Google is going to create a genetic-molecular map of an absolutely healthy person.

Google Inc., or rather, its subdivision Google X, launched a new, rather interesting project: creating a database of thousands of samples of genes and molecular structures of various people to build a “map” of an absolutely healthy person. The base will be the genome / tissue samples of 175 people, the first volunteers, and a little later the company will add thousands more new samples.

The project was named Baseline Study, and its only goal at the present time is to show all of us what absolute health is.
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The project team will collect a huge amount of information that, according to the authors of the project, will help in the future to determine the disease on the basis of the sample taken, thanks to the pattern / indicator of a particular disease. Such patterns can be obtained by specialists after processing all the information obtained during the project. And these are tens and hundreds of thousands of samples of genetic material taken from thousands and thousands of volunteers.

The authors of the project are confident that the Baseline Study will help not only to understand how best to treat a particular disease, and how it is caused, but also to prevent the appearance of the disease using preventive methods. In general, in order to successfully fight the enemy, you need to know him - this is a well-known truth.

The head of the project was Andrew Conrad, MD (Andrew Conrad), who is currently assembling a team of about a hundred experts from various fields, including physiology, biochemistry, optics, and molecular biology. Earlier, Andrew Conrad helped develop an inexpensive and practical test for HIV for donor plasma samples.

The Project Baseline will use the computing power of Google’s computer systems to identify “biomarkers” in the information collected, which will serve as an indicator of the presence or absence of certain diseases / deviations. At the same time, the authors of the project plan to learn to identify such markers before the disease threatens a person’s life (and now, mostly, markers are determined after the disease has entered a difficult phase).

The project has already been launched, and samples of genetic material were selected from 175 people, volunteers (mostly liquids, including tears) are taken. Samples come to the database completely anonymously, the clinic hired for selection does not include information such as names or social security numbers in the report.

The genome of each person participating in the research will be sequenced, deciphered, and analyzed (of course, such analysis will be performed by computer systems, a person is simply unable to track such arrays of information). It is also planned to record how quickly the body of a particular person absorbs food and drugs, how the heartbeat of a person increases during stress and some other parameters.

It is unclear whether this project is related to Calico, a subsidiary of Google, which studies longevity. It may well be that it has.

By the way, not so long ago, Google X presented several more projects, including contact lenses with a glucose detector.

Via theverge