'The power to reshape the human clay has no clear limits. How far should we go in enhancing qualities other than health, such as physique or intelligence? If cures are developed for the major degenerative diseases of old age, how greatly can life span be extended without undermining social institutions that are designed around an orderly cycle of birth, procreation and death? And if the new genetic medicine works so well, wouldn't it be better to apply in it in the germline, giving everyone the genetic endowment for a long and healthy life?'
The announcement in June 2000 that the human genome had been sequenced - that biologists had decoded the 3 billion DNA letters spelling out all the genes that create and maintain the human body - was front-page news worldwide. In this book, Nicholas Wade tells how medicine will be transformed as researchers, already learning to benefit from the genome data, expect to make novel and sweeping advances in the years ahead.
'Life Script' explains how the new study of genomics will help pinpoint the genetic causes of disease, permit individualised diagnostics, and lead to new treatments based on insights into the exact mechanisms of disease. It will soon be possible to test people for all the disease-related gene variants they may have inherited and thus predict, and in some cases prevent, the diseases that they are likely to develop.
Medicine, Wade explains, will soon emerge from the "dark ages" of surgery and chemical poisons. Instead, genetically-based remedies and pharmaceuticals will be developed. When the genome is better understood, treatments will be created for small groups or even individuals.
'Life Script' reveals a future in which good health, even perfect health, may become the standard for everyone - at every age.
