 merrie says: Brin, who has said he has a genetic risk for Parkinson's, has funded the study and promised to give 10,000 people their genomic data for just $25 each (the 23andMe service regularly costs about $400). So that's at least a $4 million commitment, at least at the going rate of genotyping — and that's not counting the backend research that will take place. Brin will participate in the study. I don't doubt that many folks will be skeptical of this endeavor (Valleywag and Steve Murphy, start the race to be the first to squat on this with some snide remark, starting … now!) And sure, I acknowledge that 23andMe is good at publicity. But I think there's a fundamental shift in science here that should not go unnoted. This is an endeavor to create an apparatus for answers; answers not just to the questions we have today, but the questions science will have or 10 years from now. This is, indeed, science by search. And I'm thrilled that somebody's actually trying to make it happen. And here's what’s especially cool: 23andMe co-founders Ann Wojcicki and Linda Avey know this is what they’re doing. They talk about this as a "research platform," and they have a host of diseases that they want to hit next: Autism, Alzheimer's and so on. Expect more this year. Again, this isn't a research study — this is a new way to study research. Make the costs of research recruitment (finding populations to study, recruiting individuals, taking samples and repeating every time you have a new question to ask) a backend function, and prioritize the questions, not the apparatus. It's how to do [url=http://www.wired.com/sci... |
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