What Does Full Sequencing of the Human Genome Mean for Health?
-
While scientists celebrate putting together the last pieces of the human genome — a major accomplishment decades in the making — the rest of us are left wondering what this breakthrough could mean for our own health and well-being. Advances in diagnosis and treatment of cancers, development disorders, infertility, and many diseases driven by genetic changes are expected to come out of this new research.
-
@shutanu Because of advances in technology, scientists can now piece together longer regions of the genome that contain many repeated, similar sections for the first time. One of the researchers, Michael Schatz, PhD, shared an analogy. Almost 2 decades ago, it was like putting together a 1,000-piece puzzle where many of the pieces looked the same, such as only blue sky. Now that longer DNA sequences can be mapped, it's more like assembling a toddler's puzzle with giant pieces, and ones that show the blue sky, clouds, and mountains.