Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Gene Expression's Impact on Medicine
I don't think you can overestimate the value of microarray testing. It's going to change everything about medicine. It hasn't really begun to have an impact yet. Being given insight into the inner workings of the human cell - which genes are turned off and which are turned on - will provide the keys to understanding how things really work.
There are only something like 20,000 genes in the human cell - each gene coding for a specific protein. These 20,000 proteins are what make you alive and who you are. It's the whole recipe for you. Not just making you in the first place, but for running your body every day of your life. I don't think the simplicity and elegance of this design has really sunk in to the collective conscious of mankind just yet. We are not as mysterious as most of us still think we are. We are on the verge of really understanding what we are.
20,000 is really a small number in some ways. Genes are very understandable to a computer scientist. Each gene is like a little "if statement". Each "if statement" goes something like "if (x) is activated then produce (y)" where x is some molecule and y is a protein. In many (maybe most) cases, the y of one statement is the x of another. So, the 20,000 little programs can produce very complicated results. They are all interacting with each other. It's a system that had been tuned by evolution to stay in balance most of the time, and is very adaptable to a wide range of normal conditions. Even more of a complication, many of the 20,000 little programs are disabled at any one time - being uncopied as RNA to the mitochondria for production. Many of them are copied only during your development and growth - never to be used again. This creates a very, very large number of possible states.
Yet, 20,000 is not a big number in other ways. Each of the 20,000 things can be understood. Even the interactions between them can be mapped. This is not a difficult job with computers to assist us. The function of the genes could be simulated. We can have cell simulations that are pretty accurate in the near future - at least in the next 10-20 years.
Once you can simulate a cell, you will be able to develop and test drugs much more quickly and cheaply. Gene expression testing will let you know what's really wrong with you. We would be able to take a sample of your gene expression and know a lot about what's going on in your body. We will know why I am smart, but not athletic. We will be able to turn off and on genes to improve health and fix things. Cancer will be cured. Life extended. Current medical practices will seem primitive indeed in comparison.
But these are just the initial, obvious first effects of the technology. There will be more dramatic and surprising things that result from fully cracking the code for life. In my lifetime - I expect to live long since I practice calorie restriction and I think life extension will succeed soon enough - we should be able to manufacture life. We will be able to redesign. Perhaps we will be able to create. To make evolution happen. Perhaps I will start a second career as a "life programmer" when I'm say 110 years old, 60 years from now.
I don't think you can overestimate the value of microarray testing. It's going to change everything about medicine. It hasn't really begun to have an impact yet. Being given insight into the inner workings of the human cell - which genes are turned off and which are turned on - will provide the keys to understanding how things really work.
There are only something like 20,000 genes in the human cell - each gene coding for a specific protein. These 20,000 proteins are what make you alive and who you are. It's the whole recipe for you. Not just making you in the first place, but for running your body every day of your life. I don't think the simplicity and elegance of this design has really sunk in to the collective conscious of mankind just yet. We are not as mysterious as most of us still think we are. We are on the verge of really understanding what we are.
20,000 is really a small number in some ways. Genes are very understandable to a computer scientist. Each gene is like a little "if statement". Each "if statement" goes something like "if (x) is activated then produce (y)" where x is some molecule and y is a protein. In many (maybe most) cases, the y of one statement is the x of another. So, the 20,000 little programs can produce very complicated results. They are all interacting with each other. It's a system that had been tuned by evolution to stay in balance most of the time, and is very adaptable to a wide range of normal conditions. Even more of a complication, many of the 20,000 little programs are disabled at any one time - being uncopied as RNA to the mitochondria for production. Many of them are copied only during your development and growth - never to be used again. This creates a very, very large number of possible states.
Yet, 20,000 is not a big number in other ways. Each of the 20,000 things can be understood. Even the interactions between them can be mapped. This is not a difficult job with computers to assist us. The function of the genes could be simulated. We can have cell simulations that are pretty accurate in the near future - at least in the next 10-20 years.
Once you can simulate a cell, you will be able to develop and test drugs much more quickly and cheaply. Gene expression testing will let you know what's really wrong with you. We would be able to take a sample of your gene expression and know a lot about what's going on in your body. We will know why I am smart, but not athletic. We will be able to turn off and on genes to improve health and fix things. Cancer will be cured. Life extended. Current medical practices will seem primitive indeed in comparison.
But these are just the initial, obvious first effects of the technology. There will be more dramatic and surprising things that result from fully cracking the code for life. In my lifetime - I expect to live long since I practice calorie restriction and I think life extension will succeed soon enough - we should be able to manufacture life. We will be able to redesign. Perhaps we will be able to create. To make evolution happen. Perhaps I will start a second career as a "life programmer" when I'm say 110 years old, 60 years from now.
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