Research partnership between Google and Autism Speaks begins

The world’s largest genomic database of sequenced genetic information will help provide information to family members and patients living with autism spectrum disorder. The collaboration between Google and Autism Speak officially took off on December 9, 2013. The joint project is designed to make great strides in the study of autism.

The project called “MSSNG” is pronounced Disappeared. The vowels are missing in the word to represent that missing knowledge about autism. The project is “the most promising autism research ever done,” said Liz Field, president of Autism Speak. He also noted that the project would complement the research that has already been done on DNA connections to the autism spectrum.

More than 10,000 families living with autism could receive their questions about the disorder through this DNA sequencing project.

Google Cloud makes information freely accessible to researchers around the world. The open resource will be available to scientists around the world. Scientists will be able to access and share research. The program brings together the brightest minds in science from around the world to study trillions of data points in a database.

The program, formerly called The Autism Speaks Ten Thousand Genomes Program (AUT10K), represents a major milestone in furthering genomic autism research. The potential for advances in causes, diagnoses, and subtypes is exponential.

Autism Speaks is launching a social media campaign to help raise awareness of the project. The campaign asks followers to remove vowels from their names to display on Twitter. You can do this by logging into your account, clicking “Edit” and then “Name”. Once users change their name, they are encouraged to post the following: We lack a lot of information about autism. Support @AutismSpeaks’ #MSSNG project by removing letters from its name: http://mss.ng.

This massive project requires a large amount of funding to help sequence the collection of genomes. The MSSNG Project requires $ 25 million by the end of next year to continue progress. The database contains 10,000 DNA samples. Each DNA sample contains more than 3 billion strands of DNA, which adds up to approximately 3 trillion data strands in total. The data in the show is equivalent to the amount of data augmented by watching 13 years of high definition television, continuously.

“Millions of people living with autism today need answers. The MSSNG project is searching for those answers, and we are going to find them. The best investigative minds in the world are going to extract this DNA database so that we can discover and understand the various subtypes of autism. Then we can get to work developing personalized treatments and therapies so that we can improve the quality of life for so many people who need help, “said Field.

To donate to the MSSNG Project, visit: http://www.mss.ng/donate