38 | http://www.nationalreview.com MARCH 23 , 2020t e c h n o l o g y s e c t i o nA world of ubiquitous genomes means
that all this will go away. A high-quality
whole genome gives you all the infor-
mation you might want to ask for. All
you have to do is ask the question.
Consumer genetics and high-quality
medical genetic testing are already pro-
viding many important “incidental find-
ings.” When you buy a DNA consumer
kit to explore your genealogy, you may
discover a half-brother you never real-
ized you had, or find out that your father
is not the man who contributed the
genetic material to make you you.
Family secrets long hidden are all
going to be exposed if they have a
genetic angle. Here is a true story from
a friend. There had been rumors in his
small town that he had a half-brother
due to an affair by his father. He pur-
chased a DNA kit to see if he could
find a match with 25 percent of his
DNA, the proportion for half-siblings.
Immediately such a match turned up.
But it wasn’t a stranger; it was someone
he knew. His stepfather’s sister was
shown to be his aunt (aunts and uncles
share 25 percent of their DNA with
nieces and nephews). Looking for the
product of an affair by his father, my
friend came to find out that his mother
had had an affair with the man who
became his stepfather, and that that man
was his biological father.Genealogical genomics is extremely
powerful, and its net extends far beyond
close kin. With 10 percent of the
American population now present in
consumer databases, most individuals
can be identified by matches with rela-
tives. This was the case with the Golden
State Killer, who was identified through
matches between his sample and distant
relatives. These matches were then used
to narrow down the possible suspects.
For various technical reasons, DNA was
not retrievable from many 20th-century
crime scenes, but we now have the tech-
nology to analyze degraded and low-
quality samples.
The example in the previous para-
graph shows the power of network
effects and scale. DNA kits now allow
for robust and massive genealogical
datasets that can reconstruct nearly the
entire human pedigree. That is, by tak-
ing genetic sequences from a large
group of people, you can reconstruct
their ancestors in terms of their genet-
ics; it’s just a matter of computing it.
But the assembling of information from
massive numbers of people who are
genotyped and sequenced also means
that the science of discovering diseases
gets better and better. Bigger numbers
mean more power, and more power in
the aggregate means more information
returned to individuals. The more usefulpositions that can vary from person to
person. This is considerably cheaper,
allowing retail costs to drop below
$100. But this was a process that began
over ten years ago. The initial kits sold
in the early 2010s were much less
detailed and more expensive. While
phones and computers can pack in more
and more features, the human genome is
finite. Today, with improved technolo-
gy, the cost has gone down, to the point
where one can imagine a price close to
zero by 2030.
The 2010s was the decade when
“consumer genomics” became a term
that reflected something in reality.
The 2020s have the potential to be the
decade when genomics becomes so
ordinary and ubiquitous as to be unwor-
thy of mention or note. We will be
entering the “total genomic informa-
tion” world.
What does this mean? If you grew up
at the turn of the century, you were
familiar with some ways that genetics
might be useful. There were forensic
tests for crime scenes. There were car-
rier tests for couples whose future chil-
dren might be at risk for an inherited
condition. There were tests to identify
paternity. Finally, there were cases
where you might come down with an
illness and a targeted genetic test could
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