3 ms·

Anyone have an Explain like i’m Five version of why one would get their genome sequenced? What benefits to me as a consumer would I get in terms of things ident

• rossdavidh 8y ago
  TLDR is that there is no compelling reason, if you don't find the concept interesting from a scientific curiousity standpoint. It is likely that someday the information will be useful, but right now it is mostly more of a luxury/curiousity thing. Having your full genome would allow you to (in theory) look up if any upcoming discoveries about the impact of various genes, applies to you. But if you're not wanting to dive deeply into genetics out of personal curiousity, I don't think there's any reason to do this (right now).
  • sailfast 8y ago
    Thanks this is supremely helpful!
• sonofgod 8y ago
  If some of your family have inheritable diseases, you could find out if you have them or if your children could have them. Finding out that you will suffer from a nasty disease in the future could be quite a shock, though. People also spend money on things like handwriting analysis, personality questionnaires and measuring people's skulls to try to work out what they are like; genomics is at least somewhat accurate and based on reality! In practice, you'll get told things like "You have endurance muscles, not fast muscles" and "You probably have blue eyes" (mirrors are more accurate!) and "You have twice the chance of getting this specific type of cancer" (twice a very small number is still a very small number).