Diagnostic toilet just the start of biological revolution, by  Damon Kelly.

American bioscientist Raymond McCauley calls it the toilet of the future, one full of gene sequencers, which will make it the most networked appliance in the home.

“It will be able to look at your cells, the cells of what you eat, what infects you and then process it all on the cloud. Then we will send emails to you, your doctor, your nutritionist, your spouse and probably the people trying to sell you things,” he told The Australian after presenting at the Sohn Hearts & Minds investment conference.

“Not only will we be able to sense the health of your body and diet, we will be able to provide tips such as ‘You’ve really got to stop eating chorizo’.”

He says a South Korean entrepreneur, whose family has a toilet manufacturing empire, has already been developing a diagnostic toilet. …

This is the way McCauley sees the world as the cost of sequencing a human genome rapidly moves towards $10, which is set to revolutionise all aspects of human life.

Hepatitis C:

Most importantly he believes the ability to use genomics to circumvent diseases before they take hold could have major implications for the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies.

“We now understand disease mechanisms well enough and we are getting a handle on diagnosis and have the ability, if people pay for it, to do it early enough, for big chunks of the population,’’ he said.

“The whole hepatitis C story — those people technologied themselves out of a huge market because they cured so much of it.