The Genomic Data Challenges Of The Future

As DNA is the new oil (or bacon?), and its amount continues to increase exponentially, technical, ethical, legal as well as security and privacy challenges arise by the dozens. The Medical Futurist believes now is the time for concerted, community-wide planning for the genomic data challenges of the next decade. The amount of genomic data is soaring – and the challenges growing Imagine genes as sentences and genomes as entire books consisting of tens of thousands of chains of words. Interpreting the whole book for the first time by completing the Human Genome Project took more than 15 years. It’s fascinating how far humanity had come – and even more so, if we look at the evolution of genome sequencing since 2006, the signature year when the DNA double spiral uncovered its secrets for the very first time. The technical conditions, the time and the cost of sequencing genomes were reduced by a factor of 1 million in less than 10 years. Anyone can have a genetic test within weeks. Moreover, anyone can get their whole genome sequenced for some hundreds of dollars, and the price is expected to further fall in the future. As a first, Veritas Genetics has been hailed as the first company to be able to sequence, analyze and interpret whole human genome data for less than $1,000. Already three years ago, the OmicsMaps showed that there were more than 2,500 high-throughput instruments, located in nearly 1,000 sequencing centers in 55 countries in universities, hospitals, and other...
Source: The Medical Futurist - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Future of Medicine Genomics Healthcare Policy Medical Professionals Patients Policy Makers big data bioethics DNA genetic genetics genome sequencing genomic data population genomics technology Source Type: blogs