genomeboy.com

Not only can the past never really be erased; it co-exists, in cyberspace, with the present, and an important type of context is destroyed. This is one reason that intellectual inflexibility has become such a hallmark of modern political discourse, and why, so often, no distinction is recognized between hypocrisy and changing your mind.

- Jonathan Dee in the New York Times Magazine, 24 January 2010

23andMe co-founder and President of the nascent Brainstorm Research Foundation Linda Avey is blogging:

The usual arrows were flying at the HUGO conference…a few, very vocal scientists seem to be quite threatened by this notion of democratizing DNA. They characterize it as “trivializing”, which simply doesn’t make sense. I just don’t agree that providing people with their genetic data, which would be virtually impossible for them to derive on their own, demeans or trivializes it. Rather, I think the research community has taken the notion of “human subject protection” way too far, to the point of unchecked paternalism (for more on this, check out Anne’s post here, http://j.mp/RHIrX). And I do think the lay public is capable of understanding that what is currently known about their DNA is mostly a work-in-progress. (via Genomeweb and HUGO)

She also points to a fascinating website developed by someone in Vancouver who appears to have a lot of time on his hands. He underwent genome scanning from the Big Three and found that his results compared favorably to other accounts.

I’m not sure what to make of this, but someone emailed last night and said, “…I’m guessing that I’m probably the first person to ever tweet your DNA.”

You are correct, sir!

And since you’ve obviously read my profile, maybe you could send me a business card just in case.

…to the bloggers who came to my Science Writing class on Friday. Bora, Sheril (best of luck in your new home at Discover) and David–it’s an honor to have real, productive denizens of the blogosphere (unlike, ahem, some people) offer dispatches from the trenches. I hope this becomes at least an annual tradition. Plus you’re all so cute.

With the new year comes opportunity for change in and, l hope, simplification of one’s life. Accordingly, I am eliminating the comments function from this blog. The simple truth is this: I have not gotten spam filter Akismet to work, but I have blacklisted all kinds of IP addresses as well as dozens of words and phrases (e.g., penile enlargement). Still the spam refuses to die and frankly I’m sick of it. In my view, life is too short to have to walk around with an electronic flyswatter 24/7, especially if you’re paying good money for bandwidth. So, at the risk of alienating one or two of you, henceforth Genomeboy will be comment-free. I hope you understand and I hope the blogging will be better for it. As always I would be happy to hear from you via my Duke address…I’m not hard to find.

Thanks for reading.

I can tell when a science story has created mainstream buzz: I read about it here.  The blogosphere has reacted–with nuance and thoughtfulness, IMHO– to David Goldstein’s contention that the Common Disease Common Variant Emperor is pretty much buck naked.

In my own inbox over the last two days, I’ve seen loud and emphatic grumblings from NIH-funded researchers who claim that Goldstein is prematurely eulogizing CDCV and that if he hasn’t found variants related to cognition, then it must be the result of poor phenotyping on his part.

Fiddlesticks.

I am a subject in Goldstein’s cognition study and I can tell you that I have been tested out the wazoo. I have spent hours in front of a screen trying to remember patterns of dots, letters and numbers. I have sat with an examiner for an hour and tried to recall the details of stories that were read to me. I have lain inside an MRI tube while staring at photographs and answered questions about them. I have filled out lengthy questionnaires. So yeah, it could be inadequate phenotyping, but if it is then I suspect we will never have adequate phenotyping until we start drilling holes in people’s skulls. (Also, if the powers that be are so concerned about this, then why isn’t the 1000 Genomes Project using some of its $50 million to collect trait data? Where is the 1000 Phenomes Project?)

As for the common-disease-common-variant hypothesis, maybe I’m missing something, but please tell me: What do we do with so many weak susceptibility loci for Crohn’s and type 2 diabetes that fail to explain so much of the genetic variance? Schizophrenia has a heritability of 0.8 and we still can’t find a major gene after 25 years of looking.

Uncle Sam and his fundees have a lot invested in CDCV and the genome-wide association studies that are supposed to find the culpable variants for human diseases. I don’t blame them for wanting to pursue it as far as they can. But when will it be time to move on and start to sequence? I get that it’s still expensive and unwieldy. And that it too may not succeed. But why use a magnifying glass when you have an electron microscope?

UPDATE: I just heard an excellent talk by Muin Khoury (some of which irritated me, but we can talk about that later).  One of his many salient points was that CDCV has not born fruit because we have failed to take into account gene-gene and gene-environment interactions. This strikes me as plausible and more importantly, as the source of an immense if not intractable informatics and computational problem. Of course, someone more cynical than I might say that it will also mean many more years of funding…

Obviously there’s not much to see here (other than the above photo of Django in repose). I am traveling around New England, trying to write and trying to prepare for the fall semester. Back soon, I hope…God knows I miss the spam…

Comic lives here. Hat tip.

Well, I’m an oversharer — it’s not like I’m entirely reformed. But lately, online, I’ve found myself doing something unexpected: keeping the personal details of my current life to myself. This doesn’t make me feel stifled so much as it makes me feel protected, as if my thoughts might actually be worth honing rather than spewing.

- Emily Gould in the New York Times Magazine

You know, I’m not a prude. I’ve been known to tell an off-color joke or two. I don’t presume to exude good taste nor do I get squeamish easily. But my God, every day I have to purge the most disgusting and perplexing spam, full of acts I’ve either never heard of or else are physiologically impossible.

I just wanted you to know what you’re missing. That is all.