STAT, July 11, 2016
Delving into my genome, I learned a lot about how genetic variants influence my health, putting me at risk of some disorders and protecting me from others. But I also wanted to search inside my DNA for my history — my own ancestry, and that of our entire species.
I am hardly alone in my curiosity. Many people are sending their spit to testing companies so that they can learn about their origins.
STAT, July 11, 2016
On a recent trip to Boston, I had breakfast with a scientist named Manolis Kellis. He met me in the little dining room at my hotel, and we grabbed plates to load with food. Immediately, Kellis was enchanted by the waffle iron. He started pouring a waterfall of batter onto the hot metal and piled up a mound of waffles on his plate.
“You have to help me eat these,” Kellis announced when we sat down. He spoke with a vestige of an accent; he was born in Greece as Manolis Kamvysselis, and came to the United States in 1995 to go to MIT for college. He never left; today he’s a waffle-loving professor of computer science there.
STAT, July 11, 2016
A scientist recently pointed me out to his colleagues. “That is not Carl Zimmer,” he declared.
The scientist was Mark Gerstein. He was sitting at a table in his office at Yale University, flanked by two members of his lab. “Really,” Gerstein said, pointing to a slim hard drive on the table, “this is Carl Zimmer.”
By “this,” he meant the sequence of my genome, which was being transferred from the drive onto a MacBook.
Last summer, I found a way to get my genome sequenced–and to get my hands on the raw data.
I then enlisted a couple dozen scientists to join me on a trip into my DNA, pushing beyond standard genetic counseling to discover the weirdness the lurks in all our genomes. I encountered ancient viruses, Neanderthal genes, broken genetic switches, and genes that protect me from diseases.
The experience was so rich and rewarding that I ended up writing a three-part series about it for Stat. The first part will come out on Stat Monday morning. The next two will come out the following Mondays. I hope you enjoy it! (And for scientists and other genome junkies, I’m going to set up a parallel site where all the data will be freely available.) Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, July 8, 2016”
Happy July! Here are a couple things I published this week. I’ve also got a big project to unveil soon that I hope you’ll enjoy. I’ll spill some details in next week’s newsletter.
Epigenetics is one of those subjects that’s irresistible to a science writer. Our DNA is enveloped by proteins and molecular caps that influence how active our genes can get. Some studies have suggested these epigenetic marks are the way in which the environment can reach into our cells and alter the workings of our DNA. But there’s a big debate in the epigenetics field about just how meaningful that research is. The studies may only be uncovering biological randomness, or perhaps some other process in our cells. Given that I’ve written my own share of articles about epigenetics (here and here, for example), I decided I needed to pay some attention to the skeptics, too. That’s the subject of my column this week in the New York Times. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, July 1, 2016”