While you are reading these words or drinking your morning coffee, watching TV or sleeping soundly, covered with a blanket, powerful computers methodically collect and organize scientific materials, in which the human genome is in the first place among studies.
Computers led by genetic scientists carefully catalog tens of thousands of genes in human DNA. According to the predictions of scientists, when all the necessary information is collected and entered into a computer, it will long serve as the basis for studying human biology and for medical purposes.
Scientists also hope that after the human genome is completely decrypted, the path for therapy will open before humanity, people will learn how to correct or replace defective genes.
Doctors also hope that after the human genome is fully explored, when science learns to read it easily, a new generation of medications will appear that will be safe, but very effective in combating and preventing diseases.
Perhaps this technology will also allow the doctor to review your genetic data, determine in advance which medicines will be best for you.
In addition to the prospects that open up to medicine, some suggest that human genetic engineering can solve many social problems. In the years of the period starting from the Second World War and ending with the beginning of the 1990s, scientists proved that social problems can be reduced by reforming the economy and various institutions and improving people's living conditions. However, in recent years, social problems have only increased. Therefore, many psychologists, sociologists and journalists have hypothesized that the solution to these problems should be sought in the genes. Today, some people think that genes, more than their surroundings, influence the behavior of an individual and a group.
Also, according to the researchers, even this problem can be solved by performing certain manipulations with DNA. Scientists have already managed to double the duration of the existence of fruit flies and worms, and they firmly believe that the same technique can someday be applied to people. The head of the Human Genome project said: "For the first time, we can think about the reality of human immortality."
“Ha - ha! - they will laugh at the last statement of the cynic. “They also compared: some fruit flies and worms - and such a highly developed system as a man!” Well, let the cynics laugh how much they fit. However, no matter how strange it may seem to someone, looking for the answer to the question of how many genes a person has, scientists have come to the conclusion that their number does not far exceed the number of genes in such a simple organism as a large worm. More specifically, about a person has 28,000 genes (this is instead of the estimated 100,000, as the scientists calculated when starting the project).
Although today, medicine uses science genetics quite widely for its own purposes. For example, there is the most common method of genetic testing of a human fetus, which has been used since the 1960s.
For analysis, the doctor inserts a syringe needle into the uterus of a pregnant woman through the navel and takes a sample of amniotic fluid. This fluid is then examined to determine if the fetus has any serious genetic disorder.
This procedure, which is absolutely harmless to both the expectant mother and her offspring, is able to warn of violations in the development of the fetus, such as the development of Down's disease or spina bifida.
However, not all detected abnormalities in the development of the embryo can be eliminated by modern medicine. In most cases, she can simply issue a tragic verdict: “An abortion is needed here!”
So, it is precisely in order to learn not just to kill an unborn sick human being, but to correct its development at an early stage, to eliminate unwanted fetal changes by genetic engineering, and scientists are trying to uncover the secret of the human genome.