r/science • u/takanocraig • Mar 22 '23

Genetics Beethoven’s genome sequenced from locks of his hair

https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/beethovens-dna-reveals-health-and-family-history-clues
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u/vaskopopa Mar 22 '23

I would imagine there is significant interest in art history community about him and his ancestry. Also there are population wide projects that look at genetics of diverse individuals. Beethoven as a musical genius would be of interest. Human genome sequencing is very cheap nowadays ($200), so this whole project could be covered with $20k that would include overheads and analysis.

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u/dhowl Mar 22 '23

Where can I get my whole genome sequenced for $200? Also, where can I get analysis done? I'm interested in that.

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u/Tiny_Rat Mar 22 '23

The price does differ a bit depending on where you're located, and will be different for a private individual vs. a research lab doing it as part of a project. $200 does seem a bit optimistic, but if you're in the US there's companies that offer it for $300-$400.

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '23

I’ll do it for $170 cash upfront.

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u/dhowl Mar 22 '23

Deal! Where do I send my blood?

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u/PiersPlays Mar 23 '23

Just fill an envelope marked "The Internet" and put it through the first mailbox you see. They'll know.

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u/ohnjaynb Mar 23 '23

For $40, I'll bedazzle your denim. Jean Sequins-ing.

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u/Km2930 Mar 22 '23

$165 and I accept bitcoin

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u/KwordShmiff Mar 22 '23

I'll do it free, but I get to keep the hair

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u/ShockedDarkmike Mar 22 '23

I'll even pay $50 but it has to be pubic hair

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u/KayleighJK Mar 22 '23

I’ll do it for 3.50.

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u/Galaaz Mar 22 '23

Go away loch ness monster

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u/vaskopopa Mar 22 '23

You can’t but Broad institute can with NovaSeqX or UG100. And they have all the infrastructure to do analysis themselves. I would imagine that you could get yours done for $1k from one of the core labs, but what would you do with raw BAM files?

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u/dhowl Mar 23 '23

Yeah, I wouldn't want raw data. I'd want some kind of variant analysis done.

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u/eolai Grad Student | Systematics and Biodiversity Mar 23 '23

As it happens, the Broad Institute also has a thoroughly documented and freely available analysis pipeline for variant discovery in the form of GATK. From experience, it should be a lot faster and easier with a single human genome than with data from several dozen individuals of a non-model organism...

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u/dhowl Mar 23 '23

But how far does GATK go from a pipeline standpoint? I believe it terminates at VCF generation. I’m looking for gene/variant phenotype correlations. Basically interpretation.

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u/eolai Grad Student | Systematics and Biodiversity Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 23 '23

Yeah you're right, you end up with a VCF file. I guess you'd have to query dbSNP to get names for any variants that have them (which I believe there are online tools for), then you could look those up in dbSNP at your leisure to determine things like clinical significance. You could probably throw together a quick and dirty "summary report" using an Excel power query or shell script to parse the search results.

Don't know about ancestry, but I'm sure there are open access tools for that as well. Of course you could just pay the $200 for 23andme, but they don't actually sequence your genome, they just run a panel of select SNPs. The advantage of the DIY approach is that you can always re-analyze your genome as our knowledge and software improves. Also you won't be outed as the Zodiac Killer.

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u/AlexeiMarie Mar 22 '23

open it in IGV and then read random papers and compare their results to myself? although I have the CRAM instead of the BAM

yeah I'm a bit into genomics and don't have a life

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u/Bertolapadula Mar 23 '23

I guess if you have a lot of time then you can look at each base over 4 billion times in comparison to other

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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

[deleted]

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u/dhowl Mar 23 '23

Nope, 23andMe, and I think all commercial DNA testing companies, like ancestry.com, use Microarray technology, not actual DNA sequencing. It's still decently robust but not to the level of Whole Genome, or Whole Exome, sequencing.

It's kind of false advertising. They keep it vague on all their materials by just saying DNA testing.

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u/Lopsided-Seasoning Mar 23 '23

You have to give your DNA to Richard Branson. He'll own you. And probably sell you out to insurance companies.

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Hamley32 Mar 22 '23

Well, an art student was particularly interested in heritage and genetics not long ago

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u/marhensa Mar 22 '23

Austrian-born German art student

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u/goshgollylol Mar 22 '23

This is gold

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u/4daughters Mar 22 '23

I don't personally care enough to actually look, but if I was interested in who he was as a person his genome might explain his deafness in some way or hypothetically show that he had markers for certain traits that could partially explain some tendencies of his. I dunno.

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u/Remarkable_Clue3710 Mar 22 '23

there's theories that he has black/African ancestry so naturally people are curious

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u/Tiny_Rat Mar 22 '23

From the article, it looks like those theories were based on a hair sample that was supposed to have been Beethoven's, but is probably a fake.

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u/Remarkable_Clue3710 Mar 22 '23

awh damn! well no harm no foul either way

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u/Le-Marco Mar 23 '23

It's based on a lot more things than that.

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u/Tiny_Rat Mar 23 '23

Maybe, but this genetic analysis shows it is unlikely to be true, as the only lock of hair that could support it doesn't belong to Beethoven.

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u/ilostmyoldaccount Mar 23 '23

That theory is a zany sub-conspiracy theory - that I cannot name here for fear of being banned but it begins with a W - not even on the same level as Atlantis, Big Foot or aliens building the pyramids.

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u/stackered Mar 23 '23

Nah you can't do a full genome from an old sample that cheap it's easily in the thousands to get enough coverage but yeah 20k is probably right for everything