Nature - Personal Genomics

Here is a neat article about personal genomics that was published 4 days ago online in Nature. It basically contains statistical data on the opinions of their readers on similar ethical discussion questions to the ones we went over the first day: whether people would be interested in having their genome analyzed (only 15% said no outright), the majority said they would have it done out of curiosity, rather than as a test for a particular disease or concern. I was pretty surprised that 10% had gotten their whole genome sequenced, and 16% had gotten their exome sequenced, but as the article says, many of their readers are scientists themselves so the data is skewed. I was also taken by the author's choice of words in describing the decision to have one's exome sequenced and stored as giving our cells "immortality", because it really hits home the gravity of having our DNA sequenced and having that information exist on a server somewhere out in the world. (And eerie as the company is located in Tucker, Georgia, which reminds me of Tuck Everlasting...)