Genetic Screening of Every Child

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Scientists at the recently opened New York Genome Center eventually want to screen every child in New York State. But if doctors found that your child had a genetic disorder, would you want to know? 

On this week's New Tech City, Emma Gilbey Keller, contributing writer at the Guardian, reports on her tour of the Center. It is a collaboration between 12 hospitals and medical research facilities in the New York metro area, built on the idea that genomic sequencing is crucial to medicine and healthcare in the 21st century.

She tells New Tech City host Manoush Zomorodi how genome center can analyze DNA in just 27 hours, a process that could have taken years not that long ago. 

Since the genome is so data-rich, the power of sequencing comes from comparing one genome to another. And Keller says the center is racing to get more genetic material so doctors and researchers can detect and develop treatments for genetic diseases that can cause breast cancer or Alzheimer's.