About the author

Dan Rhoads

Dan is a postdoc working at the University of Cyprus in developmental biology. He has a BSc in molecular biology and a PhD pharmacology and biochemistry.

To enable tagging you will need to register on Bitesize Bio. We're sorry for the inconvenience, but it's free, only takes a few seconds, and it will enable you to view our seminars for free, ask questions from the professional community, and take part in the lively community of Bitesize Bio

First, a handy little reminder on group meetings from Biocurious. The suggestions are so simple, and yet so many people in group meetings do not think about what they want to say ahead of time, or they drag on and on. And those that respond to questions with “I don’t know”, as a full answer, just get me. Not knowing is fine, but not coming up with a plan for finding out, or a defense of why it doesn’t matter, is poor group meeting conduct.

Now, only a themed group of some links around the blogs. I don’t follow personal genomics closely, but four posts caught my attention discussing the Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative study and Navigenics.

Coriell Goes Live!!!
at Gene Sherpas,
Free Personal Genomics… Sort Of
at Genetic Future,
Will Coriell PMC Kill Navigenics?
at Think Gene, and
Navigenics Interview: Annual Insight
at ScienceRoll.

Coriell is offering a free service – a full genome scan, plus a genetic health report and genetic counselling – that would cost you at least $500 from Navigenics. The pay-off to them is a massive database to mine for new gene-disease associations and information about patient responses to genetic testing; the pay-off for you is free genetic disease risk predictions. The deal may attract customers to Coriell over Navigenics, changing who is leading the field of personal genomics for consumers. Or not.