Excerpt
A family of four has become the first in which every member’s genome has been sequenced for non-medical reasons, opening a debate about the ethics of analyzing the DNA of minors.
John and Judy West, both 53, and their children, Anne, 17, and Paul, 14, paid almost $200,000 (£130,000) to have their entire genetic code read by the sequencing company Illumina.
They are the first family to be named as members of an exclusive club , joining a few dozen individuals who have had their genomes sequenced. Others include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Glenn Close, the actress, and the scientists James Watson and Craig Venter.
Mr West told The Times that he hoped that his family’s DNA data would benefit their health and advance research into genetic contributions to disease. He said that his children were “pretty smart” and had given enthusiastic consent: “They understand why some people might prefer not to know this sort of information.”
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