Tech Roundup, Dec. 13, 2019 | Brazil’s promising genome project

You’re reading The Brazilian Report‘s weekly tech roundup, a digest of the most important news on technology and innovation in Brazil. This week’s topics: Brazil’s genome mapping project could be a game-changer. How WhatsApp became the go-to “newsstand” for Brazilians. The economic crisis reshaped Google searches.

Mapping Brazil’s genome

A partnership between public universities and private companies will map the DNA of 15,000 Brazilian citizens, making the data available for scientists. The project, called “Brazil’s DNA,” will be funded by clinical laboratory firm Dasa, which built a BRL 6 million lab and will map the 3,000 genomes free of charge—conditioned to it being hired for the mapping of another 12,000 (for a cost of USD 650 per genome).

Why it matters. It is the biggest initiative of its kind ever put forward in Latin America, and should help developing medical genetics studies to become more relevant to multiracial populations such as Brazil’s.

“We will be able to develop tests for diseases based on our genetics—not on the genome of Finnish populations, for instance,” said Lygia da Veiga Pereira, a geneticist at the University of São Paulo and the idealizer of the project.

Reach. The database to be used will be that of a grand scale clinical trial underway since 2008, the Longitudinal Adult Health Study (ELSA). That will allow researchers to cross data between genome sequences and complex, multi-factor diseases, such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

Cloud. The University of São Paulo closed a deal to store the data free of charge on Google Cloud. Of course, the big tech behemoth is not doing this out of its love for science. Google may be salivating...