Applications and Future Challenges

Being able to map an individual's chromosomes in detail makes it possible to examine that person's DNA directly and identify specific genetic abnormalities, an ability with immediate practical value for diagnosing disease and for providing informed genetic counselling to prospective parents; this same underlying knowledge also opens the door to entirely new gene therapies aimed at correcting or compensating for a faulty gene directly. Beyond human medicine, sequencing non-human organisms provides insight into their natural biological capabilities, insight that can be applied to practical challenges in healthcare, agriculture, energy production and environmental remediation alike. One concrete medical application to emerge directly from this genomic knowledge is pharmacogenomics, the study of how an individual's own genetic makeup influences their personal response to particular drugs; by combining the science of pharmacology (how drugs act) with genomics (how genes function and vary), pharmacogenomics aims to develop medications and dosing regimens that are safer and more effective because they are tailored specifically to a person's own genetic profile, part of a broader emerging era of molecular medicine that focuses on identifying the true underlying molecular cause of a disease rather than only treating its symptoms. Alongside these genuine benefits, the HGP's findings also raise real ethical, legal and social concerns that society has yet to fully resolve. As genetic testing becomes progressively easier and cheaper to carry out, there is a real risk that this deeply personal information could be misused for private financial profit or for political leverage over individuals or groups. Insurance companies, for instance, might use knowledge of a person's elevated genetic risk to deny coverage altogether, thereby avoiding the future medical costs such 'less than perfect' individuals might eventually incur. A furt …