I Donated My DNA to Help Stop the Coronavirus
By Ronnie S. Stangler,
Medium
| 04. 19. 2020
My personal calculus is that today, collective good trumps individual autonomy.
Last night, I entered intimate personal health information into a database that can be accessed by anyone. This is not a decision that I made lightly. I shared my information with the Personal Genome Project(PGP) at Harvard Medical School. Founded in 2005 by Dr. George Church, the PGP represents an ideal, a vision of effecting ultimate progress in DNA science through the generosity of participants willing to expose personal data for a greater good. Before Covid-19, the PGP used this data for open-source research projects to further our understanding of human genetics, biology, and health. The PGP will now singularly focus on Covid-19, studying both those who have the disease and those who don’t.
Their strategy is uniquely advantaged, as the PGP has already collected its participants’ DNA. Ideally, all subjects who have agreed to participate in this open-source project have already entered all varieties of medical information, from static measures of height, weight, and blood type to information collected over years through contacts with physicians and medical systems.
The grand scheme is to connect genotypes (obtained through...
Related Articles
The Center for Genetics and Society is delighted to recommend the current edition of GMWatch Review – Number 589. UK-based GMWatch, a long-standing ally, was founded in 1998 by Jonathan Matthews as an independent organization seeking to counter the enormous corporate political power and propaganda of the GMO industry and its supporters. Matthews and Claire Robinson are its directors and managing editors.
CGS works to ensure that social justice, equity, human rights, and democratic governance are front...
By Ryan Cross, Endpoints News | 08.19.2025
Human eggs are incredibly rare cells. The ovary typically produces only 400 mature eggs across a woman’s life. But biologists in George Church’s lab at Harvard University — a group that’s never content with nature’s limits — just got a...
By Katherine Drabiak, Journal of Medical Ethics Forum | 08.07.2025
Adapted from Mitochondrial DNA at
National Human Genome Research Institute
Recently, media outlets around the world have been reporting on children born from pronuclear genome transfer (sometimes called “3-parent IVF,” “mitochondrial donation” or “mitochondrial replacement therapy”) at Newcastle Fertility Center...
By Nicky Hudson, The Conversation | 08.12.2025
