12 February 2010
Hamid Bolouri
Visiting Associate Faculty
Division of Biology, Caltech
I will argue that biochemical differences among healthy individuals are significant in magnitude and widespread in the range of processes they impact. Using the personal genomes of James Watson and Craig Venter as examples, I propose that healthy individuals from the same genetic population carry different combinations of biochemcially significant sequence variants. Monte-Carlo simulations suggest that the combinatorial effects of genetic susceptibilities and environmental exposures are likely to endow individuals with very different predispositions. I will discuss the implications of these observations on modeling, and propose a possible approach to personalized health status analysis.