There is no doubt that the human genome project started in 1990 left humankind hanging at the precipice of eminent power and direction. The collaboration of the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health seems to have been a good merger. Clearly the genie is out of the bottle and there is no way of stopping its progress. The potential for eliminating illnesses with debilitating effects on adults and children are clearly a good reason to continue. The public at-large must indeed become more knowledgeable so that an eye can be kept on Big Brother.
During the last twenty years, we have seen a thirty-percent increase in the number of centenarians. Clearly our bio-technical advances are working. We are spawning new scientific fields of study like "proteomics," the study of the production of proteins (12). We are correcting past wrongs, freeing those who have been incarcerated unjustly, thanks to our continuing breakthroughs with DNA. We have sequenced 3.1 billon letters of DNA, and proven that humans are made up of 30,000 to 40,000 genes, only two times more than fruit flies (13). Historical denials, like the Thomas Jefferson debauchery, once vehemently denied, now pierces the veneer of American piety; courtesy of the genome factor by proving he fathered several of Sally Hemings' children.
As more and more companies enter the arena, will there be a way to control what goes on? Will the quality and validity be retained, as more for-profit businesses like Celera Genomics enter the picture (14). Only time will tell. One salient thought keeps me from totally embracing this new technology: can we fallible creatures objectively and responsibly handle this knowledge?