Genes on the Web” by Sarah Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal blog entry

“Genome Database Will Link Genes, Traits in Public View” by Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post

“10 Bay Staters to Post DNA Online” by Sacha Pfeiffer, WBUR (NPR’s Boston affiliate)

“Meet my genome: 10 people release their DNA on the Web” by Susannah F. Locke, Scientific American online

“Personal genome sequences could herald a shift in research participation” by Erika Check Hayden, Nature News

“Genetic Privacy: An Outdated Concern?” by Emily Singer, Technology Review

“9 Volunteers in Harvard Study Agree to Post Their Personal Genomes Online” by David DeBolt, Chronicle of Higher Education

“For the greater good, ten pioneers will post their genomes on the Internet,” Discover magazine blog post

“Volunteers unveil DNA, medical data in push for everyday gene sequencing” by Alvin Powell, Harvard News Office

“A Molecular Full Monty” by Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe

I’ll post commentary over the next week. Articles are also slowly being posted on the PGP news page. If I’ve missed any articles, leave me a comment or drop me a line.

October 21, 2008 | Filed Under pgp | 2 Comments 

Podcast about the Personal Genome Project via Harvard Medical Labcast

The Harvard Medical Labcast published a podcast today about the Personal Genome Project (PGP). Interviews include founder and professor of genetics at HMS, George Church; Jeantine Lunshof, ethicist for the PGP; John Halamka, PGP participant and HMS CIO; and myself.

To listen, please see:
Harvard Medical Labcast, Episode 6: Your genome, your future. [mp3 or subscribe via iTunes] The PGP-related material begins around the 9:30 mark.

September 30, 2008 | Filed Under pgp | 1 Comment 

Calling all enthusiasts: Misha Angrist talks personal genomes

Misha Angrist takes stock of a number of issues related to personal genomics in an article published today. Do people want access to their genomic data? Should people have access? What should they expect to discover from a genome sequence? What has been his experience thus far?

Misha also draws attention to one under appreciated aspect of obtaining a personal DNA sequence: there’s more to genomics than personalized medicine. Genomics might also be interesting and worthwhile even without obvious direct benefits.

“If you’re interested in medicine, you should talk to your doctor,” [George Church] says. “But if you’re interested in seeing a revolution close up and participating in research, then you should [be free to] mess around.”

Sober-faced enthusiasts may be the bootstraps necessary for the field of personal genomics to achieve lift-off. According to Misha:

“This is where we are in the era of personal genomics: some modest amusement, a few interesting tidbits, a bit of useful information, but mostly the promise of much better things to come. The more people are allowed–encouraged, even–to experiment, the sooner that promise can be realized.”

If amateur enthusiasts can make contributions to nuclear fusion (see video), why not personal genomics?

Read the article.

–

Misha Angrist. Personal Genomics: Access Denied? Even if we can’t interpret the data, consumers have a right to their genomes. MIT Tech Review. September/October 2008

See, Misha’s blog GenomeBoy.com

See, PGP-10 profiles

August 19, 2008 | Filed Under pgp, thought-leaders | Leave a Comment 

Esther Dyson on the Digital Health Revolution

Scribe Media’s Peter Cervieri interviews Esther Dyson, board member of 23andMe and one of the PGP-10.

Esther Dyson Video Scribe Media

In the interview, Esther gives her views on the history of commerce on the internet, problems with health care as we know it in the U.S., and the future of genetics.

August 6, 2008 | Filed Under medical-consumerism, medicine, pgp, thought-leaders, video | Leave a Comment 

The Gene Collector: George Church and the PGP in Wired Magazine

This month’s issue of Wired Magazine has a nice article about George Church and his Personal Genome Project. Check it out:

Thomas Goetz, “The Gene Collector” Wired Magazine, August 2008.

July 19, 2008 | Filed Under pgp, thought-leaders | 1 Comment 

Geek Doctor

Pssst. Another member of the PGP-10, John Halamka, has started blogging over at Geek Doctor: Life as a Healthcare CIO. So far most of the discussion is around issues related to being responsible for the IT needs of thousands of doctors and millions of patients (and gazillions of medical records). There has not been any mention yet of personal genomes. But, his recent release of a music recording might be construed (by me, with no apologies) as a quiet nod to emerging genre of “genome pop“. Very zen, as is John. This past summer I sent him an email and received an out-of-office reply that was a Basho poem. For a split second, there was serenity in the world. :)

December 4, 2007 | Filed Under pgp | Leave a Comment 

The X-team

The scientists and engineers in the Church lab at Harvard Medical School, who are busy developing the sequencing technology that will be used for the Personal Genome Project, will be competing in the Archon X-Prize for Genomics. The announcement was made this morning in the Boston Globe.

To win the $10M prize all we need to do is to line-up about 200 of our machines and turn them on. Well maybe its not that simple. There are also a few items on the science and engineering “To Do” list, like figure out how to drop the price of whole genome sequencing by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude.

The founding members of the Personal Genome X-team are:

Richard Terry, Greg Porreca, Jay Shendure, and Kevin McCarthy. Go team!

P.S. I wonder what George plans to do with all of those machines after competing in the X-Prize?

December 4, 2007 | Filed Under pgp, sequencing-cost, sequencing-technology | 1 Comment 

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