Personal Genomics in the Classroom: Students Sequence Themselves
By Monya Baker,
Nature News Blog
| 10. 11. 2012
Medical and graduate students will get the chance to sequence and interpret their own genomes in what is being billed as the first-ever course to offer whole-genome sequencing.
Mount Sinai Medical School in New York is offering an elective course called ‘Practical Analysis of Your Personal Genome’ this year. The goal is to teach upcoming physicians how sequencing information might affect clinical care.
Students can choose to sequence their own or an anonymous genome. This will reveal several million variants, many with known implications for disease and health, and many more with unclear significance. Students may learn their risk for common diseases such as cancer or diabetes and also whether they carry mutations that could cause single-gene disorders in their children.
Mount Sinai will also use questionnaires to find out whether students opting to analyse their own genomes know more about sequencing and how they feel about the utility and psychological impact of whole-genome sequencing. The 20-person class comprises graduate and medical students as well as junior faculty, the school said in an
announcement.
Students analysing their own blood...
Related Articles
By Margaux MacColl, The San Francisco Standard | 09.17.2025
Designer babies are coming soon to an IVF clinic near you.
Nucleus Genomics, founded by Kian Sadeghi in 2020, when he was just 20, got its start analyzing genomes to weigh a person’s risk of everything from cancer to ADHD...
By Johana Bhuiyan, The Guardian | 09.23.2025
In March 2021, a 25-year-old US citizen was traveling through Chicago’s Midway airport when they were stopped by US border patrol agents. Though charged with no crime, the 25-year-old was subjected to a cheek swab to collect their DNA, which...
By Annika Inampudi, Science | 08.01.2025
In June, Sara* received a message asking whether she wanted to continue to participate in a massive, multicenter research project led by scientists at Aarhus University in Denmark. The iPsych study, the message said, had sequenced her genetic data from...
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...