Whatever happened to...

Nature News revisits some old stories to find out what happened next. One father’s quest to sequence his daughter’s DNA? In October 2007, we caught up with a very personal take on personal genomics. Hugh Rienhoff, a trained clinical geneticist and bioentrepreneur had bought himself a PCR machine and a gel-box so that he could sequence his daugther’s DNA in hopes of uncovering the disorder that has left her weak and unable to put on much weight. She turned four earlier this month, and Rienhoff says a friend is now helping with additional studies on her DNA as well as sequencing genes from him and his wife. The website Rienhoff created to chronicle her progress and that of his hypothesis has grown slowly since its launch in July: there are now ten users. “It’s not the YouTube for genetics,” Rienhoff jokes, “which I didn’t really expect it to be, to be honest with you.” More probably it will remain a domain for highly motivated parents who have a technical background or access to genomic expertise.

Published online 21 December 2007 Nature doi:10.1038/news.2007.390