DIYgenomics: Kaiser Permanente, personal genomics & aging

[Raymond McCauley]

130K patients
675K variants
and telemere length scanning

from the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/science/30sfgenome.html

From Californians’ DNA, a Giant Genome Project
30 May 2010

Excerpts:

...Winifred K. Rossi, who is managing the project for the National
Institute on Aging, said most genome-wide association studies scan
between 5,000 and 8,000 participants, although data from multiple,
smaller studies can be pooled to form a larger group. What makes the
Kaiser study unique is that members of a single, colossal cohort will
have their genomes scanned uniformly, then paired with their medical
histories. “It is absolutely the largest study of its kind, and it has
enormous statistical power.” Ms. Rossi said

and

At the same time, Elizabeth Blackburn, a Nobel-prize winning biologist
at the university, and her lab will be conducting a mass experiment on
a separate set of 100,000 samples of DNA from the Kaiser patients.
They will be measuring the length of telomeres — wads of DNA at the
top and bottom of every chromosome that, like shoelace tips, keep them
from unraveling when a cell divides. Telomere length tends to shorten
with age, and shorter telomeres tend to be linked with shorter life
spans.

“Telomere length is more reflective of things that happen in your life
than the genetic hand you are born with,” said Dr. Blackburn.

She said that the Kaiser patients are a valuable resource for science
because their detailed medical histories can be matched with the
varied measurements of telomere length and matched to the gene scans
that will be done for each participant as well. Her targets are the
three top diseases that kill the elderly: cancer, cardiovascular
disease and diabetes.