As if omics research isn't hard enough, there's a confounding layer of privacy and incentive problems here.
From a science angle it makes more sense to just collect this data from everybody all the time and let the studies be post hoc explorations of that giant dataset. But how do you get people to cooperate when they have reason to believe that the data will be used against them?
Either we accept the diminished value of isolated study-at-a-time datasets (as we're doing now), we figure out how to do this kind of research through a layer of homeomorphic encryption which the layman trusts (a tall order), or we wait for an era with more trustworthy institutions (potentially a long time).
For this reason, I think it'll be like fusion power: the perpetual "next big thing".
give out equity to the study participants. I'll hand over data of you give me some equity on future ideas built on that data. l
Like artists getting payed royalties.
From a science angle it makes more sense to just collect this data from everybody all the time and let the studies be post hoc explorations of that giant dataset. But how do you get people to cooperate when they have reason to believe that the data will be used against them?
Either we accept the diminished value of isolated study-at-a-time datasets (as we're doing now), we figure out how to do this kind of research through a layer of homeomorphic encryption which the layman trusts (a tall order), or we wait for an era with more trustworthy institutions (potentially a long time).
For this reason, I think it'll be like fusion power: the perpetual "next big thing".