Editorials

To celebrate the Rosa genomes, we invite you to imagine ways to make rosy data as well loved as the roses themselves. This is an opportunity for data modeling and new discoveries from reanalysis, as well as for data display to feed public interest in the science and culture of flowers.

With new ways to examine the effects of mutations on gene expression within the 3D genome and increased emphasis on finding these variants by sequencing whole genomes, we would really like to know more about the rules that govern noncoding and regulatory sequences.

Largely owing to inequitable distribution of resources, the United States is failing its population in healthcare, for which it vastly overspends relative to other wealthy countries. We advocate extending research in genetic epidemiology to oversample poor people, underserved ancestry groups and ethnic minorities, as well as to use genetic predisposition as a baseline from which to examine environmental influences on the costly comorbidities of common diseases.

The multiple standardized clinical measurements that make up one’s lifetime path through health and disease are essential information for yourself and your healthcare system. Aggregated into a population cohort study across a single-payer network, these data become an extraordinary tool for improving the efficiency of healthcare delivery and new discoveries in genomic medicine.

The reconstruction of the genome of a woman of African ancestry from her European descendants, across eight generations, connects living people to a documented saga, drawing attention to the individuals who participated in historic events at a time when the legal, cultural and ethical implications of individual human rights began to gain currency. It is also a technical achievement that extends the methodologies for understanding our interwoven genomic and social histories.

This issue features epigenetic analysis of cell commitment at many levels in mammalian genomes: during early embryonic development, in stem cells, and in cancer cells. The establishment, propagation and dynamic robustness of cell states is addressed by comprehensive interrogation of the coordination of DNA methylation with the marks and organization of chromatin and programs of gene expression. Understanding this landscape of commitment is essential to interpretation of the functional consequences of genome variation.

In the motivation, conduct and reporting of science, there is no substitute for reason, and it must prevail whenever scientific methods are used. Similarly, scientific recommendations can only be useful if they meet with rational decision-making. Because people come to decisions from diverse viewpoints and values, listening to the values and views of scientists and non-scientists—while explicitly refraining from debate and persuasion—may point the way to determining when and where scientific ideas are of interest and likely to be adopted.

Citation of prior publications is essential both to claim that knowledge is needed in your area of research and to establish that you have indeed advanced understanding substantially in that area. The journal deplores and will decline to consider manuscripts that fail to identify the key findings of published articles and that—deliberately or inadvertently—omit the reason the prior work is cited.

This issue highlights a range of genetic techniques and cell biological models required to begin to understand the levels of long-range regulation of gene expression as it occurs during cell differentiation. Explanations based on the specificity of covalent modifications and binding interactions intersect with evidence for conjectured mechanisms of topological loop creation and maintenance by transcription and motile protein activities.

A solution to screening for recessive heritable disorders and identifying genetic influences on common diseases is to be found in the history of one of the world's most populous regions. Large South Asian populations are a mosaic of smaller populations, many of which have founder effects as extreme as those in the European isolates that first inspired genetic medicine.

This month's research articles span the range of scales of gene-regulatory mechanisms, from a deceptively simple gene therapy vector, via synthetic gene expression circuits, to extremely intricate epigenetic switches. We encourage investigation of synthetic circuits exploring the functions of the 3D genome.

This journal and Scientific Data are calling for submissions containing linked open data models that embody and extend the FAIR principles: that data should be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable by both humans and machines. These principles are achievable with existing resources, languages and vocabularies to enable computers to combine and reanalyze data sets automatically and lead humans to new discoveries.

Understanding of how epigenetic information is acquired, processed and transmitted through cell division, and potentially across generations, remains limited. Mechanistic studies aiming to elucidate the molecular underpinnings of these phenomena may provide insights into development, disease susceptibility and evolution.

With the advent of precision genome editing, the ability to modify living organisms has proceeded with remarkable speed and breadth. Any application of this technology to the human germ line must be tightly coupled to deliberate consideration of the consequences, both scientific and social, of introducing heritable alterations to the human population. We recommend constant oversight and evaluation of human germline genome editing to balance prudence with discovery, and risk with progress.

Agriculture has depended since its Neolithic origins upon spontaneous or induced genetic variation. Human selection on naturally occurring variation in flowering is the most frequent source of domesticated crop plants. In the current era of rapid technological advance in reading and writing genomes, we advocate universal access to some safe modular variation in flower, leaf and color traits that can be operated without labs or restrictions by ordinary farmers and gardeners.

Investment in national infrastructure should include a scalable open informatics solution for agricultural genomics, germplasm and crop traits. This is a priority measure for economic stimulus and food security. As building this knowledge harvester should be simpler than the infrastructure required for precision medicine, it will also pave the way to that goal.

Single-nucleotide variation (SNPs or SNVs) in the human genome is now being used by the public and by researchers interested in the functional mechanisms of genetic perturbation for the 3D structure and function of the nucleus in various cells and tissues, and for understanding human–microbiota interactions. We have some requests for authors that may help prevent misunderstanding as familiar genetic markers acquire new users.