The 1000Genomes project is using Amazon's S3 to make the data available

[Project 2501]

The 1000Genomes project is using the AWS service S3 to distribute the data on 1,700 human genomes to genetics researchers.

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise...to-the-clouds/

That’s what Amazon and the National Institute of Health (NIH) have done with the 1000Genomes project, using Amazon’s S3 storage service to offer over 1,700 human genomes to genetics researchers across the globe. “This is what allows us to drive more complex maps of how genes interact with each other and their environment and zoom in on areas that may have a role to play in human health and disease,” says Matt Wood, who oversees Amazon’s side of the project and holds a PhD in bioinformatics. “This is the seed to create a tree of data.”

Amazon and the NIH made a big splash last month when they announced that anyone with an S3 account could now access this data, but the move is only part of a much larger effort to reinvent genetics using the proverbial cloud, with researchers tapping into public services from the likes of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft but also building their own cloud services using tools such as Hadoop, the open source platform for crunching large amounts of data across a sea of ordinary servers.

[eeka]

Ooh ooh! Looking forward to HITs where we get to categorize diseases! ;-)

[Rob79]

That's really cool! I'm Canadian so I don't think these HITs will apply to me, but I got my genome mapped for free a few years ago because I have a rare blood type and there is a history of certain (rare) cancers in my family... I didn't get paid for it, but I did get a really cool poster that I framed and hung in my home office that shows my genome map .

I really believe that these are the kinds of projects that MTurk is perfect for... Most of us spend our time on MTurk helping advertisers, but if we were able to dedicate that same amount of time (for a similar amount of money) on more worth while ventures who knows what amazing things could come out of this awesome experiment...