Is our understanding of genetics approaching historic turning point?

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It seems as if there are important breakthroughs each year in the field of genetics and medicine. In many ways, we indeed could be on the verge of historical changes in how we use DNA and how we edit our biological code.

That’s the ambitious scope of a new book, “The Gene: An Intimate History.” Its author is Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, a cancer physician and an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University.

So, should we think that there is still so much more to be discovered that can make a huge difference, or that we’re coming closer to the end of what there is to be known?

SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE: I think both of these things can be true at the same time. There is a vast cosmos yet to be discovered. How do genes manage to make, you know, a human being?

And yet there are things that we already know that are very important. We know that we can predict with certain levels of fidelity whether you will have a heightened risk for certain illnesses, cancer, potentially Alzheimer’s disease, potentially other diseases. We can begin to predict that risk.

Read full, original post: Our long and winding road to understanding ‘The Gene’

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