Scientists on Reddit

Francis Collins

Physician and geneticist, former NIH director

u/NIHDirector ↗AMA only

How we know it's theirs

The 2018 r/science AMA, posted from this account

We retrieved 2 posts and 30 comments from u/NIHDirector, dated 2016 to 2018, most often in r/science.

Best moment

A redditor wrote in r/science

On “I’m Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health. As we celebrate the 15th anniversary of the completion of the Human Genome Project, I’m here to talk about its history and the critical role it has played in precision medicine. Ask me anything!”

In hindsight, do people associated with program have any regret about the coining of the term "junk DNA" to describe regions that weren't immediately related to protein coding genes?

u/NIHDirector replied

Yes! That was an unfortunate term, and I hope I was not one of the ones who used it . . . at least not very often. We are learning more every day about the 98 percent of the genome…

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Yes! That was an unfortunate term, and I hope I was not one of the ones who used it . . . at least not very often. We are learning more every day about the 98 percent of the genome that does not code for protein but determines how genes turn on and off in specific tissues during development and after environmental exposures. That’s incredibly important information. It certainly is not junk.

More moments

A redditor wrote in r/science

On “Science AMA Series: I am Francis Collins, current Director of the National Institutes of Health and former U.S. leader of the successful Human Genome Project. Ask me anything!”

I recently had my DNA sequenced through 23andMe. They said that a percentage of my genome couldn't be sequenced because it was "too unique to definitively match" to any specific data they had. What could be so different about my genome?

u/NIHDirector replied

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If you look closely enough, all of our genomes are unique unless we have an identical twin. Each of us has about 60 new mutations that were not present in our parents and may never have been present in anyone until us. Some of those variations involve duplications of large segments of DNA, which may be difficult to map back to the reference sequence. So, don’t assume that there is something seriously awry with your genome. We are all in the same boat.