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Bursting the genomics bubble
Nature ^ | 31 March 2010 | Philip Ball

Posted on 04/04/2010 8:49:50 PM PDT by neverdem

The Human Genome Project attracted investment beyond what a rational analysis would have predicted. There are pros and cons to that, says Philip Ball.

If a venture capitalist had invested in sequencing the human genome, what would she have to show for it?

For scientists, the Human Genome Project (HGP) might lay the foundation of tomorrow's medicine, with drugs tailored to your genetics. But a venture capitalist would want medical innovations here and now, not decades hence. Nearly ten years after the project's formal completion, there's not much sign of them.

A team of researchers in Switzerland now argue that the HGP was a 'social bubble', analogous to the notorious economic bubbles in which investment far outstrips any rational cost-benefit analysis of the likely returns. Monika Gisler and her colleagues at ETH in Zürich say in a preprint1 on arXiv that "enthusiastic supporters of the HGP weaved a network of reinforcing feedbacks that led to a widespread endorsement and extraordinary commitment by those involved in the project".

Some scientists have already suggested that the HGP's benefits were hyped2. Even advocates admit that medical benefits may be a long time coming, and will require advances in understanding, not just the patience to sort through all the data.

Hope and hype

This contrasts with some of the claims made while the HGP was underway between 1990 and 2003. In 1999 the leader of the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium (IHGSC) Francis Collins claimed that the understanding gained by the sequencing effort would "eventually allow clinicians to subclassify diseases and adapt therapies to the individual patient"3...

(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: genealogy; genetics; genomics; genomicsbubble; helixmakemineadouble; hgp; humangenomeproject
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1 posted on 04/04/2010 8:49:50 PM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem
If a venture capitalist had invested in sequencing the human genome, what would she have to show for it?

That's cute.

2 posted on 04/04/2010 9:01:28 PM PDT by ansel12 ( Why are the non "social conservative" Republicans so unconservative?)
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To: neverdem

meh. No one knew what the first trigonometry tables would lead to in architecture and physics, either.

It was oversold at the time, but it needed to be done. It will take decades and piles of unforeseen biological, medical, and pharmaceutical advances to put this knowledge to use.


3 posted on 04/04/2010 9:05:35 PM PDT by sig226 (Mourn this day, the death of a great republic. March 21, 2010)
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To: neverdem

There’s “general understanding” and then there’s “immediate technological benefit to humanity”. It may have advanced the former than the latter. That’s life though. At least it isn’t a disaster like so-called “climate science”.


4 posted on 04/04/2010 9:06:15 PM PDT by dr_who
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To: neverdem

A venture capitalist may have wanted benefits or products, but by their nature, they invest in hundreds or thousands of speculative products, hoping that if even a few make it, they will more than repay all the others.

Unless you have a magic wand, high payoff comes coupled with high risk. Alas, government control of medicine will prevent a downstream high payoff for the venture capitalist. That understanding will dry up future investments, making the government grant process not just helpful, but mandatory. Expect to hear whining about how the Government HAS to fund research in 3, 2, 1....


5 posted on 04/04/2010 9:06:27 PM PDT by donmeaker (Invicto)
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To: neverdem
In economics, bubbles seem an expression of what John Maynard Keynes called animal spirits, whereby the instability stems from "the characteristic of human nature that a large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than mathematical expectations"7. Such bubbles can end in disastrous speculation and financial ruin, but in technology they can be useful, creating long-lasting innovations and infrastructures that the cold glare of reason would have been deemed too risky.

I take with a huge grain of salt any publication that thinks economic bubbles are bad. Bubbles are what they are -- an outcome of the free market. To claim they are bad is to then put in place a mechanism to do away with them -- some form of gov't regulation.

In the case of the article, the point could have been made without using the ludicrous economic bubble analogy. This project is a liberal control project and the reporter insists on using liberal control mechanisms to describe it.

6 posted on 04/04/2010 9:11:58 PM PDT by mlocher (USA is a sovereign nation)
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To: neverdem

“But a venture capitalist would want medical innovations here and now, not decades hence.”

And whose fault is that? Who is it that pumps fiat money and credit into the economy decade after decade causing constant boom-bust cycles thereby incentivizing venture capitalists to seek nothing but short-term “here and now” innovations (i.e., profits) rather than looking to the long-term?

Duh.

There’s nothing inherently short-term about venture capitalists; they respond to economic incentives and signals just like the rest of us. If they have abandoned the long-term in favor of the short-term, it’s because there are powerful incentives (such as constant uncertainty about the future stability of the market) to do so.

However, the more important point is not economic. The more important point is that the science itself has proven to be a disappointment; life and all its characteristics (for example, it’s physical forms) cannot be reduced to, or explained by, genes. The disappointment is a repetition of what happened in the 1980s with “genetic engineering”: the press was full articles declaring that this new technology would conquer diseases like cancer in just a few years; new strains of plants would be engineered to resist all sorts of blights; etc. Turns out that nature (as usual) is not so simple, and she constantly threw curve balls to the scientists involved. The venture capitalists who had originally believed the claims of the scientists and their various spokesmen pulled out, and learned their lesson by the time the Human Genome Project came around.


7 posted on 04/04/2010 9:32:10 PM PDT by GoodDay (Palin for POTUS 2012)
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To: neverdem
Considering the degree to which heritable traits are passed by epigenetic means, the determinative value of the genome may prove to be a disappointment.
8 posted on 04/04/2010 10:29:23 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (The RINOcrat Party is still in charge. There has never been a conservative American government.)
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To: Carry_Okie
Considering the degree to which heritable traits are passed by epigenetic means, the determinative value of the genome may prove to be a disappointment.

Add to that gene copy number variations, inversions, SNPs and any other spontaneous mutations. Oy Vey!

9 posted on 04/04/2010 11:32:07 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: El Gato; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Robert A. Cook, PE; lepton; LadyDoc; jb6; tiamat; PGalt; Dianna; ...
Neptune may have eaten a planet and stolen its moon

Hostile volcanic lake teems with life: Microbes thriving in salty, alkali waters containing arsenic.

Scientists find aging gene is linked to immunity

Researchers solve puzzle of recurring viral infection (CMV)

A drug that extends life span prevents Alzheimer's deficits (rapamycin) I found the abstract/article.

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

10 posted on 04/05/2010 12:21:29 AM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: Carry_Okie

To be fair, the genome can also clue researchers into biological chemistry that makes it possible to manipulate epigenetic factors or simply find new possible medications that will interact with an unwanted biological situation.


11 posted on 04/05/2010 12:25:39 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (I am in America but not of America (per bible: am in the world but not of it))
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To: Carry_Okie
The genome project paid for itself many times over by enabling everyone to stop focusing everything on genes.

Epigenetics now seems to be the route to follow in future research. We would not have known that without the genome project.

Oh, BTW, couple of weeks ago Science News ran a piece about horses. Seems that men and horses share vast stretches of identical genetic material, in the same sequence, with the same deletions and duplications ~ yet, men are not horses and horses are not men.

The implication is that a good part of our genome persists through what amounts to geologic spans of time.

So much for mutations eh.

12 posted on 04/05/2010 6:02:03 AM PDT by muawiyah ("Git Out The Way")
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To: neverdem

The field is not without some successes, though. While it’s pending final FDA review, Human Genome Sciences and Glaxo Smith-Klein will be selling Benlysta, the first novel treatment for Lupus in over 50 years by 4Q10 or 1Q11. The drug also may have some applicability to other autoimmune diseases, such as Rheumatoid Arthritis.


13 posted on 04/05/2010 6:05:41 AM PDT by kevkrom (De-fund Obamacare in 2011, repeal in 2013!)
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To: muawiyah
The sooner we get away from the idea that the genome is a "design" and adopt the construct of "algorithm" the better.
14 posted on 04/05/2010 6:31:27 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The RINOcrat Party is still in charge. There has never been a conservative American government.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck; neverdem
I was especially taken with a recent experiment in which two cohorts of genetically identical fish, one socially dominant and one not, were hybridized with another species and their respective progeny still retained their parents' behavioral attributes.

That's how powerful epigenetic phenomena are. I see it as a "feed forward" element in the system.

15 posted on 04/05/2010 6:36:11 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The RINOcrat Party is still in charge. There has never been a conservative American government.)
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To: Carry_Okie
Epigenetics just changes how the genome is read. While it is an interesting corollary to the genome, it is not something that knowing the genome doesn't help with.

It is as if I say “having the entire book copied down is a good thing!”

and you point out “not everybody reads the book the same way!”.

You have a good point, but it doesn't detract from the first point.

Epigenetics changes how the “book” is read. Genomics is knowing what is in the “book”.

16 posted on 04/05/2010 6:38:54 AM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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To: allmendream
See 15.
17 posted on 04/05/2010 6:42:52 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The RINOcrat Party is still in charge. There has never been a conservative American government.)
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To: Carry_Okie
Yes. And?

The trait, no matter how “epi” genetic, is determined by HOW the genome is read (epi) as well as what is in the genome (genetic). Knowing what the genome is helps to understand epigenetic factors just as much as genetic factors.

Your idea that due to the importance of epigenetic factors, the genome is somehow less important is a disconnect from the fact that epigenetic factors influence how the genome is read. You still have to know and understand the genome to fully understand EITHER genetic or epigenetic inheritance.

18 posted on 04/05/2010 7:06:37 AM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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To: allmendream
Knowing what the genome is helps to understand epigenetic factors just as much as genetic factors.

Duh. It will still turn out to be a disappointment. For example, during fertilization, an egg actually goes through a process of selecting a sperm. By what criteria? They are almost certainly environmental conditions (hormones, sugar levels, whatever) both during the selection process and when the constituents were formed. Hence, the epigenetic "selects" the genetic.

I never said the genome project was useless, but the results are of significantly less determinative value than was touted; hence the financial performance of the resulting products will likely be a disappointment to the investors who plunked down their hard cash to finance the project. Considering the power and complexity of epigenetic factors, it will take vastly better instrumentation and computing power than we have now to even observe the process, much less characterize it. We have a very long way to go.

19 posted on 04/05/2010 7:20:32 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The RINOcrat Party is still in charge. There has never been a conservative American government.)
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To: Carry_Okie
Epigenetic factors have to do with putting on or removing protein “chromatin” on or off the DNA strand as well as DNA methylation. We know the proteins that move the chromatin on and off, and the proteins that methylate or remove the methylation from DNA. We understand what processes are involved and they are well characterized.

What we still need to know in detail, for both the genomic and epigenomic factors; and for which sequencing the genome gives us the boundaries of the map at least; is what “roads” or “trails” lead to each genetic or epigenetic state.

20 posted on 04/05/2010 7:31:01 AM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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