Cancer is probably one of the most dreaded words in the English language. It is a disease where cells becomes abnormal and start to divide uncontrollably and from tumors. A frightening thing to consider is that some forms of cancer do not show side effects until the advanced stages. When the disease is severe, the treatment is also severe and sometimes chemotherapy and radiation do not work. However, there is hope for a better system of cancer treatment that has shown to have a higher chance of succeeding provided by genetic mapping. Now, there is an option to have tumors genetically mapped so that cancer treatments can be more personalized. Also, because of genetic mapping doctors are making connections and have a greater understanding …show more content…
This has directly lead to the cost of genome sequencing to sharp decline. Before the project the cost to map out a human genome was one billion dollars, after the project was completed it had to decline to ten to 50 million dollars. Now, ten years after the completion of the Human Genome Project the cost to map out a human genome is only three to five thousand dollars. ("Quantitative Advances Since the Human Genome Project (HGP)") This number is predicted to keep declining as well, in part because of company competition and the increase popularity of genetic mapping. Another reason is because the National Human Genome Research Institute has new goals to expand the use of genetic mapping which includes finding ways to lower the cost of genome sequencing to less than a thousand dollars. It would be a huge feat but a goal the Institute could manage to realize in the next ten years. ("Decade of Genomics NHGRI Celebrates 10th Anniversary")
There was a little unforeseen additional to the National Institutes of Health, which is the Cancer Genome Atlas. The whole goal of this program is to use genetic mapping to its full potential when it comes to cancer research, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. The National Cancer Institute parented with the National Human Genome Research Institute, to conduct a wide spread, large scale genome sequencing on over twenty different types of cancer.
Scientist is studying the human genome to determine its sequence. Understanding the genomic sequence can prevent any form of disease, however, each person does not contain the same genomes which means it is hard to understand each genomes sequences. The advantage of understanding the genomics, is to understand how human genomic mutations can lead to life-threating conditions such as cancer and prevent them from happening again. The disadvantage for researching genomics cost a lot of money, the research nearly cost thirteen-billion
Although genetic mapping can help us to better understand the human body, diseases, and other genetic conditions, there are some drawbacks. On specific drawback would be the fact that genetic discrimination could occur. If people know that they are more susceptible to develop a disease in their lifetime or are a carrier for a disease and could possibly pass it on to their children, they may be less likely to engage in certain activities and alters their life in a negative way. This could affect whether or not you get hired, who you get into a relationship with, and even the type of insurance coverage you are offered (although the Affordable Care Act prohibits
Cancer is a term used for diseases in which irregular cells divide without any control and have the capability to penetrate and infect normal body tissue through the blood and lymph system. Cancer is the second leading cause of mortality in the United States, exceeded barely by heart disease. According to the CDC Cancer Statistics and Data, there were more than 1.45 million people diagnosed with various kind of cancer between 1999 and 2007 and out of those more than 562,000 people died due to cancer (cdc.gov, 2012). Currently there are more than 200 different types of cancer that have been discovered. Cancer could be
NIH National Cancer institute is an organization that involves human research subjects. The research they do is conducted on cancer patients. Their most popular human conducted research is their clinical trials. It is called NCI-Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice.
Genome mapping is a patient-requested service done by a specialized physician to take a sample of their DNA strand and test it for future problems that can be sneaking up on said patient. The FDA, the agency responsible for releasing new medical advancements, suggests getting the mapping done might pose
Many doctors, physicians, researchers and biotech companies--including the revolutionary Seattle Genetics research facility--are now turning to antibody-assisted cancer treatments and precisely targeted cures instead of treating cancer with a cocktail of chemicals and radiation that generate risky side effects and damage the healthy tissue that patients need to recover. Cancers are among the most frightening and difficult-to-treat illnesses. Ranked as the leading cause of death and disability, cancer is actually an umbrella term that covers many different diseases. Each person faces a unique disease because cancers interact with the body's existing cells, so each case has a
Before discussion of the ethical, legal and social issues can be successful, some background information is needed. For example, why is the goal of mapping the human genome important? Who is going to benefit or at least be affected by this new
In June 2000, the publicly funded Human Genome Project (HGP) and the private firm Celera Genomics Inc. announced that they had completed sequencing the human genome. This unprecedented accomplishment is expected to enable doctors to diagnose, treat and even prevent numerous genetic diseases. As these two entities worked on sequencing the human genome, there was also a separate and less publicized race to patent as many human genes as possible.
Although there is not a cure for cancer, but cancer research treatment and early detection has been greatly improved by technology over the year. Improving health care and decreasing cancer related death. Technology has enabled researchers to understand cancer in ways never before, allowing more innovative treatment with less side effects and even ways to help cope with the side effects. Also, letting researchers create treatments that are more effective and personalize against the many types of cancer out there. More importantly, technology has improved cancer screening and detection at an early stage, which help increase people’s survivability. In addition, relieving people of their pain and suffering if the cancer is diagnosed at a later stage.
Reasoning behind this that we still do not understand human genes completely and will not know for sure what will come out of the Human Genome Project. People expect the project to improve healthcare, but no one knows if this process will do a reverse effect, or a gene can be simply ignored or even possibly cause a chain reaction that could damage our bodies (APECSEC.org, 2015). Along with not knowing genes completely, there are technical aspects of the genome project that are still flawed and still need to be resolved. The project wants to make an accurate reference sequence of the human genome. The human genome is made up of one compound, DNA. However, DNA is a sequence of different base pairs, adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine that are arranged in a double helix structure. Yet the genome project wants to direct cell function and ultimately tissue differentiation. There was a complication during the investigation on how to obtain a sample to try to make their sequence of genes and decided to use four individuals. It was found that the DNA came from a limited group of donors in regards to the whole human population. It is also believed that consent to make the DNA sequence public information wasn’t taken from the donors. No one will know if this process will work for everyone or anyone (Ringdahl,
Scientists anticipate that genetic information will be useful in the concept of personalized health care. While the sequencing of the human genome is the first step towards this, it does not guarantee success. Rather, it is important to develop a deeper
When Eric Lefkofsky, co-founder and CEO of Tempus, noticed that oncologists needed a database that combined the genomic information already available to them with therapeutic data, he had an idea for a new startup. Most people who have never had cancer, or who never had a close friend or family member diagnosed with cancer, assume that doctors have access to data about how effective a treatment is on a specific group of people, but they did not when Lefkofsky decided to establish Tempus. His goal is to provide doctors with the information that they need to make data-driven decisions when selecting the optimal treatment for their patients.
Because of the great variance in malignant neoplasms (the cause of cancer), research has not been great enough to save the
The sequencing of the human genome involves the vision of an advanced medical science and academic research. Nowadays, genetic databases are making a loud noise to easily determine the relationships between lifestyle, environmental exposures, and genetic diseases. These databases large lean on collective data in contribution to genetic information and research materials that deal with the genetic cases of diseases. For the reason that genetic databank has a great potential of massive profit and technologic advancements that could improve our understanding of a range of diseases, private companies seek to get access to these genetic databanks of patients. However, this research can only proceed with consideration of the ethical, legal and
To begin discussion about the HGP, we first must understand what it is. It is a massive undertaking of collaboration of geneticists that begin in 1990. Their goals are to identify all the estimated 80,000 to 100,000 genes in human DNA and determine the sequences of 3 billion