If Privacy Is an Illusion, Why Aren't We Making This Public Already?

Simon Lin at Retail Genomics posts a summary of a talk from George Church, who told attendees that the future of genomics will hinge on people's willingness to share data and keep instrumentation open-source. "The most interesting point to me, however, is not only the 'open and share' of instrument design but also genetic information," Lin writes. "In order to construct a robust phenotype (for instance, diseases)-to-genotype (i.e., the combination of genes) inference, scientists need volunteers who actively participate in research projects and more importantly, who fully understand the genetic privacy (or lack of privacy thereof!).