Open window: when easily identifiable genomes and traits are in the public domain.
Journal Article (Journal Article)
"One can't be of an enquiring and experimental nature, and still be very sensible."--Charles Fort. As the costs of personal genetic testing "self-quantification" fall, publicly accessible databases housing people's genotypic and phenotypic information are gradually increasing in number and scope. The latest entrant is openSNP, which allows participants to upload their personal genetic/genomic and self-reported phenotypic data. I believe the emergence of such open repositories of human biological data is a natural reflection of inquisitive and digitally literate people's desires to make genomic and phenotypic information more easily available to a community beyond the research establishment. Such unfettered databases hold the promise of contributing mightily to science, science education and medicine. That said, in an age of increasingly widespread governmental and corporate surveillance, we would do well to be mindful that genomic DNA is uniquely identifying. Participants in open biological databases are engaged in a real-time experiment whose outcome is unknown.
Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Angrist, M
Published Date
- January 2014
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 9 / 3
Start / End Page
- e92060 -
PubMed ID
- 24647311
Pubmed Central ID
- PMC3960179
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1932-6203
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 1932-6203
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1371/journal.pone.0092060
Language
- eng