In this article titled "Buffalo gave us spicy wings and the ‘book of life.’ Here’s why that’s undermining personalized medicine" Sharon Begley discusses the Human Genome Project and how this is biased towards those of European descent. Begley explains that because of this it makes it harder to treat some diseases because what they are looking for isn't represented in the reference genome that cost $2.7 billion. This project, which beginnings originated in Buffalo in 1997, is a reflection of the "European dominance of science" when this is not how the world actually looks.
Begley goes on to discuss the other methods to which people have tried to rectify this missing data in what we know about the human genome. Such as trying to sample from those whose heritage is not European but the problem with this is that people can be mistaken about their heritage and with a biased genome it is hard to say for certain if they are correct or wrong. Now, there are scientists trying to create a "pan-genome" that would include all known human genetic variations which NHGRI is offering "$6 million per year to produce high-quality sequences of about 350 genomes". The only problem now is to figure out a way to encompass all human genomic variation into reference genomes.
Question: What then does this imply for the results from companies such as 23 and me?
Annelise Beer
Pot Luck Paper
2/4/2020
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