Sergey Brin’s Search for a Parkinson’s Cure

This can't be overstated. The shear amount of data available for processing is huge. Google-scale. I'm not very familiar with GWAS studies (I'm more familiar with high-throughput sequencing), but these are O(N^m) scale problems (where m>=2).

First you see an object fall and them you wonder why. The same applies to birds flying, wood afloat, fire, atmospheric pressure... we observe(collect data) first, we make assumptions and look for more data later.

BUT, never underestimate the power of a GooglePlex for gathering and analysing data(like generic one). Never before we had used it, and so we could see things we never did before.

You know what happened when a man without studies created a miscroscope. The "scientist" of the time said that he didn't knew Latin, so he could not be called scientist, and that the microscope will only work for seeing the same things we already know bigger.

They do. Aging may not technically be a disease, but it's currently unavoidable and cripples your body and often your mind. If I had a few extra billion dollars lying around, that's what I'd focus on.

>Many philanthropists have funded research into diseases they themselves have been diagnosed with. But Brin is likely the first who, based on a genetic test, began funding scientific research in the hope of escaping a disease in the first place.

Edit: I thought I'd add an example, since my father has Parkinson's so I know a little bit about it. One promising area of research is stem cell therapy. However, one known side effect of stem cell injection is cancer. (It takes years to develop but there have been enough studies already to show a strong correlation). Now, Parkinson's doesn't kill per se - it makes life miserable towards the end, but as a rule, people with Parkinson's live just as long as people without. So let's say you had really high net worth and wanted to spend it all to cure Parkinson's. Would you be able to "buy" people to trade a low chance of improvement in their lifestyle for a very real chance of cancer? I don't think so. Of course, this is just one example, however, it shows that things are not that simple.

In addition, he'll probably continue investing in research going forward; $50M to date might eventually increase depending on what's found.

Specific conditions like Alzheimer's get massive research funding. But if the majority if that money had been invested in research targeted to expand basic knowledge of brain neurobiology, then we would be MUCH further along on real treatments that are actually effective.

When you invest heavily into research for one specific neurodegenerative disorder you are investing in specific and superficial symptom treatment. Investing in neurbio research expanding basic knowledge of the brain instead will give you more results in treating a wider range of neurodegenerative disorders.

http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/20150.aspx

Doing the math (450,000 cases out of 36,000,000 million Medicare recipients in the US), the adult incidence rate of Parkinson's is 0.0125, or 1.25%.

Sadly, I can't find a full copy of the study which isn't behind a pay wall. But, from the summary, it appears Parkinson's has some "clustering" based on both genetic and environmental factors. The text under the map on the article indicates areas in red have an adult incidence rate of 13.8% or more, so experiences such as yours are normal (albeit frightening).

So, yes, you're right to question that 1% statistic. It isn't sufficient to describe the situation at all when standing by itself.

(For reference: "I am well aware of the various ways to look at statistics." from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1421249)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome-wide_association_study

It's a good thing that someone is thinking about how all this stuff is going to be protected.

The protocol there is one of ensuring anonymity for people that want to remain anonomous. Making sure that that sentiment is retained moving forward is not a bad thing.

IRBs are designed to protect the subjects/patients, the researchers, and the institutions. To skip that step is pretty unusual, and some hoops had to be jumped through in order to deal with it. I think the fact that the 23andMe study was published at all was a big leap, and represents the flexibility inherent in the scientific community.

The response to "new and cool" wasn't "you didn't do it according to protocol". It was: since you didn't do it according to protocol, we need to verify that you did this ethically.

Imagine what would have happened if they used someone's DNA in their study without their knowledge. When you're talking about publishing links between diseases and people's DNA, you better be damn sure you have permission to use their genetic data. That is what IRBs are good for.

In a world where movies constantly are pointing out how scary/evil/unethical scientists can be (Andromeda strain, Splice), these checks are very important, even if it slows things down a little.

I do not read the editorial you linked as saying, "You didn't do it according to protocol." The editorial, in fact, is explaining why PLoS Genetics thought the study was okay to publish, how the 23andMe study strictly complied with existing protocol and went above and beyond its requirements, and how the IRB system needs to be improved to deal with GWAS.

I realize it's not really a science article (it's even possible all the information on Parkinson's came directly from Brin himself), but they didn't say cigarette smoking staved off Parkinson's completely - they said it lowered the odds of it developing.

Thing is, the human body is so complicated, you can do all the right things and still come up on the short end. Load up on omega-3s and still get clogged arteries. Eat a well balanced diet and still get cancer.

Doing the "right" things can only improve the odds - something's going to get to you in the end.