Back in 2001, if you wanted to go beyond consumer DNA testing and have your whole genome sequenced for a more accurate picture of your genetic health risks, the bill would have been US$100 million. The US National Human Genome Research Institute, which has been tracking the cost, now puts it at about US$400. For that, you get your personal “Book of Life” – three billion jumbled letters of the genetic alphabet ACGT (adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine), a 700-megabyte file of data that fits on an old-school CD.
Until recently, efforts to decipher the human genome were as rewarding as five-year-olds reading War and Peace, but advances in computer science and artificial intelligence are starting to unlock some of its mysteries. Now, an increasing number of gene therapies are becoming available to cure rare diseases caused by a single genetic typo.
For the average person, though, the greatest benefit of the genetic revolution will be phamacogenetics. Getting a prescription from the doctor is currently hit and miss: the medication may not work or could have serious side effects. That’s because some people metabolise drugs differently depending on their genetic makeup. If your DNA is known, it can take the guesswork out of prescribing drugs. It would make healthcare cheaper and more efficient.
“We are rapidly approaching the day when we will enter a pharmacy or the doctor’s office with our DNA file and get a prescription that fits our genetic makeup,” writes Sergio Pistoi in DNA Nation. “In fact, most health systems already have an infrastructure that would support DNA-tailored prescriptions without too many technical hurdles.”
Many advances have been made possible by CRISPR, a cheap and easy technology to edit DNA and turn genes on and off. How easy ? You can buy a DIY CRISPR kit on the internet. As biohacker Jo Zayner put it, “People having access to this technology allows them to do crazy and cool shit.”
On The ODIN website, Zayner sells CRISPR kits that allow you to “make precision genome edits in bacteria at home”. But, as New Scientist has pointed out, “That won’t stop anyone from following the instructions [Zayner] has laid out for how to edit the adult human genome. With The ODIN processing thousands of orders, it would be ridiculous to suggest that some of those orders aren’t being used for human experimentation.”
Genetically modified humans already exist. In 2018, He Jiankui, a Chinese scientist, used CRISPR to edit the DNA of three embryos to make them resistant to HIV, a disease their father had. The experiment resulted in the birth of healthy twins, Lulu and Nana, and another baby called Amy. Scientists around the world were outraged by what they saw as a reckless, unethical experiment, the long-term consequences of which were unknown.
But there was also the same vociferous opposition to in vitro fertilisation when it became a viable treatment for infertility in the 1970s, with one commentator describing “test tube babies” as “the biggest threat since the atom bomb”. It’s likely that gene editing made possible by technology such as CRISPR won’t be controversial for as long because of the obvious benefits: disease and pest eradication, anti-ageing interventions and crops that cope with climate change.
Scientists, though, worry that messing about with genes without knowing the long-term effects could be catastrophic, and most countries have banned heritable human gene editing.
But with CRISPR, the genetically modified horse has already bolted. As author Terry Pratchett sagely observed, “Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying ‘End-of-the-World Switch; PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH’, the paint wouldn’t even have time to dry.”
