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“Dog Breeders Unveil New Mastiffeagle.” The Onion must be stopped.

I am frequently asked what it will take to make personalized medicine a reality. If I’m being honest and not full of my usual bloated self-regard, I will shrug and say, “I have no idea. You should ask someone who might actually know.”

But if pressed and palpated, I would submit that if there’s a single thing missing from the roadmap to personalized medicine, it’s this:

A mascot.

Other folks have recognized this. To wit: Ladies and gentlemen, meet Prosty the Spokesgland©…

But wait, there’s more. The theme song, sung to the tune of Frosty the Snowman and meant to encourage the use of imaging rather than digital exams (yay!), is truly inspired. Dig the last verse:

Lumpety lump lump
Lumpety lump lump
Look at Prosty grow
Lumpety lump lump
Lumpety lump lump
No more bending over so

From the incomparable Stuff White People Like:

Some white people decide to pull the ultimate move. Prius, Apple Sticker on the back, iPod rocking, and Democratic Candidate bumper sticker. Unstoppable!

There are a few ways you can use this to your advantage. If you are carpooling to an event or party you can always say “can we take your Prius? my car doesn’t get good mileage and I feel guilty driving it.” And bam! Free ride!

If you’re a boomer and a Bowie fan, you can’t help but love this. (hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

George sends me this note:

…Dana brought to my attention your mug shot blog.

It’s common practice to also show a profile view and booking number.

So here’s the full photo from the archives of the Coriell maximum security repository (where the “cells” are kept at inhuman temperatures with no lighting; and where a life-term of over 150 years is more than a legal technicality):

…Thanks,

–George

If there’s a point to be made here (beyond the collection of further evidence of George’s well developed sense of humor), it’s that researchers will soon be able to order both cells and DNA from the PGP 10 via Coriell. The advantage, we hope, is that those samples will come with unusually detailed phenotypic and genotypic information (to say nothing of flattering snapshots). The question is: assuming someone else will pick up the tab (not a trivial assumption, I don’t think) how many of the next 99,990 exomes will be willing to make their cells and DNA available to anyone with “institutional approval?”

QUASI-RELATED UPDATE: George makes the list of The Ten Hottest Nerds (thanks Dana!)

I’m at GME 2007, taking it all in and even comprehending some of it. The best moment so far came during the Q&A after Venter sequencing maven Sam Levy finished his remarkable talk on the Craigome:

Q: Several years ago we studied the dog genome and found a variety of SNPs and indels. Have you thought about comparing Craig’s genome to his dog’s genome?

Sam Levy (with impeccable comic timing): Well, when we saw that half of his indels were also found in the chimp we stopped right there.

And the award for the 2007 Genomics Article Title Most Likely to Appeal to Twelve-Year-Old Boys goes to…