In the decade since the first mapping of a human genome in
its entirety, the pace of discovery enabled by this new technology has, in
different ways, both exceeded and fallen short of expectations, professor of
systems biology Eric Lander said at a February 22 panel.
Subsequent discoveries have radically altered our
understanding of how the genome operates: among the three billion base pairs,
“there are a lot fewer genes than we thought, but a lot more regulatory
controls,” Lander noted. (Read more about the surprising importance of what
was once known as “junk DNA.”) Scientists today are aware of about 1,100
genes associated with common diseases, he said; 10 years ago, that number was
20. And, he said, “The cost of sequencing has fallen by 100,000-fold—soon to be
a millionfold.”
Journalists and the public, on the other hand, were overly
optimistic, hoping for disease cures within a few years, Lander said. “Real
scientific revolutions are measured in a period of multiple decades,” he said,
noting that 60 years passed between the discovery of the germ theory of disease
and the successful use of antibiotics to treat illness.
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