I think there's been a lot of research/grants for working on population genetics; specifically, sequencing genomes and genetic expression profiles of patient pool of a particular disease (e.g., schizophrenia) and comparing it to the general population pool and clustering to find particular groups of genes that might be responsible for a particular disease.<p>Likewise, there are state agencies and startup's alike working on pre-natal genetics screening that basically tries to identify from pre-natal samples particular markers (SNPs) known for Down Syndrome, Tay-Sachs etc. Not to mention people who submit their samples to find interesting markers from 23andme.<p>I'd love to hear more from folks in the field what they think the next big application of computational biology, clinical genomics will be. Obviously, there has been a lot of mixed opinion regarding both on the consumer side (FDA banning 23andme from making broad statements of users having a higher-probability of cancer due to outdated and controversial data) and research side (has Human Genome Project since its completion in the early 2000's yielded a significant gene to target compound to drug on the market?)<p>More practically, Illumina (<a href="https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AILMN&ei=af5xVYHoB4eTsQf64IDoBg" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AILMN&ei=af5xVYHoB4...</a>) has more than 10x in the past 6 years, riding the wave of demand and growth of next-gen sequencing technology. If Cloud Computing is hailed as the sequencer's of the next phase in the biotech revolution, what stocks should I buy now to take advantage of it?
DNA databases in the cloud seems like a scary prospect, but it could also help a lot of people.<p>A family member of mine was recently diagnosed with a MTHFR gene mutation (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylenetetrahydrofolate_reductase" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylenetetrahydrofolate_reduc...</a>), and it's been a life-changer. After years of misdiagnosis as depression, hypothyroid, or adrenal fatigue it's nice to have some answers and see results from getting the right treatment.
Perhaps I'm being naieve but I don't want my DNA in any database without my expressed consent or criminal conviction.<p>DNA is inherently personal, and while its true you leave your DNA in almost as many places as your fingerprints (skin flakes, stray hairs, et al) DNA can tell you much more about someone's medical conditions than their fingerprint can.<p>I'm interested in personal medical devices, but not if that means leaking my medical info to the companies selling said devices. That info is personal and private and is nobodies business except mine and my doctors.
(edit. Had the wrong link)<p>The NIH has documented guidelines [1] on genomic data sharing that may be of interest.<p>1. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/gap/pdf/dbgap_2b_security_procedures.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/gap/pdf/dbgap_2b_securi...</a>
So glad I majored in bioinformatics / comp bio. The future looks bright =)<p>& FWIW I know of a few postdocs who are either currently employed or are in the process of being poached by Google. It seems they are very serious about this.
This seems interesting. How long until people are sequenced at birth and their ailments predicted from that? (I know they're already doing it on a small scale, but I'm talking of it as a routine procedure).<p>How long still until our memories are able to be stored, etc ad nauseum.<p>Very exciting stuff!