“It’s all smart kitchens and talking bikes these days.”
A report last week about the continued decline of the cost of genetic sequencing got me thinking about genetic privacy.
The fabled “$1,000 genome” is coming into view, the pricepoint at which full sequencing can begin to be part of routine medical care in the developed world.
That pricepoint also opens sequencing up for non-medical purposes; someone could do so to find out about a partner, employee, or celebrity, as long as you could obtain some kind of genetic sample.
Celebrities are highly plausible targets; an entire industry seeks out and distributes every little detail about their lives, and genetics promises insight into medical conditions, behavioral quirks, and propensities–all fertile ground for celebrity gossip. Of course, a lot of the information genetics could currently produce will be vague and pseudoscientific, but that hardly matters for this purpose.
This raises several questions:
- Is it illegal to have someone else’s genome sequenced?
- What happens if one has it done in another jurisdiction, as such sequencing will soon be possible in many places with lax enforcement?
- What are the penalties, given that candid celebrity photos can earn five and six figures?
In the future, I suspect that actress Scarlett Johannson might be more leery of selling a used tissue for only $5,300.
Image: micahb37 (Flickr)
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