While more and more individuals talk about the experience of having their genome sequenced, science writer and geneticist Ricki Lewis says she is not ready to receive hers yet.
"A genome sequence is a mega incidentalome, an avalanche of information I don't want," Lewis says in a post on PLOS's DNA Science Blog.
There are also diseases she would not want to learn about, such as brain disorders. "If I can't prevent or delay them, why spend years worrying?"
Plus, she says, there is simply not enough information available to make sense of the results, for example how disease-causing and protective mutations interact. "It's like reading a novel and considering each word in a vacuum, compared to understanding the unfolding story," she writes.
Lewis says she might get her genome done as part of the Personal Genomes Project, a research study, but choose not to learn the results. "After all, I already know the obvious, like Craig Venter knows he's bald and has blue eyes."