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Personal genomics: more than fun & games

Explore personal genomics and its implications on medication metabolism for different ancestries like South Asian.

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My main current interest in personal genomics right now is pure recreation. I don't expect much utility out of it, because a lot of correlations between genes (SNPs, etc. ) and traits/diseases are rather weak. But there are some exceptions. Recently I was temporarily put on a prescription medication and I wanted to check if I was a fast or slow metabolizer. The material you see in the medical literature is that Europeans tend to be slow metabolizers, while Asians tend to be fast metabolizers. Since I'm Asian, I'm probably a fast metabolizer, right? Not so fast! Though I'm geographically Asian (my family hails from Asia), in terms of ancestry South Asians tend to be closer to Europeans, though with some affinity to East Eurasian populations as well. But another issue for me is that I clearly have 10-15% more recent East Asian ancestry, which is not typical in South ...

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