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Harvard Professor Plans Database To Link Genes

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The Washington Post

Published: October 20, 2008

BOSTON - George Church wants to put his personal genetic blueprint online for all to see - the sequence of chemical bases that make him who he is, a lanky scientist of Scottish ancestry who has dyslexia, narcolepsy and motion sickness.

And he wants 99,999 other people to follow suit.

The Harvard genetics professor's Personal Genome Project is an attempt to build the only public genomic database that connects genes with diseases.

If successful, he says, it would usher in an era of "personalized medicine" that would enable consumers to order their own genetic blueprints and know what diseases might lurk in their futures.

The database, a nonprofit venture, goes online today, when Church and up to nine other volunteers - the "PGP 10" - release their genomic data and traits.

It has enormous potential to help consumers control their health, proponents say. Critics say risks outweigh potential benefits.

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