Bursting the genomics bubble

Nature ^ | 31 March 2010 | Philip Ball

[neverdem]

The Human Genome Project attracted investment beyond what a rational analysis would have predicted. There are pros and cons to that, says Philip Ball.

If a venture capitalist had invested in sequencing the human genome, what would she have to show for it?

For scientists, the Human Genome Project (HGP) might lay the foundation of tomorrow's medicine, with drugs tailored to your genetics. But a venture capitalist would want medical innovations here and now, not decades hence. Nearly ten years after the project's formal completion, there's not much sign of them.

A team of researchers in Switzerland now argue that the HGP was a 'social bubble', analogous to the notorious economic bubbles in which investment far outstrips any rational cost-benefit analysis of the likely returns. Monika Gisler and her colleagues at ETH in Zürich say in a preprint¹ on arXiv that "enthusiastic supporters of the HGP weaved a network of reinforcing feedbacks that led to a widespread endorsement and extraordinary commitment by those involved in the project".

Some scientists have already suggested that the HGP's benefits were hyped². Even advocates admit that medical benefits may be a long time coming, and will require advances in understanding, not just the patience to sort through all the data.

Hope and hype

This contrasts with some of the claims made while the HGP was underway between 1990 and 2003. In 1999 the leader of the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium (IHGSC) Francis Collins claimed that the understanding gained by the sequencing effort would "eventually allow clinicians to subclassify diseases and adapt therapies to the individual patient"³...

[Carry_Okie]

What we still need to know in detail, for both the genomic and epigenomic factors; and for which sequencing the genome gives us the boundaries of the map at least; is what “roads” or “trails” lead to each genetic or epigenetic state.

How many DOEs have you done with second and third-order combinatorial factors? How many were done with catalysts in concentrations on the molecular scale. How many of those catalysts were only momentarily involved at a precursor stage?

We have a long way to go. So far, the performance of those investments are likely a disappointment.

[allmendream]

So far, for the investors, yes; it has yet to pay off.

As far as research, it is already paying dividends.

In one hundred years its contribution will be invaluable.

The payoff will be a lot more immediate and direct than any benefit from sending Americans to the moon, by way of analogous example.

[editor-surveyor]

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Calling the Human Genome Project ‘complete’ may have been the biggest lie told since satan conversed with Eve.
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