PHOTOS - Genomes Environments Traits Conference 2013

Sharon Terry of Reg4all.org
Working to build a registry for patients with any and all diseases.
Emphasized the need to make clinical data "ours" not "theirs."
Photo by Kristopher Hite
 

Misha Angrist - Assistant Professor at Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy.
Misha was the fourth person to have his genome sequenced as part of the personal genome project.
Photo by Kristopher Hite Creative Commons attribution www.tompainesghost.com

Jack Hitt author of "Bunch of Amateurs"
Photo by Kristopher Hite Creative Commons attribution www.tompainesghost.com

Dr. Ed Wild of HDBuzz.net
Photo by Kristopher Hite Creative Commons attribution www.tompainesghost.com

Robert Krulwich and Dorit S. Berlin, Ph.D. Dorit is principal investigator of the NIGMS Human Genetic Cell Repository.
Photo by Kristopher Hite Creative Commons attribution www.tompainesghost.com

Sandra de Castro Buffington director of Hollywood, Health & Society
Photo by Kristopher Hite Creative Commons attribution www.tompainesghost.com

Stephen Friend MD, PhD of Sage Bionetworks
Photo by Kristopher Hite Creative Commons attribution www.tompainesghost.com

Stephen Heuser of eth Boston Globe and Steven Pinker - Harvard Professor of Evolutionary Psychology.
Photo by Kristopher Hite Creative Commons attribution www.tompainesghost.com

Wally Gilbert - 1980 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry for seminal work on DNA sequencing methods
Photo by Kristopher Hite Creative Commons attribution www.tompainesghost.com

George Church and his gentle genome
Photo by Kristopher Hite Creative Commons attribution www.tompainesghost.com

George Church contemplates privacy issues surrounding personal genome data.
Photo by Kristopher Hite Creative Commons attribution www.tompainesghost.com

Jeffrey Carrol of HDBuzz.net
Photo by Kristopher Hite Creative Commons attribution www.tompainesghost.com

Stephen Friend has amazing green-rimmed specs.
Photo by Kristopher Hite Creative Commons attribution www.tompainesghost.com

Personal Genome Project: Joining the "Lunatic Fringe"

We came to donate our living genomes to science.  On April 25th, 2013 (DNA Day as it were) we submitted blood and spit to the Personal Genome Project (PGP). The PGP is the brainchild of George Church (pictured above). A professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School George is also a loveable bearded teddy bear.  The goal of this project is to sequence 100,000 whole human genomes.  I think they have successfully completed somewhere in the ~2,500 range.  There is also an underlying cultural movement among the "lunatic fringe" early-adopters like us. This is a movement towards open access. Our bodies are our data and we would like the keys to the car please. How appropriate then that I came to find out about the PGP via a facebook comment made to me by none other than Open Access gangsta Jonathan Eisen.

As I'm sitting in a hostel room and the sun is shining I want to go out and make the most of this rare occasion to enjoy Boston, visit firefly bicycles, ride along the Charles River, loose ourselves in the bowels of the Harvard Bookstore.  That being said, forgive the brevity of the post. I will be back with plenty more pictures I snapped at the GET conference this past Thursday and Friday and more personal genomics stories.

Cheers!