JUST THINK. Without real lives, all that hard work sequencing the human
genome will be worthless. In order to tease out the roots of
disease—genetic and environmental—researchers will need not only
people’s DNA but also their medical records, details of their lifestyles and,
preferably, family histories. And with the imminent arrival of the first
sequenced human genome, there’s a race on to create large databases to hold all
that information.
This week, Britain’s Medical Research Council (MRC) outlined just such a
database, starting with 500 000 volunteers. At the same time, a British company
called Gemini Holdings announced…
