Well actually there are several, but one that I really wanted to attend was one that involved Ann Wojkcicki, co-founder at 23andme, but in all the crush of talks, I ended up at another talk at the same time. Ah well, so it goes. The real killer was that I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. For some reason I felt awkward to walk up to her, since she was almost always with hubby Sergey Brin, and other notables. I am still kicking myself for that. Anyway, I can always tell myself that if the announcement (in BioArray News, sub reqd) of the partnership between Illumina and 23andme had come before scifoo, I would have probably chomped at the bit to have a conversation.
According to the report, Illumina is going to provide with tools for what at this time looks to be a consumer focused genotyping service. It does not quite say if the deal is only for arrays or also for Solexa sequencing technology.
Personal genetics is a fascinating area, fraught with legal and ethical implications, which must be traversed carefully. That said, it will happen, and if it does, there needs to be some form of ownership system where the consumer owns his/her data and chooses where and what parts of that data go to whom.
Will return to this subject soon with a long post on personalized medicine, which is long overdue.
Technorati Tags: 23andme, Illumina, personalized medicine, scifoo
3 Comments
Hello, its not possible to attend every session without cloning yourself. This is why we have blogging! Genome Voyeurism…(in case you haven’t seen it already)
Cloning would be most useful under the circumstances. I had forgotten who had blogged about the session, thanks for the reminder
Cloning would be most useful under the circumstances. I had forgotten who had blogged about the session, thanks for the reminder