Belonging goes beyond science. It’s very tenuous. Is identity genetics, or is it a fundamental personal construct? I believe it’s a construct: DNA can tell you things, but it can’t define you. We have choices. I’m not interested in identity itself — this thing you construct for the public like a mantelpiece — but in what it does for you. It gives you a sense of belonging.
I work as an Assistant Professor in the Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (although this site and its content are my own).
In 2007 I became the fourth subject in Harvard geneticist George Church's Personal Genome Project. As the PGP moves forward, I am chronicling the dawn of personal genomics, that is, people obtaining their genomic information for whatever reason(s) and figuring out what to do with it. I am interested in the relevant technologies and especially the attendant privacy and other ethical/legal/social issues.
This blog may also discuss some of my non-genome interests or, to paraphrase Dwight Yoakam, "Guitars, Cadillacs, hillbilly music, etc etc."
The header image comes from the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's multimedia performance piece, "Ferocious Beauty: Genome."