Whole genome sequencing of a family - predicting the future?

Although genetic sequencing sounded exciting - I'll send you a tube full of spit, you tell me what diseases I'm going to get - the reality was less thrilling, and less useful. There are diseases with very specific and even single mutations, but the big 'uns - cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes - are more tangled and complicated than trying to find a redeeming quality in a Kardashian. 
Even with the ethical dilemmas involved and murky predictability, I still think the potential is fascinating. A story on the whole genome of a family of four, and how the research predicted the daughter's risk of blood clots and a warning against possible preventive pharmacological intervention, caught my eye.

The dad had two pulmonary embolisms in 2003, and later tests showed a mutation on the Factor V gene that increases the risk of blood clots. His daughter has the same mutation, plus a few others that not only put her at risk for embolism but also inherited thrombophilia (although that one's controversial). Yet they also found that the daughter and mother would have a higher bleeding risk from using the blood thinner Plavix - which could have been prescribed if the daughter ever developed a thrombosis. 

Others can speak more eloquently than I about the merits and challenges with this paper, but I thought it was an interesting story and wanted to share.

Here's the Wall Street Journal article and here's the PLoS Genetics article.

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