A filing is not a verdict. Nothing on this site is a finding of liability.
The Record — theasbaghirecord.com. A filing is not a verdict. Nothing on this site is a finding of liability.
Section 04c
Iranome is a real, public catalog of genomic variation in Iranian populations. The 2019 Human Mutation paper and the project’s own about and FAQ pages are on the open web. Illumina sequencers and a University of Toronto collaboration are printed there. Padtan Elm, Farideh Kavesh, and Hooman Asbaghi are not. A working diagnostic-kit company in the same country is capability and overlap, not ownership of this catalog.
Words on first use
Documented · public science
Fattahi et al., Human Mutation (2019), doi:10.1002/humu.23880: whole-exome sequencing of 800 individuals from eight major Iranian ethnic groups — Arabs, Azeris, Baluchs, Kurds, Lurs, Persians, Persian Gulf Islanders, and Turkmen — 100 healthy people each. The paper identified 1,575,702 variants, of which 308,311 were novel (19.6%). It also reports a higher frequency, in this population, for 37,384 novel or known rare variants, which the authors say can improve molecular diagnosis. Those are the numbers on the paper. “Over 1.5 million including more than 38,000 novel” mixes the 1.57 million total with the 37,384 higher-frequency figure and understates novel variants by an order of magnitude. Use the paper.
iranome.com/about: co-principal investigators at the Genetics Research Center, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health / Women’s College Research Institute, University of Toronto. First phase: those 800 people in eight groups. Second phase: 400 more from Gilaki, Mazani, Sistani, and Zoroastrian groups, for about 1,200 people across twelve groups. The FAQ currently says 1,202 DNA samples were sequenced, coding exons with Agilent SureSelect V6, and “Illumina sequencers were used for sequencing of all the samples.” Mean coverage on that FAQ: 84.8×. The Iranome browser uses open-source code first written for the ExAC browser at the Broad Institute, with later modifications. National collaborators listed on the about page are Iranian universities and counseling centers. An international collaborator listed there is the Max Planck Institute, Berlin. Padtan Elm is not on that list.
gnomAD — the Genome Aggregation Database, sometimes typed as “Nomad” in circulating notes — is a separate global catalog. Iranome is useful in part because Middle Eastern alleles are thin in those global sets. That is a population-genetics fact. It is not a finding that Padtan Elm built Iranome.
Documented
The project’s own FAQ names Illumina sequencers. Howard Birndorf participated in Illumina’s 1998 founding; that is public San Diego biotech history. A friendship, even if later shown, does not put his name on this catalog. UCSC is not the same campus as UCSD. Working with American universities is on the about page as Toronto, not as a stealth Scripps or UCSD trial.
Claimed
He reads Pathobiology Laboratory Center and Padtan Elm as the sample, assay, and data infrastructure that made Iranian participation in this kind of work possible from the 1990s, and Creative Commons licensing as the legal tool that moved data across sanctions. Independent searches have not shown Padtan Elm or Pathobiology Laboratory Center as named Iranome partners. The laboratory is real. The kit company is real. Named participation is not.
Context · terminology
Genomics is the study of an organism’s complete set of DNA — its genome. Biotechnology uses living systems, or knowledge taken from them, to make products and services: diagnostics, drugs, crops, industrial enzymes. It is not only human health. Genomic medicine uses differences in that DNA to inform diagnosis, treatment, and sometimes prevention. Almost all of a human genome is shared; medically useful differences sit in the remainder. Clinical scientists compare one person’s sequence to many others and ask whether a difference is likely to matter.
The Human Genome Project, launched in 1990 and led in the United States by NIH and DOE with international collaborators, produced a public draft around 2000 and a more complete map by 2003. Iranome’s own about page treats that completion as the landmark that later catalogs, including this one, sit on. A later public resource, the 2023 Human Pangenome draft (Nature), assembled 47 diverse diploid genomes because a single early reference induces bias: if the map does not represent a population, variants in that population are easier to miss or to misread. Iranome’s 800-then-1,200 Iranian exomes are a population catalog, not a pangenome assembly. The comparison is why diversity in the databases matters. It is not a claim that Iranome is the pangenome.
Creative Commons is a real suite of public copyright licenses designed for sharing. Open genomic catalogs often use open licenses or open browsers. That Padtan used Creative Commons to route proprietary or sanctioned value into a shell structure is his allegation. The license family existing is not that allegation.
Speeches about unifying national health and genomic data for AI — including Larry Ellison at the 2025 World Government Summit, and NHS / Genomics England copy about whole-genome testing — explain why a population catalog has future value. They are other people’s sentences about other countries’ data. They are not Iranome findings, and they are not a valuation of Padtan Elm. Clinic marketing that a physician uses AI to review records worldwide is the same kind of context, not a wire.
Keep the labels
A public catalog of more than a million Iranian variants is scientifically large. Hypothetical “hundreds of millions or billions” from putting Padtan’s name on that catalog stay off this page. Roche dollar figures stay holdback. Branch offices and shell entities in the UAE, Turkey, or Canada as a sanctions adaptation are a pattern he describes; they are not a register dump mounted here.
Pathobiology Laboratory Center’s scale — gazette officers, ISO 9001, contracted-provider logos — is on the laboratory page. Padtan Elm’s kits and 2013 hinge are on What is Padtan Elm. Gerloni’s 1 February 2013 affirmance is on Gerloni v. Zanetti. Eighteen days is a calendar fact. Coordinated delay of cancer- vaccine patents until after a transfer remains claimed.