Decoding the Human Body
June 26, 2000 -- It's been called the body's instruction booklet, the human blueprint, the book of life -- and its mapping has been called the biggest scientific leap since Neil Armstrong skipped on the lunar surface more than 30 years ago. The rough draft of the human genome, all the 3 billion or so chemical letters in the human body's DNA, is complete, thanks to the contributions of researchers around the world.
Vice-President Al Gore recently proposed doubling cancer research funding to $2.5 billion over the next five years. By then, he says, genetic blood tests, based on the Human Genome Project, should be available to detect nearly all cancers in their early, treatable stages.
Expectations are high. But how might the project eventually affect your family's health? Researchers agree that labeling each of the human DNA molecules is one thing; putting that information to work in fighting diseases is another.
For the big picture, WebMD went to W. French Anderson, MD, director of Gene Therapy Laboratories at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. Anderson, who headed the first approved clinical trials of human gene therapy, has been called "the father of gene therapy."
Over the next 10 years, Anderson says, we can expect to see profound changes in our understanding of the human body. "Over time, as investigators all over the world work out how specific genes are involved in normal human metabolic pathways, and then in abnormal pathways, that information will revolutionize ... our understanding of how the body works."
Virtually everything in the human body is regulated by genes, says Anderson. While environment plays a role in whether we get sick, "the basis for the defense mechanisms in our bodies depends on our genes. So as we learn how our body functions, what our defenses are, what makes them strong or weak -- all that information can be used to provide better health, both in the sense of treating disease [and also] just in how to live more healthy lives."
Think of your body as a car, says Anderson. "If you have a car and all you know how to do is drive it, you can't do anything much more than drive. But when you understand the engineering principles behind it, you can make it go faster, like a race car at 200 mph or a rocket car at 600 mph."
Decoding the Human Body
June 26, 2000 -- It's been called the body's instruction booklet, the human blueprint, the book of life -- and its mapping has been called the biggest scientific leap since Neil Armstrong skipped on the lunar surface more than 30 years ago. The rough draft of the human genome, all the 3 billion or so chemical letters in the human body's DNA, is complete, thanks to the contributions of researchers around the world.
Vice-President Al Gore recently proposed doubling cancer research funding to $2.5 billion over the next five years. By then, he says, genetic blood tests, based on the Human Genome Project, should be available to detect nearly all cancers in their early, treatable stages.
Expectations are high. But how might the project eventually affect your family's health? Researchers agree that labeling each of the human DNA molecules is one thing; putting that information to work in fighting diseases is another.
For the big picture, WebMD went to W. French Anderson, MD, director of Gene Therapy Laboratories at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. Anderson, who headed the first approved clinical trials of human gene therapy, has been called "the father of gene therapy."
Over the next 10 years, Anderson says, we can expect to see profound changes in our understanding of the human body. "Over time, as investigators all over the world work out how specific genes are involved in normal human metabolic pathways, and then in abnormal pathways, that information will revolutionize ... our understanding of how the body works."
Virtually everything in the human body is regulated by genes, says Anderson. While environment plays a role in whether we get sick, "the basis for the defense mechanisms in our bodies depends on our genes. So as we learn how our body functions, what our defenses are, what makes them strong or weak -- all that information can be used to provide better health, both in the sense of treating disease [and also] just in how to live more healthy lives."
Think of your body as a car, says Anderson. "If you have a car and all you know how to do is drive it, you can't do anything much more than drive. But when you understand the engineering principles behind it, you can make it go faster, like a race car at 200 mph or a rocket car at 600 mph."
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