James D. Watson who helped crack the DNA code half a century ago, last week became the first person handed the full text of his own DNA on a small computer disk. But he won't be the last. Full Story »
Posted by Leo Romero
This is a cute story...but it only touches the proverbial tip of the iceberg, and the iceberg is not cute. The quotes that imply that our knowledge of the genome changes rapidly and what we think we know today may be different tomorrow are quite accurate and should serve as a warning. The remainder of the story is interesting, but superficial. If we know our genomes, we can select against traits we don't want to pass on: think of the young woman carrying a breast cancer gene who becomes unmarriageable, or the older man with an Alzheimer disease gene who is abandoned by his family before he develops the disease. Will we use our knowledge to prescreen our fetuses to determine which genetic traits we want to abort? They're already doing this in the UK with fetuses carrying genes for greater breast cancer risk; but suppose we want to do this for eye color, intelligence, or potential adult height? This article doesn't really touch the moral or ethical issues that abound. The cautions in the quotes are valid and valuable, but not nearly even a major portion of the issues. And, BTW, Dr. Watson knows full well that he can look for Alzheimer disease genes on GenBank and compare the codes with his genome. So cute, yes, but disingenuous.
The story would be better had it covered more of the ethical and moral implications of knowing one’s genome. It should cover the potential pitfalls for our species if we mate, not randomly, but in a way to remove certain traits from the population. This would be a form of controlled evolution in our species—just like we breed plants and animals—and we are unprepared to deal with the results.