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Personal genomics: Nature web focus

As the number of human beings with their genomes fully sequenced ticks higher and direct-to-consumer gene profiling companies push the limits of what medical genetics can do, the once fantastical notion that any given human can walk into a doctor’s office with his or her genome on a hard drive looks more and more like a reality.

Still the question remains to be answered: how do we use this wealth of information? A Nature web focus presents the challenges this approaching reality poses for technology, the legal and ethical confines of research, and the ability of genomics to translate into clinical utility. Here you’ll also find the latest additions to the human genome menagerie: sequenced individuals from Africa and Asia. Access selected content fro the web focus free online, and listen to the special features on personal human genomes in the free Nature Podcast.

Discuss the Commentaries on personal genomics (free to access online until 6 December) at Nature Network.

The Nature Human Genome Collection

Nature Web Focus: Hap Map

Read on as Nature blogs from the 58th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics in Philadelphia from 11(today) to 15 November 2008.


Contents of the Personal Genomes Nature web focus:

My genome. So what?

Research is needed into the way individuals use their genomic information, and into protection from its abuse by others.

How to get the most from a gene test

New tools squeeze more research out of personal genomics.

Erika Check Hayden

Genomics takes hold in Asia

Collaborations among Asian scientists are just not as strong as those they share with scientists in the West. Why?

David Cyranoski

Human genes are multitaskers

Up to 94% of human genes can generate different products

Heidi Ledford

Personal genomes: The case of the missing heritability

When scientists opened up the human genome, they expected to find the genetic components of common traits and diseases. But they were nowhere to be seen. Brendan Maher shines a light on six places where the missing loot could be stashed away.

Brendan Maher

DNA sequencing: Standard and pores

Could the next generation of genetic sequencing machines be built from a collection of minuscule holes? Katharine Sanderson reports.

Katharine Sanderson

Personal genomes: A disruptive personality, disrupted

Eric Schadt revels in making people uncomfortable with his science. Bryn Nelson reports how the bioinformatics rabble-rouser hopes to charge ahead in the face of his company’s disintegration.

Bryn Nelson

When consent gets in the way

As the prospect of personal genomes for all promises to make personal health records a reality, mandating consent does not protect privacy or ensure public benefit.

Patrick Taylor

Misdirected precaution

Personal-genome tests are blurring the boundary between experts and lay people. It’s time rethink outdated models of regulation.

Barbara Prainsack, Jenny Reardon, Richard Hindmarsh, Herbert Gottweis, Ursula Naue & Jeantine E. Lunshof

Discuss the two Commentaries above at Nature Network.

Accurate whole human genome sequencing using reversible terminator chemistry

David R. Bentley et al.

The diploid genome sequence of an Asian individual

Jun Wang et al.

Individual genomes diversify

Samuel Levy & Robert L. Strausberg

DNA sequencing of a cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukaemia genome

Timothy J. Ley et al.

Genes mirror geography within Europe

John Novembre et al.

The complete genome of an individual by massively parallel DNA sequencing

David A. Wheeler et al.

Human genetics: Dr Watson’s base pairs

Maynard V. Olson

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