(Editor’s note: at the request of the GRC, this post has been removed.)

Joshua Finkelstein (Senior Editor, Nature)

If you could look into a crystal ball to find out how your life ends, would you? Yesterday, James Watson (yes, that James Watson) decided that he didn’t want to know. His personal genome was sequenced by 454 Life Sciences and the Human Genome Sequencing Center at the Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Watson will make his entire genome publicly available with the exception of one gene: apolipoprotein E, the gene most strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease, which killed his grandmother.

There is no correct answer to the genetic testing dilemma. The children and grandchildren of victims of diseases with much clearer genetic causes have struggled with this question for years. But if Watson’s genome announces the dawn of pharmacogenomics, many more of us will have to decide for ourselves what we do and what we don’t want to know.

Watson is not a man who shies away from controversy. Perhaps that is why I am slightly surprised by such a human decision from such a brazen pioneer.

It’s about 85 degrees in Boston and I got a sunburn walking into work – this means that the summer is officially here. OK – I know the first day of summer is still a few weeks away, but the sun is shining and it’s time for me to start thinking about summer conferences.

If you say the words ‘summer conference’ to a group of scientists, I bet many of them think of the Gordon Research Conferences: you are whisked away with 100-150 other scientists to hear about exciting (and often unpublished) research for several days. Many of these conferences are in high schools or small colleges in New England, but don’t let the Spartan accommodations or the cafeteria food deter you from coming – I’ve only been to a few GRCs, but I’ve had a fantastic time at every one…

This summer I’m 99% sure I’ll be attending the Natural Products GRC and the Bioorganic GRC – I’d love to go to the Enzymes, Coenzymes & Metabolic Pathways GRC and the Organometallic GRC, but I’d be out of the office for the month of July, and I don’t think our authors (or my wife) would really like it if I was gone that long. Maybe next year the conference organizers will spread them out a bit…

Other summer conferences that look good include the RSC Organocatalysis conference (in early July), EuroBIC (also in early July), and the annual Protein Society meeting (in early August).

What conferences are you going to this summer? We’re always interested in hearing about exciting conferences, so if you’ve been to that conference in previous years, why do you like it? What keeps you coming back? (And please feel free to shamelessly promote a conference you’re organizing…)

If you’re at any of these conferences, keep an eye out for me – maybe we can chat about your research over a pint or two…

Joshua

Joshua Finkelstein (Associate Editor, Nature)

Ask people what they associate with Finland and the one thing everyone mentions is they’ve heard the language is fiendishly difficult. It certainly is—especially, if, like me, you are trying to get an uncooperative ( and non-English speaking) ticket machine to sell you a train ticket back to your hotel after a long day at the Human Genome Meeting in Helsinki. Still, the experience does make me sympathise with the scientists who are trying to decode the information encrypted in our DNA. Because if my Berlitz pocket phrasebook is anything to go by, it seems as though the human genome is written in Finnish.

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