With Halcyon's technology, the pool of genetic information will grow by orders of magnitude in the course of months, offering the first real chance at cures for cancer and other previously intractable diseases.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Just as computer technology and the Internet created whole new industries and extraordinary benefits for people that extend into almost every realm of human endeavor from education to transportation to medicine, genetics will undoubtedly benefit people everywhere in ways we can't even imagine but know will surely occur.
Once we all have our genomes, some of these extremely rare diseases are going to be totally predictable.
There have been lots of stories written about all the hype over getting the genome done and the letdown of not discovering lots of cures right after.
Like the early days of the Internet, the dawn of personal genomics promises benefits and pitfalls that no one can foresee.
If there's a seminal discovery in oncology in the last 20 years, it's that idea that cancer genes are often mutated versions of normal genes.
If genetic research doesn't seemed to have lived up to its therapeutic promise, it's because sequencing is just too slow and expensive.
We recognized in 1996 that, with progress in the field of genetics accelerating at a breathtaking pace, we need to ensure that advances in treatment and prevention of disease do not constitute a new basis for discrimination.
Billions of dollars have been put into genetic research.
Even if we never cure a single disease, the Human Genome Project and other ventures will have been worth it.
With genetic engineering, we will be able to increase the complexity of our DNA, and improve the human race. But it will be a slow process, because one will have to wait about 18 years to see the effect of changes to the genetic code.