The patients will sign Mr. Wilbanks's consent form, enabling them to share their medical information with the professional scientists attending the next Sage conference next year.
"To help people like my sisters, there needs to be a large enough sample of people who contribute genomic information so we can draw statistically significant inferences, " says Mr. Wilbanks.
One participant was John Wilbanks, who earned a degree in philosophy from Tulane and went on to run Science Commons, which focuses on getting scientists to collaborate by signing agreements to exchange research data.