Watson has said he will make his entire genome available for researchers to study, with the single exception of his apolipoprotein E gene, the status of which he does not wish to know because it predisposes a person toward Alzheimer's disease. He emphasized the need for sequencing many more individual genomes to help researchers understand mental diseases like schizophrenia, which has struck a member of his own family, and urged others to let their full genomes and identity be put on record so that their physical and mental qualities could be correlated with their DNA.
This will be an enormous, yet interesting path of work. As DNA sequencing gets cheaper and faster, more people will be able to get their personalized genome. Then, scientists can correlate patterns in gene mutations to different "phenotypes" in humans, which can potentially lead to many therapies. Its very exciting! Watsons genome decipered |