Community genome

Although the human genome project has led to public discussions of privacy protection and potential breaches of confidentiality, the collection of data for the public good should be discussed as well, to demonstrate the public health aspects and to motivate the public conversation. Trends in Biotechnology published a paper with an interesting approach to the question of balancing the risks and benefits, "Our Social Genome?", (July 2007, [doi:10.1016/j.tibtech.2007.04.006 ]) and that may prompt further discussion. Since the protection of privacy and confidentiality, and definition of ownership of genetic information is so critical to society, and requires public conversation, thought provoking papers can serve as focal points to generate these discussions.

The emergence of the scientific era of genomics can be viewed as the trigger for a paradigm shift, from investigations that focus on single genes (or its products) to multiple linked genes ( e.g., pathways, networks, ontologies). In the PH7200 Summer Institute’s classes on genomics, Dr. Toscano spoke about the link between genomics and systems biology. For example, this systemic approach to biologic problems using genome data has been applied to type 1 diabetes, both to further understanding of the disease mechanism and to enable early disease detection, possibly enabling treatment for prevention or arrest of disease progression. The biomedical literature contains many other examples of the beneficial outcomes and possibilities resulting from the human genome project and its bioinformatics applications.