The Age of the Genome 4

Image Courtesy of the Genetics and Public Policy Center with support from The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Today, the four-part series, Age of the Genome, presented by the BBC World Service - which honors one of the greatest scientific findings of our times, the decoding of the human genome - concludes.  You can listen to the broadcast here and schedule times are here.  June 26th marked the tenth anniversary of the discovery.  The series speculates on the huge impact this research will have on medicine and our attempts to understand our own substance and history as a species.

Despite initial hopes for massive leaps and bounds in medicine, recent reports indicate that the Human Genome Project will not cure terrible disesases overnight.

Regardless, the official logo for the Human Genome Project confirms that the genome will have a huge impact on uniting many different fields of research to make this the 'Biology Century.'  Not only will it marry the hard sciences and applied sciences, but it has already entered the philosophical realm of ethics.  Its trespasses onto the borders of religion and other areas of the humanities are obvious, if as yet unexplored.  Just as staggering are the genome's implications for our conception of time, since it is the biological history text of our species.

Go back to initial post on Part 1 of the series.

See my other posts on the Fountain of Youth.