The history of medicine is strewn with ideas once thought promising that did not pan out when scrutinized through the lens of evidence based medicine. Recent methodological progress in genomics has been breathtaking and its promise to illuminate mechanisms of human disease is real. But claims of near-term applications are too often proved faulty. We must evaluate the promise of genomics through a realistic lens and understand that unrealistic expectations distracts us from other promising approaches to preventing disease and improving health.

The speaker will touch upon three points:

• Reevaluating funding priorities and understanding the forces that set those priorities
• Fostering a realistic understanding among the scientific community, the media, and the public of the incremental nature of science and the weak predictive properties of genetic-risk alleles and maintaining a focus on developing high quality evidence
• The pursuit of our common goal—improved human health—demands that we take a hard look at disease causation

The speaker’s presentation will be informed by testifying multiple times before the FDA on regulation of direct-to-consumer genetic testing, and will further explore the unique privacy concerns attendant to DTC testing.