Euroscience Open Forum 2012

Remarkable technological advances have decreased DNA sequencing costs and made it practical to undertake complete human genome sequencing on a large scale for the first time. The dramatic price decline is expected to give rise to widespread personal genome sequencing that should radically advance biomedical research, facilitate drug development, and lead to reduced health care costs.

Key to realising these benefits will be biology's success in providing contextual interpretation of the biological and medical relevance of the detected sequence variants in a genome.

The rationale for this session is to contribute to the important task of informing and engaging the public in reflections about the benefits and risks they can realistically expect of personal genome analysis, to prevent over-interpretation and misunderstanding of such information.