Matthew B. May
Contributing Writer
Share this article Published: Sunday, February 15, 2009
Updated: Sunday, February 15, 2009
"There is little doubt that we live in the era of genomics, the biotechnological branch concerned with applying techniques to genetic mapping and DNA sequencing. While the struggles of the economic bailout and political wrangling of our discordant representatives might seem to define our generation, the greatest promises (and, no doubt, opportunities for entanglement) lie in the budding science of genomics.
What Tom Brokaw deemed “The Greatest Generation” for their contributions on a macro scale to the historical landscape ought soon be challenged by our toils to navigate the most uncharted and consequential frontier yet: the human genome.
A recent announcement by Complete Genomics, a Mountain View, Calif., company to provide entire genomic sequencings for $5,000 signifies the era of greater commercial and scientific utilization of genomic information. While companies such as Knome of Cambridge, Mass. provide both a genomic reading and interpreted analysis for $99,500, the era of available, interpretable and treatable consumer genomics remains something in our immediate future.
On one front, research into the genetic framework of disease has opened up expansive doors of insight into the molecular workings of our illnesses. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have sequenced the genome of the common cold, a rhinovirus infection that costs the U.S. health care industry nearly $60 billion annually. The depth of knowledge uncovered about rhinoviruses, such as how they are organized into smaller groups and how strains possess the ability to exchange genetic information, provides a foundation for targeting the genetic intricacies that perpetuate the disease."
The rest can be found at Genomics: The convoluted promise of our generation
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jimmy B
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