Google Now Indexing Your DNA, In the Cloud

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In 2014, Google quietly unveiled a cloud computing service, Google Genomics, which will store genomes for about $25 a year each. And today, it announced a major new customer: Stanford Medicine.

The two organizations will work together to ramp up Stanford Medicine's genomics research and better integrate genomic data into routine patient care. The initiative, known as Clinical Genomics Service, will launch this fall.

"The overall premise of what we're doing is to combine the two worlds of data science and life science in a way that makes a difference," says Google Genomics' David Glazer, a former engineering head at Google+, in an interview with Fast Company.

Google will store that information in the cloud, but Stanford Medicine will control how it's used and shared. As is required by a federal privacy rule known as HIPAA, the pair signed an agreement that governs how it will share and protect sensitive health information.

Stanford Medicine will use the data to improve how it treats patients with cancer, as well as to diagnose children with mysterious, rare diseases that have a genetic cause. That's in line with the main objectives of the White House's $215 million-funded Precision Medicine initiative, which was unveiled in January of last year.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3062589/google-stanford-medicine-team-up-on-genomics