Last evening, I had a chance to attend an interesing panel discussion on The Personal Genome. The Symposium featured Eric Lander, George Church, Leena Peltonen and Bill Gates and was moderated by Maynard Olson.
My take away from the discussion, which was fueled by questions submitted by the audience and via the web, was that there is so much uncertainty at this time. We know so much, yet so little. At some level, we do not understand the implications of what we know, ethical and medical, at the same time, we underestimate the ability of our own genetics to withstand changes.
Perhaps one of the things that jumped out at me was the general popular belief (which is hardly surprising) that it is a gene or a few genes that can be altered or fixed to address a “problem”. We’re just beginning to grasp the relevance of pathways, of epigenetics, etc, so the long term implications of what we know (and don’t) are still a little fuzzy.
I didn’t get a chance to record or take notes, but I was Twittering the whole thing. Unfortunately, I forgot to use a hashtag, which was silly. Much of the backchannel discussion was on the subject of designer babies. Leena Peltonen made some good points about the impact of genetic selection (we will not be able to alter germ lines), and whether it was desirable from the evolutionary perspective. George Church pointed out that people were going to do it anyway, much as they do today for sex selection or during IVF.
Bill Gates had an interesting opinion on the question of what a personal genome really means. He differentiated between an individual with money getting themselves genotyped or sequenced and between the ability to sequence individuals cheaply and in large quantities. The latter for him was much more important since it will help advance science and medicine. He is quite right of course, and it will be interesting to see how the ability to sequence individuals cheaply has an impact on research and clinical studies, where, in theory, in a few years it will be possible to just sequence everyone.
More on Sandra Porter’s blog
Image via Wikipedia
Technorati Tags: Personal Genomics, Personal Genetics, Ethics
Your personal health: The Personal Genome
My take away from the discussion, which was fueled by questions submitted by the audience and via the web, was that there is so much uncertainty at this time. We know so much, yet so little. At some level, we do not understand the implications of what we know, ethical and medical, at the same time, we underestimate the ability of our own genetics to withstand changes.
Perhaps one of the things that jumped out at me was the general popular belief (which is hardly surprising) that it is a gene or a few genes that can be altered or fixed to address a “problem”. We’re just beginning to grasp the relevance of pathways, of epigenetics, etc, so the long term implications of what we know (and don’t) are still a little fuzzy.
I didn’t get a chance to record or take notes, but I was Twittering the whole thing. Unfortunately, I forgot to use a hashtag, which was silly. Much of the backchannel discussion was on the subject of designer babies. Leena Peltonen made some good points about the impact of genetic selection (we will not be able to alter germ lines), and whether it was desirable from the evolutionary perspective. George Church pointed out that people were going to do it anyway, much as they do today for sex selection or during IVF.
Bill Gates had an interesting opinion on the question of what a personal genome really means. He differentiated between an individual with money getting themselves genotyped or sequenced and between the ability to sequence individuals cheaply and in large quantities. The latter for him was much more important since it will help advance science and medicine. He is quite right of course, and it will be interesting to see how the ability to sequence individuals cheaply has an impact on research and clinical studies, where, in theory, in a few years it will be possible to just sequence everyone.
More on Sandra Porter’s blog
Image via Wikipedia
Technorati Tags: Personal Genomics, Personal Genetics, Ethics