The Future is Now…
November 28, 2007
I read an article in this month’s issue of Wired (23AndMe Will Decode Your DNA for $1000), and before I could even finish it I mailed out the link with this summary to a few of my friends and family. Matt asked me if I could post it here for the benefit of his readers.
There is a company in Silicon Valley now who for $1000 will take a (rather large) sample of your spit, splice out your DNA, map your genome, then tell you based on a rather large library of things we have defined as _bad_stuff_ any conditions you are predisposed to. Just imagine knowing that you did inherit that heart disease gene from your maternal side, or that colon cancer gene from your paternal side. The medicinal impact of such information is huge. You would know to adjust your diet now to minimize your chance of getting heart disease, or imagine now how long it will be before we start seeing preventive treatments that start attacking the stuff before it even gets off the ground. They say if you catch cancer early enough it’s easier to beat…what about when you know 5, 10, or 30 years before it manifests itself that there’s a 70% chance you’ll develop it?
