Personalized Medicine: Understanding Your Own Genome

Catalog description

Do you want to know how to discover the tendencies hidden in your genome? Since the first draft of a human genome sequence became available at the start of this century, the cost of genome sequencing has decreased dramatically. Personal genome sequencing will likely become a routine part of medical exams for patients for prognostic and diagnostic purposes. Personal genome information will also play an increasing role in lifestyle choices, as people take into account their own genetic tendencies. Commercial services such as 23andMe have already taken first steps in this direction. Computational methods for mining large-scale genome data are being developed to unravel the genetic basis of diseases and assist doctors in clinics. This course introduces students to biological, computational, and ethical issues concerning use of personal genome information in health maintenance, medical practice, biomedical research, and policymaking. We focus on practical issues, using individual genome sequences (such as that of Nobel prize winner James Watson) and other population-level genome data. Without requiring any background in biology or CS, we begin with an overview of topics from genetics, molecular biology, stats, and machine learning relevant to the modern personal genome era. We then cover scientific issues such as how to discover your genetic ancestry and how to learn from genomes about migration and evolution of human populations. We discuss medical aspects such as how to predict whether you will develop diseases such as diabetes based on your own genome, how to discover disease-causing genetic mutations, and how genetic information can be used to recommend clinical treatments.