Video: James Watson on Whole Genome Sequencing

 By Bio-IT World Staff 

November 15, 2011 | Last month, the opening plenary session of the International Congress of Human Genetics (ICHG) in Montreal was entitled: “Whole Genome Sequencing: To do it or not to do it?” 

The guest of honor was James D. Watson, chancellor emeritus of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, who co-discovered the double helix structure of DNA with Francis Crick in 1953. Watson had his own genome sequenced by 454 Life Sciences in 2007, thus becoming the first person to have his or her genome decoded using next-generation sequencing. 

The other three guests on the panel – all personal genome pioneers -- were: 

• Marjolein Kriek, a clinical geneticist from the University of Leiden in The Netherlands, who was the first woman to be sequenced (in 2008); 
• James Lupski, medical geneticist at Baylor College of Medicine, whose genome was published in 2010; and  
• Seong-Jin Kim (CHA University, Korea), who was sequenced in 2009. 

The 90-minute discussion was introduced moderated by Kevin Davies, editor-in-chief of Bio-IT World and author of the book, The $1,000 Genome.  

The complete video is here: http://vimeo.com/channels/ashg#30810374