Commercialization of Genome Analysis

 

Commercialization of Genome Analysis

 

News link : http://www.etnews.com/20160601000113

 

• Genome : the genetic material of an organism (merriam-webster dictionary)
• Analysis : a careful study of something to learn about its parts, what they do, and how they are related to each other (merriam-webster dictionary)

 

 With technologies’ development, life style of human race has been changed. A technology is used to improve our ability or conquer some obstacles thought impossible in the past. For example, shoes helped people from getting injured during walking, an engine replaced animal-derived force. Agriculture gives sufficient amount of food supply to civilization. Many disease were conquered to be not the lethal concern anymore. The light bulb diminishes the darkness. People in distance can communicate through wire, or wireless thankfully. Yet, double-edged sword it is, the side effect of technology has co-existed with the ‘improvement’ of society. The number of dead from car accident is increasing as more people own their cars, drug over-usage harm people’s life, and we can easily get accessed to the internet to get information that include our privacy. A knife let us cut things in sharp way. Even though people get cut or stabbed by this handy tool, possessing knives are not so prohibited. Here’s the question. What would be the two edges of having ‘Genome Analysis’ as a handy tool in our society?

 Alopecia, diabetes, cancer, some mental disorders are told genetic. Genome analysis would verify which genes are related to such diseases, and tell us how to prevent, cure them. According to the article linked, when the law comes provided we would look into our genome at lower cost than before. Better yet, procedure for this would decrease in time also. The analysis can be combined with casual health-care checklist. Collected data, hopefully, would be contributed to researches helping diseases and for a better understanding on human. This will become a ‘big data’ about human. Just like people’s preference on the internet genome would provide us a view of how we can amplify our satisfaction, in diverse manner.

It doesn’t matter how sharp a knife is, but the intention of the user does. There is probability that one’s genome data is abused being harmful. Laws for society’s safety and security cannot avoid such accidents from which we can see the increasing numbers of the dead. What’s more, when this massive data is handed to dangerous people, the result would be disastrous. Some genetic features shared among a society can be commercialized by those who gets benefit from it. Like an atom bomb, the effect of abuse can break down a society.

Having genome analysis as a handy tool in society is a great achievement of human race, and many people are struggling in spreading the technology. So are there abusers. At least to keep the value neutrality and social benefits, it should be dealt carefully.