3 ms·
The biology is a bit more complicated than that, though. Sure, if we had a big database of all the correlation factors in some easily computer-readable format,
by maxander 11y ago
The biology is a bit more complicated than that, though. Sure, if we had a big database of all the correlation factors in some easily computer-readable format, standardized testing procedures that lined up with these factors, and an army of experts keeping all of this up-to-date, it would be easy to write a script to make it all work. But we don't, and (in my off-the-cuff estimation) such a project could wind up being of Human Genome Project-esque scale.
Watson is giving us a way of doing this when the available data is in a much less accommodating format (namely, scientific literature.) Not, perhaps, the biggest achievement ever, but pretty nifty and useful.
- dunk010 11y agoActually there are armies of experts keeping this all up to date, and some companies make a lot of money selling this as a service. The name of the role is "curator", and they basically map research to genetic variants, keeping a giant library up-to-date.