DNA Barcode Reader

[Tyria]

Pretty neat. Any thoughts?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,560760,00.html?test=latestnews

 

[Android]

"Imagine a world where medicine is guaranteed not to cause adverse reactions because it's designed for an individual's DNA.

Imagine a diet tailored to the precise speed of a person's metabolism."

Imagine a world where you can't get medical insurance because your genes suck.

 

[tom]

yah but combined with social planning and compulsory gene therapy

 

[Reverse Transcriptase]

Pacific Biosciences is making a better uber-fast-sequencing product.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/1...ence-genomics-gene-machine.html?partner=email
(Semi-boring Forbes article)

http://www.pacificbiosciences.com/index.php?q=technology-introduction
(Look at the "Technology Demo" move. Really nifty, pretty pictures!)


Now why is it better? I think it's better because it's already using a naturally occurring mechanism (a Ribosome!) to sequence these things. And that's cool.

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

Imagine a world where you can't get medical insurance because your genes suck.

All too true.

 

[Reverse Transcriptase]

Imagine a world where you can't get medical insurance because your genes suck.

Okay that would suck. Medical insurance should discriminate based on phenotype not genotype.

 

[Yellow]

What worries me is the idea that these things are invented by science for medicine/science. BUT they get in the hands of not science and it all gets messed up. And why the heckle bajeckle do they think they can't screw up your medicine and diet anymore by reading your genes? I mean aren't we still a loooong way from properly translating human genes into physical traits? (taking into account that things are often controlled by multiple genes) These things are exciting in the traditional sense of the word, but also in a slightly terrifying way. It makes me wanna pray to the delicious chicken gods* that this kind of information is not acted upon before it is fully understood.

*the delicious chicken gods (DCGs) are the gods of medical innovation, for anyone who was wondering.

 

[Reverse Transcriptase]

Yup Yellow, it'll be fully understood. Of course we still don't understand all of our genes... and that's a separate problem...but: there's already therapeutics that are customized based on people's genes. (One company does something with like... heart transplants? I did an informal interview with them. They've found a list of ~300 genes that are related to success in heart transplants, which helps doctors monitor which patients will have risks. http://www.xdx.com/)

The faster DNA sequencing is just a tool for science already in place, it's not a "License for Recklessness" in the method of how we treat diseases.

Also, this is going to lead to the "$1k genome test". Right now a full-genome sequence is around 10k... and one company thinks that it can get it down to 5k by doing it en-mass to get an economy of scale going. Once we have the 1k genome test LOTS more people are going to be able to have their genome sequenced.

And we still won't understand all the genes. But you'll be able to know some things, like whether you're a carrier for certain diseases, if you're at-risk for Alzheimer, etc.