Calico, 23andMe, Google X… etc. – nothing seems to be able to stop the Internet giant: Google is continuing to collect DNA data en masse (Cf. Gènéthique 13/06/2014, and 29/10/2014 press reviews).
The latest project? Decoding the genetic code of 10,000 people suffering from autism and their immediate family. In fact, on 9 December 2014, the Autism Speaks Association announced its partnership with Google to “investigate the assumption that autism has genetic origins”, explains Rob Ring, Chief Scientist for Autism Speaks, in an interview with American magazine, Wired.
The mission of the American giant is as follows: “To store and index sequencing data to help scientists track genome differences and variations in DNA molecules”. To do this, Google will use Google genomics, a tool it created several months ago and “launched on Google’s Cloud Platform – the virtual storage facility”, the contents of which will continue to grow exponentially due to the rapid evolution in human genome sequencing.
Thus, “scientists can explore specific regions and precise sequences of genomes in an attempt to detect common variations”, explained David Glazer, Google Genomics’ Director of Engineering.
tempsreel.nouvelobs.com 10/12/2014 – Wired.com (Marcus Wohlsen) 09/12/2014