10 Volunteers Go Public With Their DNA

Ten volunteers, including some rather well known ones, are exposing themselves online, the New York Times reports, by making their DNA available for anyone to peruse. The goal of the Personal Genome Project is to start making genetic information—along with personal traits called phenotypes—publicly available, a move whose scientific usefulness is huge and whose social implications are unclear. That's why the first group consists of only experts or investors in the field.

With data going public today, we could potentially tell whether Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker is predisposed to Alzheimer's, or whether astronaut-in-training Esther Dyson is prone to heart attacks. But the way the “PGP 10” see it, the research possibilities of a 100,000-person database—the project's goal—are worth the risk of being stigmatized. (More genetics stories.)