Declared finished by 2003, the completion of the Human Genome Project was heralded as one of the greatest victories achieved by the scientific community in the past decade.
Faced with the unprecedented task of determining all 3.3 billion base-pairs of the human genome, the HGP required the collaboration of scientists across the world.
The scientific technology and techniques developed through the HGP have reduced what was once a $3 billion undertaking to a somewhat fiscally feasible endeavor.
As relatively affordable as it has become now, personal genome sequencing is expected to plummet in the upcoming decade — a notion that is almost as frightening as it is exciting.
Sooner or later, sequencing one’s genome will become quite fashionable and commonplace.
The information we have already gleaned from genome sequencing has brought about numerous advances in medicine. In the hands of capable scientists, the treatment of disease has become increasingly flexible and less reliant on guesswork.
But what will be done with such information when it is placed into the hands of laypeople or those with vested interests?
Without the direct guidance of those with expertise, there will be many of those who live and die by the information locked away in their genome, for better or worse.
Chris Freyder is a 21-year-old biological sciences junior from New Orleans. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_Cfreyder.
 
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Contact Chris Freyder at
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