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you're watching a Nova science Now video
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podcast heart attack cancer
diabetes we'd all love to avoid big
killer diseases but doctors still don't
know exactly what causes them they know
it has something to do with our genes
but how much
when we say diabetes or heart attack or
cancer or asthma are genetic we mean
that there are a lot of genes they each
have often small effects that add up
that lifestyle and environment matter
and a big dose of random
chance before they can entangle the
complex web of causes researchers will
need to get their hands on a lot more
data and George Church is trying to get
that data through the personal Genome
Project so the personal Genome Project
is aimed at not just providing personal
genomics but actually providing the
information that will help interpret it
church is trying to recruit 100,000
people to donate their DNA and share
intimate details about their lives
revealing not just their personal traits
in medical history but life history
environments habits and behavior
anything that could conceivably
influence their getting or not getting a
disease if people are willing to share
not just their DNA but their traits and
their environments then we can make
correlations and when Church asks for
your DNA he means all of it not just the
million or so markers that most genomics
companies currently screen for church
plans to read out all of the coding
regions for all 20,000 of your genes a
task that will only be possible with the
next generation of faster cheaper DNA
sequencers this is the the the latest of
a series of prototype uh sequencing
devices we fondly call it the pollinator
for polymerases Colony sequenator within
a few years sequencing all your DNA
could be as cheap as
$1,000 the value of being able to
sequence everybody's
genome for a reasonable amount of money
and for scientific research is is
immeasurable but actually have the
entire sequence of all three billion
bases of each person's DNA so can see
all the differences from one person to
another it's the Holy Grail I mean it
would be amazing with 100,000 genomes
combined with detailed personal
information Church believes we'll have a
much better chance at getting at the
root causes of common diseases and
figuring out how to prevent them before
they strike I sincerely hope that this
is the signaling event that will either
by itself or by some kind of impact it
will have on our way of thinking will
cause us to have a revolution in
medicine to learn more about genetic
testing watch Nova science now airing
Wednesday July 2nd on PBS or join us
online at
pbs.org
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