Cracking the Code of Life

[pelligrini]

If you missed it the first time on PBS, TechTV is airing the Show again. There is not much about distributed computing, but it's pretty informative about the the work that our project is based on.

"Cracking the Code of Life" originally aired April 17 on PBS' "Nova." For more information about the show, please visit the in-depth Nova Online website (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/genome/index.html).

"Cracking the Code of Life" airs at the following times (all times Eastern):

Thursday, August 23 -- 6 p.m.
Friday, August 24 -- midnight
Monday, August 27 -- midnight
Thursday, August 30 -- 9 p.m.
Saturday, September 1 -- 8 p.m.

TechTV info (http://www.techtv.com/news/story/0,24195,3342418,00.html)

[Dustin]

Hi Pell,

I watched a show on discovery science dedicated to the human genome. They run reruns all the time, so it may still be airing.

Interesting thing. They said that they plan on having all the data they need in 3 to 5 years. Isn't G@H sceduled to last that long?

[pelligrini]

I'm not sure what stanfords schedule is. I don't think they've ever set forth a completion date. As far as I know the experiments are always changing, so I don't think there really is one.

[Bruce]

I think we don't understand the interrelationships of all the science projects well enough.

Wasn't the Discovery show about the Human Genome project? Whenever I start to tell somebody about G@H, they immediately start to talk about the (two) programs to sequence the Human Genome. That project is "done" when they manage to compute the sequence of all of the genes for a single human being. A follow-on project will be to compare data for many humans, to see what parts define your uniqueness and what parts are constant for all humans.

G@H is (semi-) independent in that it is predicting alternate genes that might be substitued (structurally) for the genes in well-known proteins.

Having information from both projects will certainly increase the ability of scientists to come up with new and better things, but the actual information being is different.

I'm not a biochemist, however, so maybe I don't understand it as well as I think I do.

[Dustin]

I would like to see more replys here. This is what we are about. This is what we are doing. I thought this would be a hot topic...

[wylie]

Missed this thread first time around......
The trouble I have is I dont fully comprehend exactly what the hell we are doing...yes I have read the stanford pages but the "goals of the project" (http://gah.stanford.edu/using.html#goals) page is extremely brief....one paragraph to summarise the entire project?? I would appreciate if anyone knows of perhaps a more detailed explanation. I am a former radiographer (studied anatomy, physiology, pathology etc but absolutely nothing genetic) so some degree of technical information would be good..

Tril? X? I believe this is your field....

Another thing just popped into my paranoid mind (and please, I am just being "devils advocate" here).......could there be a darker side to the project?? Here (as I am sure everywhere) there is a lot of concern over genetically manipulated crops, foods etc.....also the fuss about human cloning. I look at some of the proteins I have processed...."SCORPION NEUROTOXIN" "BOVINE PANCREATIC TRYPSIN INHIBITOR (BPTI) MUTANT" "MAIZE NONSPECIFIC LIPID TRANSFER PROTEIN COMPLEXED WITH PALMITATE" Maize???? Are we all feeling good about ourselves and work here for the right reasons??

This sort of stuff is WAY out of my depth but would be interested in further research into this and comments from those who know....

[viperdog]

just my 2 cents--

I think we should probably see some weird mixes of proteins because those are the ones that are "studied" and "better understood". eg it would make sense that we would look at maize since I'm sure lots of others have also. The point of this is to better understand how a protein is and can be built, as well as what makes it tick.

as to a darker side--

Well of course there is, let me explain. I have yet to find any science that doesn't have a dark side. We have to hope that the research we are helping with will be used for good. That our fellow man is still worthy of our trust. Will someone misuse the data once it is released to the public, probably. Will overwelming good come from what we are doing, boy I hope so!
I for one will contribute to this until someone can come up with a better idea. If I can have a hand in solving a problem that helps one person live a better life then it's a success. If someone goes and uses the data for some "evil" purpose well that's their problem and they will have to answer for it to their god. End the end I still believe good wins out over evil.