News released this week reveals that the personal genomics company Knome are going to persue the sequencing of Black Sabbath's ex-front man Ozzy Osbourne genome. Their justification? To find out why, after 40+ years of alcohol and narcotic abuse, the man is still alive!
What are they expecting to find? Mutations leaping out left, right and centre? This seems like a bit of a publicity stunt, but their justification for using extreme medical cases is a valid one. However, when n=1 they might struggle to really pin down what it is that has allowed the Brummy rocker to survive so damn long.
This could reveal some very interesting aspects of Ozzy's biology, or alternatively it could reveal that actually it's a little bit more complicated than they thought it would be (sorry to Ben Goldacre, I've been gagging to use that line).
Publicity stunt, for sure. And it's kind of a scientific blasphemy to say that they are doing this to find out 'why, after 40+ years of alcohol and narcotic abuse, the man is still alive'. Shame.
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