As I've been learning more about genomics and genetics since I started here at Genome Alberta, I've also found there is certainly a growing community of non-researchers interested in the subject as well. When we decided to have my own personal genome tested and I started to write about it, I soon realised there was also some significant interest in personal genome services. Companies such as 23andMe, Navigenics, or deCODE don't release a lot of information about how many people are using their services or what kind of demographic they have, but even those that haven't had the testing done seem to be interested in the issues and the science. In fact today I'm on Alec Saunder's 'Squawk Box' podcast to talk about my experience so far.

To help the discussion along you can now see a significant part of my SNP file online. I exchanged some notes with one of the Principal Investigators for our GE3LS project and he didn't see any real legal reason for not posting the information.
Timothy Caulfield said that an insurance company for example, can ask for the information anyway so the fact it is public isn't really an issue. I already have lots of insurance which means it can't affect what I have already, but there is the possibility it may come up if I was to apply for more in the future. From a personal perspecitve I don't really see a problem either. There is nothing in there to hide because like everyone else, though my genetics are an important piece of my make-up, there are so many other influences that affect physical and mental health that no single piece of the file would have implications whether one or 100 people knew about it.
From a public education and outreach perspective there are huge advantages to putting up the information. For instance Biotrek is interested in making it part of their program. Biotrek is a series of 5-day summer camps for kids that offers hands-on access to biotechnology and genomics facilties that they can have fun with. (translation: no exams ! ) Having someone's actual SNP file to look at and analyse takes it from the theoretical to the very real. Couple that with activities such as our Facebook project where you can 'give a gene' and bring genetics and genomics alive for many people, and I feel there is a bigger win than the downside to someone finding out I may have a lower or higher risk to some cancers.
The 2 files have been analyzed by a very neat program called Promethease which I will expand on in a later post. Suffice to say though that the interest in genomics is such that someone took the time to write the program, link it to 23andMe and deCODE files, and make it available free to anyone who wants to use it. The output from that analysis is what you can see online. It is not complete because the actual raw XL data file is over a million lines long so Promethease does the analysis based on the most reliable information from SNPEdia.com
So, want to know all about the Mikenomic Genome ?
Here is the 23andMe analysis and the deCODE analysis.
Post a comment and let me know what you think about the issues surrounding an online version of my genome !