Genomics: Terry Furey

Terry Furey's lecture gave us more insight on genomics - genotyping and mapping of it, its uses and implications, how it affected healthcare, etc. - and also how this translates over to businesses. Companies such as 23andMe and Decode expand on the idea of personalized medicine and how our technology would affect this. This includes the idea of these companies being able to genotype someone to determine probability of health conditions and diseases in the future. This is effectively done now by tracing family history, which is cheaper and does not have as many factors taken into account as when dealing with technology. There are many limitations, including uncertainity of environmental affects and accuracy of machinery, when dealing with genomics and technology that make it more difficult, and thus more expensive, to determine these conditions. Therefore, the costs seem to outweigh the benefits of these companies' testing processes.

Furthermore, the fact that companies are "owners" of people's DNA seems to place a sense of hesitancy upon people in supporting this new business of genotyping and mapping, along with the fact that many people are not as willing to want to know so much detailied information about their health. The future that is predicted by genotyping could possibly change, but with the knowledge of the information given by these companies, peoples' lives will be completely altered, living in response to their assessment of health. Also, the fact that DNA would be so easy to test in the future and thus affect people's relationships with one another is a consequence of this technology. I think that, as Furey said, the fact that these companies are so heavily pushing this research in an area that is relatively new, it makes it hard to be a sustainable and effective business until further into the future when there is more secure knowledge and information available.