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By itself, a glob of spit at the bottom of a cup doesn't sound remarkable.
But when you have globs from 100,000 people, combined with medical records and DNA-processing robots, you have a resource that geneticists see as an unprecedented opportunity to study human health.
At least, that's what scientists at Kaiser Permanente and the University of California, San Francisco, are anticipating.
Funded by a $24.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, scientists from the two institutions recently finished analyzing more than 100,000 DNA samples voluntarily sent to them by Northern California Kaiser members.
According to Cathy Schaefer, executive director of the Research Program on Genes, Environment and Health, or RPGEH, this is the largest study of its type ever done.
"The NIH maintains a database themselves," said Schaefer. "That database contains information from genome-wide association studies like the one we are completing now, but ours will be the largest deposit by far."
Study volunteers were sent saliva kits and questionnaires about their lifestyles and environments.
DNA was extracted from the returned samples and sent to UCSF, which...