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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/10/09
Personally I don't have an opinion on how viable, or destructive, it can be. There are certainly more shady ways to convict or exonerate people, like he said she said.
11/10/09
I'm glad that some places [www.nytimes.com] have already put non-discrimination measures towards your genetic code.
11/10/09
Whilst the cost and speed is likely to come down dramatically I feel the timescale of his predictions is rather optimistic. Although our rate of sequencing will increase, the number of diseases we can link to a single gene is likely to be rapidly exhausted. Attempting to relate complex polygenetic risk factors to an actual phenotype, whilst also taking in to account environmental factors is far more complicated and requires large studies in relatively controlled populations. Many current 'studies' are actually meta-analyses performed on pooled data from other peoples work.
Once you think you may have identified these risk factors you actually need to do some real experimentation to understand what they mean at the cellular level, which will also take several years.
I am sure some of the current obstacles will be overcome but increased sequencing speed is certainly not going to be the only driver here. #knome
11/10/09
11/10/09
I'm going to be a nit-picker and not only point it out, but, correct it.
In 2003, we mapped the human genome...
it should read: In 2003, we mapped A human genome...
There is no single, human genome. Every human has a different one.
If all our genomes were alike, we'd be virtual clones of each other. There would still be differences, due to our DNA, but, there would be many many more similarities than what we see now. All the genetic differences would be gone.
So, calling it THE human genome is wrong. The genome they mapped was the genome for their test subject, and no one else.
11/10/09
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11/10/09
Think about this: If you are young enough now where that "20 years into the future" still won't put you to be too old (I'll be 38 at the time, personally), you can get your blood checked before you become at risk for many fatal diseases. Doctors will be able to prescribe you personalized medicines that will prevent and/or cure anything that may cause harm to you, medicinally speaking.
This will GREATLY increase the average life-span of human beings, and when the cost falls enough, we can bring this new technology to developing countries, and help fight the millions of diseases that people face there on a daily basis.
Now, personally, with this new technology coming around, I'm hoping that the future won't end up like the movie Gattaca, where people are segregated based on if their genes are "perfect" or not. I doubt that will happen, but even so, I hope we as humans are wise enough at the time to NOT let anything happen like that. #knome
11/10/09
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11/10/09
Those of us who’s been around long enough have heard all the medical bullshit for decades. How AIDES was going to be a thing of the past in 10-20 years back in the 80’s, how cancer will be a thing of the past in 30-40 years in the 70’s. One thing the old timers have learned is that there never seems to be a lack of doubt about any of the bullshit when the bullshit was proclaimed to the masses. I guess hope springs eternal.
The last thing I want to mention is that so what if what you said will become a reality, most of us won’t be able to afford it at the rate that costs are increasing. But mostly I just think what "scientists" are saying is pure fantasy. In fact, if medicine were like technology, computers would still be using vacuum tubes and be the size of football fields. #knome
11/11/09
2. Science reporters (and now PR departments of universities) make the wild claims, but that doesn't mean science hasn't progressed. "The medical bullshit" has developed Gleevec that cures chronic myelogenous leukemia when it's caused by a specific chromosome mutation which leads to a garbled protein. That's just one set of cancers, but damn awesome.
3. Genomics and other fields like protein folding make medical research more like computing. That doesn't guarantee accelerated results, but it helps.
4. You're right about population pressure and probably right about mass death, but most medical advances benefit rich people.
5. Jared has aides! #knome
11/11/09
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11/12/09
Either way I stand by what I said. Idiocy = not relative. Scientists = not always smartest.
You equated being a scientist with being the smartest. Not all scientists are smart. The "best and brightest" aren't always scientists.
In the time periods I was referring to scientists were most definately not the smartest people on the planet. Those would have been the philosophers, artists, ruler, military leaders, and explorers that dominated in the days I was referring to of Alchemy, flat earth and other wild scientific theories. #knome
11/10/09
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