Massive growth in participants signals Human Genome’s “Facebook moment”

human genome ten years in x
Image via National Geographic.

In June [2016], 4.1 petabytes of cancer data went online on a new platform…called the Genomic Data Commons. Four petabytes is about sixteen times all the information in the Library of Congress—but only about four percent of the data stored by Facebook as of 2012…But that’s about to change[.]

The authors of [this] study suggest that 100 million to two billion people could have their genomes sequenced by 2025—in other words, between the number of people on LinkedIn and the number of people on Facebook right now. And the reason is the same as the growth of those platforms; it’s getting cheaper and faster to do it…

So what do you do with all that data? Right now, the Genomic Data Commons is transitioning cancer research into its Facebook moment…

[“]We’re trying to dramatically shorten the path to discovery[,]” [says Robert Grossman.]

Our ability to collect, parse, and share this data is growing rapidly, but so is the complexity of what we understand cancer to be…

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: The Human Genome Is Having Its Facebook Moment

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