There are a handful of  start-ups that offer services around genome sequencing. A few of the more popular companies are 23andMe, deCODE, and Navigenics.

What are SNPs?

SNPs are Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms. They are an area of your genome that today’s Scientist have made the most progress in understanding. Right now it is a lot less expensive to get your SNPs sequenced rather than geting the whole genome done.

Personalized Medicine

Your family physician practices “Medical Arts”.  It’s called an art because there is a lot of creativity that comes into play while deciding the best medicine for a particular patient.  They take into account your ethnicity, family history, the health trends the local community, and a whole bunch of other factors.  In the next 5-6 years physicians will start using the data from your genome as a tool for that decision making process.

Clinical trials for new drugs need to have a very large panel to test on because while a drug may be have the intended benefits on some groups of people, it may be fatal or have no effect on other groups of people. This opens up a much more precise method of defining groups of people based on their genome. Drugs that would normally be turned down after regular Clinical trials may prove useful to niche groups of people.

Has your doctor ever switched your medication because it didn’t do anything for you?
Codine doesn’t work well in  “approximately 6–10% of the Caucasian population, 2% of Asians, and 1% of Arabs…” – wikipedia

Why do it now?

I’m a science enthusiast and beta geek. I want to contribute to the pool of genotype and phenotype data. Although this may seem like mostly a Health and Science related topic, it has internet community and web geek overtones to it. I’m interested in the discovery and sharing of all the community data that comes with people discussing health issues, hacks, and work-arounds. I want to participate.

I want to understand the code that I am made of.

Full genome sequencing is already available at a price of $5000 USD via Complete Genomics in Mountain View California. They went on record to predict a full genome sequencing at a price of $1000 near spring 2009.  But with Genome Anaylsis a large pool of data from different people is required to start making meaningful correlations. I am betting that 23andme, coming from a internet centric position, will be able to gather the data of genotypes and phenotypes, and make sense of it all, by building a community of active customers and experts.

I want to be a part of that experience and add to the community pools of data.

Eventually I will hack into and improve my genome.
The ability to do this will happen within my lifetime.

Either way, I won’t be human forever.

I’m doing my very first solo (but not really) acoustic gig at The Harwood Blues on the Saturday night of June 28th 2008.

I would like your help. I know many of you have guitar, harmonica, banjo, or singing talent, so I would like your to look through this song list and let me know if you would like to get on the stage and play some tunes with me.

Have a look through the song list, pick out a few you want to join me on and leave a comment on my retrofitweb blog, on my facebook wall, or phone me or shoot me an email about it.

…and spread the word!

thanks,
Bobby

A Hard Days Night
American Music
Another Round
At A Medium Pace
Bad Day
Bad Timing
Barbarella
Be My Lover
Behind Blue Eyes
Believe Me
Bird Dog
Blaze Of Glory
Boiled Frogs
Boy Inside The Man
Breaking The Girl
Bring It On Home To Me
Broken Fuckin Heart
Cathy’s Clown
Change The World
Crucial
Dock Of The Bay
Dream
Dream A Little Dream Of Me
Drugs Don’t Work
Easy
Eighteen
Eldery Woman In A…..
Every Rose Has It’s Thorn
Fulsom Prison Blues
Glycerine
Go Your Own Way
Good Day Sunshine
Half The World Away
Hard Luck Woman
Head Over Heals
Heartbreak Station
Heaven
Here I Go Again
Hide Your Love Away
Hole Hearted
Hunger Strike
Inside Out
Joey
Keilbasa Sausauge
Losing A Whole Year
Lucky
Maggie May
Man Who Sold The World
Mighty Quinn
My Name Is Jonas
Not An Addict
Not Feeling Fine
Not Getting Tired Of You
One
Patience
Peace Train
Remember Yesterday
Run Around Sue
Runaway
Say It Ain’t So
Self Esteem
Selling The Drama
Sexx Laws
Shooting Star
Signs
Silent Lucidity
Solsbury Hill
Starlight
Sunshower
Sweet Caroline
Take It Easy
Talk Shows On Mute
Tangerine
The Freshman
The Good Life
The Government Totally Sucks
This Wreck Of A Life
Tiny Dancer
To Love Somebody
Tribute
Try
Tweeter And The Monkey Man
Wake Up Little Suzie
We Can Work It Out
What I Got
Where Have All The Good People Gone
White Hot
White Lies/Black Truth
Wonderwall
You Burn First
Your Song