Here's Your Genetic Code. That'll Be $500 Grand, Please
	found on Salt Lake Tribune written by 1fastdog, edited by Humberto (Plastic) [ read unedited ] posted Sat 5 Oct 12:45pm
		"How'd you like to have your own genetic info available on a CD? Well, now you can. Those so inclined can pony up a cool half million dollars for the right to carry their genetic roadmap on a CD," writes 1fastdog. "In a bid to eventually bring individual genetic profiles into a more affordable range (around $1,000 bucks), J. Craig Venter has signed up a handful of people at $500,000 a pop, to have their genomes mapped." Venter ultimately hopes to mass-produce gene CDs like so many Bruce Springsteen CDs that will stock the shelves of every general practitioner's office and be covered by insurance. "Although still in its infancy, there's undoubtedly much potential for better disease prevention and treatment techniques if your healthcare provider has access to your genetic code. And while $1,000 dollars is a relatively cheap goal to shoot for, if insurance companies are expected to foot the bill it does raise some interesting questions: Can the insurance company hijack your info to screen you for preexisting conditions on which they could deny coverage? Who owns the genetic info - you or the insurance company? And if you change providers can you transfer your own information to your new provider without buying back your info?"

[ more plastic... ]    

show almost all: 10 commentsbest: 3 comments by oldest first (ignore threads) newest first highest scores first oldest first newest first (ignore threads)

1.  In ten years....   by jimray       at Sat 5 Oct 1:40pm score of 2.5 intriguing     We'll wonder what all the hubbub was about. Sequencing whole genomes will quite simply be a trivial matter. It's only a matter of time before a reasonably powerful and cheap computer will be able to do this. Sequencing genomes is by no means an easy task, but we've pretty much figured it out. In the next decade, the interface will be refined, computers will become more and more powerful while becoming cheaper to produce. Imagine sequencing your own genome on your iMac fifteen years from now. "Rip, Mix and Burn" indeed. Putting a genome on a cd isn't what I'm concerned about. The article mentions that sequencing a genome doesn't mean a whole lot, since we're still not real sure what most of those genes express. Just because your insurance company gets a hold of your genetic blueprint doesn't mean that they know you're more susceptible to cancer, for instance. I predict that fully understanding genetic expression will take more than a decade, and something on the scale of quantum computers to accomplish reasonably. That's when the real Gattaca issues start. The potential to abuse such a powerful system is limitless. It's not just insurance companies we'll have to look out for, but your employer, your school, your government. "I'm sorry, Timmy's predisposed for ADHD, he's not eligible for this scholarship. We want to make sure that our money only goes to kids that will stay awake in class." At that point, the ubiquity of sequencing a genome becomes something to be afraid of, not a goal. When your boss can get your full genetic makeup from a drug test or even an errant hair, there's a definite privacy concern. One way to deal with this is legislation. Another is to simply make sure that all our future children are genetically perfect in vitro (a la Gattaca) so that it becomes a non-issue. "You're not thinking, you're just being logical" Bohr to Einstein during a debate on quantum mechanics   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

2.  Re: In ten years....   by 1fastdog       at Sat 5 Oct 2:45pm score of 3 astute   in reply to comment 1     Just because your insurance company gets a hold of your genetic blueprint doesn't mean that they know you're more susceptible to cancer, for instance The insurance angle sure is a mixed bag, ain't it? Lotsa maybes, mights, coulds, shoulds, and plain ol' wild-ass-guessin' in general. Interesting opinion piece here that makes some half-hearted arguments in favor of making genetic profiles available to insurance companies because the cost benefits to most individuals would decrease: I posit that insurance prices would drop immensely for the majority of people because insurance companies have far more information on which to base their prices. This would be like a car insurance company knowing or not knowing that you had an air bag, and hence they can price based on that fact...I'm sure there are still skeptics who are asking what these fictional "innovations" could be. Well, maybe an insurance company will charge more if you have a heart disease gene, but in turn will try to help you lead a healthier lifestyle based on this knowledge. This logic could be applied to any gene and policies will become very individualized to each person's situation. An insurance company may also offer standard health insurance, but then give you an option for catastrophic coverage for the gene-related potential health problems. In other words, they will again need to tailor their policies far more to the individual. It is a process of specialization. I'm a wee bit sceptical that they'd rush in to help you leverage out your health concerns when they find out about your genetic preference for Maddog 20-20 hangovers and the general lifestyle impairment that hinges upon whether or not you succumb to the Devil In The Bottle©. Ahhhh, who knows...perhaps if the financial incentive to keep you as a paying customer can be tailored to suit both your income and your genetic predispositions, then perhaps there's the possibility of a little bit of light shining on what could be a very dark subject to those who don't make genetic muster, so to speak. Tipping The Bottle & Biting The Lime   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   3.  Re: In ten years....   by rickcolosimo       at Sat 5 Oct 5:29pm score of 1.5 succinct   in reply to comment 1     It will take a helluva lot longer than ten years to figure any of those things out. Other than a handful of relatively simple genetic diseases, like Down's syndrome, Klinefelters, sickle-cell anemia, etc., everything else is madly complicated. If you think it's all on the cusp of being solved, skip the biotech and pharma analyst talks and trot on down to your local high-speed, low-drag research university. Ask some future Nobel-prize winners what they think about the genome project, cancer cures, and the rest. You're likely to get an awful lot of laughs from the folks who are doing the cutting edge research. These problems are so complicated that research scientists don't even want to talk about cures, treatments, or even diagnoses. Heck, even if you could predict a tendency toward a particular disease, think about how long it takes to get any drug through clinical trials. Ten years? Not a chance. NB: I'm not a molecular geneticist, but I play the husband of one.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   4.  Uh....   by jimray       at Sat 5 Oct 5:51pm score of 1   in reply to comment 3     I'm pretty sure that was the point of my original post. I was only saying that the computational power to sequence the human genome, something we can do TODAY, should have advanced to the point where it will be pretty trivial in 10 years or so. "You're not thinking, you're just being logical" Bohr to Einstein during a debate on quantum mechanics   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   9.  Re: Uh....   by bitekman       at Sun 6 Oct 7:16am score of 1.5 informative   in reply to comment 4     The limit to sequencing speed right now is not computational; it's in the time it takes to physically sequence the gels. Anyway, all the bioinformatics folks are bored with the genome now and have moved on to the proteome. I'm full of bees...who died at sea -- Sparklehorse   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]   5.  Ten years starts today   by zanzibar       at Sat 5 Oct 8:59pm score of 1.5 compelling   in reply to comment 1     Just because your insurance company gets a hold of your genetic blueprint doesn't mean that they know you're more susceptible to cancer, for instance. Scientists have discovered a pile of genes and markers that correlate strongly to increased risks of cancer. You don't have to understand what the genes express, or how they work, in order to start making risk calculations. Didn't we just have an article the other day in which some doctors were advocating pre-emptive breast/ovary removal for people who tested positive for a particular combination of genes? Those were scientists recommending a course of treatment. If genetic information can justify such a radical recommendation, I doubt that insurance companies will be shy about using the same information to set prices. Hell, insurance companies don't need to prove causation in order to hike your premiums. Car insurance, for instance, becomes markedly less expensive when you turn 25. Insurance companies don't need to prove that being 24 makes you more dangerous, they just need to see higher payouts in a particular segment of their customer base. So far only a handful of these "high-risk" gene combinations have been discovered. And at the moment, when a new gene/disease-correlation is discovered you generally have to be re-tested in order to find out if you've got it. Once your genome is fully sequenced, however, the tests can be run without your ever going back into the doctor's office-- a computer could scan your genome automatically every time a new risk-factor is identified. And that could be an increasingly important part of the insurance companies' business model. Or maybe not. The point is, once your insurance company has this information, you've pretty much lost control of what happens. Now is the time for us to start seriously thinking about what rights we want to protect and what we want to give away. Whether or not we will ever see Gattaca, I don't know... But if we set a precedent of not protecting individuals' rights today, the battle will be harder to fight down the road.   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

6.  Great...   by MrFadedGlory       at Sat 5 Oct 10:33pm score of 2 intriguing     So, a law enforcement agency or a government can get it for free, but I have to pay a cool half million for it... I don't even want to get INTO to the personal rights issues, but I will say this. The last part of the write up is what interests me the most. Perhaps the only way to ensure that no one else can get to your genetic information is to pay for the sequencing and then establish ownership of the information. Look at it like this. You own your genome, but do you own the information about it? An artist can create a work of art out of raw materials, but when he sells it, the person who bought it is the one to own it. Even though they could never have produced it themselves. The artist does not have the right to go and take that piece of art back from the purchaser. If you pay to have your genome sequenced and then analysed, surely you then own the rights to the distribution of the information. If an employer wanted to see this information, they would have to pay you to see it. You could even make a living going to interviews, and almost getting jobs. On the insurance front, wouldn't knowing all about your medical condition remove the need for insurance? Insurance is only something you buy in case you get sick. If you know that at the age of 25 you will develop testicular cancer, couldn't you just save for the eventuality or take precautionary steps in the interim? From my point of view, the real fear of DNA sequencing comes from everyone else knowing things about you that you don't. When I began my current job, I was required to take a whole heap of psych tests and evaluative surveys. The company gets a report on these things, but I have to buy the information from the agency. This DNA sequencing could be a powerful tool in claiming back your own rights. It could also be the only way that you can arm yourself against people prejudging you based on your genome. "Yes, I know that my genome shows a 60% chance of developing Parkinson's Disease by the age of 40, but here is a list of precautions I have taken against the possibility. I am also first in line to receive the gene therapy that is due to be perfected prior to the onset of the condition" Forwarned is forearmed, people. I think that this could be the requisite ammunition to protect myself. aka, Michael (Plastic)   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

10.  Re: Great...   by bitekman       at Mon 7 Oct 5:50pm score of 1   in reply to comment 6     You are confusing DNA tests and a genome sequence. The DNA tests that the govt. or law enforcement perform for identification are based on a half dozen or dozen points in your DNA. These are identified not by sequencing itself, but by other techniques. Here's a little shockwave movie that shows one way of doing DNA identification. It's a pretty old method, but the basic idea is there. And for what its worth, there are plenty of techniques for finding out stuff about your DNA that don't involve a full sequence. PCR + gels can look for the presence/absence of particular genes without a full sequence. I'm full of bees...who died at sea -- Sparklehorse   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

7.  ...   by futureboy       at Sat 5 Oct 10:38pm score of 1     As its been stated, we don't really know what all of the genes do. However proteomics, the next step after the human genome project will figure out what the proteins themselves do. What is need in biology, is an virtual reality cell. One where every atom is taken into account, and all things are predicted just as they occure in real life. Once we have THAT, genetics and biotech as a whole will take off like you wounldn't believe. Quantum computing, is imho still too far off. Given the rate of improvement in computers, any supercomputer of a silicon or optical nature should be able to do the job well...See, its not our biology peoples fault that we haven't cured cancer, its the computer science peoples fault. God is not dead. He is alive and working on a less ambitious project. - Anonymous   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]

8.  $1000...   by Violator       at Sun 6 Oct 4:16am score of 1.5 brilliant     Could be a pretty cheap way of copyrighting your own genetic information. It is to the point right now where companies can sequence your DNA and make profit from a trademarked product derived from it - because, after all, you don't own its information because you did not create the information as you would a work of art or a photograph or a song, especially not if you've donated it fair and square to genetic research. And even if you didn't donate it - the companies right now could take your genes which could cure cancer, turn them into a therapy, and patent it, and you'd never know...mostly because there would be no way of proving that they were your genes. So, imagine if you had the werewithal to sequence yourself. You could then license the information to the company. It is like any other database about the natural world - geochemistry, weather data records, etc - which companies sell by subscription. They didn't create the weather, or the geochemistry in the rocks - but they went out and got the info and made it into a product. You could protect, vigorously, legally, the inherent wealth residing in your genes. Or potentially residing in them - after all, it is pure luck that you get the genes you do (so far). It is not luck that today a company could sequence your genes without your knowledge, derive a therapy, copyright it and patent it and then sell your own fat ass back to yourself and others. Consistently modded down for being an asshole since 2003   [ ...reply just to this | comment on the story... | next new ]