{"id":1115,"date":"2007-07-22T10:44:48","date_gmt":"2007-07-22T08:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/2007\/07\/22\/question-of-the-year-in-genetics\/"},"modified":"2022-01-04T07:56:58","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T05:56:58","slug":"question-of-the-year-in-genetics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/sciencesurf\/2007\/07\/question-of-the-year-in-genetics\/","title":{"rendered":"Question of the year in genetics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nature genetics asked about 30 eminent scientists “What would you do if it became possibe to sequence the human genome for only $1,000?”. Unfortunately, this initiative<\/a> has been launched 4 weeks too early as I believe some may have responded differentially if they could have a chance to read the ENCODE papers… The majority of scientists seems to follow the idea of<\/p>\n

Do everything in everybody and think about later<\/u>
\nwhich doesn\u00b4t give me an area to attack. One scientist even blamed herself by saying<\/p>\n

I would spend $100 million to sequence a study sample of 100,000 monozygotic twins (only one of the pair, since their genomes are identical, and you get two phenotypes for the price of one genome sequence)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

but fortunately Stephen Scherer<\/p>\n

… I would first like to sequence the genomes of monozygotic twins discordant for autism<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and also Emma Whitelaw correct her<\/p>\n

… I would carry out a comprehensive analysis of the methylation state across the entire genome of monozygotic twins<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The ultimate relevance<\/u>
\nThere are also some highlights for example by John Ioannides<\/p>\n

… one of my priorities would be a large-scale randomized trial: participants are randomized to have their genome sequenced or not. Then we examine in the long term if this information improved their health outcomes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The strategic response<\/u>
\nAxel Meyer wants a theory of the genomes<\/p>\n

… these pieces remain to be assembled into a comprehensive mosaic that might lead to a theory of genomes. So far, the rules, if they even exist, remain elusive. The nascent discipline of genomics is still in its mostly descriptive, natural-history phase and is more driven by technological advances than guided by the testing of theoretical predictions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This may sound a bit like looking for the e=m2<\/sup> of genetics but I see a good chance for that.<\/p>\n

Ontogenic tree of the human body<\/u>
\nBruce Lahn shares my current interest in ageing of an individual human body (I have a paper under review in Human Mutation and you can also find some ideas here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

All cells in the human body, or the body of any multicellular organism, descend from one single cell: the fertilized egg. Thus, all the cells in an organism are related to each other based on their shared descent … Mutations in DNA sequence that occur during cell divisions can in theory be used to construct an ontogenetic tree connecting of all the living cells present in an organism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

to be continued, yea, yea.<\/p>\n\n

 <\/p>\n

\n CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 30.04.2026<\/span>\n <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nature genetics asked about 30 eminent scientists “What would you do if it became possibe to sequence the human genome for only $1,000?”. Unfortunately, this initiative has been launched 4 weeks too early as I believe some may have responded differentially if they could have a chance to read the ENCODE papers… The majority of … Continue reading Question of the year in genetics<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[1174,962,1173,1172,1171,1170,1169],"class_list":["post-1115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genetics-biology","category-philosophy-of-science","tag-genome_sequence","tag-human_genome","tag-initiative","tag-methylation_state","tag-monozygotic_twins","tag-nature_genetics","tag-scientist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18919,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115\/revisions\/18919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}