Genomics Impact On US Economy Approaches $1 Trillion 115
sciencehabit writes "Despite a slow economy, business in genomics has boomed and has directly and indirectly boosted the U.S. economy by $965 billion since 1988, according to a new study (pdf). In 2012 alone, genomics-related research and development, along with relevant industry activities, contributed $31 billion to the U.S. gross national product and helped support 152,000 jobs, the biomedical funding advocacy group United for Medical Research announced today in Washington, D.C. Based on total U.S. spending, the country gets $65 back for every $1 it spends on the field."
umm... (Score:3, Insightful)
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So in other words this stuff really is overpriced?
The real questions are; Who controls it and, profits from it and who benefits from it? Obviously not the owners of the genome, you know, you, me, and the others who acquired it the good old fashioned way.
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The real questions are out of whose pocket does that $65 come from and into whose pocket is it going and of course how many people are dying because it is priced beyond their reach.
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What price would you put on a life? Far from being just another business, the result of both basic and applied research derived from Genomics contributes beyond direct economic growth, benefiting all of society when you consider diseases prevented, lives saved, and improved public health. We are still in the infancy of this young field, but consider the wide ranging effects of historic innovations in medical science such as antiseptic sanitation, discovery/use of antibiotics, and immunotherapy for compari
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Its a little one side to think genomics will be all upside. The flip side...
A. What will be the costs if someone designs genetically targetted weapons, i.e. biological weapons that only target certain races or even individual people. I read an article a while back that the Secret Service strives to minimize access to the President's DNA, for example skin cells left in sheets, to prevent someone from targetting his genome with a biological weapon.
B. What will the cost be when people or nation states try to
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A. Are you saying just because a technology can be used for harm it should be abandoned or suppressed? The same has been said of nuclear power, and we are all still here. In this day and age, controlling what information (genomic or otherwise) people can access and how they use it isn't that easy. Just ask the RIAA and MPAA.
B. Don't worry about it! Everyone knows that Kirk, Spock, and Bones will always save us from Khan - regardless of the timeline. Reference JJ Abrams & Gene Roddenberry
C. On a more
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"A. Are you saying just because a technology can be used for harm it should be abandoned or suppressed?"
Actually, no I didn't say anything remotely resembling that. I think I pointed out if you are going to tote up the upside you should probably at least keep it in your mind there is a down side to most technologies. Their cost can be extremely steep, especially when you whistle past the grave yard and ignore them.
Fossil fuels for example have been a boon to the energy input equation driving civilization,
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"A. Are you saying just because a technology can be used for harm it should be abandoned or suppressed?"
Actually, no I didn't say anything remotely resembling that. I think I pointed out if you are going to tote up the upside you should probably at least keep it in your mind there is a down side to most technologies. Their cost can be extremely steep, especially when you whistle past the grave yard and ignore them.
Fossil fuels for example have been a boon to the energy input equation driving civilization, as long as they don't start a run away greenhouse effect and wipe out life as we know it.
You seem to be a poster child for "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".
Well, if the point you are trying to make is so superficial, thanks for pointing out the obvious. Every technology is a double edged sword. It doesn't take a genious to realize any tool can be used for good or ill. The story itself simply points out that measurable economic gains have been realized in developing genomic technology. But it would be moronic to take that to mean we are headed for a modern day gold rush where every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a pan can go out and make a mess of things by doin
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" What do *you* think should be done to address the problem(s) that concerns you? What is your contribution?"
Not really sure there is anything that can be done. The genie is already out of the bottle. You can pass laws and try to suppress it which will slow beneficial use and do nothing to hamper malevolent use.
There are already people actively trying to alter organisms in their garage and on kickstarter. I assure you there are nation states like North Korea who have the capacity to do malevolent work.
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Being vigilant is not the same as being paranoid. It helps no one for an uninformed voice to be extolling the power and might of some imagined boogie man. In science, many things are possible. Yes I do work in the field. Therefore I feel I have a more realistic view of the situation firmly grounded in what is actually true or achievable. It takes a lot of dedication, discipline, and maturity to do science. That for the most part will weed out a lot of bad elements. On the other hand, you don't need a
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OK now you are dismissive AND arrogant. Good work, I am more concerned about you and your field of endeavor than I was when this started.
The fact that genomic research HAS enabled the ability to engineer organisms that can be extremely dangerous, and can potentially be dangerous to only targetted groups is intensely intertwined with all the beneficial advances in the field. You simply can't separate the two and pretend the dark side isn't there.
Genomics is simply a very dangeorus field. Its given an ethi
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I'm sorry to exacerbate your concern. But I am not the least bit sorry about speaking truth to ignorance. Which "targetted groups" are you preemptively defending????? Most serious anthropologists will tell you the notion of "race" as a scientific concept is a myth. There is no clean cut genetic signature that will magically identify an African, an Asian, or a Caucasian, or Homosexual, or Islamist, or Jedi. There is no biological basis for ANY of various ways people may choose to culturally self-identif
Wow! (Score:3, Insightful)
Industry Group claims it is useful in own report, film at eleven.
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And your evidence that their figures are incorrect or misleading is where exactly?
Bias reflects reliability, not accuracy (Score:2)
It's a clear implication of the post. Are retarded or just being intentional dense?
(1) Not at all, it is indicated the report is biased and less reliable than an unbiased report. Whether it is accurate is an entirely different question than whether it is biased. An alleged murderer may have his mother testify that he was home with her at the time of the murder, for example, and her testimony is biased and therefore less reliable regardless of whether it is accurate.
(2) Ad hominem attacks are not nerdly.
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Headline should be "Industry group says 'You know, what, fuck y'all missile-riding cowboys. See you in hell.'"
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film at eleven
Wins 12 Oscars
of course... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think public funding of basic research is one of the few areas where the federal government is justified in spending significant amounts of money.
But "generating economic impact" is a useless measure; the federal government could create a trillion dollars of economic impact by forcing everybody to burn down their houses or by simply forcing everybody to pay twice as much for their health care (well, they are trying the latter), but we wouldn't be better off as a result.
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I was with you until the Obamacare crack. Healthcare costs have been skyrocketing for 30 years, now if anyone's premium goes up a dollar that's because of Obamacare? Costs aren't going down, but at least the rate they're growing has started slowing down.
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Healthcare costs have been skyrocketing for 30 years, now if anyone's premium goes up a dollar that's because of Obamacare?
No, but Obamacare does amazingly little to control costs. Obama started by giving pharma and med insurance companies what they wanted. There's a reason why the insurance stocks went up after it passed - what company has a problem with guaranteed customers? A public option would have given them a run for their money, and with pharma the collective bargaining power of 308M people could do something about prices. Some of the cost containment claimed is absurd. It limits the medical loss ratio, to a lower ratio
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You're correct. Obama care is going to save precious little money. What it might do is increase the number of people who are covered with insurance. But that requires the states to tag along and pay some money themselves. Not a very popular concept these days. It might decrease the rate of increase in medical costs - whoopedo. It will create another cottage industry of consultants trying to explain the thousands of pages of rules and regs to everyone else.
It probably was the best anyone could do which
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I don't know if Obamacare is good or bad, but I'm very, very concerned about the way it was written and passed: one, big, complex bill that was rammed through Congress before anybody except the authors had had a chance to read it, let alone understand it. Much better would have been a series of bills dealing with different aspects of the reform, with each one short enough t
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Many people are looking at drastic increases in states where Obamacare is being implemented, far higher than traditional growth, in part because they are forced to buy coverage they don't want and they don't need. Obamacare promised to rein in the the growth of health care costs and insurance premiums, and it is obviously a failure.
If you're going to implement European-style health insurance coverage, you must implement European-style cost controls, which usually involve strict limits on what insurance comp
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No, right-wing news hosts are saying that. The only people who will pay more are companies who are only now required to provide insurance to their employees and therefore have a 100% increase in healthcare costs.
My empirical evidence was in the form of a rebate from United Healthcare because they exceeded the premium cap mandated by the ACA. That's right, money back and a lower premium because of Obamacare.
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Take off your partisan glasses and face reality:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/04/obamacare-rate-shock-how-big-is-it-does-it-matter.html [thedailybeast.com]
That's simply false. Rates are going up for many people.
Furthermore, the businesses that have a "100% increase in healthcare costs" will pass that on
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Take off your partisan glasses and face reality:
Uh, what? You start out with a bogus Obamacare dig, then you link an article which shows no evidence, just some numbers that /some/ economists are expecting people to pay. And still those numbers are far less than what many people are paying now. For example, my friend got laid off and was paying $1800/mo to cover his wife and newborn through COBRA. That's roughly 50% of the average household gross income spent directly on insurance.
I'm basing my viewpoint on real evidence, not the BS estimates you see
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The article gives real rates for actual payers. You can check them yourself if you like.
That means nothing. You may simply have been on an uncompetitive rate plan or have had too much
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The article gives real rates for actual payers. You can check them yourself if you like.
That means nothing. You may simply have been on an uncompetitive rate plan or have had too much coverage. (Given how financially inexperienced you seem to be, that is actually likely.)
Yes, my lower premiums are "uncompetitive", and my HDHP is too much coverage. Given that you've based your arguments solely on unsubstantiated numbers and lies, I can only imagine how "experienced" you must be. I posted fact, you posted lies.
Yes, it will work itself out: companies will fire employees, automate more, and move jobs overseas, where employees have full health care benefits at a fraction of the cost of Obamacare.
Ah, there it is. OMG THE SKY IS FALLING DUE TO OBAMACARE!!!11 Mindless drivel from
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You posted an anecdote, I posted news stories from reputable sources.
The sky isn't falling, it's just one long period of unemployment and economic malaise due to an incompetent president. Hopefully, the next one will be better.
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You posted an anecdote, I posted news stories from reputable sources.
I guess somehow in your little mind, opinions from people who happen to agree with your political disposition are more important than real evidence. Do you also believe in Santa Clause?
The sky isn't falling, it's just one long period of unemployment and economic malaise due to an incompetent president. Hopefully, the next one will be better.
Again with the lies! Do you realize that unemployment and the deficit are actually down since your sub-average IQ (R)-tard president was finally outed? Probably not, since you actually believe the ACA will destroy the economy.
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"Generating economic impact" is a very useful measure. It is quite possibly the best measure of any government program other than social safety nets.
the federal government could create a trillion dollars of economic impact by forcing everybody to burn down their houses or by simply forcing everybody to pay twice as much for their health care
They said economic impact not economic activity. If they burned every house down and rebuilt every one of them, the net economic impact of spending trillions of dollars would be $0. Well, it would be a little positive because the houses would be nicer, but definetly not worth the money spent.
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"Generating economic impact" is a very useful measure.
That'd be true if it could actually be measured.
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"Economic impact" is an ambiguous weasel-word, and the thing they did not say was "economic gain".
In the case of people burning down their houses, you could actually subtract the losses from the gains, but the way these calculations are done, you'd still end up with nominal big overall gains, because the same dollar is counted man
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"Economic impact" is an ambiguous weasel-word, and the thing they did not say was "economic gain".
A positive economic impact is an economic gain. A negative economic impact is an economic loss. I really don't think anyone should fault the writers of this paper for assuming this was obvious.
In the case of people burning down their houses, you could actually subtract the losses from the gains, but the way these calculations are done, you'd still end up with nominal big overall gains, because the same dollar is counted many times in these calculations. Without that, you couldn't get such huge multipliers.
They do mention in the TFA that efforts were made to not count effects more than once when calculating cumulative effects. But obviously there are going to be huge multipliers when you are talking about basic research. That is the reason there has been more economic advance in the past two hundred years than there was
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The writers didn't say "positive economic impact", they said "economic impact", likely because they can't actually make a good case that the impact is entirely positive.
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The report could be complete bunk, but I do have issues with a few of your statements.
Was it really rational for the US government to engage in a race with a private company to sequence the human genome?
It was a very good thing because the Celera Corporation made every effort to keep their data private and out of GenBank. The results of the genome project would have been far less beneficial if there wasn't significant pressure from the DOE/NIH funded research. Celera did complete their work at a fraction of the cost the public research, but this was a project that was far too important to allow a single company to control
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In fact, many people at the time thought that the human genome project was premature, and that the money would have been better spent on other programs until the cost of sequencing had come down. I see little reason
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Then look at the report—there're plenty of more specific measures. Six billion dollars in federal and state tax revenue, 293 billion dollars in paid salaries, and 277,000 highly-skilled jobs created or supported. The trillion-dollar figure isn't super sensical at first glance, but there are somewhat more meaningful figures in there.
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That's a plus only if these people are doing something useful. Otherwise, the government is taking 277000 highly skilled workers and wasting their talent on meaningless work, and the US government just sucked a trillion dollars in opportunity cost out of the economy.
That's why it's true to say that this is "economic impact", but nobody knows whether it's an actual gain or loss.
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The foul smells emanating from my ass... (Score:1, Funny)
The foul smells emanating from my ass have boosted the economy by $500 million through increased sales of air freshners!
Oh what an amazing thing! (Score:2)
Cunundrum (Score:3)
Quite a cunundrum, isn't it? Most everyone wants to see science advance, most everyone wants everyone to benefit from those scientific advances. How best to do this by encouraging both research and sharing? Still not sure a 20yr monopoly is the best method, but so far have seen very few viable alternatives presented that serve both the benefactors and benefactees.
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Still not sure a 20yr monopoly is the best method, but so far have seen very few viable alternatives presented that serve both the benefactors and benefactees.
It's called public funding - scientific progress is a public good. As for the 20yr monopolies, those are supposed to cover inventions, not scientific discoveries.
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The medical/chemic
That is the worst story tag I've seen in a while (Score:2)
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Obviously genomics is the study of gnome genealogies
Yes, I'm quite sure that is what ... oh, what was that pesky search engine called ... told me. Damnit infoseek!
$141 in economic output per dollar invested (Score:1)
(*) Except that the numbers they've published are gross, and it's the net that counts.
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165,000 people isn't that large as big corporations go. If this is generating a job or two in supermarkets all over the place, I will be surprised.
As private industry is investing tons, it would be wrong to assume these jobs are a consequence of government spending anyway. Perhaps they would spend even more if they weren't taxed so heavily. Perhaps they would spend even more if famous politicians weren't running around screaming about their "unconscionable profits".
Funny (Score:2)
Yes, I've followed the boom of "bioinformatics" majors and their spectacular inability to get jobs. I've been to academic conferences that talked big about the promise of genomics, never mind all the unemployed PhDs scurrying around looking for jobs. I have read academic journals that talked big about the job prospects of such students, quoting an exceptional graduate that managed to get an assistant professorship somewhere. When I asked the writer about other graduates, they acknowledged that they had o
Genetics? (Score:2)
Wait was this stuff not called genetics, like two seconds ago? Whats the difference between genetics and genomics?
I work with a cancer genomics group... (Score:2)
Bad poster. (Score:2)
It's "Genomics' Impact on US Economy Approaches $1 Trillion".
Without the apostrophe after the s, Genomics has no relationship to the US economy, since it's not possessive. Come on. This is fourth grade English.
Re:This is FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
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There is enough economic incentive to do this kind of research anyway that it does not need to rely wholly on grants. And if the majority of this research comes out of grants. I am going to say we have seen better results from NPO's and private charities building food forests and doing experimental farming in places like Africa.
The majority of articles I have seen in the news leads me to believe that genomic agricultural research is mostly to keep the rich people rich. That includes the Chinese rich along w
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*So no net benefit to society as a whole and this article is just a bunch of $$ numbers to make politicians feel good about themselves and middle men university grads.
Re:This is FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
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Brought peace?
(Or, less in line with the joke, understanding of evolution and our place in it. I guess that's sort of like peace, but the Judean People's Front won't have any of it.)
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Oh well. I'm trying to talk to the wrong crowed here. Let me find another soap box somewhere else.
Instead of getting on another soap box and saying anything at all, would you consider stopping to listen to what others are saying? There are many insights being expressed here that are worth thinking about and learning from. If you do have to say something, consider asking an engaging question.
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I consider this particular battle lost. No point in listening to what I already know... I have heard it all before. I don't necessarily disagree. But I have a different perspective on our 'grant system' and Universities.
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Except that my first take on this was what innovations. Yes, a lot of stuff is hyped up, but I've seen precious little utility for genomics in the trenches.
I think this study is total BS - especially since the methodology is hidden. Sequencing the human genome is interesting, but the real key is sequencing other genomes and comparing them. That's happening with abandon now.
And we're finally getting a handle on what controls the genome and how all the little pieces fit together. That should yield some be
Re:This is FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
Woah, woah, what?
Except that my first take on this was what innovations.
Every single drug and test invented in the past twelve years has been absolutely dependent on understanding the sequence of the human genome and how its components play together. 15 new anti-cancer drugs were approved in 2012 alone, the most bountiful year for FDA approvals since 1995.
Yes, a lot of stuff is hyped up, but I've seen precious little utility for genomics in the trenches.
Then you've never heard of this [wikipedia.org]? Or this [wikipedia.org]? How much more trench-y do you need?
I think this study is total BS - especially since the methodology is hidden.
The third page links to the full report [battelle.org], noting that it includes the full methodology behind the study. The word "methodology" is right there in bright blue.
Sequencing the human genome is interesting, but the real key is sequencing other genomes and comparing them. That's happening with abandon now.
As far as human health is concerned, the primary questions are (a) how do we work? (b) how do the things that interact with us work? and (c) how does our environment affect us? While many model organisms provide excellent snapshots of simpler genomes that we can use to unravel complex mechanisms (like cell division in yeast), comparative genomics really only teaches us about evolution. It's not relevant to medicine, outside of predicting the evolution of pathogens. We're not benefiting human medicine by sequencing, say, red pandas or sea turtles, although these things are certainly important for other reasons. There are occasionally exceptional genomes, like the naked mole rat (immune to cancer), but these are rare.
And we're finally getting a handle on what controls the genome and how all the little pieces fit together.
The biggest recent contributor to that has been ENCODE [ucsc.edu], which, again, was a direct analysis of human data and did not involve any other species.
That should yield some better therapies but aside from a few edge cases in cancer treatment, there isn't much out there. And it's not like these cancer treatments have overwhelmingly improved survival - improvements of 20 - 50% are typical. Nothing to sneeze at, but not the Holy Grail.
We picked all the low-hanging fruit like phenylketonuria as soon as it became technologically feasible. Problems like cancer and severe autism are extremely complex, and the only hope we have to tackle them is through an extremely intimate understandinf of the human genome.
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..... comparative genomics really only teaches us about evolution. It's not relevant to medicine, outside of predicting the evolution of pathogens. We're not benefiting human medicine by sequencing, say, red pandas or sea turtles, although these things are certainly important for other reasons. There are occasionally exceptional genomes, like the naked mole rat (immune to cancer), but these are rare.
Comparative genomics are of enormous importance to the field of cisgenesis/intragenesis [wikipedia.org]. Somewhat inbetween traditional plant breeding and inter-species genetic engineering, intragenics seeks to modify a target organism by transferring genes from related organisms. When applied to agriculture, there are practical savings in resources expended when trying to create new cultivars of existing crops. For more see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17692557 [nih.gov]
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Well, yes... but I did said medicine. I'm pretty sure that falls under "other reasons." :)
For what it's worth, I'm not really a medical person at heart, even though I'm surrounded by medical stuff constantly. I'd rather navel-gaze at the LUCA or something. But, yeah, comparative genomics is critical in a wide range of natural resources industries; fisheries and forestry in particular are very concerned about defending their stocks from diseases. (At least, that's what the grant in my job description said.)
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Most of the outliers used as benchmarks that I've seen are frogs, like Xenopus tropicalis. These genomes are generally sufficiently well curated and distant from our own to support arguments about conservation. It's excessive to worry about taking a census from the entire tree of life, particularly when the actual biochemists in charge of drug production don't trust bioinformatics anyway, and ultimately will carry out detailed structural analyses and mutation assays on the final candidate targets.
A very coa
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My lab works on protozoan parasite genomes in the context of gene network evolution. At a hospital. I'm a doctoral student in computational biology, and my core expertise is sequence analysis. I promise you that I'm well aware of what I said.
I think you, honestly, misread. My point was that sequencing random organisms is not medically useful; it's focusing on diseases (to divine means of attack) or some carefully-selected model organism (to understand a simplified version of ourselves) that brings us import
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I have to say that as somebody tangentially involved in evolutionary biology research (boring computational stuff), I appreciate and agree with most of your input in this discussion, however it has to be said that you're being
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That's cool. I understand the original article is about human genome research, but I still consider that you're thinking rather narrowly - but what do I know, so far my involvement in bioinformatics has only been accidental, I'm an engineer really. But just as an anecdote, I worked with a couple of unrelated teams - sponsored by pharma companies - to do basic "alpha taxonomy" and biology research on scientifically-neglected organsims (they're not cute or furry!). They make themselves out of (or secrete) int
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The protozoan parasite work my lab does spawned out of stuff that was once like that. The genus Plasmodium has over two hundred species, and is often said to have one species for every worthwhile animal in Africa (although in truth there's a lot of overlap, and about a dozen of them can attack humans.)
In defence of my original and somewhat-creaky post, I'd file that under the rare "exceptional genomes" category. Such findings may seem immense, but compared to the unbelievable scale of the whole tree of life
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Why pay for basic research (Score:2)
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I'm all for funding science, but this sort of hype is just propaganda for the proles and members of congress.
This is biomedical, not agricultural (Score:4, Informative)
This has nothing to do with Monsanto. This is about medical research that has been boosted by advances such as mapping the human genome.