How I Hacked My Best Friend’s Genome — And Could Hack Yours Too
By Sharon Moalem,
Medium
| 04. 15. 2014
I was recently on a flight back to New York from London and was sitting one row away from Daniel Day Lewis and his partner Rebecca Miller. And as Lewis politely asked for another cup of coffee I thought about the results that were printed out in front of me. You see, I just finished hacking my best friend’s genome and it was surprisingly easier than I imagined and as it turns out completely legal. Now you may be wondering why anyone would want to hack someone’s genome without their consent. With the drop in the cost of testing and the ease at which it’s possible to
attain DNA samples (all it takes is a discarded piece of gum or used coffee cup), it’s possible to get a genetic snapshot of you that can reveal more things about you than you already even know about yourself. Information regarding predisposition to psychiatric illness, obesity, cancer and even life expectancy, are just a few things that can be easily garnered surreptitiously and completely without your consent.
My aim in trying to hack...
Related Articles
It’s been a busy couple of months in biopolitics, with developments in the US, UK, China, Japan, and implicitly on Mars. Time for a brief roundup.
• • •
Bioethics needs an update
The National Research Act is now 50 years old. It was signed into law on July 12, 1974, as a direct response to publicity about the 1932 “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.” The Hastings Bioethics Forum celebrated its anniversary with an...
By Robert Resta, The DNA Exchange | 07.22.2024
Medical geneticists and genetic counselors have an often complicated and at times tense relationship with people with disabilities, their families, advocates, and scholars. Geneticists are strong advocates and supporters for all of their patients, regardless of their abilities and disabilities...
By Katherine Bourzac, Nature | 07.10.2024
Image courtesy National Human Genome Research Institute
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is supposed to encourage effective medical advances while also ensuring that patients and research subjects are protected. This dual mandate demands tricky judgment calls that are made more difficult by outside pressures of several kinds, political, judicial, and especially commercial. This April story at Bloomberg examines one deeply troubling pattern of regulatory capture:
Americans Are Paying Billions to Take Drugs That Don’t Work
Companies are increasingly...