GlaxoSmithKline Signs $300 Million Deal With Big Pharma

[Ninurta]

This is why television was invented, to keep the men-folk in at night!

Sadly, the TV ploy works on me, and works very well - usually in the form of a pirate or viking show on the idiot tube (yes, I'm a dinosaur, and my TV still has a video tube rather than a flat LCD screen).

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I'd be interested to see if law enforcement can access such collections of DNA data from these private companies and
why -if possible, it would be used.

However, I'm sure Glaxo-Kline are working on medicines that can improve the look of men's legs.

Law Enforcement use so far has been through third-party sites, I believe it was "gedmatch" or something like that in particular. The problem with using the originating services such as 23andMe or AncestryDNA is that a quantity of saliva is needed to run through the genotyping testing chip, which they generally aren't able to obtain from a crime scene. Instead, they have to convert the DNA data they DID obtain to a particular format which strips most of the actual DNA data out and only retains certain "markers", and then upload it to that site for comparisons. Then, in order for the underhanded trick to work, someone else with similar or related DNA must have also unwittingly uploaded THEIR data to the same site. Even thought the site is "free", there is considerable expense in converting the DNA data to the usable format before the upload, which is why it isn't done more frequently. The Golden State Killer is a prime example of how it works for discovery. One has to have committed a pretty spectacular crime, have gone undetected, AND left a usable quantity of DNA at the crime scene before the expense is merited.

There are 3.2 BILLION base pairs in the human genome. These sites test for and return only 650,000 to 750,000 "markers" from that huge dataset (much, MUCH less than a miniscule 1% of the DNA information). Typical DNA files from testing companies are around 16 megabytes. I had mine "imputed" for a full genome, and it returned a file over 2 GIGAbytes in size - on the order of a thousand times more information. That version is under lock and key encryption, for safekeeping, but it is what would be needed for "cloning" experiments or "mix and match species" experiments. A thousand years from now, someone may break the encryption and clone me so they can study cave men, but I will never know it - only the clone will know. I'll be gone to dust.

Maybe GSK will have developed leg-improvement drugs by then which will benefit my clone.

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