Genome Commons Blog
You can now give to support the Genome Commons. Donations to the Genome Commons fund at the University of California, Berkeley are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law, and will be used to support development of the Genome Commons and genome interpretation.
Given the lag between blog postings, it is evident that I am not a natural blogger. However, there has been progress in creating a demonstration prototype of the Genome Commons and Genome Commons Navigator.
I will be presenting the Genome Commons concept and giving updates on its status at a series of meetings this summer:
In addition to the formal presentations, I will offer informal walk-through demonstrations of the current preliminary prototype, in the hopes of eliciting feedback and code contributions. I look forward to stimulating conversations.
A commentary describing my thoughts for a Genome Commons and Navigator is about to be published in Nature, and additional versions of those musings and more details may be found on the about page of this site.
Since working as an undergraduate in Wally Gilbert’s genome laboratory, I looked forward to the completion of an individual’s complete genome because of the insights that it would reveal. I was thus disappointed by how little of individual significance was learned from the Venter and Watson genomes. I think that the typical potential of personal genomes to inform health has often been exaggerated. Furthermore, it is clear that we don’t yet have the scientific understanding to interpret much of the information that is present within our genomes. Nonetheless, I am also shocked by the lack of simple accessible resources to allow us to make use of our existing knowledge and to improve our understanding. I thus propose the creation of a Genome Commons.
I welcome your thoughts.