Cognitive Labs

Dr. Leroy Hood, former Bill Gates professor of Biomedical Sciences at Washington, and who runs the Institute for Systems Biology, is calling for a Genome-based approach to healthcare.

Rather than treating symptoms after they begin occurring, why not get an alert about possible issues and be proactive?

More knowledge about genes makes this possible.

Hood is also on the advisory board of Taiwan Genome Sciences, a company which has proposed an extensive partnership with us (Cognitive Labs) before.

Wired reports on the several components of Hood's vision...

Predictive

The vision
Using genome sequencing and blood tests, a doctor will be able to determine a patient's probability of developing certain diseases. The price of these tests is dropping and will soon be less than $1,000 — the same as a CT scan today.

The challenge
Physicians will have to be trained to use the technology ethically. Patients will have to make sense of new kinds of choices.

Preventive

The vision
Based on an individualized risk profile, you could start therapies in advance to cut the likelihood of illness. Drugs could be designed to blunt the desire to overeat, drink, or smoke. Average lifespan could be extended by 10 to 30 years.

The challenge
What qualifies as a disease? Will we have fewer football players if we quiet the genes that drive aggression?

Personalized

The vision
With billions of data points for every patient, drug therapies can be created to suit each genome. This would eliminate the trial-and-error approach doctors use today.

The challenge
Having your genome on Google could be a huge privacy risk. With so much information around, data security will become an important field in the health care industry.

Participatory

The vision
People will maintain their own health, not just by treating existing illnesses but by learning about their own predispositions.

The challenge
How to explain biomarkers to someone with little grasp of science? Hood proposes games that teach health concepts, and his Institute for Systems Biology is working with school districts to develop top-notch science curricula.

Labels: caltech, genome, hood, taiwan, wired

The Wired science blog (via Google news) is reporting right now that a major announcement relating to Mars is imminent.

The content is speculated to range from the ability of soil on Mars to sustain life to the possible announcement of the evidence of present or past life on Mars. The Amerian Association for the Advancement of Science's Science will likely be the journal publishing the findings.

This certainly will be a major story when announced.

Labels: aaas, aviationweek, googlenews, life, mars, science, wired

This is a question that is germane in California. It doesn't impact us because we're not in the test-tube DNA assessment business. But one is reminded of the practices of a high priesthood, such as the devotees of Amun in Egypt who chanted up the essential unknowability of Amun who was nicknamed "he-who-is-hidden" or ironically, the "double-concealed"

From the Hymn to Amun in the Leiden papyrus:

"One who is Amun,
who keeps Himself concealed from them,
who hides Himself from the gods,
no one knowing His nature.
He is more remote than the sky,
He is deeper than the netherworld.

None of the gods knows His true form.
His image is not unfolded in the papyrus rolls.
Nothing certain is testified about Him.

He is too secretive
for His Majesty to be revealed,
He is too great to be enquired after,
too powerful to be known."

The essential mystery of Amun was a strong incentive to support the priests as intermediaries in this cosmic dialog between man and the unknown. Thomas Goetz, in Wired, inquires about the deeper meaning in this modern era where knowledge is being unbundled at an exponential pace. In fact, incredible breakthroughs are happening every day in our ability to access and share what's important and are still under the radar. But, as a question of public policy, shouldn't we be in charge of our own information?

Over the weekend, one of the top stories was "ADHD may have a genetic link." Scientists have discovered (in fact have known for awhile) that certain hunter-gatherers have a higher preponderance of short attention spans related to their genetic configuration...and that this was a positive for the last 99.9% of the human experience because it made these individuals more creative and successful at accessing resources, rather than being satisfied and sedentary, with health and aging implications as well.

Taking it a step further, a creative, but impulsive student might say to the teacher..."Sorry I didn't work on the journal project every day, it was just too long. My genes say I'm a hunter gatherer, and I'm programmed to zip from topic to topic like a sprinter. Here's my genetic report, sorry." Here's a case of genes impacting our environment.

Labels: 23andme, adhd, california, dna, goetz, kenya, navigenics, wired

One time when I was in Korea, an enterprising merchant extolled his collection of leather coats and handbags, striding in front of his store in the crisp winter air, declaiming expansively with a dollop of exuberance and showmanship: "Everything is Free!" He did not fail to get attention. It's the kind of statement you would not hear in Japan.

Web Economics work much the same way. The truth is the web sunders the relationship between markets and hierarchies in the area of theory known as Transaction cost Economics, which seeks to explicate the seemingly rational behavior of actors and agonists in the Economy that march in lockstep to the status quo, even if the tune is flat and overwrought and the relationship dysfunctional.

When an Internet provocateur emerges, endemic industry inefficiencies are revealed like a Hollywood actor sans make-up. Digital economics are driven by increasing returns - at least on the way up, until an alternate appears to steal the thunder, which nevertheless also will operate under the principle of increasing returns. An incumbent's comfortable and predictable profit margins can vanish just like the revenues from classified advertising have.

What should an incumbent do? Adapt as soon as possible to the methods and technologies of businesses that have scale and cost leadership, since it's likely that efficiencies removed from the system will not be recovered or rolled back.



More on the Free Revolution from Chris Anderson (Wired)

Labels: classified, scale, TCE, wired

Cognitive Threat Assessment

Remember Luke Skywalker's 'binoculars' that he used to pan the horizon looking for R2-D2 in Star Wars IV right before he says "Boy, am I gonna get it?"

The Pentagon is starting an effort which will merge soldier's brains with visual devices - integrated at the frontal cortex, called "Luke's Binoculars."

Or we could add, reminiscent of the "Six Million Dollar" man and his enhanced vision, or Arnold Schwarzenegger's visual acuity as the Terminator in T 1,2,3.

The agency claims no scientific breakthrough is needed on the project -- formally called the Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System. Instead, Darpa hopes to integrate technologies that have been simmering in laboratories for years, ranging from flat-field, wide-angle optics, to the use of advanced electroencephalograms, or EEGs, to rapidly recognize brainwave signatures.

In March, Darpa held a meeting in Arlington, Virginia, for scientists and defense contractors who might participate in the project. According to the presentations from the meeting, the agency wants the binoculars to have a range of 1,000 to 10,000 meters, compared to the current generation, which can see out only 300 to 1,000 meters. Darpa also wants the binoculars to provide a 120-degree field of view and be able to spot moving vehicles as far as 10 kilometers away.

The most far-reaching component of the binocs has nothing to do with the optics: it's Darpa's aspirations to integrate EEG electrodes that monitor the wearer's neural signals, cueing soldiers to recognize targets faster than the unaided brain could on its own. The idea is that EEG can spot "neural signatures" for target detection before the conscious mind becomes aware of a potential threat or target.

Darpa's ambitions are grounded in solid research, says Dennis McBride, president of the Potomac Institute and an expert in the field. "This is all about target recognition and pattern recognition," says McBride, who previously worked for the Navy as an experimental psychologist and has consulted for Darpa. "It turns out that humans in particular have evolved over these many millions of years with a prominent prefrontal cortex."

Read the Whole Article - Wired

Labels: cognitive, wired