Kamal Obbad has an insatiable curiosity when it comes to the genome. In this podcast the co-founder of Nebula Genomics (nebula.org) provides a wealth of information on the secrets that the genome may reveal for scientific and medical research.

Obbad’s company, Nebula Genomics, seeks to make genomic data actionable, to make it accessible for medical researchers. Obbad recounts the early work he and his cofounders began back at the Harvard Medical School lab of the father of synthetic biology—George Church. He talks about sequencing genomes, and explains how a genome can be read, and studied. Obbad details how genomes are used for disease research, and he discusses the many barriers to attaining the right genomic data. He provides some hard truth about 23andMe and other genomic data companies, revealing how they resell genetic data and offer the provider of the data no real compensation.

The genomic data expert states that Nebula Genomics is a different kind of company. Nebula Genomics allows users to be a part of important medical breakthroughs, but they also get rewarded for the effort. Obbad affirms how crucial it is for everyone to have access to their genomic data and to understand it. And through the use of blockchain technology and other innovations, Nebula Genomics is providing users access to their data for the sake of understanding it and its potential impact and allowing researchers to utilize the data more easily and efficiently, as they work to discover the secrets of the human genome.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed