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I think your point is accurate, but jaded. Much as the above posters point out, there was no sudden 'click' where an individual discovered something and made g
by toufka 10y ago
I think your point is accurate, but jaded. Much as the above posters point out, there was no sudden 'click' where an individual discovered something and made genomics possible. And to the extent that's what we mean by 'genome sequencing', then you are correct - the shotgun approach coupled with big-data hasn't been very useful yet. However, if the message is more one of genetics at large, and how the ability to read/write DNA has affected our research, our discoveries, our therapeutics, and will affect our lives in the near-future, then your tone seems entirely too myopic. Nearly every drug you see on TV commercials today is a monoclonal antibody - which cannot have been made but for the ability to read and write DNA. Sure, it doesn't require the ability to read an entire animals' DNA at once (do the full genome sequences yet actually read every base in your genome even?). But it is a very real and very finite milestone on that exact same path. You are correct, genomic ≠ genetic, but in so far as they are similar (mostly), our understanding of genetics really has been a powerful driver in the past two to three decades.
- astazangasta 10y agoOf course I recognize the potential of this technology; I wouldn't be in this field otherwise. And I probably am jaded, because I think people are constantly overemphasizing and overplaying our understanding of things in order to sound sexy and attract funding. I think there's probably a fifteen-year lag in this stuff being useful. The insights we're having now are because of the sequencing of the human genome; the work we're doing now will pay off in another decade and a half when we've figured out how to deal with gene expression. >do the full genome sequences yet actually read every base in your genome even? Read, sequence: yes. Align: no.