Most changes in our genomes do not really matter. They make us shorter or taller, fairer or darker. But there are a few characters in the genome—a book of six billion letters that make up one’s DNA—which are single handed in their agenda and overwhelming in their impact. “If that character changes then there’s serious disorder,” says Ramesh Hariharan. A computer scientist by training, Hariharan built bioinformatics tools and did analytics on biological data for over a decade. But when his company, Strand Life Sciences, first entered into clinical services three years ago, he was hit by the life-saving decisions his tools had to make.

AUTHOR

Seema Singh

Seema has over two decades of experience in journalism. Before starting The Ken, Seema wrote “Myth Breaker: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and the Story of Indian Biotech”, published by HarperCollins in May 2016. Prior to that, she was a senior editor and bureau chief for Bangalore with Forbes India, and before that she wrote for Mint. Seema has written for numerous international publications like IEEE-Spectrum, New Scientist, Cell and Newsweek. Seema is a Knight Science Journalism Fellow from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a MacArthur Foundation Research Grantee.

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