Is Complete Knowledge of Your Genome The Ultimate Luxury?

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Dec 21st 2007 at 3:02PM

As I recently relearned when I became sick this week, your health is your most important commodity. One potential way of protecting it just might come from a firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts called Knome. Knome will offer you, for a hefty $350,000, the chance to look at your DNA structure. While other companies let you see some of your genes for more modest prices, Knome is the only company that checks out all three billion letter pairs in your genome. Unfortunately, scientists don't fully know how genes interact to produce a particular disease so this isn't the magic key to the fountain of youth. But what it does offer you is the ability to stay current on future genetic discoveries as they become available. It is a chance to be at the very forefront of medicine.

Also, the for-profit company is taking on just 20 clients, meaning that you would join an elite club of people who have had direct knowledge of their entire genetic code. The information provides complete details on your ancestry and heritage as well. Knome keeps your information confidential and your genome is yours to manage as you like.

[via Forbes]

Tags: dna, genetics, genetics testing, knome, science