Genome will have significant impact on medicine
2001-11-14 12:46
Washington - Mapping the human genome could have a profound impact on medicine in the 21st century, according to an editorial to be published on Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The article by Victor McKusick of Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore, Maryland, traces the evolution of medical genetics since 1956, when it first became known that the human body had 46
chromosomes.
Knowledge of the human genome will permit better measures to
prevent medical problems, new drugs to treat previously untreatable disorders, and better drugs with fewer side effects, he wrote.
"The influence on medicine is fully as great as was that of
Andreas Vesalius' de corporis humani Fabica, which was published in 1543 and was the basis of Harvey's physiology of the circulation (1628) and Morgagni's morbid anatomy (1761)," McKusick wrote.
Scientists announced in February they had completed a map of 95
percent of the human genome. The complete human genome sequence
includes an estimated 30 000 to 40 000 genes that encode more than 10 times that number of proteins.
McKusick was a member of the Program Advisory Committee for the
National Institutes of Health Human Genome Project 1989-1992 and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Celera Genomics Inc, a US firm working on mapping the human genome. - AFP
- SAPA