Time frame: the next 100 years.
Your genome is the complete set of your genetic material. A copy exists in almost every cell in your body. The cost to sequence your unique genome (i.e., figure out what it is) is decreasing fast. The US government spent $2.7 billion to sequence one human genome in 2003. The genome of James Watson, winner of the Nobel Prize for co-discovering the structure of DNA, was sequenced for $2 million in 2007. The dramatic rate of decrease has continued. When genome sequencing hits about $1,000 your genome will sequenced as part of your medical record. Soon it will be possible for nearly any disease, condition or characteristic you can imagine to be subjected to a correlation test for all common variations of all 25,000 or so human genes. Comments
A blizzard of scientific papers describing what genes are associated with what outcomes will then appear. This will last for a number of years, after which we’ll know almost anything you could think of about what gene variations correlate with what personality characteristics (a tendency toward cheerfulness or melancholy, Myers-Briggs test results, faithfulness or a tendency to cheat, ability to delay gratification, risk aversiveness, and on and on); physical characteristics ranging from eye color, to height and weight, to verbal, mathematical, musical and artistic intelligence; and disease susceptibilities from flu to cancer. Comments
Organizations and clubs will doubtless spring up for people with specific gene variations. A social and cultural movement including digital communities and traditional clubs and social organizations may arise based on one’s genes, particularly genes that are discovered to have personal meaning. Good candidates for that include genes for the personality characteristics just mentioned, for susceptibility to various disease conditions (take your pick), and for dietary optimizations. Awareness of diet-related genes will probably enable at least a few people to be and feel much healthier than they otherwise would. Labeling oneself by zodiac signs would, logically, become replaced by genes (“I’m a TYW4a, what are you?”), and astrologers will have to find another line of work (or rebrand themselves as “genologers”). Comments
Many characteristics will be found to have numerous but rather small correlations with gene variants. This will show the importance of environment, methylation, and protein variations due not to variations in the gene that codes for it but to variations in which exons in the gene are translated into it. There will be the need and opportunity for huge amounts of research on why this gene variation or that one correlates this much with that characteristic. Schizophrenia is one example that is already attracting this type of research. This wave of research will last a long time because every correlation will be a separate research problem, in contrast to the economy of scale involved in searching a big database of genomes for correlations related to a long list of phenotypes (physical characteristics). Gene variation combinations will be another area of extensive research. Comments
Every health problem, mental or physical, will be treated in light of the person’s genome, which will be part of a person’s medical record. Drug doses will be determined genomically because different people can have greatly varying sensitivities to medicines. Almost any medical recommendation may be tailored to the sufferer’s genome. Comments
Some gene variations are rare. Medically, orphan genetic diseases will be tracked down fairly easily, though not necessarily curable. An orphan disease is one which is so rare that the pharmaceutical industry does not try to develop medicines for it (they won’t “adopt” it, so it’s an “orphan”). More quantitatively, an orphan disease has fewer than 200,000 sufferers in the US. Thousands of other orphan diseases are known, some more serious than others. For example, Lafora syndrome is a genetic disease affecting about 1 person in a million. Patients have normal childhoods but typically become ill during adolescence. Symptoms may include seizures, hallucinations, decreasing intelligence, ataxia (poor coordination), progressive dementia, and death. At the same time, Lafora bodies – abnormal lumps of starch-like polyglucosans – build up inside the victim’s cells. A drug called Zonisamide helps some. Luckily, if you are reading this you are probably old enough to be home free. Comments
When vast numbers of personal genomes become available, the race will be on to find very rare gene variations besides those that are obviously present in the form of rare diseases. Rare variations will enable us to understand the limits of human nature – the most unusual among us, genetically speaking. A few of us may be “game changers.” Consider for example the game changer that makes us fundamentally different from our closest animal relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos (bonobos might be a little closer to us if they have changed less than chimpanzees since the two species split from a common ancestor that we had already split from. We all have teeth, 4 limbs, eight fingers and two thumbs, fairly big brains, and so on. What makes us so special is our incredibly advanced langage skills. Comments
The human version of the FOX2P gene was the first to be identified as necessary for our language abilities. Although FOX2P is not the full story behind human language, it exemplifies the concept of game changer genes. Surely in the many billions of human beings currently alive, there must be a game changer or two! After all, game changers have made us what we are, and the ancient populations that culminated in modern humans and must have produced them were much, much smaller than several billion. What will we do when we find that lucky (or maybe unlucky) person with a new, game changing gene – clone? Kill? Comments
Ultimately, overbabies will be designed, whether with game changing genes or merely with desired combinations of normal genes. Simply find the best sperm cells from among the millions produced every time. Once the limits of human variation are mapped and explored, some hopeful parents and even ruthless dictators will take keen interest. Desired genes might be considered national resources to be propagated and increased into the future. Sumo wrestlers, typically the product of unions chosen to produce good sumo wrestlers, are an example of how this sort of thing can happen. Desirable variants will be more likely to be preserved and propagated. This too might speed evolution of the species. Alternatively, dictators may suppress genes that lead to people with the capacity to threaten them. These souldiers of Satan have historically killed successful members of groups they distrust, and this would be an extension of that. Comments
What you can do
If you are (or plan to be) an ambitious young bioinformaticist or computational biologist, consider a research interest in mining phenotype-gene variation correlations from large sets of large genomes. This is a challenging computational problem and when the topic takes off the people who are already working on it will have an edge. If you have executive authority in a genetic analysis or other biotech company, consider positioning the company to be first in line to take advantage of commercial opportunities in this area. If you are an angel investor or venture capitalist, consider supporting startups in this area before everyone else is doing it too (but not too much before). If you are a funding agency program director, consider priming the cutting edge in this area. If you are none of those, consider having a small tissue sample frozen and stored for your children and grandchildren to analyze. They may need to sequence your genome to better understand theirs, enhance their own health and treat their own medical conditions. Opportunity favors the prepared! Comments
Notes
“The US government spent $2.7 billion …”: The Human Genome Project Completion: Frequently Asked Questions, National Human Genome Research Institute, http://www.genome.gov/11006943. Comments
“The genome of James Watson, …”: E. Singer, The $2 Million Genome, Technology Review, June 1, 2007, http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/18809/. Comments
“More quantitatively, …”: Rare diseases and related terms, National Institutes of Health Office of Rare Diseases, http://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/RareDiseaseList.aspx?PageID=1. Comments
“The human version of the FOX2P gene was the first to be identified as necessary for our language abilities.” See e.g. P. Hunter, Ancient DNA research goes nuclear, EMBO Reports, Feb. 2006, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 136–139, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/. Comments
“Ultimately, overbabies will be designed…”: see the movie Gattaca, 1997, directed by Andrew Niccol and starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law. Comments
Also posted to blog.thehumanracetothefuture.org
Helicose, a gene sequencing company has recently announced a breakthrough in rapid sequencing, and says they will be offering the ability within 3 years for any person to have their whole genome sequenced in under 30 minutes and for less than $1000.
Paul,
Your recent blog entry notes 3 trillion suns are now believed to be in the Milky Way: http://blissful.co.nz/blog/archives/2009_01_3_trillion_suns.php.
That’s about a thousand spendid suns (and untold planets, some perhaps capable of developing life) for Every Single Base Pair in our genomes! Kinda blows the mind.
Really excellent article! Lots to chew on.
There are going to be some social side-effects to everyone knowing their genetics. Some people are going to become obnoxious in that they’ll attribute all of their bad behavior to their genes without realizing that environment and choices significant affect their final behavior.
It’s going to be impossible for any physician to know what to do with all of the genetic information for each patient. So it’s inevitable that computers will translate all relevant research information into specific recommendations for a specific patient.
And, probably it will happen this way: A genome sequencing company gets your DNA and gives you a UserId and Password. Within a couple of days you can go to a website which explains the significance of the most important findings. When you go to the MD’s office, you first interact with a web-based program which asks specific questions related to your condition. When you see the physician he/she will largely be following the continued prompting of the web-based program to add in physical findings, etc. Then the computer will print out specific recommendations (e.g. meds, dosages, lifestyle practices, etc). The physician will have no idea exactly why the computer made the recommendations but it will all be evidence-based.
I am concerned that we’ll also be able to identify genetic sequences which are much more common in one ethnic group and not others. This would make a tempting target for bioterrorists. Then again, after someone develops a virus that can cause a species to go extinct then we’re facing an existential threat to the human race. Now, could you imagine someone developing such a virus in order to eliminate the plasmodium species? Could you imagine that they would publish that viral sequence on the web “for the good of mankind”?
What would be the implications if the human FOX2P gene were inserted into a chimpanzee, or a dog?
We need to articulate a rational approach to human genetic engineering. We need to disabuse ourselves that it is wrong to conduct germ-line treatment of what has long been considered a genetic disease. I think that we should be open to treating genetic variants which are associated with unhappy lives. However, genetic variation should be preserved. But we should prevent genetic engineering which creates dramatic differences in social classes.
…a great outline at the dawn of 2009!
The “next 100 years” started with leveling the field with a global crisis.
Thus, building the future Century stars with the difficult baby-step of laying down the basics of a renewed prosperity.
After 100 years since the term “gene” was coined (1906) the new chapter of HoloGenomics (Genomics plus Epigenomics expressed in Informatics) may lead to a personalized, Genome-Based-Economy. This was the topic of my Google Tech Talk YouTube (“pellionisz”) and will be elaborated in a Churchillclub.org event on January 22, 2009 in Palo Alto, with four distinguished Silicon Valley Panelists, led by one of the Sand Hill Road Venture Capital firms that seized leadership in personalized genomics and personalized medicine.
Genome-based personalization will be much bigger than applying medicine on an individual basis for the sick.
Already, prevention expands the circle of patients into the much larger league of health-collaborators who act pro-actively, precisely to do their best to avoid becoming patients. Ultimately – and not in 100 years but estimated by Sand Hill VC to budding as we speak and start blossoming in 5 years – customers in a global economy will make their choices in medicine, drugs, food, cosmetics and indeed in every item, as their personal full DNA sequence is becoming affordable and their PDA/Genome Computer tools permit, optimized for their genomes.
Personal Genome Computing is poised to be the next boom, incubated in Silicon Valley, but spreading globally. Prevention may (or may not?) be able to defuse the next looming crisis, a threatening collapse of the US Health-Care system.
Information Technology companies have already engaged (see IntelVC’s $100 M investment into Pacific Biosciences)
[...] When Genomes Get Cheap Every health problem, mental or physical, will be treated in light of the person’s genome, which will be part of a person’s medical record. Drug doses will be determined genomically because different people can have greatly varying sensitivities to medicines. Almost any medical recommendation may be tailored to the sufferer’s genome. [...]