The Archon Genomics X PRIZE presented by Express Scripts is an incentivized Prize Competition, with $10 Million to be awarded to the first Team to design and build a rapid and inexpensive technology proving they can accurately sequence the whole human genome.

Fully understand our entire human genome will be a powerful tool for medical applications, much like the progression from the X Ray machine to the MRI scan changed diagnostic procedures. When doctors are able to analyze your unique genetic blueprint together you can make informed decisions about your personal health care.

By decoding secrets locked away in the human genome, therapies and drugs may be developed creating radical medical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.

Over the last 20 years, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has been issuing patents to universities and private companies on raw human genes. One company or university is given a legal monopoly over a molecule that is inside every human being and many other animals. This documentary explores the legal, ethical, and clinical ramifications of human gene patenting.

If you can, please donate to the film at our Kickstarter page: kickstarter.com/projects/1305236092/your-genes-have-been-patented-a-feature-documentar

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We're bombarded with conflicting claims about genetically modified (GM) foods. Some claim that they will provide the food to sustain humanity on an increasingly crowded planet. Others claim they're toxic to people and the environment. What are we to believe? The third lecture examines the history of food plants, describes the differences between previous and present methods of modifying them, and addresses common food safety and biodiversity concerns about GM crops and foods.

Nina Fedoroff, External Professor, Santa Fe Institute
September 14, 2006

Genetic revolution - Maria Konovalenko

Gene-editing nucleases can make targeted and precise changes to an organism's genome. This has opened up new possibilities for the study of gene function, as well as the treatment of disease. While gene-editing nucleases have been in use since the mid-1990s, in the form of zinc finger nucleases, the more recent discovery of TALENs (transcriptor-like effector nucleases) has created new interest. In this video, Nature Methods technology editor Monya Baker explains how gene-editing nucleases work and why they were chosen as Nature Methods 'Method of the Year' for 2011.

The Human Genome and Individualized Medicine - David Valle, M.D.
Genomics in Medicine Lecture Series
December 2, 2011

A groundbreaking work, Redesigning Humans tackles the controversial subject of engineering the human germline -- the process of permanently altering the genetic code of an individual so that the changes are passed on to the offspring. Gregory Stock, an expert on the implications of recent advances in reproductive biology, has glimpsed the inevitable future of biomedical engineering. Within decades, Stock asserts, technological advances will bring meaningful changes to our offspring; this scientific revolution promises to fundamentally alter the human species.

DNA is a programming language for living cells. The cell's basic operating system, or genome, directs functions like growth and reproduction, energy utilization, and the production of useful compounds like ethanol or penicillin. With genetic engineering, new functions can be added to cells or broken metabolic pathways repaired. Until recently, genetic engineering has required the DNA molecule itself to be physically manipulated, a tedious and expensive process.

Will the genetic research that gave us the Flavr Savr tomato also give us the power to customize our children? Medical thinker Gregory Stock believes that this is precisely what's happening and that we'd better get used to it fast. Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future explores gender selection, gene therapy, germinal choice, and many more options available now or in the near future, but lays aside the hysteria common to such discussions.

Dr Anthony Poole (works on the evolution of DNA and the origin of life. He been a Monbusho Scholar at the University of Tokyo and a Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Research Fellow at Stockholm University. He is now based at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and usually falters if you ask him about his own origins