Personal genome sequences will give their owners new information about themselves to assimilate into their lives. Information with implications for personal health care may lead to medical interventions or monitoring activities, other information may be sources of personal insight, curiosity, and speculation. People may find they have gene variants that are proposed or speculated to be associated with physiological and psychological traits. Individuals will find new and creative uses for personal genome information, e.g., friends may swap sequence information about genes of common interest. A principal need will be to provide educational resources that will help individuals identify and distinguish false claims, guesses, speculations, and hypotheses with different degrees of confirming evidence. But a second need will be to develop mechanisms to encourage individual curiosity about genomics and channel it into public appreciation in and interest about new areas of scientific research.
http://www.personalgenomes.org/
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