Big Genome is too white

The thrilling promise of widely available genetic testing is that it might create a huge bank of information that could improve global health. But that’s only possible if the patients represented actually look like the world.

As 23andMe’s Joyce Tung points out, people of European descent make up more than three-quarters of the participants in genome-wide association studies, despite accounting for less than a quarter of the global population. And that’s problematic, Tung writes, both as a matter of social justice and as a barrier to scientific progress.

“In order for everyone to benefit from sequencing the human genome, genetic studies must be conducted in people of all ethnicities — as well as all genders, ages, incomes, and sexual orientations,” Tung writes in STAT. “It’s a simple concept that seems to be fiendishly difficult to apply.”

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