Friday, March 29, 2024

AdvertiseDonateSubmit
NewsSportsArtsOpinionThe QuadPhotoVideoIllustrationsCartoonsGraphicsThe StackPRIMEEnterpriseInteractivesPodcastsBruinwalkClassifieds

DNA research still affecting daily life

By Rachel Makabi

Feb. 24, 2003 9:00 p.m.

Fifty years ago, most people would have laughed or stared in
disbelief if told that a six-foot-long double stranded molecule
would revolutionize nearly every aspect of our world.

Edward McCabe and his colleagues were among those not completely
convinced when James Watson and Francis Crick first discovered the
structure of DNA. In fact, some of the scientists working with
McCabe in the ’50s shrugged off the discovery as “a
passing phase.”

Today, McCabe can afford to chuckle at the memory. He is the
director of the UCLA Center for Society, the Individual and
Genetics, which studies the impacts of DNA-related research.

In the decades following Watson and Crick’s discovery, DNA
has impacted nearly every aspect of daily life, from the court room
to the operating room.

Many scientists refer to the past 50 years as a DNA revolution
““ one that doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time
soon.

“This is a moment when life has begun to understand
itself, part of taking control of its evolutionary future,”
said Gregory Stock last month at the “Storefront
Genome” symposium at UCLA. Stock is the director for
UCLA’s program on Medicine, Technology and Society.

He believes that within the next decade, society will have to
deal with the impacts of genetic engineering for the prevention of
diseases, the development of genetically altered food and possibly
human cloning.

Experts agree that in 10 to 20 years, knowing your DNA type will
be as common as knowing your blood type.

But for now, it could take six months to a year to receive your
personalized DNA information. And the price tag is almost as big as
the wait ““ over half a million dollars.

Though all human DNA is 99.9 percent the same, most scientists,
including McCabe, are interested in the polymorphisms ““ or
genetic differences ““ found in the 10th of a percent of our
DNA that is different.

By studying these polymorphisms, which account for the diverse
reactions people have to the same drugs, researchers hope to tailor
personalized medicines that fit an individual’s specific
needs.

A drug that demonstrates these genetic differences is gentamicin
““ a traditional medicine given to newborns to fight serious
infections.

People who take gentamicin as babies are at higher risk for
developing a hearing loss later in life, according to McCabe, who
studied the drug extensively and also serves as the Executive Chair
of Pediatrics at UCLA.

These individuals probably have a genetic makeup that
predisposes them to acquiring hearing loss after taking a
relatively small dose of the drug, he added.

By studying the polymorphisms that account for these
differences, scientists hope to personalize drugs and hope to be
able to avoid prescribing drugs like gentamicin to people who are
predisposed to adverse side effects.

Though the long wait and high cost of personalizing your DNA
would make it impractical, some scientists project that within
three to five years, the cost will be much lower as technologies
will allow scientists to get an individual’s DNA in a month
or less.

We do not have the technology to personalize medicine quickly
and in a cost effective manner right now, but McCabe points out
that when we started sequencing the human genome in 1998, we also
did not have the technology to complete the project.

Ironically, while it took several years of complex theories
before Watson and Crick discovered the relatively simple structure
of DNA, scientists finished sequencing the human genome five years
ahead of schedule.

Many researchers attribute the rapid developments in sequencing
the human genome to the collaboration between engineers and
microbiologists, and competition between Human Genome Project, a
public organization, and Celera, a private company.

The diversity of opinions that resulted from this generated
several experiments occurring simultaneously.

That sequencing, which went from a glimmering idea five years
ago to the massive field of genomics today, has resulted in a surge
of research in nearly every scientific discipline.

The sequencing of the genome has led to the development of new
methods of fighting cancer, the discovery of causes for many
diseases, and has initiated research at UCLA on a DNA-based
computer.

Before the sequencing of the genome, scientists were like
mechanics who were trying to fix and understand the machinery of
the human body without having a list of parts, said Chemistry and
Biochemistry Professor Christopher Lee.

Lee has worked extensively with the sequencing of the human
genome; his lab sequenced a third of the coding regions that vary
from one individual to another.

“We have more information about ourselves from the past
five years than from the entire previous history of mankind ““
at least in the genetic sense,” Lee said.

But there is still a lot more to discover.

We now know the parts of DNA and the number of genes in the
human body, but researchers have a long way to go before they
understand how all the different parts work together to create a
functioning body.

Understanding the human body from the human genome is like
getting a box with three billion parts and then putting them
together without instructions. It is a difficult task ““
albeit one that is easier when you know what parts you are working
with.

In addition to a deficiency in technology, researchers need time
before they make any large breakthroughs.

“Unless you are a scientist, it is hard to appreciate just
how complicated all the things that make up life really are,”
Lee said.

With reports from Edward Chiao, Daily Bruin Senior Staff.

Share this story:FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Rachel Makabi
COMMENTS
Featured Classifieds
More classifieds »
Related Posts