The cover of Big Picture: Genes, Genomes and Health
As some of our recent posts this past month have shown, genetics, genomes and health have featured heavily in the news, from the recently announced sequencing of the genomes of two cancer sufferers to the celebration of the publication of the first drafts of the sequence of the human genome in 2001 as one of the many major achievements of the ‘noughties’ decade (links below).
As well as human genomes, sequences of other organisms have helped us to understand the relationships that exist between species, and the inner workings of bacteria and other living forms, both beneficial or harmful to humans. Without such knowledge, our understanding of the threats from e.g. swine flu and bird flu would be greatly diminished.
The next decade promises to be a very exciting one in this area as technological advancements have increased the pace with which a whole genome can be sequenced by several orders of magnitude; those first drafts took a decade to produce, but the technology now permits a similar quality output to occur in just a few days. Such advancements will be critical to the success of collaborative initiatives such as the 1000 genomes project.
With that excitement also come many questions surrounding the ethical and privacy implications of human genome sequencing. Big Picture will help you put those questions into perspective.
Links:
- “The decade we learned the language of life”, The Guardian
- “The human genome ten years on: time to take stock”, The Times Online
Image credit: Wellcome Trust
Posted in Data Sharing and Open Access, Education, External News, Genetics and Genomics, Health, Wellcome Trust Publications Tagged: 1000 Genomes project, Big Picture, Human genome sequencing project, Media
