DNA tool can assess disease risk by predicting person's height

WASHINGTON: Scientists say they have developed a new DNA tool that uses the machine as a tool.

The tool, or algorithm, builds predictors for human traits such as height, bone density and the level of education of a person might achieve, purely based on one's genome, according to the research published in the journal Genetics.

"While we have validated this tool for these three outcomes, we are now applying this method to predicting other conditions related to heart disease, diabetes and breast cancer," said Stephen Hsu of Michigan State University (MSU) in the US.

Further applications have the potential to dramatically advance the practice of precautionary health, which allows physicians to intervene as early as possible.

The research analysis of the complete genetic makeup of nearly 500,000 adults in the UK using machine learning, where a computer learns from data.

The computer accurately predicted everyone's height within roughly an inch.

While they have been diagnosed with osteoporosis and have been diagnosed with osteoporosis, they have been known to be at risk when they are at risk of having osteoporosis.

Breast cancer is a genetically modified species that can indicate a higher risk for breast cancer.

Hsu's model considers numerous genomic differences and builds a predictor based on the tens of thousands of variations.

Using data from the UK Biobank, an international resource for health information, Hsu and his team put the algorithm to work, evaluating each participant's DNA and teaching the computer to pull out these distinct differences.

"The algorithm looks at the genetic makeup and height of each person," Hsu said.

"The computer learns from each person and produces a predictor of how high they are from their genome alone," Hsu said.