Family Ties: Aug 14, 2012

Bioinformatician Manuel Corpas from the Genome Analysis Centre in Norfolk, UK, has curtailed his crowdsourcing effort to raise money to sequence the exomes of his family members and make the data publicly available, reports ScienceInsider. Corpas first went through direct-to-consumer genetic testing company 23andMe to examine his own genotypes and those of his family members, before deciding to also look at all of their exomes. However, Corpas only raised about $3,500 of the needed $20,000 for BGI to do the work. ScienceInsider's Emily Underwood adds his effort "has drawn a mixed response from colleagues and others exploring the personal genomics frontier" with concerns centering on the informed consent given by his family and their privacy. "Corpas says his project was meant to spark these debates, not necessarily end them," Underwood adds.