Spit and SNP – genetics gets personal

The age of retail DNA dawned with the launch in late 2007 of two personal genomics companies, offering SNP services over the internet.

Last year, the editor in chief of Bio-IT World magazine, Kevin Davies, signed up with four of these companies to have his SNPs surveyed. In the January/February issue of ALS, he reports on the pros and cons of each service and weighs up whether they are good, bad or indifferent.

In our big preview of the Lorne conferences, we talk to some of the world’s leading researchers in proteomics, protein structure and function, cancer and genetics, including:

• John Bergeron, on the controversial gene-centric approach to the Human Proteome Project

• Nicki Packer, on the glycoproteins in bodily fluids such as saliva, tears and human breast milk

• Jerome Werkmeister, on engineering new tissues and organs

• Tara Sutherland, on extracting silk from social insects

• Kenneth Kinzler, on hills and mountains in the tumour landscape

• David Vaux, on his epic tale of cellular life and death

• Nick Hayward, on looking beyond the redheaded phenotype in melanoma

• and Andrew Sinclair, on the genetics of disorders of sex development

We also investigate recording the human brain, the rings around the crimson rosella, the case of the fainting astronauts and Melbourne’s super-duper new supercomputer.

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